Ramage's Challenge (30 page)

Not only to them, Ramage thought. Aitken, Southwick and the old admiral, standing bundled up in oilskins at the taffrail, must be wondering. Yet, that was one lesson Ramage had learned over the years—do not explain your entire plan to subordinates all at once: do it a section at a time, as it becomes necessary. Rarely can a plan be carried out from beginning to end in its entirety. There is usually a hitch somewhere in the middle, so the plan has to be amended to fit the new conditions. Subordinates, however, are often slow to change to a sudden new situation if their heads are full of the old plan. Somehow they seem to resist any modification. But if you tell them a section at a time—keeping them just ahead of events—they react quickly and decisively.

Ramage admitted that this system also allowed him to change plans radically at the last moment without all his officers knowing…. In a way it was cheating, but few captains could have more loyal and eager officers than the
Calypso
's, and because they were eager it was reasonable to conclude that the method worked.

Ramage's clothes felt damp, and now and again he shivered, but he did not want a boat-cloak encumbering him. Curious how too many clothes seemed to make clear thinking more difficult, although that was not to say that pacing the quarterdeck naked would produce brilliant ideas.

“Deck there! Foremast here!”

T
HE SHOUT was faint as the following wind hurled the man's words ahead into the darkness, but Aitken snatched up the speaking-trumpet and, aiming it aloft, bellowed, “Foremast, quarterdeck here!” He then quickly reversed the trumpet, placing the mouthpiece against his ear and aiming the open end at the lookout.

Ramage could just hear the words without using a speaking-trumpet as an ear-trumpet. “Breakers ahead!”

“Down with the helm!” Ramage shouted at the quartermaster. “Come round to larboard and steer west.”

Looking over the bow, he could not see any telltale line of waves breaking on the beach, but the lookout had the advantage of height. Suddenly the lookout on the starboard bow reported breakers, but by then Aitken was bellowing orders which were wearing the frigate, getting the yards braced round and the sheets trimmed. From reaching along on the starboard tack, the
Calypso
was now turning seaward; by the time she was sailing on the course Ramage had ordered, she would be on the opposite tack, with the wind on the larboard quarter.

Reaching in a strong wind is easy on the gear but hard on the men. Now the frigate was heeling as men braced the yards and made up the sheets as soon as the sails were trimmed. Was she overpressed? Many a ship running before a strong wind found she needed to reef when she put the wind on or forward of the beam. The reason was quite simple: running before the wind the ship was making, say, ten knots, so ten knots was subtracted from the wind speed. But by putting the wind on or forward of the beam, ten knots had to be
added
to the wind speed—and that was usually the amount that entailed another reef and sometimes meant handing the topsails altogether. But the change from having the wind one point abaft the beam on the starboard tack to snug on the larboard quarter made no difference.

As the
Calypso
wore round, Ramage's eyes had swept in a circle. Starting at the bow, he looked for the breakers, then inspected the topsails to see if the wind was too much as the frigate swung on to the new course, turned to see if the French frigate was following, and finally came round full circle to try to penetrate the darkness and haze to spot the beach.

“The Frenchman's coming round, sir,” Southwick muttered, “though I'm damned if I know whether he's just following our poop lantern or has seen the breakers himself.”

“Following us,” Ramage said shortly. “I doubt if they have a masthead lookout aloft at night in this weather.”

“That's true,” Southwick said with a sniff. Anything describing French incompetence always found Southwick in agreement.

Ramage took the small piece of paper from his pocket and as he unfolded it he walked over to the dim light coming from the lanthorn in the binnacle box. He turned to the quartermaster, but made sure Southwick heard: “Now you'll steer exactly southwest by west a quarter west,” he said.

“South-west by west a quarter west,” the quartermaster repeated and then, taking a deep breath, said, “If you don't mind me sayin' so, sir, t'aint the sort o' weather fer steering quarter points.”

Ramage laughed dryly as he watched the men turning the wheel a few spokes. “You were quite happy with a quarter point on the other tack. A quarter point now might make all the difference between scattering your sovereigns at Portsmouth Point or drowning within the hour.”

“I wuz only meanin' the weather's got worser, sir; I wuzn't sayin' it couldn't be done,” the man said apologetically.

“No, of course not,” Ramage said, and sighted the long, white line of breakers now on the
Calypso
's starboard quarter.

He turned to find Southwick standing beside him. “Sir, this course …”

“I know,” he said. “You'd better get those men down to the cable tier in a quarter of an hour and the boys with the lanthorns. And three men with sharp axes and half a dozen hefty men at the bitts.”

“But … but … we're clear of the breakers …”

“Where exactly are we?” Ramage asked tartly. “Do you want me to tack inshore again so you can get a sight of a tower?”

“Well, I don't know what you intend, sir,” Southwick said helplessly, unwilling to commit himself and puzzled that Ramage should be anxious to know the ship's position so precisely.

“Well, I just spotted the Torre Collelungo a moment ago, the old square one,” Ramage said. Luckily he had been looking towards the beach as he spoke to the quartermaster; even luckier that the tower, its shape unmistakable, had appeared in the darkness beyond the line of breakers, like the ghost of Hamlet's father peering over a wall. Had the tower been round and not standing on a small hill, he would have had to tack inshore again to pick up another, but square, and in that position …

Ramage tugged the watch from his fob pocket, and while he bent down to let the binnacle lamp's feeble light show the face, he said to Aitken, “A cast of the log, if you please, Mr Aitken.” He did not need Aitken's reproachful look to remind him that he should have warned the first lieutenant, so that the men would be standing by ready.

A hurried shout and three seamen ran up to the quarterdeck. One carried a reel on which the logline was wound; another had two log glasses—one called the long, the other the short. The long one, in which the sand ran out in 28 seconds, was used when the ship was estimated to be making less than five knots; the short, fourteen seconds, was for above five knots.

The third man carried a triangular-shaped piece of wood, the logchip, which had three lines attached to it, one to each corner. One of them was secured only by a peg pushed into the hole, and all three were made up to the logline itself.

The man with the logchip went to the lee quarter, and as the second seaman with the reel held it above his head by its handles so that it could spin, the logchip man called, “Is the glass clear?”

“Clear glass,” the third seaman answered.

The logchip was dropped in the water, and the reel started spinning as the logchip, now immersed in the sea, dragged it off. As soon as a piece of bunting passed the logchip man, he shouted, “Turn,” and the short glass was inverted to start the sand running.

The line, unreeling fast, had a knot tied in it every forty-seven feet three inches, and the knots were in the same proportion to a nautical mile as the glasses were to an hour. If three knots ran out with the long glass, the ship was making three knots; with the short glass she would be making six.

The third seaman with the short glass called “Stop!” as the sand ran out, and the line was checked by the first seaman. This jerked the peg out of the logchip, which went flat, skating along the top of the water as the men counted up the knots. Four.

“Eight knots, sir,” the man with the reel reported to Aitken, doubling the number because he was using the short glass.

While the seamen were streaming the log, Ramage walked over to the compass and stared down at the card. The black lubber's line was within a hair's breadth of the letters SW x W1/4W printed against a small black triangle, and he called to the men at the wheel, “Obviously your favourite course!”

The four helmsmen and the quartermaster were still laughing when Aitken reported, “Eight knots, sir. Will you be wanting another cast?”

“Yes, in ten minutes or so. Stand by.”

And there astern the French frigate was now inching her way up to windward to get directly into the
Calypso
's wake, having taken longer to wear round. Well, Ramage thought to himself, the odds are now almost in my favour. He took the slate from the binnacle box drawer and noted down the time the coast was sighted (a guess from the time he had ordered the course alteration and looked at his watch), the course they were now steering, and the
Calypso
's speed. The lives of many people now depended on three factors: time, speed, and distance—and yes, the breaking strain of hemp …

Now for the bloody mathematics. The
Calypso
had seven miles to run from the mouth of the Ombrone river, but they had turned away from the coast opposite the Torre Collelungo, which was, he remembered, almost three miles south of the river mouth.

There was a north-going current but running at no more than a knot at the moment. Seven miles to run at eight knots—that will take … yes, 53 minutes from the time we altered course. In fact, we have to run slightly more than seven miles, because we started off south of the Ombrone—but then, the guess of a knot for the speed of the north-going current is on the low side. So the two—extra distance and current—will probably cancel each other out. He went to the binnacle lamp and looked again at his watch. Forty-one minutes to go.

The quartermaster, misunderstanding why Ramage had gone to the binnacle, said defensively, “We're steering as close to a quarter point as makes no difference, sir. Coming off mebbe a quarter point either side as she yaws, and it evens out nice.”

“It had better,” Ramage said with a cheerfulness he did not feel, but not wanting to make the quartermaster think he was distrusted. “Otherwise, all of us will be marked down ‘DD' within the hour!”

The men at the wheel and the quartermaster laughed at Ramage's grim forecast: in wartime a man could leave a ship (and therefore the navy) for one of only three reasons, which were written as initials beside his name in the muster book as “D” for Discharged (to another ship or a hospital); or “DD” for Discharged Dead, meaning he had died or been killed; or “R,” the navy's curt way of saying that a man had Run or deserted— an offence which could end, if he was caught, with the man swinging by the neck from a yardarm. In fact, in wartime the navy was so short of men that a recaptured deserter was usually flogged and sent to sea again.

“Another cast of the log, if you please, Mr Aitken, and I'll thank you to have a man ready in the chains with the lead.”

The wooden triangle attached to the logline was thrown over the stern again, and the seaman held up the reel by its handles so that it spun freely, while the third man turned the glass, timing how quickly the measured length of line took to run out. Aitken had shouted the order for the leadsman, and Ramage could picture the seaman tying on his leather apron and collecting the coiled-up lead-line, holding the actual lead (which looked like the weight of a grandfather clock) before going to the lee side to stand on the thick board fitted lengthwise along the ship's side, abreast the foremast. This, known as the chain-plate (there was one each side in way of a mast, and the shrouds were secured to it), formed a good platform. The leadsman put lines round himself (the breast ropes) and made the ends secure to the shrouds, so that he would not fall into the sea if there was an unexpected lee lurch.

Holding the coil of rope (marked at various depths by pieces of cloth and leather, because he would be working by feel) in his left hand, he had the end of the line secured to the lead in his right.

When the call came for the cast of the lead, he would let six or seven feet of line pass through his right hand and then swing the lead back and forth, like a pendulum, finally letting it go when he judged it was swinging far enough forward that the lead would plummet into the water and hit the bottom as the ship sailed above it.

As soon as he felt the weight coming off the line, he would feel for the nearest piece of cloth or leather and know how much line was in the water, and thus the depth. As he shouted it out, he would be hastily hoisting up the lead and coiling the line, ready for another cast. And the leather apron would prevent the water streaming off the line from soaking him.

Forty minutes. After telling Aitken he was going to the fo'c's'le, Ramage walked up to see Southwick, who by now was wearing oilskins as the
Calypso
's bow butted into the seas, sending up showers of spray.

“She seems to like this length o' swell,” Southwick commented. “The men are down in the cable tier, and I've the others up here.” He was obviously hoping for some explanation and, knowing that the next orders would be bellowed at Southwick from the quarterdeck, the voice distorted by the speaking-trumpet, Ramage described his plan in detail.

Southwick nodded from time to time as both men clung to the breech of the weather-most bow-chaser, ducking occasionally from spray hurling itself into the air to be blown aft by the wind.

“Yes,” Southwick agreed. “I think the cable will hold.” He thought for a moment. “Anyway, it will be all up with us if it doesn't!” he grunted.