Ramage's Signal (21 page)

“Go about,” he snapped at Rossi and with seconds counting leaned against the tiller.

“Man the swivels, she's an Algerine!”

The
Passe Partout
spun round to the north-west, away from her rendezvous with the schooner, and almost at once Ramage heard the faint pop-pop-pop of muskets and then the deeper boom of six-pounder guns.

There was a heavy crash of spars and flapping of canvas as the
Magpie
wore round to try to intercept the tartane on her new tack and, with Rossi now holding the tiller over, Ramage was able to use the glass once again.

Yes, the larboard side of the
Magpie,
hidden until she wore round, was damaged and had been temporarily repaired but not painted—and now the Red Ensign was coming down and the green-and-white crescent flag used by the Algerines was going up in its place, an enormous flag that seemed more suitable for a fortress than a ship.

“Jackson—signal flags—British: hoist number sixteen where the
Calypso
can see it. Martin, Orsini, get those swivels firing—don't worry about hitting the
Magpie,
make plenty of smoke so that the
Calypso
sees it!”

“Number sixteen,
‘Engage the enemy more closely'
going up, sir,” Jackson yelled, overhauling the halyard.

“Yer gotta laugh,” Stafford said gloomily as he slid a flannel cartridge into the muzzle of a swivel. “Here we are, British mustering under Frog colours, and there they are, a crowd of h'Arabs musterin' under British colours to attack the Frogs.”

“Yes,” said Paolo indignantly, pushing in a wad and rolling a shot after it, “but you heard what the Captain said—they had the British flag
upside-down:
they're just damned
Saraceni
. Barbarossa's brood.”

“Barbey Rossi—I'd forgotten ‘im,” Stafford said. “You'd think he was an Italian with a name like that, just like our Rossi.”

“No,” Paolo corrected him. “‘Barba' means ‘beard' and ‘rossa' is ‘red.' Redbeard was his nickname, not his true name.”

Ramage watched the
Magpie
as the Algerines trimmed the sheets of the big mainsail and foresail. Obviously they were much more used to the lateen than the gaff rig, but reaching as she now was, with the wind on the beam, they would not need the sail-trimming skill necessary to get her moving fast to windward.

She came round into the
Passe Partout
's wake and about half a mile astern. Her masts were now in line.

“Martin! Your quadrant. Give me the elevation of the
Magpie
's foremast!”

The young Lieutenant opened the mahogany box as the first of the tartane's swivels fired. By the time the third had fired he was balancing, sighting the
Magpie
in the quadrant's mirror. A few delicate movements with the quadrant's arm and Martin was reading off the minutes and degrees.

Ramage looked at his watch and said to Rossi: “Keep her masts in line; I want to see how quickly she can overhaul us on a reach.”

“Very quickly,” Rossi muttered. “Only to windward can we escape!”

And that, Ramage knew, was the irony of the situation. The only ship with the guns to deal with the
Magpie
was the
Calypso,
at the far end of the convoy and who could only get to the Algerine vessel by beating to windward—a long, slow task in this light wind.

The
Passe Partout
could not escape from the
Magpie
by running away before the wind to join the
Calypso;
the schooner would overtake her long before that. If she raced away on a broad reach, north or south, taking the
Magpie
in pursuit, she was making it a little easier for the
Calypso,
whose speed would increase with every point she could sail free. But the
Magpie
would catch the tartane long before the
Calypso
could get near.

Only by beating to windward, away from the
Calypso,
could the
Passe Partout
escape. Would the
Magpie
continue chasing her? If so, it would keep her out of the
Calypso
's hands but—ironically enough—save the French convoy.

The fifth swivel fired. It was absurd to waste the shot when the whole point of firing was to make smoke to attract the
Calypso
's attention because at this range a three-pounder shot would not harm a privateer schooner any more than a soggy dumpling.

“Fire blank charges,” Ramage shouted. “Don't waste shot. Just make smoke!”

He looked astern across the convoy at the
Calypso
and just managed to steady the glass in time to see the frigate wearing round, sails shivering as she steadied on a course hard on the wind. Aitken and Southwick were going to be busy as they tacked back and forth through the convoy. There were bound to be at least three merchant ships whose masters lost their nerve at the sight of a great frigate, guns run out, racing in their direction and, instead of holding their course, they would do something silly and risk a collision …

“Martin,” Ramage snapped after another glance at his watch, “have another look at the
Magpie
's foremasthead.”

The degrees and minutes he reported confirmed what Ramage had already seen with his naked eye: he hardly needed the quadrant to tell him that the angle subtended by the
Magpie
's foremasthead was increasing so fast that the schooner would be ranging alongside within minutes.

He glanced at Rossi, who was loosing a powerful stream of blasphemy in Italian at the
Magpie
such as can be achieved only by an imaginative Italian Catholic.

“Very hard on Catholics, these Arabs,” Ramage said teasingly. “They flay them, I believe.”

Rossi grinned as he said: “Yes, sir, even lapsed Catholics.”

The Genoese seaman was handling the
Passe Partout
's tiller as an artist might his brush; he was responsive to every variation in the wind's strength, reacting to puffs and lulls, like a gull hovering over the edge of a cliff.

Martin turned to Ramage and said cheerfully: “I am sorry, sir, someone wrote
andante ma non troppo
on this ship's keel!”

Ramage gave a great gust of laughter which stopped every man in his tracks, and knowing they had very little time left for anything, Ramage called: “Mr Martin says the
Passe Partout
has a musical direction—an order by the composer to the soloist or orchestra—which means in Italian, ‘Fast, but not too much!'”

“Ho, I was wondering what was delayin' ‘er,” Stafford said.

There were seven French prisoners locked in the fo'c's'le and who had been guarded, until the swivels were needed, by Baxter and Johnson. He must not forget to free them at the last moment and give them, too, a chance to kill an Arab or so before that screaming horde swamped the
Passe Partout
's deck.

He turned to Rossi, waving to Martin to attend to the sheets and braces: “Bring her hard on the wind. It's not much of a chance, but we'll give ‘em a run for their money!”

Within two or three minutes the tartane was heeling as she sliced through the waves, lively as a young pony let loose in a meadow. With the glass Ramage saw the men in the
Magpie
hauling on headsails, foresail and mainsail sheets so that the schooner could sail closer to the wind and stay in the tartane's wake until she overhauled her.

Martin, standing by him, commented: “They seem to be a lubberly crowd over there, sir!”

Ramage nodded, an impression in his mind giving way to an idea. “Tell Orsini to fetch the French master here, but leave the rest of the Frenchmen locked up. Send Baxter and Johnson with him.”

The fat Frenchman walked most of the way staring at the
Magpie
almost in the
Passe Partout
's wake, but when he reached Ramage he held his arms out in front of him, palms facing forward.

“What is happening?” he asked. “I hear the guns firing—but she is British, like you!”

“She is an Algerine pirate. She was British, but the Algerines captured her.”

“You won't get away from her,” the Frenchman said philosophically. “We have more barnacles on the bottom than the Republic has debts. We are all making mistakes today—I mistook you for French, you mistook those villains for English. Your mistake is going to be the most expensive for all of us: if we are lucky, they'll cut our throats. If not—well, they have many cruel games to play with ‘infidels'…”

The Frenchman, fat as he was, and slightly ridiculous to look at, was no coward; his attitude was droll and he was genuinely amused that both he and Ramage had made mistakes over identity.

Ramage looked astern at the
Magpie,
glanced at Rossi, who shook his head to indicate the
Passe Partout
was not gaining a yard, and said to the Frenchman: “
M'sieu,
I've no doubt you and your men share our reluctance to become prisoners of the Dey of Algiers or any of his men. If I release you all, will you give me your word that you'll remain our prisoners at large, help us, and surrender yourselves again when we have escaped?”

“Escaped?
Quelle blague!
” he exclaimed at such crazy talk. “But certainly we will help make those camel-lovers pay dearly for our skins. Yes, you have our parole; we'll help you sail and fight the ship—whatever you propose to do. Fight against all
that
mob!” The notion made him chuckle as he made his way forward to explain to his men, and Ramage called Baxter and Johnson aft as he told Martin what he was doing.

“I'm glad they'll be helping with the sheets and downhauls, sir,” Martin admitted. “This rig is effective, I'll admit that, but it's as tricky as a Thames barge. A man and a boy can work a barge up a narrow gut against a foul tide—as long as they know how!”

“Orsini,” Ramage said, “I'm putting you in charge of the Frenchmen because you'll hear me giving orders in English and can translate.”

“Aye aye, sir. And sir,” he reminded Ramage, as if to excuse his future behaviour, “the
Saraceni
have been the natural enemies of Italians for centuries.”

Ramage remembered how the various Arab rulers of Algiers and Tunis along the north coast of Africa had always made passing ships pay enormous “tributes,” quite apart from capturing hundreds of seamen to work the oars of their galleys. “Yes, they've lacked friends for a long time,” he said dryly. “They have some curious habits.”

“The
Magpie,
sir,” Martin said as he put his quadrant away in its box, having carefully wiped spray from the brass fittings. “She's catching up very fast!”

“Ah, there are your Frenchmen,” Ramage told Orsini. “Tell the master to show you where their muskets and pistols are kept, and then make sure his men have them.”

The wind was piping up; it was now a fresh breeze, cooling the decks a little, and increasing the belly of the sail. The
Magpie,
he had to admit, looked a fine sight, although he would be quite satisfied if he could admire her a mile away, instead of a few hundred yards.

The Algerines were obviously going to pass to leeward and give the
Passe Partout
a broadside; then they would probably drop astern and come up again on the weather side and board. There must be a couple of hundred of them, judging from the crowd lining the weather rail, and, he suspected, by habit they were acting as human ballast, as they would in a xebec or tartane.

The French master came waddling aft, and suddenly held out his hand. “Chesneau,” he said. “Albert Chesneau.”

Ramage shook it and introduced himself, giving his name the English pronunciation. Chesneau did not hear it clearly because at that moment the tiller creaked louder than usual, so Ramage repeated it with the French pronunciation.

“Ramage—
the
Ramage?” Chesneau was obviously impressed. “Ha, I've heard of you and I've said a few prayers that I'd never meet you at sea. I imagined different circumstances!”

By now Orsini was leading the French seamen from the cabin and they were busy checking over muskets and pistols. Ramage looked round for Martin.

“Listen, this ship should have been your command and I'm sorry to be interfering, but the next half an hour is likely to be busy, so I'll give you a hand. Orsini can use those Frenchmen like Marines, and their muskets will help. I want you to look after the sail-handling. I suggest you put Jackson in charge of the swivels. Leave Rossi at the tiller, and I'll give him a hand if he needs it.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Martin said and then looked almost shy. “Will you pardon me for saying it, sir, we all know the
Magpie
's going to do us in, but it's an honour to be beside you, sir, and none of us would be anywhere else.”

Suddenly all the men round gave a cheer which was swamped by a bellow from Baxter: “Three cheers an' a tiger for ‘is Lordship—'ip ‘ip, ‘urray!”

An embarrassed Ramage stood still until they had finished, then gave the men a salute in reply and a grin of encouragement.

“Right lads, I've a deal of paperwork to finish in the
Calypso,
so let's hurry up and finish off this bird astern!”

The men roared with laughter, Orsini hastily translating for the Frenchmen.

“Remember this,” Ramage shouted to make himself heard above the increasing wind and the laughter, “that schooner is expecting to give us a broadside or two and then board.

“Now you know that, forget it. Forget everything except the job you now have. Men at the sheets, braces and downhauls: that's your entire life for the next half an hour—if you want to live. You men at the swivels—fire as fast as you can but as accurately as possible. Your target will always be the
Magpie
's quarterdeck if your gun will bear, otherwise her topmasts.”