Ramage & the Rebels (18 page)

Three flags were jerking their way aloft and almost immediately, before they were properly hoisted, Orsini reported, his voice squeaking with excitement: “She's made the correct reply, sir. And there go her pendant numbers. I'll have her name in a moment, sir.”

The boy glanced down at the book. “Pendant number one three seven, sir.” He turned to the back of the book where ships of the French Navy were listed by their numbers. “One three seven is
La Perle,
sir.”

Moments were counting now:
La Perle,
approaching from the
Calypso
's quarter, would have read her name on the transom and wasted time looking her up in the list: she was not there because her name had been changed when she became part of the Royal Navy. So
La Perle
's Captain, already no doubt puzzled by the fact the challenge had been made by the
Calypso
and not the obvious victor,
La Créole,
would have no way of being sure of the seniority of the officer in the
Calypso
who had made the challenge.

“Quickly now,” Ramage snapped. “Hoist one three seven and the signal for the captain to come on board—46.”

So far so good: 46 ordered “the captain of the ship designated” to come on board the ship making the signal, and anyone seeing it hoisted would assume (Ramage hoped) that the officer making it knew he was the senior. The Captain of
La Perle
would guess that whoever was on board the
Calypso
knew his seniority, but he knew nothing of the
Calypso.
More important, he knew no lieutenant commanding
La Créole
would have the impertinence to order him on board.
La Perle
's Captain should be very puzzled but, if Ramage's guess was correct, he would obey. Any officer in that Frenchman's position would (if he had any sense) obey because if he came on board and found that a junior officer had given the order, he could spend the next day or two making the fellow's life a misery.

The violent flapping of cloth, sounding like a squall hitting a line laden with wet laundry, made him glance up. The flags were being run up smartly, with Paolo almost dancing with impatience as he spurred on the two seamen hauling at the halyards.

Ramage resumed his watch on
La Perle.
As she danced about in the circle made by the telescope he could see just how scruffy she was; her guns were run out, of course: seventeen a side, so she was pierced for thirty-four. But as she heeled in the gusts there was a dirty mark all the way along her waterline, the mark of a ship that spent much time in harbour without her captain making sure a boatload of men with scrubbing brushes kept her clean. And the yards—rust streaks marked the wood and the canvas, showing no one bothered to have the irons of the stun-sail booms chipped and scraped and painted. Rust marks weakened canvas, quite apart from looking untidy. The headsails sagged even though the wind was little more than a stiff breeze, showing that the forestays were slack and no one had bothered to take up the slack in the halyards as the ropes stretched. The sight of
La Perle
would give any British admiral—

“She's acknowledged, sir,” Orsini called.

Aitken did not even look round; Southwick was still taking a bearing of her. The only person to catch Ramage's eyes as he glanced across the deck was Jackson. Was the American the only one who realized that everything had depended on that signal? Not everything, Ramage corrected himself, but at least the success of the first part of his plan.

How odd to see the
Calypso
's decks so bare! A French frigate within three cables (he could distinguish men on board her now, so she was less than 700 yards away) and getting ready to heave-to to send over a boat—and the only sign of life on the British ship's decks was the men lounging on the hammock nettings, two or three watching from the fo'c's'le, and a few men on the quarterdeck.

He was wearing a seaman's white duck trousers and an open-necked blue shirt with a cutlass-belt over his shoulder; Aitken and Southwick had also borrowed clothes from some of the men and also wore cutlass-belts, without cutlasses. No breeches in sight—hurrah for France; this was the age of the
sans-culottes.
Breeches meant oppression; trousers stood for democracy. The
Calypso
's decks were a picture of egalitarian slackness—viewed from
La Perle
anyway. The Frenchmen could not see the men waiting below, more than one hundred and fifty of them, ready to race up, trice up the port lids and run out the guns, which were already loaded, with handspikes, rammers and sponges lying beside them, and trigger lines neatly coiled, not in their usual place on the breech of each gun where they might be spotted by a sharp-eyed Frenchman aloft with a telescope, but on the deck.

The Captain of
La Perle
was going to have to scramble on board as best he could: the
Calypso
was making only a couple of knots or, rather,
La Créole
was, and could not be expected to stop for him. Scrambling (and the prospect of it as his boat approached) would help keep the French Captain's mind occupied, Ramage thought; he must be wondering why the
Calypso
had no canvas set to help
La Créole.
The frigate could of course be under tow for several reasons, not the least was damage to her steering, but some canvas set would make the schooner's task much easier.

Now
La Perle
was heaving-to; her fore-topsail was being hauled aback and a boat was being hoisted out with the stay tackle.

Orsini and his seamen had hauled down the flags and were bundling them up again. The boy was bright enough, the way he had learned the French signal code in a few hours. It was a pity he had such difficulty with mathematics, but Ramage always felt hypocritical at punishing the lad when an exasperated Southwick insisted. Ramage's own mathematics were poor; they had been sufficient to let him pass the examination for lieutenant and be thankful that no one would ever test him again for the rest of his naval career; once past lieutenant promotion did not depend on the mysteries of mathematical figures.

The boat was being held alongside
La Perle;
now the men were settled in it. And the last man going on board must be the Captain. A squat, powerful-looking man with a fighting sword slung over his shoulder: no dress sword for him. They let the sternfast go, then the painter, and then the men at the oars were pulling briskly and clumsily for the
Calypso.

“Look at them, sir,” Jackson muttered disgustedly. As the Captain's coxswain he always commanded the boat carrying Ramage, and he was offended by the way the French boat was being rowed. “I'll bet they'll lose an oar before they get alongside.”

Ramage laughed—louder than he intended, but it was a relief to have
La Perle
's Captain on his way, even if his boat's crew rowed like drunken smugglers dodging a Revenue cutter.

“Mr Aitken, I want four men ready to take that boat's stern-fast and painter, but warn them not to speak a word while they're doing it; I don't want those Frenchmen to get any warning.”

Five minutes later Ramage was waiting a few feet back from the entry port. Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were standing nearby, looking like undisciplined seamen, but each had a pistol tucked into the top of his trousers and wore a cutlass. To
La Perle
's Captain they were obviously some of the guards who were having a breath of fresh air, relaxing from the task of guarding the English prisoners held below.

Aitken stood beside Ramage, a telescope under his arm and clearly the second in command. As Ramage waited, finding himself rubbing the scar over his eyebrow and cursing the sun's glare—he could not wear his hat—he knew the deception need last only two or three minutes, perhaps less; just the time it took to get the Captain on board and the French boat astern, where it would tow with its crew still on board, a perfectly normal procedure.

Suddenly a plump, wine-mottled face topped by a narrow-brimmed straw hat appeared at the entry port, rising as its owner climbed up the last of the battens. The man was the same height as Ramage with broader shoulders and a stomach long ago run to fat. His arms were long and he walked two or three paces without swinging them. Creased, unbleached canvas trousers, a dark-red shirt, blue eyes, a face unshaven for a couple of days, greasy skin that had not been washed for the same length of time … But, Ramage realized,
La Perle
's Captain had the look of a reliable man and was probably a good seaman. A boatswain promoted by the Revolution?

“
Citoyen
Duroc,” the man said, holding out his hand to Ramage, a huge hand whose fingers seemed as large as bananas. “Pierre Duroc.” His eyes flickered over the
Calypso
's decks and seemed satisfied with what they saw.

Ramage did not move and Duroc, his hand still proffered, looked surprised, and then Ramage said: “Do you speak English, Captain Duroc?”

The Frenchman stepped back a pace and instinctively looked towards
La Créole
and then over at
La Perle,
obviously intending to run back to the entry port.

Three metallic clicks stopped him in his tracks: he recognized the noise and looked round slowly, careful now not to make any sudden movement. Jackson, Rossi and Stafford had cocked pistols aimed at him, and Ramage and Aitken had each taken a pace sideways, out of the line of fire.

Duroc was still puzzled and obviously not frightened. “I have no English,” he said in French, his heavy accent showing he came from the Bordeaux area. He pointed up at the Tricolour. “What is happening? Were you prisoners? Have you escaped?”

Ramage shook his head and said in French, gesturing at the Tricolour and blue ensign, “A
ruse de guerre,
Captain Duroc, to secure your capture!”

Duroc's face, already purple from years of heavy drinking, looked swollen: his eyes narrowed, his hands clenched: he was about to step towards Ramage, remembered the three pistols, and contented himself with sneering: “You fight under false colours, eh?”

“Fight?” Ramage enquired innocently. “There's been no fighting, and you know the rules as well as I: one hoists one's proper colours before opening fire.”

“That schooner, then!” Duroc burst out. “She's French. I recognize her. From Fort de France.”

“She was French and you probably did see her in Fort Royal—” Ramage deliberately used the old name—”but we captured her, along with this ship.”

Duroc shook his head, like a trapped bull. “What are you going to do now?” he demanded.

“Take possession of
La Perle.
”

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders and waved at the
Calypso
's decks. “I have three hundred men on board—you have a couple of dozen.”

Ramage bowed. “Thank you; I was expecting you had fewer.”

Duroc, unaware what he had revealed, held out both hands, palm upwards. “You'll never take her. Let me go back on board my boat and let us continue our respective voyages.”

Ramage watched the man's eyes. It was a curious offer, curious and not in keeping with the man's character. Duroc was a fighter; it would have been more in character if he had sworn at Ramage and told him to do his damnedest to capture
La Perle.
Duroc had a reason for avoiding a fight, and the reason, Ramage guessed, was because he had a particular purpose in wanting to get to Amsterdam. An important passenger? Special supplies? Reinforcements? No, not reinforcements because he had boasted of his three hundred men, which was the number of men the French like to have in a frigate of that size. Whatever it was, Duroc had a reason for wanting to get to Amsterdam. And while the ship was lying hove-to over there, Ramage knew Duroc would never reveal it. Afterwards, he might.

Ramage looked again at the eyes—they were bloodshot now, from rage—and the hands, which were clenched, looked like shoulders of mutton. He turned to Aitken. “Pass the word for Mr Rennick—we'll keep this fellow in irons for the time being.”

La Perle
was soon a mile astern and still hove-to as
La Créole
continued to tow the
Calypso
eastward. Orsini, whose French was fluent, had been sent aft to order the French boat crew to climb on board up a rope ladder slung from the taffrail. The nine men had climbed over the taffrail to find themselves staring into the muzzles of pistols and were only too glad to be led below as prisoners.

Ramage wished the Royal Navy would abandon breeches for its officers—in the Tropics, anyway: cotton duck trousers were loose and so much cooler and more comfortable than breeches and stockings. And there was much to be said for a loose-fitting shirt. The French
égalité
had sartorial advantages.

Very well, he told himself, the first part of the plan has worked:
La Perle
now has no captain, but whether or not she is also a snake with her head chopped off depends on the French First Lieutenant. If he's like Aitken, there is hard and bloody fighting ahead. If he's a fool—well …

“Mr Orsini—let me have the French signal book, please.” He knew the wording of the signals almost by heart, but he dare not risk a mistake in the numbers. It was such a thin volume, it contained so few signals, especially—especially, he made himself say under his breath, when you are going to try to use it to capture a ship. The only ally he had at the moment was the fact that the officers in
La Perle
would assume that any orders signalled to her from the
Calypso
would have the approval of Duroc, and would promptly obey them.

La Créole
and the
Calypso
were now a couple of miles from the coast of Curaçao and steering diagonally away from it to the south-east. That was no good; he was going to have to crowd
La Perle;
crowd her just at the time her First Lieutenant was getting into a panic.