Ramage and the Dido (21 page)

‘Of course,’ Ramage said with a grin. ‘The captain’s boat has the captain’s crew. Jackson and the rest of them wield useful cutlasses.’

‘Seems as though I am the only one being left out,’ grumbled Southwick. ‘You all go off on a cutting out expedition and leave me here on board twiddling my thumbs.’

‘I don’t regard being left in command of a 74-gun ship as twiddling your thumbs,’ Ramage said firmly. ‘Think back to the
Kathleen
cutter and the
Triton
brig – you never thought that one day you’d be commanding a ship of the line.’

‘Nor did you!’ Southwick retorted. ‘But the point is I’m not commanding her in action. I’m just acting as a horseholder while you are off enjoying a good fight. Why not leave Kenton or Martin in command?’

‘Because they don’t have your experience. If something unexpected happens and the
Dido
has to do something – and you know well enough the chances of that – I would sooner rely on you doing the right things than one of those lads. They’re keen and willing, but they just haven’t your experience.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said Southwick slightly mollified. ‘It’s just that I enjoy a fight, too!’

What Ramage knew he could not say was that there were two sides to an action – a lesson he had learned the hard way. There was the fighting, which was usually straightforward, and there was writing the despatch about it afterwards. It looked bad if a captain wrote that he had left command of his ship with, say, the third lieutenant. It was all right to leave it with the first lieutenant (who was in any case second-in-command) or with the master, who though a warrant and not a commission officer, was always experienced in ship handling. An admiral (and their Lordships) would accept a master where they would not accept a third or fourth lieutenant. And, Ramage had to admit, it was a reasonable enough attitude. It just made it hard on Southwick, who all too often was the one who was left behind.

It was a hot and humid night, cloudless but dark apart from the starlight. The wind was light, tending to fitful. The
Dido
had just passed Cap Salomon about three miles off and Pointe de la Baleine was now broad on the starboard bow. It was, Ramage reflected, a peaceful beginning to what was going to be a bloody night. The
Dido
was gliding along in a calm sea, leaving little more than a hint of a phosphorescent wake.

Ramage still found it hard to believe, on a night such as this, that he commanded a ship of the line, and he still marvelled at the complexity and sheer size of the ship. For instance, it had taken two thousand large trees, each weighing a couple of tons, to build her. Her sails – hardly strained in this wind – totalled 10,700 yards of canvas, and weighed more than six tons. The standing rigging weighed twenty-seven tons and the running rigging seventeen tons.

When one started thinking about the weights involved, the figures were startling – 260 tons of water, 52 tons of coals and wood, 214 tons of provisions, spirits and slops. The men and their effects accounted for 65 tons. And he had forgotten all the blocks – which people on shore insisted on calling pulleys – which with the rigging totalled more than 54 tons.

And for fighting there were 335 barrels of powder and 79 tons of shot, while the guns weighed a total of 178 tons, and the powder came to more than 20 tons.

And all of that was gliding along, pushed by the sails which at the moment obscured large rectangles of the star-filled sky. The downdraught from the mainsail was cooling, but the ship still seemed hot, the heat absorbed from the sun during the day. Astern six boats were towing on painters of varying lengths, and at last the grindstone had been stowed again after grinding away most of the day as the men sharpened cutlasses, tomahawks and boarding pikes.

The guns were loaded and run out. Many of the regular guns’ crews had been chosen as boarders or formed part of the boats’ crews, so earlier their replacements had been exercised – just in case the
Dido
needed to use her guns. Now the Marines were drawn up on deck for the final inspection by Rennick and his lieutenants. On Ramage’s direct order the Marines were not dressed in their regular uniforms with pipeclayed crossbelts. Instead they wore shirts and trousers: clothing better suited to scrambling aboard an enemy frigate. They were barefooted, too, though Ramage suspected that many of them would be stamping their feet out of sheer habit.

Only Southwick stood by the binnacle with him: the other lieutenants were with their boarding parties, giving them last-minute instructions and making sure that none of them was drunk or had any liquor with him. It only needed a drunken man to laugh or cry out to spoil the surprise.

Southwick put down the nightglass. ‘We are coming up to Pointe Blanche and the Ile à Ramiers. Not far to go now.’

Not far indeed, Ramage thought: from the island to the anchored frigate was about three miles. Another mile and the
Dido
would heave to and send off the boats. Ramage felt a tightening of his stomach muscles. Boarding was one of the most unpredictable of operations. It was, he always thought from what he had read of other ships’ experiences, one or the other: a complete disaster with very heavy casualties, or a complete success with hardly any casualties. There seemed to be no in-between: no happy medium. Obviously the more complete the surprise the more the chance of success, but he had no idea whether the frigate had guard boats out. It would seem an obvious precaution to have a boat full of armed seamen or Marines rowing round the ship all the time it was dark; on the other hand the French frigate might feel safe anchored under the protection of the guns of Fort St Louis. Well, if they bumped into a guard boat they would be in trouble – not because a guard boat could do much harm to six heavily armed boats but because it would raise the alarm and spoil the surprise. So, he could only hope that the frigate had been anchored in the Passe du Carénage for a long time and had become used to the only threat being a tiny brig sailing back and forth several miles to seaward.

‘I reckon we can see about a mile with the nightglass,’ Southwick said. ‘So we should be all right if we leave sending off the boats to a couple of miles out. They’ll never hear anything, and they certainly won’t see anything, even if they’re keeping a sharp lookout.’

‘I’ve little experience of cutting out expeditions,’ Ramage admitted, ‘but a couple of miles seems a nice distance. Not far enough to exhaust the oarsmen but far enough for everyone to get their night vision and settle down.’

Southwick said: ‘Here we are – the Ile à Ramiers bearing due east of us. Now it’s up to the men at the wheel.’ He called out a new course to the quartermaster and then with the speaking trumpet gave orders for a slight trimming of sheets and braces.

Over to starboard now, hidden in the darkness, were several beautiful beaches with shallow water and rocks off them. The direct course from the island to the frigate was free of all obstructions, and there should not be too much current. At least, Ramage hoped not: it could set the
Dido
well to the north, but the mountains at the back of Fort Royal would help the boats.

The leadsman in the chains sang out the soundings in a monotonous voice: Ramage had to concentrate: there was a shoal beyond the island and when they reached the far side of it and the water started to get deeper they would be two miles from the frigate and it would be time to heave to.

The soundings showed they were crossing the reef: six, five and then, in one or two places, four and a half fathoms, only just enough for the
Dido
to scrape across – she drew twenty-three feet aft when fully laden, though less now since she had been eating and drinking the provisions and water.

Suddenly the soundings went up: seven, nine, twelve fathoms.

‘heave to,’ Ramage told Southwick. ‘Back the maintopsail, have the boats hauled round.’

Slowly the
Dido
came to a stop, the wind on the backed sail balancing the thrust on the others. As the boats were hauled alongside to where rope ladders had been put over the side, the boats’ coxswains called out a description of them so that the boarders would find their way in the darkness. ‘Launch here!… Red pinnace, men for the red pinnace here… Green cutter, green cutter here!… Blue cutter – any more for the blue cutter?’

Seamen and Marines swarmed over the side and scrambled down the ladders. Ramage shook hands with Southwick and went forward, conscious of the two pistols in his belt pressing against his ribs. And, he had to admit, his heart sounded a bit hollow.

Jackson was already in the sternsheets of the launch, gripping the tiller, and round the boat were Stafford, Rossi and the four Frenchmen. They were a reassuring crowd, Ramage thought. It was curious how being in action several times with men established a bond. Not curious really: it meant that you knew you could trust the men who were covering your back.

Down here in the water, with the side of the
Dido
towering up like the side of a cliff, it was quiet except for the slap of water and the low, urgent calls of officers checking over their men. He could just distinguish the voice of Kenton, counting the number in his party: now ‘Blower’ Martin was cursing a man who had fallen into the boat from the bottom of a rope ladder. Now Aitken was giving crisp orders to get his pinnace away from the ship’s side.

Ramage finished counting his men, found they were all present along with the gunner, and gave orders to Jackson to shove off. In a couple of minutes the
Dido
was just a large shadow and the men were bending their backs at the oars while Jackson thrust and pulled on the tiller to avoid other boats in the darkness.

And, away from the
Dido,
it seemed darker. It was an illusion, but Ramage was surprised how much the tiny candle in the binnacle of the boat compass lit up Jackson’s face as he leaned over to check the course.

‘Steer fine,’ Ramage said, and cursed himself for an entirely unnecessary order: Jackson was about the last man who had to be told how important it was to steer an accurate course. Ramage knew – and the thought irritated him – that he had only said it because he was feeling nervous. Well, sitting among a boat full of armed men on a pitch-dark night with the butts of a pair of pistols threatening to stave in your ribs did not leave you relaxed.

Looking at Jackson’s face, every wrinkle exaggerated by the light from the binnacle (it would have to be covered over very soon), Ramage found himself thinking of the passing years. Jackson was no longer the young American who had helped rescue the Marchesa de Volterra from that beach in Italy so many years ago; nor, for that matter, was he himself that very young lieutenant who was the sole surviving officer of his ship… Jackson’s face was lined and his hair was thinning and the years were passing…that young lieutenant now commanded a ship of the line, and it took a cutting out expedition to make him realise that time did not stand still.

He looked astern and could just make out the darker blobs of the five boats following the launch. He listened carefully but could not hear any noise except the faint hiss of the water being sliced away by the stem of the first pinnace. The oars were well muffled: even here in the launch there was little more than a faint groan as they rode against the rowlocks, a noise caused by movement and not the friction of wood against wood.

He opened the nightglass and looked ahead over the heads of the oarsmen. There was nothing, except blackness. Well, perhaps just a hint of land, but nothing he could be sure of. He could imagine the people in the boats astern straining their eyes to keep a watch on the launch – they were following at four-yard intervals, and as soon as the launch stopped – which she would do as soon as she sighted the frigate – the boats, forewarned, would form up in pairs for the final approach. Then, in the last fifty yards, they would split up to board from opposite sides.

Were there guard boats, and if so how far were they from the frigate? Half a mile? Two hundred yards? Or were there no boats? Did the French dismiss the brig as of no consequence? Oh, don’t start that train of thought again, he told himself; he had already been over it once and come to no conclusion, and now was not the time to fret: just keep a sharp lookout.

This really was the worst part of a cutting-out expedition, the long row to the target. It left a man alone with his thoughts and fears for too long: there was just the slopping of oar blades dipping in the water and the creak of the thwarts as the seated men strained at the looms of the oars. Time seemed to stand still; the darkness left one’s imagination open to the wildest thoughts.

What would Admiral Cameron think about this cutting out expedition – would he approve or dismiss it as a wild venture? If it was successful he would welcome an extra frigate – but success always brought approval; it was failure that brought condemnation.

Now Jackson was drawing a cloth over most of the binnacle to hide the light.

There was no mistaking it: that blacker shape was the frigate, lying head to wind and slightly to starboard. Ramage whispered to Jackson, who hissed an order to the men to lie on their oars. Out of the darkness a pinnace came and took its place to starboard and, looking aft over Jackson’s head, Ramage could see the other boats forming up in pairs.

Jackson gave another order and the men resumed rowing, and the pinnace kept station. If there was a guard boat out, Ramage had halved the chance of them being sighted by halving the length of the tail of boats. Anyway, the next three or four minutes were the dangerous ones: they could be sighted first by a guard boat and then by an alert lookout on board the frigate herself.

But would lookouts be alert, after weeks – probably months – of just peering into blackness? It was unlikely. Most sailors could doze off while still standing up, and there was no reason to expect that the men in the frigate were any different. Ramage knew his best allies were dozy lookouts. How many would there be, anyway? Well, since they could see the frigate now, alert lookouts could presumably see the boats.