Ramage and the Dido (18 page)

The Windward and Leeward Islands lay in line north and south like the blade of a sickle, with Grenada at the southernmost point. Next to the north came St Vincent, on almost the same latitude as Barbados, which was nearly a hundred miles to the east, a lonely outpost in the Atlantic.

Just north of St Vincent was the mountainous island of St Lucia, and then came Martinique, followed by Dominica, Guadeloupe, Antigua and then the group of French and British islands forming the north end of the Leewards.

From Barbados, Martinique was about 125 miles to the north-west, and a few hours after sailing, the
Dido
was rolling and pitching her way along with a brisk quartering wind from the east, with the white cotton balls of Trade wind clouds scudding along overhead in their relentless march to the westward.

The
Dido
had left Carlisle Bay in the darkness, and as soon as dawn broke and the ship’s company stood down from general quarters – where they always went to meet dawn and dusk – the washdeck pumps were rigged over the side while seamen collected buckets of sand and holystones ready to scour the decks. The holystones were blocks of sandstone about the size of housebricks and once the deck had been swilled down with water and sprinkled with sand, the men on their hands and knees used the holystones to scour the planking. It was backbreaking work, but since it was done daily the men were used to it, thankful that they were doing it in a warm climate, instead of the Channel, where often there was a bitterly cold wind as well as icy water spurting from the washdeck pumps.

‘Holystoning is almost a pleasure in the Tropics,’ Rossi commented to Stafford as they worked the blocks back and forth.

‘Where’s the pleasure?’ demanded the Cockney.

The Italian seaman sighed. ‘Nothing ever pleases you, Staff. The water’s warm, the wind is warm, and soon the sun will be up, bringing another nice day. Be cheerful!’

‘That’ll be the day,’ growled Stafford. ‘You’ll never find me ‘appy ‘olystoning: you oughta know that by now, Rosey. It’s m’knees. I must be getting old: the joints creak.’

Rossi called across to Jackson, who was holding the hose of a pump. ‘Here, Jacko: we need more water.’ Then he waved at Gilbert, who was holding a bucket. ‘Come on, we want some sand over here, or we’ll never get these decks clean.’

‘I swear we’ll wear out the wood afore we’ve finished,’ Stafford said, giving the holystone he was holding an extra flourish.

Finally the deck was scoured and Jackson directed the stream of water from the pump to wash the excess sand over the side. While some men had been holystoning the deck, others had been polishing the brasswork, using strips of cloth and brickdust.

The men were just beginning to go below for their breakfast when from the masthead came a familiar hail. ‘Deck there!’ Martin, who was officer of the deck, snatched up a speaking trumpet and answered.

‘Sail dead ahead, just lifting over the horizon.’

Ramage, who was listening, said: ‘What does he think it is?’

Martin shouted up the question and the lookout answered: ‘Probably no bigger than a frigate but on the same course as us.’

Ramage looked round aloft. The
Dido
was sailing along under courses, topsails and topgallants. ‘Rig out the stunsails, Mr Martin,’ he ordered. ‘There’s no British warship around here.’

It took time to rig out the studding sails, which were extensions to the ordinary sails, the head extended by a short yard with a boom which slid out along the yards to hold out the foot.

As soon as they were trimmed, Ramage could feel the effect: the
Dido
had increased her speed by a couple of knots. Southwick had come to the quarterdeck and he said: ‘Whoever she is, she seems to be steering for Martinique. But she’s come from the south. From French Guiana, perhaps.’

‘Maybe she’s a privateer,’ Ramage said. ‘Anyway, we shan’t know until we get a closer look.’

Orsini, sent aloft with a telescope, was soon hailing that the sail was a frigate, on the same course, and that she had just set her royals.

‘That settles it, she’s French,’ Ramage said. ‘If she was British she wouldn’t set royals just because a two-decker came up astern: she’d be certain the two-decker had come from Barbados: it’s obvious from the course.’

But, Ramage wondered, what was a French frigate doing out here? As Southwick had speculated, she
might
be coming up from French Guiana, but it was unlikely. Cayenne, the only town in French Guiana, had only one use and that was because Devil’s Island, just up the coast, was used as a penal colony. The ships visiting Cayenne were usually frigates or transports carrying royalist prisoners from France. Usually they were frigates armed
en flûte
, in other words carrying only a few guns, the rest of the space being used as accommodation for the prisoners.

Ten minutes later Paolo Orsini was hailing again. The frigate was definitely French, judging from the cut of her sails and her sheer, and they were gaining on her rapidly: she seemed to be a very slow sailer. He stopped talking for a few moments and then added: ‘She’s just rigging out stunsails.’

Ramage could see the ship clearly with his glass and he could distinguish that the frigate was beginning to look wider as the stunsails were set. Aitken had come up to the quarterdeck and Ramage nodded to him. ‘You’ve arrived at the right time: I was about to tell Martin to beat to quarters. Bend on the challenge.’

A minute later the
Dido
’s
two Marine drummers were striding up and down the upperdeck, thudding away at their drums, and at once the ship’s company ran to their stations, reminding Ramage yet again of a disturbed anthill.

Again it was the same procedure: the washdeck pumps, only just put away after holystoning the deck, were brought out again and rigged, the gunner collected the big bronze key of the magazine and went below, and the crews began hauling on the lanyards that raised the gunport lids. As water was sprayed over the deck men scattered sand, and soon Ramage heard the report from Aitken that all the guns were loaded and ready to be run out. ‘Can I bring Orsini down now, sir, so that he can look after his carronades?’

‘Yes, we can see what we’re about from down here.’

He could imagine just how the French captain felt now, with a seventy-four rapidly overhauling him There was no chance of him reaching Martinique in time to seek shelter: even now the island was just coming into sight, a bluish bruise on the horizon to the north-west.

Now, with every stitch of canvas set in the
Dido,
it was only a matter of time before they ranged up alongside the frigate and started firing broadsides into her.

He saw Orsini coming down from aloft and watched him hurry up to the poop, to take command of the carronades. He knew that the three lieutenants, Kenton, Martin and Hill, were standing by at their divisions of guns, as were some of the senior midshipmen. He knew that every available telescope on board the French frigate was trained on the
Dido.
‘Run out the guns,’ he told Aitken. It would depress the French even more, once they saw those stubby black fingers sprouting out along the
Dido
’s
sides.

‘Hoist the challenge, if you please Mr Aitken.’

Ramage watched as the flags rose on the halyard. He put the glass to his eye, watching the frigate as a matter of routine. But no answer was hoisted, not that Ramage had expected one.

Still Ramage puzzled over why a French frigate should be out here. If she had come from French Guiana – which he finally decided was a remote chance – there was no reason why she did not go up the inside of the island chain, keeping to the westward. That way she would not risk interception by any British warships on passage between Barbados and other islands such as Grenada and Antigua. Could she have come from France and made a landfall too far south? That too seemed unlikely. A mistake in longitude, yes, putting her too far east or west, but not in latitude, taking her too much to the north or south: a latitude sight did not have to depend on the accuracy of the clock: the highest altitude around noon was sufficient.

No, it was a puzzle, but now the
Dido
had closed the distance to a mile, and Ramage could see that the ship was black with two white strakes, and the sails were very patched. The maincourse seemed to have more patches than original cloths and he thought he could see small holes in the stunsails – probably where rats had been chewing, and showing that the stunsails were not used very often. Or that the frigate had a lot of rats on board.

Southwick was busy with his quadrant and, after consulting his tables, reporting distances. Three-quarters of a mile, and the
Dido
was making at least nine knots. The stunsails were going to be a nuisance and Ramage gave Aitken the order to take them in.

The master had just reported the distance was down to half a mile when Ramage told Aitken to clew up the courses. What about topgallants? Would the frigate try to escape at the last moment by some cunning manoeuvring? He decided to leave them: the
Dido
handled well under topsails and topgallants.

The Tricolour was very obvious now, and Ramage could see that it was very faded, either from age or too much Tropical sun. And the black paint of her hull had no sheen; it was a long time since her topsides had last been painted. In fact, he thought, what with the patched sails and faded paint, the frigate looked as though she was at the end of a long voyage.

There was no need for Southwick to call out any more ranges: in fact Ramage just managed to read her name, even though the paint on her transom was faded. She was the
Volage,
and Ramage was surprised she had not opened fire with her sternchasers, in the desperate hope that a lucky shot might bring down the
Dido
’s
foremast, or damage her bowsprit.

Then he noticed, for the first time, that the
Volage
had run out her guns, some of them, anyway. He watched through the glass, waiting for the rest to be run out, but nothing happened, and he realised there would be no more: only eight guns were run out on each side.

‘That poor devil’s armed
en flûte!’
he exclaimed to Southwick and Aitken. ‘They’ve only run out sixteen guns, eight a side.’

‘What unlucky fellows,’ growled Southwick. ‘A lot of them won’t live to see the sun set.’

But what was a frigate armed only
en flûte
doing here? Had she been carrying prisoners to French Guiana? Was she bringing stores from France to Martinique, urgently needed stores which could not wait for a convoy?

There were many questions, Ramage decided, but no one was going to find the answers – yet. ‘Pass him fifty yards to larboard,’ Ramage called to Jackson, who once again was acting as quartermaster.

‘Warn the gunners that we will be engaging to larboard,’ he told Aitken, who immediately sent off two midshipmen who had been waiting on the quarterdeck.

The
Dido
seems to be making a habit of sinking or capturing frigates, Ramage thought to himself. In fact the thought would be depressing but for the
Junon:
she had also accounted for a seventy-four, so no one could say she was a bully!

Now the range was closing fast: two ship’s lengths would do it. Just as Ramage was preparing himself for the thunder of the
Dido
’s
broadsides he was startled to see spurts of smoke from the
Volage
’s
starboard side, and almost immediately the Tricolour was hauled down.

She had fired a broadside
pour 1’honneur de pavillon,
and then hauled down her colours. No one could accuse her captain of surrendering without firing a shot…

The whole question of firing a broadside for the honour of the flag was one for which Ramage had little sympathy: any court of inquiry afterwards should be able to decide whether or not the odds were so overwhelming that it was pointless to fight. But maybe the French courts were tougher; maybe they had to make sure their captains were full of revolutionary zeal. And being revolutionary perhaps they were more sensitive about insults to their new flag…

He saw that the frigate was heaving to, and he ordered Aitken to back the maintopsail. ‘We’ll heave to to windward, and prepare a boat to take over a boarding party. Pass the word for Hill.’

While a boat was being lowered into the water, Ramage gave the lieutenant his orders, thankful that he had someone on board who spoke fluent French.

‘Take ten Marines with you and bring back the captain. Since she’s armed
en flûte
I presume she’s carrying a special cargo. Ask the captain about it but, if necessary, inspect it yourself. Leave the Marines on board with orders to secure the wheel, and put the officers under guard.’

Just under an hour later Hill returned on board with the French captain, who very punctiliously surrendered his sword to Ramage, Hill explaining that he had refused to receive it earlier.

The man introduced himself as Furneaux.

‘Where have they come from?’ Ramage asked.

‘Mauritius, sir, and she’s bound for Fort Royal, Martinique.’

‘And what is she carrying?’

‘It’s all very strange, sir: she’s loaded with boxes and boxes of plants. Captain Furneaux says they were carrying them from Mauritius for the French to try and grow them. They came from India originally, and were first taken to Mauritius. Now the French were going to try to grow them in Martinique – it’s an experiment.’

‘But what plants are they?’

‘Furneaux calls them
les mangues.
He says they grow an oval-shaped fruit which is orange inside. He says the Indian name for them is “mango”. You can either eat them as a fresh fruit or boil them up and make them into a preserve: something the Indians call “chutney”, apparently.’

‘So the French are experimenting with plants, eh? Well, Captain Bligh brought the breadfruit here from the Pacific not so many years ago, and that has been a success. And Louis de Bougainville brought a plant from Brazil in 1768 – if my memory serves me – which has a very pretty purple flower, and which was named after him.’