‘Right men, up you come. Give me a shove, blast you!’
The man heaved up so hard Ramage pitched right over the rail and, before he could get his balance, fell flat on his back on the fo’c’sle, the hilt of Southwick’s sword knocking all the breath out of him. More of the Kathleens came up over the rail and Jackson was kneeling beside him.
‘You hit, sir?’
‘No, I tripped. Come on!’
In a moment Ramage was on his feet leading the men in a wild dash across the fo’c’sle, scrambling over the thick folds of the foresail, pieces of masts and yards and tangled cordage. Right aft he could see British seamen’s cutlasses glinting as they scrambled from the Captain’s spritsail yard on to the San Nicolas’ mizzen rigging. Spanish soldiers were shooting up at them and sailors stood ready with boarding pikes. Then a rattle of musket fire from the Captain cut down several of the Spaniards.
Meanwhile the bow of the San Josef was swinging and she’d soon be lying right alongside the San Nicolas.
Suddenly he realized he was empty-handed: Southwick’s sword was bumping the back of his legs – he hadn’t hauled the belt round. As he ran he dragged at it, grabbed the hilt and by drawing it over his head managed to get it clear. He tugged a pistol from his belt and cocked it with his left thumb. Three Spaniards suddenly appeared from behind a gun they’d obviously been skulking there out of the way – and ran aft yelling to raise the alarm. Jackson flung his half-pike like a spear and the farthest fell, a rag doll tossed on the floor, making the two others turn.
One with a pistol in his hand was by then a couple of yards from Ramage and aimed straight at his face. Forgetting his pistol, Ramage desperately swung Southwick’s sword but saw the man’s index finger whiten as he squeezed the trigger.
The sword cut into the man’s shoulder as Ramage waited for the flash from the pistol’s muzzle which should have killed him. Then he saw the Spaniard had forgotten to cock the pistol. Clutching his wounded shoulder, he spun round and as he fell the third man, cut down by Stafford, collapsed beside him. Stafford paused to pick up the pistol and followed Ramage.
Now he was abreast the mainmast. Drifting smoke hid much of the ship and several Spaniards were still standing to their guns and staring at the Captain, oblivious of the Kathleens running past.
Then Ramage was abreast the boats stowed amidships and running along the narrow gangway, dodging round more Spanish seamen who were still watching the bulk of the Captain, which was too far aft for them to train round their guns. He saw a British officer – Edward Berry, just promoted and serving as a volunteer in the Captain – dropping down from the mizzen rigging on to the quarterdeck, a couple of dozen men following him. At the same instant a surge of Spaniards from the larboard side suddenly swept across the quarterdeck almost overwhelming Berry and his boarders.
The sharp clinking of sword against sword, the popping of pistols and muskets, more smoke, wild shouts – Ramage’s own! A Spanish face in his way. The great sword swung and the face disappeared, but before Ramage could recover from the swing another man lunged with a cutlass. Ramage fired his pistol almost without aiming and the man screamed and fell to one side. As a third lunged with a pike Ramage tried to ward him off with the sword and an instant later Stafford’s cutlass slashed into the man’s side
Ramage ran half-blinded with excitement but seeing more men jumping on board from the Captain. At last the quarterdeck ladder – and a Spanish officer, backing down it with a British seaman above lunging at him, turned to jump and fell to Jackson’s cutlass.
‘Kathleens here!’ Ramage bellowed up to the quarterdeck, ‘We’re the Kathleens!’
‘’Bout bloody time!’ bawled the seaman and started back up the ladder to rejoin the fighting.
But pistols were firing in the captain’s cabin and instead of going up the ladder Ramage ran under the half-deck to find a dozen or more Spaniards shooting aft into the cabin through the closed door. Jackson, Stafford and several others had followed him and as Ramage roared ‘Kathleens! Come on the Kathleens!’ the Spaniards turned, throwing away their pistols and swinging cutlasses and swords. There was no conscious thought, only instinct: parry a stabbing blade here, slice at a screaming Spaniard there, jump back to avoid a lunging cutlass point, sidestep and reach over to parry a wrist-jarring slash which would have split open Jackson’s skull. A man in magnificent uniform and garlic-laden breath leapt forward with his sword but before Ramage could parry a blade flashed, the sword dropped from the man’s hand and he fell. Glancing round, Ramage just had time to see Jackson grin and realize the Kathleens were standing amid a pile of bodies when the cabin door, riddled with pistol shot, suddenly burst open and a wild-eyed, smoke-begrimed seaman leapt through, cutlass in his hand, pausing a moment before attacking them.
‘We’re English!’ yelled Stafford. ‘Watch ’art, yer crazy loon!’
The strident Cockney voice stopped the man as effectively as a bullet, but he was flung aside by more men so Stafford repeated his yells. Then the Commodore was standing there, hatless, sword in one hand and pistol in another. He stared at Ramage for a moment, said with a grin of recognition, ‘Ah! At least you obey my orders!’ and ran past to get to the quarterdeck ladder.
Ramage followed but realized the fighting up there had stopped. Berry and his men were already herding the Spaniards over to the starboard side where they could be covered by muskets from the Captain’s decks.
Commodore Nelson spoke a few words to Berry, pointing to the San Josef now lying alongside the San Nicolas, and Berry shouted for his men.
‘Mr Ramage!’ called Nelson, ‘I think we’ll have that fellow as well!’ and began running to the San Josef.
Without waiting for more orders, Berry’s men and the Kathleens made a mad rush across the quarterdeck, the lithe little Commodore among the leaders, The San Josef’s bulwarks were considerably higher than the San Nicolas’ and both Ramage and Nelson leapt into the main chains together. Nelson slipped, Ramage grabbed his arm until he regained his footing, and just as they began climbing a Spanish officer appeared above them on the quarterdeck, calling down that the ship had surrendered. Nelson gave a yell of delight and Ramage felt relief. Then there was a sudden flash at the gun port below and Ramage felt himself swirling slowly down, down, down, into a deep black well of silence.
The drum was beating in rhythm with his heart, the drum would never stop beating, forever sending the ship’s company to quarters and to death. Heart of oak, are our men… Tat-tat-tat, tat, tat-tat… Ramage tried to scream at the drummer to stop but no words came. The beat was regular and loud: it throbbed in his ears, in his temples, in his chest, and as he twisted his head to get away from it he felt himself spiralling upwards, weightless, dizzy and frightened. He opened his eyes and saw Southwick’s blurred face creased with anxiety. Slowly it began to revolve like a top and Ramage shut his eyes again.
‘Mr Ramage!’
‘Wha’s it, Southwi’?’
‘How do you feel, sir?’
‘Wha’ happen’?’
‘You were shot at through a gun port after the San Josef had surrendered.’
Throb, throb, bang, bang; the band round his brow was tight and Southwick’s face began to spin again. Ramage clutched his head and felt cloth: strips of cloth wound round like an Indian’s turban.
Southwick seemed to be whispering from a long way off. Ramage opened his eyes again to find Southwick’s face close, beads of perspiration welling up through the bristles. Southwick unshaven? It was all very puzzling: he wasn’t in his cabin in the Kathleen. Ramage started to sit up but Southwick’s face spun again.
‘Easy sir, easy, you’re on board the Irresistible. The Commodore’s hoisted his broad pendant in her.’
‘But why aren’t I–’
‘You remember, sir,’ Southwick said soothingly, ‘you remember we boarded the San Nicolas and then the Captain–’
‘Yes, I remember.’
It came back slowly at first, not facts but pictures: the Kathleen steering for that great cliff face that was the San Nicolas; the impact and the cutter dragging athwart the Spaniard’s stem; then that mad dash along the San Nicolas’ decks then the Commodore and climbing the San Josef’s main chains and a Spanish officer shouting down they had surrendered. Abruptly the pictures stopped.
‘What happened next?’
‘Next to what, sir?’ Southwick was puzzled.
‘After that damn’ Spaniard said they’d surrendered?’
‘You were shot at through a gun port. They didn’t know below that the ship had hauled down her colours. If you’ll excuse me a moment, sir.’
With that he bellowed to the sentry at the door. Ramage winced, the pain blotting out Southwick’s words.
‘You fell, sir,’ Southwick continued.
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘No, I mean you fell into the sea between the two ships.’
‘Why didn’t I drown, or get crushed?’
‘Those two again. Jackson and Stafford. They went down after you.’
‘They’re mad. No wonder I feel sick. I must have swallowed half the bay of Cadiz.’
‘You did, sir. I flung them a rope but it took time to get a turn under your armpits. When they got you on deck we thought at first you’d gone. I’ve never seen anyone look so dead.’
‘You’d better send for those two.’
‘Well, if you’d wait a moment, sir.’
Ramage felt too weak to argue.
A knock at the door but the person did not wait for an answer. Ramage tried to turn to see who it was but again his head spun.
‘Well, Mr Ramage,’ said the familiar sharp, nasal voice, and the Commodore was standing at the foot of the cot. ‘Well, Mr Ramage, you have a thick head – fortunately!’
‘At the moment it feels a bit thin in places, sir.’
‘It is, too! Now you’ll have two scars on your starboard beakhead, a bullet wound to add to the sword cut. And a good thing, too, the ladies love it. Take my word for it, if you’re going to get wounded, a handsome scar they can admire is worth more than the handsomest face in the room! My own little souvenir of the battle, for instance, won’t count for much. I have a most unromantically bruised stomach!’
Ramage laughed and felt he had been hit on the head again.
‘But seriously, Ramage, only a criminal idiot would have tried to do what you did with the Kathleen. Fortunately for me, the wicked sometimes prosper. You succeeded and I’ve achieve a little notoriety for having captured two of the Fleet’s four prizes.’
‘I’m glad, sir.’
‘I know you are,’ Nelson said warmly. ‘But I said notoriety, not credit. I’ve not yet seen the Commander-in-Chief, and since I acted with as much authority as you did, both of us might be in a scrape. But whatever happens, Mr Ramage, if it ever lies in my power to render you a service…’
Ramage was struggling to find a suitable reply when Nelson added, ‘And I’m glad to tell you that you’ll be sent home in the Lively frigate with Sir Gilbert Elliot.’
‘No!’ exclaimed Ramage. ‘I mean, if you please, sir, I’d prefer to stay with the Fleet!’
‘But why?’
‘I – well sir, I’d like to see my ship’s company are all right.’
‘Mr Ramage,’ Nelson said gently and with a smile, ‘you have no ship, and therefore no ship’s company. And the Service is well able to take care of the survivors.’
Ramage felt too weak to explain, and knowing the Commander was right he shut his eyes with weariness and pain.
‘I’ll call on you again,’ the Commodore said sympathetically, and left the cabin.
‘What was the butcher’s bill?’ Ramage asked Southwick several minutes later.
‘Incredibly light, sir. Twelve dead. Edwards, the gunner’s mate, wasn’t seen from just before we hit the San Nicolas – I think a shot from her bow-chaser may have got him – and eleven seamen. Six of those never got on board the San Nicolas and five were killed in the fighting. One of those was Jensen, who was with you at Cartagena, hit by one of the San Josef’s sharpshooters. Only four wounded – yourself, Fuller and two ordinary seamen.’
‘We were lucky,’ Ramage said soberly. ‘God knows, we were lucky.’
‘You were careful, sir,’ said Southwick.
‘Careful?’
‘I’ve been – well, sir, I know it’s a bit unusual, but the ship’s company asked me to tell you – as discreetly as possible you realize, sir – they appreciate the care you took to lessen the loss of life.’
‘If only you–’ he exclaimed, then said, ‘no, thank them, Southwick. But from the moment we tacked towards the San Nicolas I never expected any of us to survive.’
He took a deep breath. ‘That’s the care I took,’ he added bitterly; ‘Instead of more than sixty dead, I killed only a dozen.’
‘No, sir, don’t take on like that. You aren’t fair to yourself. We’ve got to fight; some of us’ll get killed. The men know that. They thought all along after we tacked that they’d be killed. They knew you thought they didn’t guess: but they did realize, and they kept cheerful for your sake, sir. And they’re right to thank you.’
‘I suppose so,’ Ramage said. ‘But I’m too befuddled–’
The door opened and the chubby and bespectacled surgeon came in. ‘Goodness gracious, Mr Southwick – I must ask you to leave. Our patient looks worn out. Really, really, really! All my work undone by fifteen minutes of chatter, chatter, chatter!’
Southwick looked alarmed and stood up to leave. Ramage winked as the Master turned to the door.
Next day while Ramage fretted in his cot, irritated by the constant attention of the surgeon (who was quick to spot the Commodore’s particular interest in his patient), Sir John Jervis’ ships were becalmed with the Spanish Fleet still in sight – ‘In great disorder,’ Southwick reported gleefully.
The day after that the British Fleet spent several hours trying to weather Cape St Vincent against head winds, and finally Sir John decided to bear away for Lagos Bay, just to the eastward of Cape St Vincent, and in the evening the Fleet and its prizes anchored.
Ramage, allowed to sit in a chair, had just started writing once again to his father – hard put to read what he’d written in the first letter, which had been soaked in seawater – when Southwick came into the cabin.