Ramage and the Dido (10 page)

‘Send Orsini aloft with a bring-’em-near.’

A sail out here? Possibly – no, in this position it would not be a convoy, or even a frigate on her way to England. In fact it was hard to guess why any ship should venture here on an
opposite
course, in other words beating to windward against the Trade winds. On the
same
course, yes; they could be overhauling a slower ship on her way to the magic position, 25° North, 25° West, when one turned to begin one’s westing. But a ship sailing north in this position?

‘Hoist the private signal,’ he told Aitken.

The private signal was a challenge-and-reply code, changed every three months and known only to the King’s ships in a particular area. When two strange ships met, one or other flew the challenge and the other – if British – flew the reply, and this was followed by both ships hoisting their pendant numbers, so they could be identified from the signal book, which gave a list of all the ships in the Navy with their pendant numbers.

He saw Orsini scrambling up the lee shrouds of the mainmast: he went up as fast as a topman, even though he was carrying a telescope.

The
Dido
was now like a suddenly disturbed anthill: men were hurriedly rigging head pumps and sluicing water across the decks; others were scattering sand. The water prevented loose grains of gunpowder being ignited by, for example, the trucks of a recoiling gun carriage; the sand stopped the men slipping with their bare feet.

More men were casting off the lashings and securing the guns and running them back ready for loading; others rolled small tubs besides the guns and filled them with water, ready for swabbing out the barrels of the guns. Rammers, mops and wormers were put ready beside the guns.

And below, Ramage knew, the gunner had unlocked the magazine and even now was beginning to issue flintlocks, prickers and powder horns to the gun captains, while the powder monkeys were beginning to form up ready to carry cartridges up to the guns.

In his cabin men would be shifting his furniture below to the hold to leave room to handle the guns and reduce the chance of splinters. Bulkheads were being hinged up to the deckhead or taken down, again to avoid splinters from shot smashing through the hull. It was this sort of preparation – mercifully absent when the
Calypso
used to go into action – that used up the quarter of an hour it took to prepare the
Dido
for general quarters.

The bustle of war: to the untrained eye it seemed as though many men were running about aimlessly: to an eye trained in the ways of a ship of war, every man was moving fast to do his duty.

Southwick came up and said: ‘An odd position to find someone steering north, sir.’

‘That’s what I was thinking.’

Southwick gave one of his expressive sniffs. ‘All the gunnery exercise might come in useful sooner than we expected.’

‘We’ll soon know. I wish Orsini would hurry up and give us a hail – is this sail a privateer or a ship of the line?’

Southwick shrugged his shoulders. ‘In this position it could be either. Of course, it could be someone who had been heading south, spotted us first, and hauled their wind to come north to investigate us.’

‘If that’s the case, I shall want to know why our lookouts were asleep.’

‘No,’ Southwick said, ‘on second thoughts it doesn’t seem very likely. Damnation, Orsini’s taking his time!’

A minute or two later Orsini hailed that the sail was a frigate steering on an opposite course with everything set to the royals. ‘There’s another sail astern of her, though I can’t make out if she’s following or chasing.’

Two ships? Two ships in this position both steering north? ‘Furl the courses, Mr Aitken,’ Ramage said. If there was any fighting to be done, let it be under topsails. With the great courses furled, only the topgallants remained to be taken in.

The bosun’s mates piped the order, and men ran up the shrouds to the yards while others stood by at buntlines and cluelines. Soon the billowing canvas was stifled, gaskets passed and the sails were rolled up on the yards, almost as neat as if they had been given a harbour stow.

Then Orsini hailed again. ‘The second ship is also a frigate. I think I can make out the occasional flash of guns – the bowchasers of the second ship. She’s too far away to see any smoke.’

‘One frigate chasing another, eh?’ commented Southwick.

And that meant the first frigate was probably British, steering for the
Dido
in the hope that she was British. A frigate running away from a frigate? Why did she not stand and fight? But a moment after Ramage puzzled over the question, Orsini hailed again.

‘There’s a third ship, her masts are just coming over the horizon.’

So the first frigate could be chased by two other frigates. That would explain why she was not standing and fighting: no one expected a single frigate to fight two others of equal or greater size.

‘What do you make of it, sir?’ asked Aitken.

‘A British frigate being chased by a couple of French, and damned glad to see us ahead of her. They’re praying we’re British – they may have recognised us as British by the cut of our sails.’

Orsini hailed again. ‘There’s a fourth ship, bigger than the others. I think she’s a ship of the line. She’s following the frigates.’

One British frigate being chased by two French frigates and a ship of the line? The British ship was lucky to spot the
Dido…

The question was, would she reach the
Dido
before the frigate just astern of her ranged up alongside and began pouring in broadsides and a lucky – unlucky, rather – shot brought down a mast?

Ramage realised he had prolonged the time before the
Dido
met the frigate by furling the courses, but if the
Dido
was going to have to fight off two frigates and a seventy-four – assuming the ship of the line was no bigger – she had to be prepared.

‘Mr Southwick, go down and inspect the guns. Stop and have a word with that new fifth lieutenant – this may be the first time he’s ever been in action, and he’ll be a bit nervous.’

There was no need to worry about Kenton, Martin and Hill: they had been in action enough times in the
Calypso,
although this would be the first time in the
Dido.
Still, the only difference was that the guns were bigger; the drill was the same.

Orsini hailed yet again: the last ship ahead was a seventy-four, and the second frigate was fast overhauling the first one. ‘I think the first one is flying the private signal, but she’s too far off to be sure.’

‘Make sure the reply is bent on the halyards,’ Ramage told Aitken. ‘I don’t want any delay in hoisting it when the time comes.’

Above him on the poop deck he could hear the guns’ crews at work loading the carronades. Eight of them – four each side – might come in useful if there was any close fighting with the frigates, which were light and handy, much easier to manoeuvre than the heavy seventy-four. But for all that, one well-aimed broadside from the
Dido
could wreck a frigate. With all his experience of the
Calypso,
Ramage found he could see just how the French frigate captains up ahead would be thinking when they saw the
Dido
was a seventy-four. It was an interesting situation – as soon as they got closer to the
Dido
would they reduce sail and wait for their seventy-four to catch up with them, leaving the seventy-four to engage the seventy-four?

They could not be blamed if they did: it was the convention that frigates engaged frigates and ships of the line engaged ships of the line – unless a ship of the line met a frigate, in which case the frigate could expect no mercy. That, he recalled ruefully, remembering his own experience, was when cunning counted more than firepower if the frigate was to escape.

He picked up the speaking trumpet and hailed Orsini. ‘How far off is the first frigate?’ He could see her from the deck but Orsini, up aloft, would be able to judge more accurately.

‘The British frigate’s a couple of miles but the second frigate is almost abreast of her. The seventy-four is about three miles, perhaps four, from us.’

Time was running out and ranges were getting shorter. Soon, he thought grimly, I shall be taking the
Dido
into action for the first time. It was a damned nuisance that it was not a clear-cut action with another seventy-four; having a couple of frigates thrown in as well complicated the issue, though with luck they would not be such a nuisance as the
Calypso
would have been in a similar situation. That was a pardonable conceit, he decided; after all, on her last voyage under his command she had been responsible for two French seventy-fours disabling themselves.

He lifted his telescope to his eye. Yes, he could see the first – presumably the British – frigate quite clearly now, and Orsini hailed again.

‘The first frigate is flying the private signal, sir. Number sixty-three.’

‘Mr Aitken, hoist the reply!’

The answer today was ninety-one, and quickly the two flags were hoisted, and Ramage added: ‘And now our pendant numbers, Mr Aitken.’

Three more flags, representing the
Dido
’s
number in the List of the Navy, were hoisted.

Southwick, back from the gun deck, took off his hat, ran his fingers through his mop of white hair, and said: ‘I’ll wager he’s thankful to see the right answer to the challenge. Now he’s busy looking us up in the signal book. Not that he’ll know you command her now.’

Southwick’s compliment was matter-of-fact: the man was incapable of saying anything sycophantic. Ramage was startled to think that it might encourage another captain to find that his would-be rescuer was commanded by Captain Ramage. Yes, there had been several
Gazette
letters which printed his despatches, but he had never thought of the effect they might have on his fellow captains, or that they might be building up a reputation for him that affected the attitude of other captains. Admirals yes; he had already suffered once or twice from jealous admirals.

Orsini hailed again. ‘She has just hoisted her pendant numbers: five seven three.’

Aitken snatched up the signal book and turned to the List of the Navy at the back. ‘She’s the
Heron
frigate, sir.’

Ramage saw through his telescope that the French frigate suddenly luffed up, and from the speckles of red erupting from her side, obviously had just fired a raking broadside into the British frigate. But as, wreathed in smoke, she resumed her course it was obvious that the manoeuvre had cost her a couple of hundred yards: she was now astern of the
Heron
again.

Ramage said: ‘It’s time to get Orsini down from aloft. Give him a hail – he can look after the poop.’

Southwick picked up the speaking trumpet and bellowed the order to Orsini, who hurried down the shrouds, still clutching a telescope.

Ramage could see now that the
Heron
was about a mile and a half away. She was steering north, hard on the wind, with the two French frigates close astern in her wake and the twenty-four a mile or so astern, and obviously intent on overhauling her. The
Dido
was still heading south with a quartering north-east wind. On this course she could collide with the
Heron,
so it would be easy enough to steer slightly to leeward of her – that would put him nicely to windward of the first French frigate, cutting her off from the
Heron.
What would the
Heron
do then – would she continue scampering off to the north or would she turn to help the
Dido
deal with the frigates? She would be silly to try to tackle the seventy-four, but Ramage knew he would be glad of her help in tackling the frigates, because there would not be much time before the French seventy-four was in the middle of the fight and probably taking up all the
Dido
’s
attention.

Which meant giving the
Heron
orders: he was startled to find that he would be the senior officer. It could be that the
Heron
was commanded by a grizzled old frigate captain whose commission was dated long before Ramage’s, but he would not know it. The
Heron
’s
captain would instinctively obey orders signalled by a seventy-four, and that was all that mattered until this coming action was over.

It was time to get ready for the first broadsides. ‘I’ll have the guns run out, Mr Aitken, we’ll be engaging first on the starboard side, so make sure the men are warned.’

Steady, he told himself; it was quite unnecessary to tell Aitken about warning the men: he was letting himself get fussed by the thought of taking a seventy-four into action for the first time.

Men were wetting the decks again with the head pumps: the heat was drying the planking – an indication that they were nearly in the Tropics. More men were going round sprinkling sand. Others would be doing the same thing on the gun deck.

As Ramage reached for the signal book he heard Orsini’s voice on the deck above giving some orders.

He flicked through the pages. Yes, number twenty-nine would do: there would not be a signal which said precisely what he intended, but twenty-nine should cover it:
‘The ships of the fleet are, independently of each other, to steer for and engage their respective opponents in the enemy’s line.’

‘Respective opponents’ should make it clear to the
Heron
that she was expected to engage the frigates, not the seventy-four.

‘Mr Aitken, have signal number twenty-nine bent on ready for hoisting.’

There I go again, he thought crossly: there was no need to mention ‘ready for hoisting’; if the flags were bent on obviously they would be hoisted in time.

His telescope showed him that the
Heron
’s
sails were almost new: obviously she had only recently left England. Most probably she had been bound for the West Indies, like the
Dido,
when she ran into the French force. But for sighting the
Dido,
she would have been battered into hauling down her flag. And do not forget, Ramage told himself ruefully, that even now the
Heron
and the
Dido
are outnumbered by one frigate which, in this strange contest just coming up, could be significant.