What on earth was that on top of the Tower? Pieces of bunting? No, three signal flags! They were lashed to a pole which someone was waving violently, though careful to keep his head below the parapet.
‘Jackson! The signal book, quickly.’
But his days as a midshipman were close enough behind for Ramage to read the flags and remember their meaning. Blue, white and blue vertical stripes; plain red; and a French Tricolor. The first two were signal number thirty-one, which meant ‘
Ships seen are
–’. The Tricolor indicated the ships were French.
A puzzled Ramage glanced round the horizon, but there was not a vessel in sight, except for the stranded
Belette
. The signal could mean ‘ship’ or ‘ships’ – ah, yes! They were warning him that French soldiers were on board the frigate.
‘Jackson, acknowledge that signal.’
The American hurried to the flag locker.
‘Master’s Mate!’ Ramage snapped, ‘help with the signals. Mr Southwick! Take over the conn for the time being.’
Blast the signal book: in trying to explain his intentions to the
Belette
’s captain in the Tower, Ramage was limited to a couple of hundred words or routine phrases listed in the book with the corresponding flag numbers: signals such as ‘Furl sails’, ‘The Fleet to moor’, ‘Caulkers with their implements to repair to the ship denoted’.
Let’s hope the
Belette
’s captain has some imagination, Ramage thought to himself and glanced through the signal book to refresh his memory.
‘Jackson, a yellow flag from the ensign staff – yes, yes, I know: ship the blasted thing, I only want it up for a couple of minutes!’
He’d anticipated Jackson’s protest that it was dangerous to ship the ensign staff while under way because the boom might smash it: that was why at sea the
Kathleen
’s ensign flew from the peak of the gaff.
It took a moment to get the yellow flag streaming out astern over the taffrail, and he was relieved to see the signal acknowledged from the Tower. As he glanced round to tell Jackson to lower the flag and stow the staff he saw the puzzled look on the faces of the Master and various other men who’d seen it hoisted. Hardly surprising, Ramage thought, because they knew that normally it indicated someone was about to be flogged or hanged. The clue was in the precise wording of its official meaning in the signal book – ‘Punishment going to be inflicted’. Its significance ought to be obvious to the men in the Tower.
‘Beat to quarters, Mr Southwick. The French are in possession of the frigate,’ he added.
The Master had hardly bellowed the first part of the order before the rat-a-tat-tat of a drum sounded out from forward. The Carpenter’s Mate and his crew bolted below to collect their tools and prepare shot plugs; the Gunner’s Mate followed him to unlock the magazine and issue locks and cartridges for the carronades; the Bosun’s Mate had seamen half filling shallow tubs with water and placing them near the carronades, ready for the slow matches – in effect slow-burning fuses – to be stuck in notches round the brim, the lighted end hanging over the water, for use in case the flintlocks misfired. Other seamen scattered wet sand along the deck and down the companionways, so the men’s feet should not slip and, more important, the friction of shoes or the recoil of the guns would not ignite any stray grains of gunpowder.
Men who had followed the Gunner’s Mate down the ladder to the magazine and powder room soon came running up on deck again carrying a hollow wooden cylinder in each hand. Safely stowed in the cylinders were flannel bags filled with gunpowder – the cartridges ready for loading the first broadside.
‘I’ll have the guns loaded but not run out, Mr Southwick. Make sure the tompions are replaced, and the locks covered.’
Ramage glanced at the signal book again. Trying to convey his intentions to the men in the Tower was like playing some elaborate game of charades.
‘Jackson, get this signal bent on, but don’t hoist it until I give the word: one-three-two. As soon as it’s acknowledged I’ll want one-one-seven ready for hoisting. Have you got them?’
He repeated the number and saw Appleby, the young Master’s Mate, scribbling them on the slate used to note the ship’s courses and speeds.
‘Appleby,’ he called, ‘go round and tell each gun captain on the starboard side that we’ll soon be opening fire on the
Belette
: we’ll pass her close but I’ll try to wear round slowly. Each gun is to fire individually as it bears. I want to rake her, so aim only at the transom.’
What else was there to remember? On the face of it, raking a stranded frigate manned by French soldiers to drive them off was simple enough: it should take up one line in his written report. Going alongside the frigate afterwards and getting the Belettes on board – another two lines. In fact the whole operation, from leaving Bastia and returning with the men on board, should take up eight lines at the most.
Yet, if he failed in any particular – touched a rock and holed the cutter, had an unlucky shot from the French, sent his mast by the board or damaged the ship getting her alongside – he’d face yet another trial. The Navy was a harsh judge. In time of war, with hundreds of warships always at sea, an operation like this had to be routine for a captain. Success didn’t enter into it: he either carried out the task or not. If not, then he had to face the consequences, and it was the same in battle: judgement was based first on the knowledge that luck and determination were almost as important as the weight of a broadside, and secondly the tradition that one Briton was equal to three Frenchmen or Spaniards.
But if he overshot and let the
Kathleen
range alongside, and the French soldiers knew how to handle the
Belette
’s guns properly, then he’d be lucky if they didn’t sink the cutter – yet no one would normally expect a small cutter armed with ten small carronades to attack a frigate carrying twenty-six 12-pounders and six 6-pounders: it would be suicide and a cutter’s captain who bolted for safety would be justified and probably complimented. But if the same frigate was stranded…that was a different story: she was a wreck, and wrecks were regarded as helpless.
Yet the
Belette
was far from helpless: Ramage knew the French would fire the whole of the frigate’s larboard broadside into the
Kathleen
if he took her into the frigate’s arc of fire: thirteen solid shot, each more than four and a half inches in diameter and weighing twelve pounds, and three more each of six pounds. For they could use grapeshot, with the 12-pounders firing more than 150 grape – iron balls weighing a pound each – and the six-pounders eighteen more at half a pound each.
‘You are still on trial…’
Probus’ phrase came back to him: to have the cutter sunk by a wreck: that would just about finish me, Ramage thought: he’d be the laughing stock of the Service: he could hear the gossip – ‘Have you heard? Old Blaze-away’s son was sunk by a wreck!’
Through the telescope he thought he could see faces peering cautiously from one or two of the
Belette
’s gun ports. The French would be gambling he didn’t know they were on board: they’d laid a neat trap and were just waiting for him to get within range. But they didn’t know he’d already been warned. Moreover, he knew just how far aft the
Belette
’s broadside guns could be trained, so that until the cutter reached a certain bearing on the frigate’s quarter, she would be safe from their fire: it was as if the arc of fire of the guns was a huge fan poking out sideways from the centre of the ship. But if the
Kathleen
passed into the fan, then it needed only three guns to be fired accurately to smash the little cutter into driftwood.
Ramage tried to do a quick calculation in his head: if the
Belette
’s guns were trained as far aft as possible and he took the
Kathleen
in at about seven knots and passed a hundred yards off her quarter at, say, forty-five degrees to the frigate centre-line and then wore round…
He cursed his unreliable mathematics and then stopped calculating: if he overshot and could not bear away in time he’d be fired at anyway. Yet he had to get in close – and thus risk overshooting – if the pelting from the grapeshot of his carronades was to do any harm: at much over a hundred yards the little iron eggs would scatter too much: he had to be close enough to ensure they were still grouped together as they blasted their way in through the
Belette
’s transom and, he hoped, cut down the French soldiers in swathes.
Ramage felt his previous elation disappearing: the task ahead was far more difficult than anyone had appreciated. If a cutter was caught by a frigate at sea she could use her greater manoeuvrability to avoid the frigate’s massive broadside, and there was a slight chance a lucky shot from the cutter’s guns would damage the frigate’s rigging and allow her to escape. But the
Kathleen
had no such chance: the wrecked
Belette
was in effect a fortress, and the French gunners, admittedly firing at a moving target, had another great advantage – their guns were on a steady platform, while the cutter was rolling.
Ramage looked over the
Kathleen
’s larboard quarter: from his present position the
Belette
was foreshortened: he could see her stern and part of her quarter: it was time to tack, to sail in towards the headland on a course very similar to the one that the
Belette
had taken when she ran aground.
‘Mr Southwick: we’ll tack now, if you please.’
The Master roared a string of orders and seamen ran to the jib, foresail and mainsheets, while others overhauled the lee runners, ready to set them up.
Southwick glanced forward along the deck and then aloft to check everything was clear.
‘Ready ho!’
He turned to the men at the tiller. ‘Put the helm down!’
The cutter’s bow began swinging to larboard, towards the shore. She came into the wind’s eye and both jib and foresail started to flog as the wind blew down both sides; then the big main boom swung across overhead.
‘Helm’s a lee!… Let go and overhaul lee runners… Aft those sheets!’
Seamen who had let go the starboard sheets for both jib and foresail moved unhurriedly – or so it seemed: in fact they were fast but, being well trained, used the minimum of effort – to the larboard sheets and began hauling them in, bellying both the headsails as the wind once again blew life and shape into the canvas.
‘Look alive, there,’ called Southwick. ‘Meet her,’ he snapped at the two men at the helm. They eased the tiller a fraction to let the ship pay off and gather speed, so that her bow would not be pushed too far round by the punch of the waves.
Ramage said, ‘Thank you, Mr Southwick, I want her hard on the wind.’
‘Tally aft jib and foresail sheets,’ bellowed Southwick. ‘Aft the mainsheet! Quartermaster – starboard a point!’
Ramage watched the
Kathleen
’s sharp bow come up into the wind. The alteration was only a few degrees but she responded instantly. From the time they left Bastia until she tacked the cutter had been on a reach, with wind and sea abeam, and she had hardly pitched at all: the waves coming in from the larboard side slid under the ship and thrust at her deep keel, but the wind in her sails balanced the thrust so the cutter slipped along well heeled and with easy grace.
But now, beating to windward, she was meeting the seas at a sharp angle; her bow rose up and crashed down diagonally on to each advancing line of waves, shouldering the solid crests and smashing them into showers of sparkling spray which flung up over the weather bow and soaked everyone forward of the mast.
Ramage balanced himself on the balls of his feet without even realizing he was doing it, and the muscles of his legs alternately slackened and tautened to keep him standing upright.
He looked at the
Belette
: she was fine on the starboard bow, and the
Kathleen
’s course now converged slightly with the coast. Without realizing he was doing it, Ramage worked out the ship’s leeway, saw she would pass too far off, and ordered, ‘Quartermaster, come on the wind until the leech begins to shake… Right, steady as you go.’
‘South by west a half west, sir,’ the man said automatically.
‘Right, Mr Southwick – a swig aft with the sheets, if you please.’
And that, Ramage thought, is just about right: the
Kathleen
should shoot up to the
Belette
as if she was going to poke her bowsprit into the windows of the captain’s cabin. It was going to require perfect timing for him to bear away at the last moment, yet if he was going to give his gunners a chance, he could not bear away too quickly.
Fortunately any big warship’s most vulnerable part was her stern: the great transom was flimsily built compared with the sides. If the
Kathleen
’s grapeshot could smash in through the transom they’d sweep the whole of the after part of the ship. The effect on the French soldiers would be terrifying: the fact they weren’t used to the half-darkness and low headroom of a frigate’s gun-deck put them at a disadvantage; if they heard the transom being smashed down and then saw their target spin on her heel and sail out to sea again without ever getting anywhere near the arc of fire of their cannon, it would make them nervous. And the steps from nervousness to fear, and fear to panic, were very small…