Ramage and the Dido (22 page)

Jackson stood up, as though he could see better. Jackson knew the responsibility for the boat now rested on him: Jackson would have to put the boat alongside the frigate’s larboard quarter. Each boat had been allocated its own position – with the proviso that, in case of confusion, a boat should put its men on board wherever the opportunity presented itself.

Still no shouted challenges. If there was a guard boat, it must be on the far side of the frigate. And by now the boats were well inside the field of vision of alert lookouts – and yet there was no shouted challenge. Ramage felt the tension mounting. He hitched at the pistols, which he realised had made his ribs sore. And he was wearing the sword presented to him at Lloyd’s. The presentation seemed a long time ago – another lifetime almost.

It was hard to judge distances in the darkness but they were now close enough that Ramage could see the frigate’s rigging obscuring stars. They were down to under three hundred yards. The pinnace to larboard was turning slightly, increasing the distance between them: that pinnace was due to attack from the starboard side. Ramage glanced astern and saw two more boats were hauling out to starboard. Good – that meant that so far the plan was working. But now was the really dangerous time – when the men became excited. Then they were likely to start rowing faster, increasing the chances of catching a crab and making a splashing noise with an oar. Or start shouting when they boarded – although every man had been warned to keep quiet, so that the French would not know the extent of the attack.

Now he could clearly distinguish the rigging and knew they must be within a hundred yards of the frigate. There was no need to give orders since the boarders, crouching in the boat, could see as well as he could that they were approaching their target.

Now they were in the wind shadow cast by the frigate: the sea was calmer and there was practically no wind. Fifty yards. No shout from a lookout: no sign of a guard boat. Now the ship’s transom was looming up high overhead. He could not quite make out the name. Yes he could – the
Alerte,
the letters just distinguishable in the starlight.

Twenty-five yards – and Jackson was leaning on the tiller, and a minute or two later was hissing orders to the men on the starboard side: he knew the risk of them clattering their oars against the frigate’s side.

Suddenly there was a cry in French from the deck above: a hasty, almost uncertain challenge. Immediately Ramage called in French that they had come from the town – not a convincing answer but sufficiently unexpected, he hoped, to baffle the sentry for a valuable couple of minutes.

‘From the town?’

‘Yes, from the town, with urgent despatches.’

‘At this time of night?’

‘Yes, you fool, the Republic’s business cannot wait.’

By then Ramage and several of the boarders had leapt up, clawing for the projecting edges of gunports, or anything that gave a handhold. The sentry was still hesitating, then apparently he looked over the side and decided that the nocturnal visitors were boarding in a strange way, and started shouting. But his uncertainty robbed his voice of its strength.

Ramage found a foothold and levered himself upwards, hauling with his fingertips and pushing with his feet as soon as he found a foothold. He was conscious of a writhing mass of men close to him as the other boarders scrambled up the side of the
Alerte.
With a final heave he managed to grasp the lower edge of the hammock nettings and quickly climbed up them and on to the bulwark. By now the lookout had made up his mind and was shouting at the top of his voice only three or four yards from where Ramage landed on the deck, unsheathing his sword at the same time. He lunged at the shadowy figure and the shouting stopped as the man pitched forward and fell gurgling to the deck.

By now more boarders were jumping down from the nettings. Following their orders, they went after Ramage as he headed for the gunroom. Half a dozen Marines headed for the captain’s cabin, and Ramage almost breathed a sigh of relief: the
Alerte
was just like the
Calypso,
even to the siting of the binnacle.

By now the two men who had been entrusted with shaded lanterns had climbed on board and were lighting up a few yards of deck. Ramage snatched one of the lanterns before plunging below, realising he was a good target for any Frenchman who had a pistol.

There had been only one lookout: that was obvious. Had his shouts been heard below, where men would be sleeping in their hammocks? Or in the gunroom, where the officers would be in their cots? No one had answered the sentry, at any rate, and as he made his way down to the gunroom Ramage coughed when the smoke from the guttering candle in the lantern caught the back of his throat.

Now he was standing at the gunroom door, holding the lantern high. There was no movement: the officers were snoring in their cabins, and Ramage was sure that the shouting would not be heard down here. He put the lantern down on the table, sheathed his sword and pulled out the two pistols. Then, with more boarders crowding into the gunroom behind him, he banged on the table with the butt of a pistol until he heard two or three sleepy voices asking in French what was the matter.

As soon as he was sure the officers could hear him, he shouted out a peremptory command in French: everyone was to fall in outside their doors. A few voices, still sleepy, asked who he was. He repeated the order, and told them to hurry.

At that moment he heard muffled shots from forward: boarders were having trouble with men sleeping forward on the lowerdeck. It would not take those men more than a few moments to roll out of their hammocks, though they would have to grope their way to find where cutlasses were stowed.

The first of the officers stumbled out of his cabin and stood by the door, blinking in the light of the lantern. More followed until all the officers, looking comical in their nightshirts, were standing uncertainly in their doorways. Ramage looked round at the boarders and recognised a corporal of Marines. ‘Keep all these men standing where they are: shoot anyone that tries to move!’

With that he ran up on deck to find out that the captain had been taken in his bunk and was at present standing by the binnacle in his nightshirt guarded by two Marines. But there were sounds of fighting coming from below, and at that moment he found Aitken standing beside him.

‘Some Frenchmen have got hold of swords, sir: quite a number of them, in fact.’

‘All right, where’s your party?’

‘Right here, sir: we’ve just boarded.’

‘Very well: let’s join the fight!’

He heard more shots as he and Aitken hurried below, and he found the lowerdeck in chaos: men crouching because of the low headroom, crowded by all the hammocks slung from the deckhead, were slashing and parrying with cutlasses and by now shouting at the tops of their voices in English and French.

There was hardly any light: here and there a lantern glowed dimly on the deck, casting weird shadows. The heat made the air seem almost solid and the lanterns were smoking.

A man appearing apparently from nowhere suddenly hurled himself at Ramage, slashing with a cutlass. Ramage parried the first blow, having stuffed the pistols back in his belt and drawn his sword when he left the gunroom. Ramage was hard put to see the next slash because of the heavy shadows and parried instinctively. Then he caught sight of the assailant’s face, which was partly hidden as he crouched down to avoid the deck beams, and slashed at the throat. The man gurgled and collapsed.

The problem was distinguishing Dido from Alerte, and Ramage cursed himself for not telling his men to wear white headbands. Still, most of the Alertes were either naked or just wearing trousers, as they had tumbled from their hammocks, while the Didos were wearing shirts and trousers, and many of them did have bands round their foreheads to keep their hair and perspiration out of their eyes. But the bands were not white, Ramage noted; they were grubby strips of cloth often obscured by hair.

There was only one way of sorting out the Didos from the Alertes and he took a deep breath and then bellowed out: ‘To me, Didos! To me!’

The crowd of men gave a convulsive heave and Ramage found himself surrounded by men wielding cutlasses and chattering with excitement. He waited a minute or two and then shouted: ‘Right, follow me – charge them!’

He was conscious of Jackson on one side and Rossi on the other, with Aitken very close, as he ran crouching towards the waiting Frenchmen, who were obviously bewildered at suddenly finding themselves standing alone. As Ramage lunged at the nearest Frenchman he heard a solid thudding above him: he recognised the noise of axes slamming away at the anchor cable. That meant the topsails had been let fall, which in turn meant that any moment now the
Alerte
would be gathering way.

And that meant his place was up on deck, starting to sail the frigate out of the anchorage, not fighting hand to hand below decks.

‘Come on!’ he shouted at Jackson and, careful not to turn his back on the French, he made his way up on deck.

‘Take the wheel,’ he told Jackson, and in the darkness he could make out the topsails hanging down from the yards. Even as he watched they began taking up their shapes as men obeyed their orders and sheeted home the sails and braced up the yards.

Now was the time to let Southwick know that the frigate was under way, so that he would light a couple of lanterns to guide them. ‘Where’s the rocket?’ he asked Jackson and the American said apologetically: ‘Still in the boat, sir.’

‘Hurry up and get it – I’ll take the wheel,’ Ramage said crossly, and seized the spokes as he looked aloft again at the sails.

The wooden spokes felt smooth with wear as he turned the wheel slightly and thought to himself ironically: here is a captain of a ship of the line trying to steer a frigate on a straight course. He could feel a faint breeze on the back of his neck and was thankful because he could not see the sails very clearly and there was no light in the binnacle.

He could just make out the two Marines guarding the French captain and he called to them: ‘One of you come and light the candle in the binnacle from your lantern.’

That was something else he had forgotten: to detail a man to see to the binnacle light. Well, he was learning; if he ever cut out a frigate again things would be different.

Still, some things had gone right: the topsails were set, men had cut the anchor cable at the right time, and the sails had been trimmed and the yards braced round. Soon the rocket would be sent off and then he would have to look out for the two lights, one above the other, which the
Dido
would hoist.

Then Jackson was back with the rocket and launcher tube just as the Marine shut the binnacle door having lit the candle. Ramage quickly looked at the compass card, squinting as he focused his eyes. He was steering west-north-west. As far as he could estimate, the
Dido
would be a couple of points over on the larboard hand. Anyway, west-north-west kept them clear of any obstacles and for the moment he was more worried about coral reefs and shoals of sand than he was about the French.

Just as he was thinking that, Hill suddenly appeared. ‘Mr Aitken sent me, sir: the French have surrendered! At first just a few of them cried for quarter, and the next moment all of them did. Many of them were unarmed and realised they didn’t stand a chance.’

‘What’s Aitken doing now?’

‘Sorting out the prisoners with Rennick, sir: we’ve taken twenty as hostages – I told the rest of them that the hostages would be run through if they didn’t behave.’

‘Very well. Go back and tell Mr Aitken to come up here and leave the prisoners to Rennick and Kenton. You had better stay down there where your French will be useful.’

By now Jackson had set up the rocket and Ramage said: ‘Right, fire it. Use the candle in the sentry’s lantern.’

The rocket went soaring up into the sky and burst into white stars. ‘Take the wheel,’ Ramage told Jackson, ‘she seems quite happy on west-north-west, so steer that until we sight the
Dido
’s
lights.’

With that he went to the larboard side and stared into the darkness. Sailing the
Alerte
was just like sailing the
Calypso –
except that the gunroom was full of French officers being guarded by Marines, and below there was a whole French ship’s company being held prisoner by the boarders, while just behind him the French captain stood miserably between two Marine guards, his only movement that Ramage had seen being desultory slaps at mosquitoes.

And not a shot from Fort St Louis: the sentries there had heard nothing of the shots – the
Alerte
was well to leeward – and either had not seen or had taken no notice of the lanterns moving around on the deck of the frigate.

Then he saw two pinpoints of light: Southwick had hoisted the two lanterns in the
Dido,
and they seemed closer than he expected. He suspected Southwick had been working his way into the bay, ready to come to their help if the rocket had burst in a red star.

Now he had to decide what to do with all the prisoners. He did not fancy losing any more of his men in a prize crew, and he was sure that Admiral Cameron would not welcome more than two hundred Frenchmen as prisoners. Why not send them back to their comrades under a white flag and an agreement that they would not serve until they had been regularly exchanged?

And an exchange would take ages: the French would need months to capture more than two hundred Britons as a counterweight. But Ramage found he did not care; as far as he was concerned, the important task was to get rid of the prisoners and then send the
Alerte
to Barbados with the minimum prize crew that could handle her.

His instructions to Hill had been very exact: he was to take a boat to Fort St Louis with a flag of truce flying from the bow and stern, and he was to offer an exchange of 233 prisoners – the number of Frenchmen in the
Alerte
for the same number of Britons – thus establishing a credit, but with the firm agreement that none of the Frenchmen would serve again until regularly exchanged. No other terms would be acceptable, Ramage had emphasised, and the French acceptance had to be in writing.