Ramage's Trial (14 page)

He was always thankful when some other ship, friendly or enemy, made mistakes which provided lessons for them: he had taught them just about all he knew; they had reached the stage where they were eager and well prepared to work things out for themselves. In effect he had taught them to add, multiply and subtract; now they had to tackle the various sums that sea life threw at them. So far, each one (and Orsini, too, of course) had come up with the right answers.

Suddenly his mind slipped back several years and he saw himself through Southwick's eyes, a green young lieutenant put in command of the
Kathleen
cutter, knowing how to sail the damned ship but with precious little idea how to
command
her. That was the hardest part of teaching leadership – making young men realize that being able to tack a frigate in a high wind through a crowded anchorage proved only that they could sail a frigate, not necessarily lead men into battle. Yet going into battle and winning was their ultimate task.

And all that, he told himself crossly, is how Captain Ramage spends valuable seconds daydreaming instead of displaying the leadership he is always talking about.

But that damned
Jason
was showing no sign of getting ready to heave-to; she was surging along like a runaway horse tearing down a lane dragging a laden haywain.

Ramage walked over to the compass and glanced at the quartermaster, Jackson. There was no need to ask the question.

“She's just steering straight for us, sir: her bearing hasn't changed from the time we went to quarters.”

So the
Jason
was approaching with the wind on her starboard quarter. To pass the
Calypso
or to round up at the last moment without the risk of a collision, she would almost certainly turn to starboard and then back a topsail. By the same token the
Calypso
, beating up to her on the larboard tack, with the wind on the larboard bow, would have to come round only a point or two to larboard to back her foretopsail, or bear away to starboard if there was any risk of a collision.

Southwick came up to the quarterdeck, obviously expecting that there would have to be some smart sail handling in the next few minutes and knowing he would be needed.

“Hope the captain of this frigate isn't senior to you, sir,” he muttered.

“That thought just crossed my mind, too,” Ramage said. He was sufficiently young and his name was low enough on the Post List that the odds were that the captain of the
Jason
was senior to him, and therefore safe from anything Ramage could say about the way he handled his ship. But should he be junior…Ramage would take perhaps two minutes and never raise his voice, but the
Jason
's captain would not act so stupidly again.

“From her pendant numbers she's the
Jason
,” Ramage said.

“Aye, one of those three Thames-built frigates launched just before they signed that peace.”

Southwick's comment was followed by one of his famous contemptuous sniffs which were a language of their own. Ramage recognized this one as referring to the peace treaty: a comment, on the stupidity of Addington in falling for Bonaparte's carefully baited agreement which gave him breathing space to restock his empty armouries, granaries and shipyards. The peace had lasted eighteen months, and the politicians were congratulating themselves instead of being impeached. Ramage dare not think of the Navy's condition if the First Lord had snatched that brief period of peace to carry out the threatened reforms. They were laudable and long overdue, aimed at rooting out corruption in high places and low, but not something to start in the middle of a war. Except, of course, St Vincent and Addington had been too shortsighted to realize that Bonaparte's Treaty of Amiens was simply an eighteen-month pause between campaigns.

And still the
Jason
came on. He lifted his telescope again and examined her carefully. She was getting too close in view of her odd behaviour. Her guns were run out on both sides, tiny, jutting black fingers. Her ensign was British, but she had lowered her pendant numbers. Ah…they were beginning to clew up the courses, but slowly, as though the ship was manned by cripples or the old and infirm. No, he was not being fair because the
Calypso
's ship's company had served together for years and as far as sail handling was concerned it mattered not at all whether it was blowing a gale or the ship was becalmed, whether tropical sun dazzled or it was a dark night.

“Took long enough,” Southwick commented. “Perhaps half the ship's company's down with black vomit – could be,” he added. Ramage wondered – sickness usually hit a newly arrived ship, and the
Jason
did not look as though she had been very long in the West Indies. A ship serving in the Tropics somehow acquired a bleached look; the sails would be faded, the paint on the hull would show it, even though recently applied…Somehow the frigate
looked
as though she was fresh from England. It was a feeling that Ramage could not have explained, and when he mentioned it to Southwick the master nodded. “Not a sheet of copper sheathing missing, as far as I can see. That alone rules out much service in the West Indies!”

Ramage looked astern at the convoy. The great mass of ships was now far enough away that they merged into a narrow band on the horizon, a band which now took on the colour of the sails like a faintly reddish blur of smoke. Yet the
Jason
's lookouts would have spotted it: her officers must have examined it with their telescopes. It must be obvious to the captain of the
Jason
that the
Calypso
was one of the convoy's escorts, so why all this prancing about?

Ramage lifted his telescope once more. Yes, the other frigates had obeyed his instructions:
L'Espoir
had moved out to starboard, up to windward of the convoy and able to cover the front by running down to leeward.
La Robuste
had moved across from the leeward side to take the
Calypso
's place astern and to windward. So the convoy was still covered: until they were all well away from the islands there was always a chance of French privateers attacking from Guadeloupe. That butterfly-shaped island had plenty of bays providing perfect bases for privateers. They could sail westward to intercept ships bound from Barbados to the more important islands to the northwest, like Tortola; or eastwards to intercept the Europe traffic. These privateers should be kept under control by the Royal Navy ships based in Antigua, but these days few people placed much reliance on English Harbour, which seemed to have an enervating effect on anyone based there.

Meanwhile what the devil
was
the
Jason
up to? Now half a mile away and steering an opposite course to the
Calypso
, she was perhaps five hundred yards over to larboard, which meant she would pass too far off to hail. She had no signals hoisted; nor would there be time to answer if she hoisted one now. And Ramage had no idea who commanded her…someone senior, or some young fool at the bottom of the Post List who wanted to cut a dash?

The
Calypso
was slicing her way up to windward but unable to close the five-hundred-yard gap. Considering she had not been careened, her bottom must be cleaner than he thought. But what the deuce was he to do with this
Jason
idiot? Just bear away as she passed and run back with her to the convoy? Why the devil did he not hoist a signal?

Probably, Ramage decided, her captain was a man sufficiently high on the Post List who had identified the
Calypso
and guessed who commanded her and now wanted to catch him out in some silly game – like, hoisting a signal at the last moment and demanding an instant answer. The price of a little hard-earned fame in the Navy, Ramage had discovered, was to be the object of envy (jealousy was perhaps too strong a word) of all the failures who were senior on the Post List. They wanted, it seemed, to prove that he had feet of clay, and Ramage could almost hear the refrain – “There, that shows him he's not as clever as he thinks he is!” It was tiresome, boring even, for someone quietly doing his job.

“Watch out!” Southwick bawled just as Ramage saw the
Jason
suddenly turning to larboard to cross the
Calypso
's bow. But was there room? Not if the
Calypso
continued slicing her way up to windward: there would be an almighty collision in a minute or two, with the
Jason
's starboard bow slamming into the
Calypso
's larboard bow.

“Back the foretopsail!” Ramage shouted at Aitken and turning to Jackson snapped: “Hold her steady as she goes; the moment we get the foretopsail backed I don't want her to make a ship's length of headway.”

A ship's length would make all the difference whether the
Calypso
's jibboom missed or touched the
Jason
's shrouds and that in turn would decide whether the
Jason
tore out the
Calypso
's foremast by ripping away the jibboom and bowsprit, or the
Calypso
sent the
Jason
's masts by the board as her jibboom scraped along her shrouds like a small boy running a stick along a fence.

Seamen raced from the guns to the foretopsail sheets and the braces to haul round the foretopsail yard by brute force. Ramage had already seen that he could not help them by turning the
Calypso
into the wind because that could carry the frigate those few yards extra which could bring the
Jason
crashing into him.

But a quick look at the other frigate showed that she was making an attempt now to avoid a collision: it seemed that she was just determined to shave across the
Calypso
's bow and if there was any risk of a collision it was up to the
Calypso
to make the appropriate move.

Ramage was aware that Jackson was cursing the
Jason
's captain with a monotonous fluency but his words were drowned as the
Calypso
's foretopsail slatted and banged when the yard was braced round, and a glance over the side showed the frigate slowing down, as though she was sliding on to a sandbank. And there was the
Jason
running obliquely down towards them from only a hundred yards away: Ramage could now see patches stitched into her sails; her bow had grey patches of dried salt on the black paint. Her figurehead, brightly painted, was probably a representation of
Jason
himself. Although the guns were run out, black and menacing, there was not a man in sight: no seamen's faces at the gunports, no one on the fo'c'sle waving a cheery greeting (perhaps after thinking the captain had run things rather close), no one shouting a message through a speaking trumpet.

Suddenly the gun poking out of the first port gave an obscene red-eyed wink and then gouted smoke and, as the thunder of the explosion reached the
Calypso
the second gun fired, then the third and fourth in a ripple of flame, smoke and noise.

The
Calypso
was being raked by a British frigate, Ramage realized in a shocked rage and the shots were passing over with a noise like ripping calico: raked at a few yards' range and both ships had British colours hoisted.

The French poltroons who had captured the
Jason
were using a perfectly legitimate
ruse de
guerre
when approaching under false colours, but the rules of war required that she lowered them and hoisted her own proper colours before opening fire.

And there was not a damned thing that he could do about avoiding the rest of the broadside because by now the
Calypso
was stopped hove-to, dead in the water and a sitting target as the
Jason
raced by.

But the
Jason
would pass in a few more moments and as Ramage listened for the crash of the
Jason
's shot tearing through the
Calypso
's hull and the screams of his men torn apart by shot or splinters, he shouted at Aitken to brace up the foretopsail yard and get the frigate under way again, otherwise if the
Jason
was quick she could wear round and pass across the
Calypso
's stern, raking her again with the other broadside.

Ramage saw, however, that if
he
was quick enough he could turn the
Calypso
away to starboard in an attempt to follow the
Jason
, preventing her from passing astern. Everything depended on whether or not the
Jason
's captain had anticipated him heaving-to, suddenly stopping the ship. Ramage thought not: anyone foolish enough to pass so close ahead, risking a collision but (more important in the light of the raking) making it harder for his gunners, who had to fire at a sudden blur passing the port instead of having a good look at the target fifty yards away, anticipated nothing.

The last of the
Jason
's guns fired and out of the corner of his eye Ramage could see the
Jason
's transom as she continued on the same course as before. Both Southwick and Aitken now joined him, the master bellowing through the speaking trumpet from time to time as the foretopsail began to draw. Jackson gave hurried orders to the men at the wheel to meet her as the bow began to pay off in the moments before the frigate came alive, moving through the water so that her rudder could get a bite.

“Damage, casualties?” Ramage demanded of Aitken and was startled by the puzzled look on the Scotsman's face.

“No casualties, sir, but a few sails torn and some rigging cut – nothing important.”

Southwick saw the unbelieving look on Ramage's face. “That's quite right, sir: those gunners were all aiming high.”