Ramage's Mutiny (32 page)

Now it was the turn of the topgallants, the highest of the squaresails that the
Jocasta
was carrying.

“Man the topgallant clewlines … Hands stand by topgallant sheets and halyards … Haul taut!”

Ramage watched the men aloft struggling with the sails and was thankful the wind had eased. He glanced back to the south. Nothing had changed; the peaks seemed to be making their own light, like phosphorescence, but the wind continued to fall away. He put the speaking-trumpet to his lips again.

“Let go the topgallant bowlines. Look alive, there! … In top-gallants!”

So much for them. Now for the fore and main courses, the largest and lowest of the sails.

“Lower yard men furl the courses … Trice up … lay out …” So the stream of orders continued until the two great sails were, like the topgallants, neatly furled on the yards, and only the top-sails were still set, each nearly 2000 square feet of flax, alternately bellying in a puff of wind and then hanging limp.

Ramage glanced yet again at the mountains. Aitken had hurried up to the quarterdeck, Southwick was standing at the rail, and both men were watching him. There was no expression on their faces: the Captain was giving the orders, and they and the ship's company were obeying them. Obviously they wondered why the Captain should be taking in sail in a falling wind, and Ramage realized that Southwick saw nothing strange, let alone ominous, in the light over the mountains.

Double-reef the topsails? The
Jocasta
's speed would drop to a couple of knots, the pace of a child dawdling to school. Ramage was obeying his instincts rather than the rules of seamanship, and he was liable to be ordering the topmen aloft within half an hour, setting the sails again. He looked at the mountains. Nothing had changed; nor had his instincts stopped nagging him to get the
Jocasta
jogging along under double-reefed topsails.

He raised the speaking-trumpet to his lips and soon reached the last of the orders: “Lower topsails … trice up and lay out … take in two reefs!” Now the topmen were working out on the yards, hauling at the stiff cloth of the sails and tying the reef points. “Lay in,” which sent the men scrambling along the yard to the mast, was followed by “Lower booms,” when the stunsail booms were dropped until they were lying along the yards; and then came “Down from aloft!”

Now there remained only the orders for the men on deck: “Man the topsail halyards … Haul taut … Tend the braces, step lively there! …” Finally, with a glance at the dog-vanes: “Trim the yards … Haul the bowlines!”

As Ramage reached out to put the speaking-trumpet back on its hook at the side of the binnacle box he saw Southwick point over the larboard side and Aitken's face suddenly freeze the moment he looked.

A long line of tumbling spray was racing over the water towards them: a great squall which must have come down the side of the mountain was now tearing up the sea. This side of the squall line the wind was little more than a breeze; beyond it there was a gale. Following it down the side of the mountains in a solid blanket were black clouds, writhing and twisting and tumbling towards the shore like lava from a volcano.

“Eight points to starboard, steer north!” Ramage snapped at the quartermaster, and snatched up the speaking-trumpet to give the orders that would brace up the yards and trim the sheets as the wind arrived. He wanted the squall to catch the
Jocasta
on the starboard quarter, giving her a chance to pick up way as the tremendous wind hit her. If it caught her on the beam it would simply lay her over; even if it did not rip her masts out she might not be able to convert the enormous pressures on her sails and masts into a forward motion, and they would capsize her, like a storm blowing down a fence.

As the men ran to the sheets and braces Ramage glanced towards La Guaira and was startled to see the whole coast hidden by the same kind of tumbling cloud pouring from the peaks, the sea already a boiling mass of water for a mile or more offshore, and the squall line moving out, slow but inexorable.

The yards were coming round, the two men at the wheel were hauling desperately at the spokes and the quartermaster was already shouting to another two seamen to bear a hand. Ramage hurried to the binnacle and peered in at the compass, conscious that the sunlight was fading rapidly, like the beginning of a solar eclipse.

Eight points should do it, and the ship's head was beginning to swing. Over on the larboard quarter what had been a line of spray was now a steep wall of blackness, a swirling mass of rain and cloud and spray reaching up sheer like the face of a cliff.

“Must be a
caldereta,
” Southwick muttered, his voice betraying awe at the sight.

“I hope the rigging is going to stand up to it,” Ramage said sourly. “There's a gale of wind there …”

It was still nearly a mile away, advancing slowly. Again Ramage thought of lava crawling down a mountainside, or a glacier, moving slowly but with enormous strength, crushing everything in its path.

The guns were still secured, the boats lashed down. The
Jocasta
was now steering up to the north, still on the starboard tack, with a veering wind and almost directly away from the coast. There was nothing more he could do except wait and hope the wind inside that rain would be steady in direction. If it veered too fast and caught the
Jocasta
aback, the masts would go by the board. Ramage had a sudden picture of Admiral Davis's face as he tried to explain what had happened … but to be able to explain, he thought inconsequentially, he had to be safely back in English Harbour …

Three-quarters of a mile now and the wind was veering slightly. A puff of warm wind, and then another, and the black wall seemed to be speeding up. Ramage reached for the speaking-trumpet. “All hands! All hands!” he shouted. “Hold on for your lives when this squall hits us.”

Aitken was watching him. “Nice range for a broadside,” Ramage said.

“I'd reach it with a musket,” the First Lieutenant said, and a few moments later added: “Or a pistol!”

Then it was on them; a series of ever-increasing blasts lashing them with rain and salt spray which streamed in almost horizontally, needle-sharp on the face and blinding for the eyes. The noise reached a crescendo, the wind invisible yet seeming solid, screaming into the rigging, battering at bodies, tearing at sodden clothes, whipping up ropes' ends like coachmen's whips.

Ramage, blinded even though he had held his hands over his eyes, felt the
Jocasta
slowly heeling: not the easy movement of a roll as a wave passed under the ship but a gradual inexorable tilting of the deck as the enormous force of the wind pressed against every square inch of hull, masts, yards, ropes and sails; as though she was being hove down for careening.

She was not paying off! Eight points had been too much; the ship was dead in the water and gradually going over. He managed to blink his eyes open for a moment and saw the men fighting, eyes shut, to hold the wheel, but the quartermaster had lost his footing and was struggling on his back in the lee scuppers like a stranded fish. And along the starboard side the seas, driven before this tremendous wind, were piling up like snow against a wall. Southwick was clutching the quarterdeck rail; Aitken, spreadeagled on the deck, was holding on to an eyebolt, and the whole ship was inside a cocoon of streaming rain and spray: he could barely see the end of the jib-boom. A moment before the stinging salt made him shut his eyes again he saw that the reefed maintopsail was in shreds but, by a miracle, the fore-topsail was holding, a bulging, swollen grey curve straining every stitch and seam.

He realized he was now gripping the cascabel of a six-pounder gun and hard put to keep on his feet, but as he sorted out what he had just seen in his mind he knew that the
Jocasta
was on the verge of capsizing: a few more pounds of pressure, a few more degrees of heel … Already the water was … Suddenly he felt the ship recovering from being a dead mass: she seemed to give a massive shrug and the hull began to move, life slowly coming back to her as she gathered way.

The wheel! Blinking away the salt in his eyes he scrambled to the wheel. Three men were holding on to the spokes, pulling down with all their weight, but the fourth man had fallen.

“Hold her!” Ramage bellowed, seizing a couple of spokes and hauling down. “Hold her, otherwise she'll broach!”

Now, with his back to the wind and rain and spray, it was easier to see, and the ship was slowly, agonizingly slowly, coming upright as she turned to bring the wind aft: all the enormous strength was now beginning to act on the foretopsail and the transom, trying to thrust her before it instead of pressing along the starboard side, trying to lay her over on her beam ends.

“Ease her!” Ramage gasped, able to do little more than guess the wind direction, and the four of them let the wheel turn slowly, a spoke at a time. “Another couple of spokes … and two more … two more … that's it: hold her there!”

He staggered to the binnacle, noting that the wind-vanes had disappeared, wiped the compass glass and saw the ship was steering north by west. A moment later the quartermaster was beside him, his face streaming with blood from a cut on the brow.

“Sorry, sir, I'm all right now!”

“North by west,” Ramage shouted, “hold her on that!”

He realized that the sound of gunfire was in fact the main-topsail: the torn cloths of the sail still secured to the yard were flogging violently and shaking the whole mast so that the decks trembled. But the double-reefed foretopsail was holding; it was holding and keeping the
Jocasta
running before the wind, pulling her like a terrified mare being dragged from a flooded stable.

Ramage looked round for Southwick and saw that somehow he had managed to get down to the main deck and was collecting a party of topmen to send aloft to secure the remnants of the maintopsail. But two seamen were crouched over Aitken and a moment later Ramage saw Bowen staggering across the quarterdeck towards the First Lieutenant. The Surgeon must have come up the companion-way the moment he could climb, knowing that there would be injured men needing his attention.

Southwick was dealing with the torn topsail, Bowen was attending to Aitken; what else needed doing? The quartermaster's face was a red smear as rain spread the blood. The man was white-faced and wiping his eyes with the back of his hands, but he was watching the compass and turning to give an occasional order to the men at the wheel.

Then Ramage noticed Jackson hurrying up the quarterdeck ladder and looking round anxiously. He saw Ramage and, reassured, was about to turn and go back to the main deck when Ramage waved to him and pointed to the quartermaster.

The American understood immediately and went over to tap the bloodstained man on the shoulder, but the man shook his head. Jackson pointed at Bowen and then at Ramage, and gave the man a shove away from the binnacle. With the wind still screaming it was almost impossible to talk, and Ramage went over to the binnacle to shout in Jackson's ear: “Hold her on this course unless the wind shifts!”

Jackson nodded and bellowed back: “You all right, sir?” Ramage nodded in turn and pointed to Aitken and the quartermaster, who was now kneeling beside Bowen, more anxious to help him attend the First Lieutenant than be treated himself. “How are things on the main deck?”

“No one hurt,” Jackson shouted. “All the gun tackles held. A few pikes came out of the racks, otherwise everything's all right. We were holding on tight!”

With Jackson acting as quartermaster and the fourth man back at the wheel, Ramage struggled to collect his thoughts. The foretopsail was holding, the heavy rain was easing slightly, and with the ship running off before the wind there was not so much spray—or, rather, it was coming from astern so he could look ahead without feeling that salt-tipped needles were puncturing his eyeballs. The
Jocasta
had nearly capsized—his fault entirely: he had come round eight points, and it should have been only half that, but the ship had saved herself (or, perhaps, the thanks were due to Sir Thomas Slade, the man who designed her). As far as he knew the only real damage was a blown-out maintop-sail.

Was she leaking? Had these driving seas sprung a plank? More than one plank, in fact? Ramage looked round and saw that Paolo was now standing by the capstan, rubbing his head as though he had just recovered consciousness. As the boy turned Ramage beckoned to him.

“Are you all right?” he shouted.

“Yes, sir, I bumped my head.”

“Very well: go down and find the carpenter. Have him sound the well and report to me.”

Paolo pointed to the quarterdeck ladder: the carpenter was struggling up it, having to pull himself up against the pressure of the wind. He made his way to Ramage and saluted. “I sounded the well, sir,” he bawled. “A couple of feet of water, that's all. From spray down the hatches.”

“Sound every ten minutes and report to me. I'll let you have men for the pump as soon as I can. Anyone injured below?”

The carpenter shook his head and gave a wry grin. “Rare old mess down there, sir; lots of things weren't secured!” With that he made his way to the ladder, cautiously working his way forward from gun to gun, the wind pushing him invisibly and the pitching of the ship trying to fling him.

A movement in the rigging caught Ramage's eye and he saw that men were fighting their way up the ratlines, obviously sent aloft by Southwick. They were lying flat against the rigging as they climbed, fighting the wind which was trying to wrench them off, and reminding Ramage of lizards.

Was the shrill scream of the wind gradually easing? It was hard to tell; at the moment it seemed to have been blowing for hours instead of minutes. He was thankful he had memorized the chart for this part of the coast; there was nothing ahead but Los Roques, the group of cays and reefs making a long, low barrier running from east to west, and they were still sixty miles or so to the north, another seven or eight hours' sailing.