Ramage's Devil (31 page)

“Deck there—mainmasthead!”

That was Jackson, and Ramage let Aitken reply. The American's report was brief.

“Reckon she's a frigate steering north, sir. Too far off to identify but you'll see her in a few minutes, two points on our larboard bow.”

Aitken acknowledged and turned to Ramage, who nodded and said: “Take in the stunsails, Mr Aitken.”

As soon as Aitken gave the order, there seemed to be chaos as men ran from the guns, some going to ropes round the mast, to the ship's side where stubby booms held out the foot of the sails, and others went up the ratlines.

Bosun's mates' pipes shrilled and they repeated the order: “Watch, take in starboard studding sails!”

After that it was a bellowed litany, making as much sense as a Catholic service in Latin to a Protestant, but curiously orderly and impressive.

Main and foretopmen were standing by waiting for the order to go aloft, along with men named boomtricers in the station bill for this manoeuvre. Then the orders came in a stream—”Away aloft … Settle the halyards … Haul out the downhauls … Haul taut … Lower away … Haul down …” As the tall and narrow rectangles of sail came down and were quickly stifled on deck before the wind took control, more orders followed to deal with the booms, still protruding from the ends of the yards and the ship's side like thin fingers.

“Stand by to rig in the booms … Rig in! … Aft lower boom … Top up … Ease away fore guy, haul aft …”

Then, to the men stifling the sails on deck: “Watch, make up stunsails.” Aitken raised the speaking-trumpet: “Stand by aloft …”

The quartermaster was already giving orders to the men at the wheel: with the starboard stunsails down and no longer helping to drive the ship along, the larboard stunsails, yet to be taken in, were trying to slew her round to starboard and needed a turn on the wheel to counteract them.

Then came the same ritual for the larboard stunsails, until with the canvas rolled, the booms taken in and the topmen and tricers down from aloft, Aitken gave the final order: “Watch carry on at general quarters.”

At last Ramage let his brain function again. He had tried to shut it off when the sail ahead was first sighted: he wanted to store the sound of that first hail until, perhaps half an hour later, Jackson would report that the vessel was a French frigate similar in appearance to the
Calypso
and steering the same course: evidence enough that they had finally caught
L'Espoir
—although quite what he did then, he did not know.

Now, however, his lack of ideas did not matter: the ship was unlikely to be
L'Espoir
because she was going in a different direction. A frigate, yes, but following the sea roads imposed by the wind directions, probably bound for Europe but first having to go north nearly to Newfoundland before turning eastward, unless she wanted to try the slower Azores route.

Probably Royal Navy, possibly returning from the Far East or South America, but more likely the Cape of Good Hope. Anyway, she would not know the war had started again, and if she was British he was obliged to give her captain the news. Nor could he begrudge the time because
L'Espoir
could be ahead or astern, to the north or the south, so any delay or diversion could lead to her discovery. Patience, Ramage thought, as he glanced aloft at the tiny figure of Jackson perched in the maintop. It was the one thing needed by the captain of a ship of war, it was one of the virtues he had always lacked.

“Look,” Stafford said, pointing at the metal rectangle of the flintlock, “you see the flint there, just like wiv a pistol or musket.”

He waited for Gilbert to translate to Auguste, Albert and Louis and then continued: “Only you don't have no trigger like a handgun. Instead the lanyard—well, translate that.”

He paused because he really meant that the flintlock of a great gun did not have the kind of trigger that you put your finger round, and he was rapidly realizing that a good instructor was a man who could explain complicated mechanisms and thoughts in a simple way. Jackson was good at it. The captain was fantastic.

“Yers, well, this lower bit is the trigger: when yer put a steady strain on the lanyard (yer
don't
jerk it),” he emphasized, “it pulls the trigger part up towards the ring the lanyard threads through down from—translate that!” he exclaimed, having lost both the lanyard and the thread of his explanation.

Gilbert looked up politely and said gently: “Stafford, we can see very well how it works. Your very clear explanation—it is not really necessary.”

“Ah, good,” sighed a mollified Stafford, with a triumphant glance at Rossi, who had earlier been jeering at the Cockney's attempts to explain the loading and firing of the
Calypso
's twelve-pounders. “Now, here is the pricker.” He held up a foot-long thin rod, pointed at one end and with a round eye at the other, and for which he as second captain of this particular gun was responsible.

He passed the pricker, which was like a large skewer, to Gilbert to inspect and waited while the others looked. “Ze prickair,” Auguste repeated.
“Alors.”

“No, just ‘pricker,'” Stafford corrected amiably. “Now, you saw the flannel what the cartridge is made of and what ‘olds the powder. Well, now, forget that for a minute and we'll go back to the lock. That's got to make a spark what fires the gun …”

He waited for Gilbert's translation and noted to himself that the French seem to make things sound so difficult.

“Well, you see this ‘ole ‘ere leading down into the barrel—same as in a pistol, the touch'ole. Well, instead of just sprinklin' powder in the pan and lettin' it fill up the touch'ole, so that when the flint sparks off the powder and sends a flash of flame down the touch'ole to set off the charge … No, well, in a ship the roll or the wind could … well, we put a special tube in the touch'ole and sprinkle powder in the pan and cover the end …”

Gilbert translated a shortened version.

“Now, just remember that. But the flash down the touch'ole won't go through the flannel of the cartridge. Ho no, nothing like. That's why we use the pricker. Before we put in the tube, we jab the pricker down the touch'ole and wriggle it about so we're certain sure it's made an ‘ole in the cartridge right under the touch'ole, and that means if you looked down the touch'ole you'd see the powder of the cartridge—if the light was right, o'course.”

Gilbert translated but the other three men, who had already worked it all out, having seen the little tubes in their special box, were beginning to suck their teeth.

“
Now
, in goes the tube and we pour some powder into the pan and cover the end of the tube, just to make sure the spark of the flint really makes it take fire … The tube explodes (well, not really, it makes a flash, which goes down the touch'ole of course) and that explodes the powder in the flannel cartridge—”

“And forces the shot up the barrel and out of the muzzle,” Gilbert said quickly.

“That's right! Good, I'm explaining it clearly enough, then,” Stafford said smugly. “Next, now we know how to fire the gun—”

“We must learn how to load it,” Rossi said triumphantly. “You forgot that!”

“I was goin' to explain the dispart sight,” Stafford said sulkily.

“Only the gun captain uses that,” Rossi said. “Leave it to Jackson to explain.”

“Oh well,” Stafford said in the most offhand manner he could contrive, but which did not reveal his relief as he realized that in fact he did not really understand how a dispart sight worked, “we'll do loading now.”

Gilbert coughed. “We watched when you had gunnery practice the day before yesterday,” he said. “It is the same as for a pistol except you ‘swab out' the barrel. ‘Swab out'—that is correct, no? And you ‘worm' it every few rounds with that long handle affair which has a metal snake on the end. To pull out any burning bits of flannel cartridge which might be left inside—”

“Yes, very well, I'm glad you've understood that,” Stafford said, tapping the breech of the gun with the pricker and preening himself in the certainty that the Frenchmen's understanding was due to his explanation. “The rest is obvious: you saw how we use these handspikes”—he pointed to the two long metalshod bars, like great axe handles—”to lift and traverse the gun. ‘Traversing' is when you aim it from side to side, and you say ‘left' or ‘right,' not ‘forward' or ‘aft.' Now, to elevate the gun, you—”

“Lift up the breech using a handspike as a lever,” Gilbert said.

“That's right,” Stafford said encouragingly. It was not as hard to explain difficult things as he had expected, even when your pupils are Frenchmen who do not speak a word of English.

“Then,” Gilbert continued, reminding Stafford of his role as translator, “you pull out or push in—depending on whether you are raising or lowering the elevation—this wooden wedge under the breech. What you call the ‘quoin,' no?”

“Well, we pronounce it ‘coin,' but you are understanding.”

Rossi chuckled and said: “Tell the Frogs about ‘point blank.'”

Gilbert grinned at the Italian. “We have a
rosbif
explaining to a
frog
with a
Genovese
watching. What is a Genovese called?”

“I don't know,” Rossi said expansively. “Tuscans call us the Scottish of the Mediterranean, but who are Tuscans to cast stones?”

“Why Scottish?” Stafford asked. “You don't wear kilts or play a haggis or anything.”

“You eat haggis,” Rossi said. “It is some kind of pudding. They make it from pigs, I think. No, Scottish because the
Genovesi
are said to be—well, ‘careful' I think is the word. We don't rattle our money in our purses.”

“Ah, ‘mean' is the word, not ‘careful,'” Stafford declared.

Rossi shrugged. “I am not interested in the word. Is not true, not for the
Genovesi
or the
Scozzesi.
”

“Point-blank,” Stafford said, “is the place where a roundshot would hit the sea if the gun barrel was absolutely ‘orizontal when the shot fired. About two hundred yards, usually. The shot doesn't go straight when it leaves the gun but curves up and then comes down: like throwing a ball. There!” he said to Rossi. “Yer thought I didn't know!”

Shouts from aloft cut short Rossi's mocking laugh and Gilbert began translating for the other three.

“S
HE'S HOVE-TO on the starboard tack, sir,” Jackson shouted down from the mainmasthead. “Waiting for us to come down to her.”

“What is she?”

“Frigate, looks as though she could be French-built, sir, but she's too far off to distinguish her colours.”

Ramage turned aft and began to walk, hands clasped behind his back, oblivious of the glances of the guns' crews on each side of the quarterdeck.

A French frigate: 32 guns or so, a hundred and fifty men or less in peacetime, and her captain with no idea the war had started again. Unless she had sighted
L'Espoir.
In which case she would know not only about the war but where
L'Espoir
was perhaps only a few hours ago. In the meantime, the fact that she had hove-to, waiting for the
Calypso
to run down towards her (like an affectionate dog rolling over on its back in anticipation of a tickled belly) meant that she had recognized the
Calypso
as French-designed and built: her distinctive and graceful sheer would be seen particularly clearly as she approached, taking in her stunsails.

Ramage walked between two guns and then looked out through a port. The Trades were kicking up their usual swell waves with wind waves sliding across the top of them. Not the sort of seas for ships to manoeuvre at close quarters; seas in which a cutter with strong men at the oars would have to take care. An accidental broach in those curling and breaking crests—which seemed sparkling white horses from the deck of a frigate but were a mass of airy froth which would not support a man's body or a boat any more than thick snow carried carriage wheels or horses' hooves—was something that kept a coxswain alert.

He turned forward again at the taffrail, cursing softly to himself. Devil take it; he wanted to concentrate all his thoughts and all his efforts on catching
L'Espoir
and rescuing her prisoners, without being bothered by another frigate, least of all French. An enemy which had to be attacked.

Yet … yet … He reached the quarterdeck rail and turned aft again, unseeing, walking instinctively, almost afraid to move or yet stand still because out there just beyond his full comprehension, like the dark hurrying shadows on a calm sea made by tiny whiffles of a breeze that came and went without direction or purpose, refusing to strengthen or go away, intent only on teasing, like a beautiful and wilful woman at a masked ball, there was a hint of an idea.

Well, at least he could see the wind shadows of an idea, and they hinted where this frigate could fit in. Taffrail, turn forward … So let us consider the arguments against this vague, floating idea, or anyway what little he could grasp of it. Damage to the
Calypso
's spars … But they were still far enough north to make Barbados under a jury rig … Seamen needed as prize-crew and Marines as guards … Now those dark whiffling shadows were becoming a little sharper, the edges more distinctly outlined … Quarterdeck rail and turn …

No more hails from Jackson but, he suddenly realized, both Southwick and Aitken had been standing where he turned, waiting to say something but unwilling to interrupt his thoughts. He swung back to them.

“Sir,” Aitken said, “the ship ahead is now in sight from here on deck. We can't make out her colours but from the cut of her sails and her sheer, she looks French all right. Shall we hoist our colours? Do you want the guns loaded now and run out?”