The Ramage Touch (25 page)

Now the
Fructidor
was anchored in precisely the right place, and the spring was on the cable. He suddenly had a slightly absurd picture of what they were doing to the ship. Or, since this was the first time, trying to do. The anchor and cable over the bow was as if a bull was tied to a tree (the anchor) by a rope through the ring in its nose. Then a thinner line was tied to its tail and taken to the rope and secured well in front of the bull’s nose. By heaving on the line to the tail (the spring that went to the
Fructidor
’s stern) the bull could be turned round to make it face a different direction.

Fortunately, the
Fructidor
was more tractable than a bull which, not unreasonably, would object to being pulled round by its tail. Now all that remained to do was veer away more anchor cable and spring so that the hitch holding the spring was farther ahead, to give more leverage. Then, by heaving in on the cable
Fructidor
’s stern would come round.

The men would haul and veer, haul and veer the spring until he had the ship lying at the angle which meant that the two mortars were aimed at the frigates. The spring, in more precise language, would make sure they were traversed correctly (the only time the words ‘left’ and ‘right’ were used in a ship). They were already elevated, and the gunpowder charge calculated for a range of 2,000 yards.

He pulled out his watch. Time was skidding past; they had twenty-five minutes left. Suddenly he remembered the
Calypso
and looked back towards Punta Avoltore. There she was, stretching up towards them under topsails, hull glistening black, gunports closed although he knew the guns would be loaded and the crews staying hidden below the bulwarks, ready for action. From ahead there was no mistaking that the
Calypso
was of the same class as the three frigates anchored over there in Porto Ercole. It gave him a strange feeling to think that he had been serving in her for the past year or more, and here she was bowling along on a wind with the Tricolour streaming out, to a stranger so obviously a French ship of war; belonging to a country with whom Britain had been at war for as long as he could remember.

They had reached what Mr Ramage had dubbed the ‘Gambler’s Half Hour’: he reckoned that the French frigates would not be in the slightest bit surprised at the two bombs coming in and anchoring a couple of thousand yards or so off the harbour entrance: they were expecting to see the bombs, and two thousand yards out was an obvious place to anchor. That part of the operation would be of no interest to the French officers in the frigates; indeed, apart from someone routinely reporting the fact to the senior officer, no interest would be shown: the senior officer would wait for the senior of the two bomb ketch lieutenants to have himself rowed in to report and receive fresh orders.

The gamble would come, Mr Ramage reckoned, from the time the spring was put on the cable and the bombs were slewed round, so that they were not lying head to wind to their anchors. At a casual glance someone on board the frigates might think that the two bombs were lying to a different slant of wind; that the high hills round the harbour deflected the wind outside. But if someone in the frigates was curious and put a glass on them, he might well spot the spring, even though it came on board on the side away from the harbour, because it had to be hitched to the anchor cable well ahead of the ship, otherwise there was not enough leverage to turn the ship round. But each bomb was showing a Tricolour, so there was nothing to show they were not French. And who knew much about bomb ketches anyway? Mr Ramage had made the point that the frigates might well think that bombs often anchored with a spring on the cable…

So from the time the two bomb ketches started hauling round until the operation really began, precisely at half past eleven, there was a chance that the French might…Mr Ramage had shrugged his shoulders at that point: if the French realized their danger, they might cut the lines holding their sterns to the quay and rely on the weight of their anchor cables to pull them out so they could swing round enough to fire off a few broadsides, even if they ended up drifting on to the rocks on the south side of the harbour. Or one of them might cut everything and try to sail out of the harbour. Or the alarm might be given to Monte Filippo, Santa Catarina and La Rocca – no one knew if those guns could be used.

Kenton crouched down, sighting along the complicated mechanism with its spirit level which formed the mortar’s sight. ‘Heave in – handsomely now!’

Eight men began heaving at the spring as it came through the aftermost gunport on the starboard side; a gunport which had long ago been lined along the two sides and bottom with thick copper sheeting, to take up the chafing of a rope being used in just this way, a spring to aim the ship and the mortars.

It took several minutes of heaving before the ship began to turn: there was slack in the anchor cable and slack in the spring. Finally, Paolo, watching the ship’s head against the Feniglia, and Kenton, looking through the sight, saw the first movement. It was slight, and would remain so until the seamen could get a steady pull on the spring, but Kenton knew that once he let the ship swing past the exact bearing so that he had to order the men to veer, not haul, they might get flustered and the ship’s bow would start swinging like the pendulum of a clock.

He told them to stop and belay and waited a couple of minutes, using the time to check that the
Calypso
was still approaching fast, coming clear of Isolotto and bearing away to head for the beach at the Feniglia, where she would turn and…Yes, another ten degrees would do it. He ordered the men to haul in ten feet of cable. The difference was so slight he could hardly measure it. Another ten feet…ten…ten…ah, better. Ten more feet. Now he had the few houses in Grotte, the village at the northern end of the harbour, showing clearly. Another ten…ten more…just a fathom now, and there was the first frigate. He had to line up on the middle one – although the three of them looked like one enormously beamy ship. Another fathom…and one more…

‘Belay that without losing an inch,’ he growled and remained crouching, watching through the sight, until Orsini reported: ‘It’s belayed, sir.’

Kenton snatched up his quadrant, checked the angle made by the mainmasthead of the centre frigate, found that veering the extra cable had made no perceptible difference, and stood up. The muscles of his thighs hurt so much that he realized he had been crouching for longer than he thought. Damn, the
Calypso
was closing fast!

He gave a string of orders and by the time the
Calypso
hissed past a hundred yards away, the shells were ready: a carefully measured charge had been poured into each mortar, a wad had followed, and then the shell had been lowered on top, its fuse cut to exactly the right length.

To one side of the two mortars, away from the piles of shells, there was a low tub of water. Notches had been cut round the lip of the tub, and now lengths of what looked like thin grey line hung down from the notches like dried snakes. Faint wisps of smoke rose up from inside the tub, showing that the slow matches had been lit and the burning ends were hanging down safely over the water. Jackson was holding a short rod which ended in a Y, a linstock, and Stafford had another. As soon as Kenton gave the word, each would take a length of burning slow match and wind it round his linstock. arranging the burning end so that it was held by the fork.

Kenton looked at his watch once more. Two minutes to go. Suddenly he realized that he was soaked with perspiration and that he had cut it very fine. The
Calypso
was ahead of the schedule! He snatched a telescope from the binnacle box drawer and looked across at the
Brutus
. They were all ready – there were Wagstaffe and Martin, standing still, two men close to the mortar, and four or five more farther aft, all motionless. Now Wagstaffe was looking at his watch and then picking up his telescope and looking at the
Calypso
– here she came, beginning to wear round…Captain Ramage could be wrecking his own plan by being four minutes early. There was only one thing to do – would Wagstaffe do it? Kenton felt his telescope wavering.

He looked across at Paolo and Jackson. The American said: ‘Early, isn’t she, sir?’ Kenton nodded; his throat felt dry and he was afraid it would show in his voice if he spoke. The
Calypso
was supposed to pass northward across the harbour entrance and then turn southward again as soon as she reached the Feniglia to cross the entrance a second time ready to prevent any of the French frigates escaping. Being too early meant that she would pass too soon and the French might escape astern of her.

‘Is Mr Wagstaffe going to open fire early to make up for it. sir?’ Jackson asked.

Kenton looked at the smoking slow match. ‘Drop the French colours and hoist ours…Now stand by to fire,’ he said, and both Jackson and Stafford snatched up slow matches and in a moment had them coiled round their linstocks as a seaman hoisted the British colours and made up the halyard on the cleat.

‘Fire both!’ Kenton said and clutched his hands over his ears as Stafford reached over with his linstock and lit the fuse of the shell, jumping back as Jackson bent down to touch the glowing end of the linstock in the pan. A moment later the mortar gave an enormous, asthmatic grunt. By then both men were running aft with their linstocks, heading for the second mortar, and Rossi was busy organizing the sponging and reloading of the forward mortar, which looked like an enormous cast-iron bulldog squatting open-mouthed in the midst of a smoky bonfire. A moment later there was a heavy grunt from aft as the second mortar fired, and from the starboard side a sharper crack as the
Brutus
opened fire.

Kenton cursed because in the excitement he had forgotten to follow the flight of the first shell. Now he looked over towards the French frigates.

As the
Calypso
’s bow swung round and Aitken gave orders that steadied her on a course which would take her across the sterns of the bomb ketches – but far enough away not to interfere with them – Ramage heard a distant bark of a gun. It seemed to be a heavy gun, and immediately he looked across at Monte Filippo, but there was no sign of smoke, and at that moment there was a second bark.

Southwick saw his head turned and nudged him, pointing across at the
Fructidor
, which was now almost hidden in yellowish, oily smoke, the top of which was just being caught by the breeze and twisted into strange shapes.

Ramage pulled out his watch, flipped it open and cursed: the
Fructidor
had opened fire early. But the
Calypso
was much too early: he realized he had been so confident that everything was going according to plan that he had forgotten to check the time for the past several minutes. But young Kenton had been smart enough. A double explosion and more smoke showed that the
Brutus
had followed suit and opened fire. Ramage held the watch to his ear to listen for the tick – a useless gesture. Southwick said: ‘’Tisn’t your watch, sir; the wind’s freshened and we’re going to be too early. We’ve come out of the lee of those damned hills. But the bombs have made up for it.’

Ramage could not see into the harbour yet but his eye caught the flight of one of the shells as he suddenly saw that the fault was his own. His plan was wrong. He had misjudged distances. He had explained to Wagstaffe and Kenton what he hoped would happen when the bomb ketches opened fire, and that the
Calypso
would be waiting off the entrance to attack the first frigate that came out and somehow force her to block the harbour, her bow aground on one side, stern on the other.

He thought for a few moments longer, realizing that he had lost sight of the shell as it curved over towards Porto Ercole. If the bomb ketches had waited until exactly half past eleven before opening fire, the
Calypso
would have been out of position because he had made a number of little mistakes, all of which added up. The
Fructidor
, which meant young Kenton, had noticed this and, what is more, had had the guts to disobey orders and open fire two minutes early to retrieve the mistake made by his captain. Kenton had taken a bigger risk than he probably realized, Ramage thought grimly, because the third-lieutenant was not to know if his captain had changed the
Calypso
’s task at the last moment, so that by prematurely opening fire the bomb ketches could wreck some new plan.

Well, Lieutenant Kenton was right and Captain Ramage was wrong, but for the moment all that mattered was that the two pairs of mortars were keeping up a high rate of fire: first the
Fructidor
and then the
Brutus
fired their second pair of shells, and the fact that they were firing as fast as they could reload meant, or Ramage hoped it meant, that the mortars had been accurately aimed right at the beginning.

‘Clew up the maintopsail,’ Ramage snapped at Aitken: the
Calypso
was still sailing too fast as the breeze increased, because the harbour was just coming into sight. No shots from Filippo, none from Santa Catarina – and nothing from the bow-chase guns of the three frigates.

Seamen were running to haul on ropes; gradually the lower corners of the great maintopsail, the clews, were pulled up and in towards the middle, a quick way of reducing the area of the canvas and the
Calypso
’s speed.

Suddenly there was an enormous drumroll, turning into a reverberating explosion inside the harbour which hurt the eardrums and echoed and re-echoed among the hills, punctuated by the shrill screams of startled gulls, and, a moment later, while the noise was still rolling and rumbling like thunder, Ramage saw a great cloud of oily smoke streaming up from the middle of the harbour, as though from an enormous bonfire.

A few moments later the
Calypso
had sailed far enough for him to be able to see into the entrance. The southernmost frigate had blown up: one of the shells must have landed in her magazine. All that could be seen of her were her masts poking out of the smoke: some spars had toppled over across the next frigate, festooning her with rigging, yards sticking out at crazy angles like pins in a pincushion and several with sails still attached and beginning to burn. The weight of the wreckage was making the centre frigate heel to the south, over the spot where as the smoke drifted the hulk of the exploded frigate could now be seen amid a white froth of water. All over the harbour there were splashes, like leaping fish: it was raining wreckage…