Governor Ramage R. N. (17 page)

“First will be small sails out of the tops. Then down t'gallant yards and masts. I want them properly lashed down on deck: assume a sea might sweep us clean. Studding sail booms down off the yards … spanker boom and gaff—down and well lashed below the bulwarks. Preventer braces on the yards … relieving tackle on the tiller, and make sure the spare tiller is where we can get at it … all the axes available. Issue tomahawks: they'll serve as small axes … Can you think of anything else?”

Southwick had been counting off the items on his fingers and shook his head. “No, but I wish we'd worked out something for the boats.”

The boats, stowed over the hatchways, were hoisted in and out by tackles on the main yard. Ramage and Southwick had tried to devise a safe way of dumping them over the side in an emergency, but had been unable to think of anything.

“It shouldn't be too difficult to relieve ourselves of the carronades.”

Southwick grimaced. “Hope we don't get as far as doing that: I reckon that's about the last goodbye to mother.”

“Our fore and main trysails—I hope they're not as mildewed as those in most ships.”

“The bosun's mate is going over them now. Material is sound enough; he's checking over the stitching and reef points. He's strengthening wherever he can.”

“It's not being left to him to decide?”

“No, sir—I've just gone over both sails with him. We're laying a few more cloths on the tabling. Doubtful whether it'll do any good: just making tack, clew and head stronger than the rest of the sail.”

“Well, if the roping holds, it makes it easier to mend. Just panels going!”

“Just panels.” Southwick sniffed. “Finest and heaviest flax there is!”

“It might never blow, Mr Southwick, in which case we'll never know.”

“I'd be happy to die of old age completely ignorant of hurricanes.”

“Me too, but the longer we stay at sea, the more the odds turn against us.”

Ramage picked up his hat and the two men walked back up on deck.

The sky to the west was a cold, coppery colour—a colour so unlike anything normally occurring in nature that its very strangeness was frightening. The reflection of the sky gave everything a coppery hue: the flax sails, normally raw umber with a touch of burnt sienna, the bare wood of the decks, the brass-work of fittings. Even the bright red, royal blue and gilt of the small carved crown on top of the capstan was distorted by the sun's strange lacquering.

Southwick sucked his teeth and shuddered. “Horrible. You can almost taste it. Like sucking a penny.”

That's about it, Ramage thought, a colour that gives the impression of taste; a physical presence, like cold, only instead of chilling it frightened. There was a curious tension on board the
Triton—
something he'd never really seen before in a ship of war—it was not the same when they went into action. There was a slight rounding of men's shoulders as they walked the deck doing various jobs. They hadn't the jauntiness that was normally so obvious. Each man seemed in the grip of a private fear.

Up on the fo'c's'le, Jackson was working with Rossi, Stafford and six other seamen, stitching reinforcing patches into the fore trysail. The men were sitting on the deck, their legs under the sail, looking like old women mending nets on a beach. Each had a heavy leather palm strapped to his right hand to help drive the needle through the cloth.

Jackson leaned back and groaned. “My back … I feel like an old man.”

“It's not me back; it's me ‘and,” Stafford grumbled. “This ‘ere palm ‘as blistered me ‘and.”

“Don't tell the bosun,” Rossi said. “It is the proof you never do any work.”

Stafford sniffed. “Ever been through an ‘urricane, Jacko?”

When the American shook his head, another seaman said, “What d'you think it's like?”

“Windy,” Stafford interrupted as he dug the sail needle into the material.

“Not in the middle,” Jackson said. “They say it's flat calm in the eye and the sun shines.”

“Ho yus,” Stafford exclaimed. “An' all the women ‘anging their washin' up ter dry, no doubt.”

“Well, you'll soon meet one …”

“‘Ere, Jacko, you reckon—reely?”

Jackson nodded. “Yes—you'll see, it blows like the devil until you're in the middle; then the wind drops, it stops raining, the sun comes out and everything's lovely.”

“You said the middle,” Rossi said warily. “Then what happenings?”

“Well, just as soon as folk like Staff are out there hanging up their washing, it comes on to blow even harder from the opposite direction.”

“
Accidente!
The
opposite
direction? But everything gets taken aback?”

“Precisely …”

All the men were silent for a few minutes, each alone with the mental picture of the wind suddenly gusting up and blowing on the forward side of the sail, instead of the after side, and pressing a sail and yard back against the mast.

As the pressure increased the ship would start going astern, starting a whole sequence of events: to steer the ship, the wheel would have to be spun the other way, and at the same time the pressure on the rudder would be enormous: pressure trying to wrench it off, pressure that kept on increasing. As it increased, so would the pressure on the sails and yards increase, and such pressure could be relieved only by the wind easing, the sail blowing out, the yard smashing in half or the mast breaking.

“She was caught aback and her masts went by the board.” It was a familiar description: each man could visualize the ship swept clean, her masts snapped off at deck level—by the board—and fallen over the side in a tangle of rigging, halyards, sheets, braces, yards … and there'd probably be death in the wreckage for many of them.

Beside each mast were piles of heavy rope. When Admiral Goddard made the signal for the ships under his command to prepare for a hurricane, the men would rig additional shrouds to support the masts, using these lengths of hawser.

Southwick and a couple of bosun's mates were already carefully checking over the lanyards of each pair of deadeyes. A group of men working unostentatiously—Ramage had given instructions that their activities should not be obvious from the flagship—were putting storm lashings on the guns.

Southwick met him abreast the mainmast on the larboard side. “Everything satisfactory, sir?”

“As far as we can go, yes.”

The Master glanced round to make sure no seamen were within earshot. “Can't think the Admiral's been on deck today, sir.”

“Nor Captain Croucher!”

“I was looking at the mules with the glass. Most of them are busy.”

“Wait until they start sending down topmasts and yards …”

“Several are getting ready to.”

“I wonder if the Admiral will tell them to stop,” Ramage said, half to himself.

“I hope not: it'll take them several hours to get squared away. Except for the
Topaz
they are probably all shorthanded.”

“They'll manage,” Ramage said, and wished he had not been reminded of the
Topaz.
She was his hostage to fortune at the moment. However competent Yorke was, he would still have preferred to have the St Brieucs on board the
Triton
…

The sun set in a wild, western sky. In the late afternoon the copper colour gave way to a dull and sickly yellow washed with an angry red as high clouds thickened and the wind came up, steadily freshening as the hours passed. The convoy soon got under way, but while all the escorts were busy trying to get the ships into their proper positions again the masters took little notice of orders or threats: most were already under double-reefed courses and their men were busy sending down topsail yards. The swell waves were slowly but inexorably increasing in height, like silent gestures of warning.

Slowly the wind backed from east to north-east, and then went north. Equally slowly Admiral Goddard was forced to keep edging the convoy's course round to the west as more and more merchantmen found it impossible to stay up to windward.

First one ship in the middle of a column would start sagging off to leeward, eventually sailing diagonally through the remaining columns. In turn one or two other ships, forced to bear away to avoid a collision, would be unable to get back into position and would themselves sag off.

Finally, to avert chaos, the
Lion
would bear away and hoist signal flags indicating the new course. The frigates, brig and lugger would repeat, then spend the next hour ensuring the merchantmen conformed, and just have the last one in position when the flagship would repeat the process.

Finally Southwick became exasperated. He took off his hat, ran his hands through his white hair and said to Ramage: “Never was an increment man, myself.”

When Ramage looked puzzled, he explained: “The Admiral knows he's going to be steering south-west by midnight, so why doesn't he cut his losses and get on course now, instead of coming round by increments? And not only that, the sooner we get over to the westwards”—he gestured over the larboard beam, towards the middle of the Caribbean—”and give ourselves some sea room, the happier I'll be.

“Never liked the chance of a lee shore with this Caribbean weather,” he continued. “That's one thing about European waters—may be cold and wet, but nine times out of ten, a gale or a storm comes from the south-west or west. Here it's any damned direction.”

Ramage nodded but kept his fears to himself. His earlier suspicion that Goddard had lost his nerve was now confirmed. The Rear-Admiral was the kind of man who froze when he was frightened: instead of bolting or rushing around shouting, he withdrew into paralysed inactivity and indecision.

Southwick was right about the “increments”—but there was more to it than sea room. Nothing was really known about hurricanes, but men who had survived them talked and pooled their ideas, so that eventually an odd sort of pattern emerged.

In a lifetime at sea, Ramage's father had gone through two hurricanes, and Ramage could remember the old Earl's two pieces of advice. One was to prepare the ship early, so that men did not have to work aloft with the ship rolling heavily in a strong wind, which doubled and quadrupled the amount of effort needed. But the second point was the really important one; if the wind veered, steer to keep it on the starboard bow. The hurricane would probably pass southwards and the ship, altering course as required to keep the wind on the bow, would cover a semi-circular course to the north of it. But if the wind remained steady or backed—which it was doing now—it was vital to get the wind on to the starboard quarter, and keep it there, altering course as necessary. Then the hurricane would probably pass northwards. If you ran before the wind, the chances were that the middle of the hurricane would pass right over you.

Goddard's “increment” course meant that he was slowly doing just that. By trying to hold on to a predetermined course that would keep him as near to Antigua as possible, and being forced to bear away as the merchantmen sagged off, he would end up running before the hurricane … and running slowly before a massive hurricane meant that it was only a matter of time before it caught up.

If Goddard turned the whole convoy boldly on to a course of say—Ramage walked over and glanced at the compass—south-south-west, all the merchantmen would have the wind on their starboard quarters, and they would probably be able to keep it there even under storm canvas …

Every time a signal hoist was reported from the flagship, he looked expectantly at Jackson, and each time the American reported a course change of one point to larboard. One point! Eleven degrees fifteen minutes, or one thirty-second part of the circumference of a circle … It was like giving a starving man a single slice of bread: instead of saving his life, it merely emphasized how hungry he was and postponed the inevitable end. Altering course one point to larboard stressed the need for an immediate eight-point alteration.

“The wind will eventually do it for him,” Southwick said bitterly, echoing Ramage's thoughts. “But we lose that much time—and mileage. And maybe our necks.”

“Since we can not do anything about it, let us make the best of it.”

He was startled by the harshness of his voice, and Southwick stared fixedly at the convoy. Ramage knew he was feeling the strain, but taking it out on Southwick was contemptible.

“It'll be dark in an hour,” Ramage said.

“Aye, there's just about enough time to execute it if he makes a signal now.”

Half an hour later the signals came in a series. Perhaps Goddard had been stirred into action as the sun sank below the western horizon—though it had been hidden before this by the ever-lowering cloud streaming in from the north, each layer a darker and more menacing grey.

Jackson called out the signals as they were made on board the
Lion
while Stafford and Rossi bent the flags on to the halyards and hoisted them, both in acknowledgement and also repeating them.

“Convoy flag and frigates' flag:
Strike yards and topmasts … Observe the Admiral's motions carefully during the night as he will probably alter course or tack without signal….
Frigates' flag:
Shorten sail and carry as little as possible without breaking the order of the fleet…. Every ship to carry a light and repeat the signals made by the Admiral during the ensuing night …
”

Ramage picked up the speaking-trumpet and, as Jackson called out the first signal, bellowed the order that sent the topmen running up the ratlines, not pausing until they were in the tops, where they scrambled into position to begin clearing away and lowering gear.

Ramage glanced at his watch, noted the time, and swore to himself he wouldn't look at it again until he heard Southwick give the order “Sway away.”