Ramage's Signal (19 page)

Topmen went aloft and out along the yard; slowly the sail was hoisted up as Aitken shouted his orders through the speaking-trumpet. Once the head of the sail reached the yard, like a great sheet being pegged out on a washing line, the topmen secured it, hauling the canvas taut. With that done, Aitken gave the orders to furl the sail, which was then hauled up to the yard, gathered like an enormous sausage, and secured with gaskets.

“The yard seems to sit well enough,” Southwick commented to Ramage. “As straight as before. Not so much spring in her, but she's bound to be stiffer where she's bolted and fished.”

“The yard is stronger than before, anyway,” Ramage said dryly. “She won't break there again!”

“You won't be setting stunsails for a while, sir?”

“No—why?”

“Lewis mentioned to me that—well, in the rush to get the yard repaired he hadn't noticed that the larboard stunsail boom is in two pieces, and he has to make a new one. Matter of an hour or so.”

“If that's all he's forgotten, he did a good job,” Ramage said. “Send for him and his mates: they deserve some praise—and some sleep, too.”

As soon as the men were lined up on the quarterdeck, Lewis standing a pace in front of them, Ramage thanked them briefly. More than a dozen words of praise had them shuffling with embarrassment, and Ramage could see that three or four of them were almost asleep on their feet, having been working on the yard for nearly twelve hours.

Once the carpenter had led his mates below, Ramage explained to Southwick his plan for the
Passe Partout
and the Master chuckled. “Ah, I wish I was a youngster again; they get all the fun.”

“You've had your share,” Ramage said unsympathetically, “and there'll be more to come before you go over the standing part of the foresheet.”

“Aye, I hope so,” Southwick said.

“There'd better be,” Ramage said, “otherwise I'll go back to Cornwall and breed horses.”

Knowing how much Ramage disliked horses and riding, Southwick gave a broad grin, and nodded when Ramage said: “Send Martin, Orsini, Jackson, Stafford and Rossi down to my cabin, and look up the
Passe Partout
's number in our version of the convoy orders. Eight, I think it was. Then,”—he took out the French signal book and looked up a signal—”be ready to hoist
‘Pass within hail.'
”

The
Passe Partout
's big triangular lateen sail bulging from the curving yard hoisted on her single mast reminded Ramage of a shark's fin slicing through the water as she came up astern of the
Calypso.

Most of the ships in the convoy had made some attempt to get into formation, or rather they bunched up closer to the
Sarazine,
which in turn was obviously trying to stay in the
Calypso
's wake. Most were three miles or more astern now that the frigate, unknown to the convoy, was deliberately outpacing it.

Aitken admired the way that the Captain had first hoisted the signal for the convoy to take up closer formation, one he knew they were incapable of obeying with any sort of efficiency, and given them a couple of hours to do their best. As the Captain had predicted, they had simply closed up on the
Sarazine
like chicks following the mother hen.

Aitken then had noticed that the Captain's telescope was more often pointing out to the sides than directly astern and he later commented that he was more concerned that the convoy formation became narrower than wider; that the ships bulged out astern rather than strung out across the width of the horizon.

Then, simultaneously with hoisting the
Passe Partout
's number and the signal for her to pass within hail, Mr Ramage had almost imperceptibly edged the
Calypso
over to one edge of the convoy: all the merchant ships were now over on the
Calypso
's larboard quarter. And, he guessed, the
Passe Partout
was going to be ordered up on the starboard side, out of sight of the rest of them …

The tartane, her hull blue and mast white, was now a mile astern, gliding up and over the slight swell waves like a gull, her foresail flapping idly as the big lateen sail took all the wind in a great bellying curve swelled out by the following breeze. There were two men in the waist of the ship, almost hidden by the bow because of the tartane's deep sheer, and Aitken could see two more men at the tiller. In this wind it could be handled by one, so the other was probably the master just standing there giving orders.

There were three lumps down each side on top of the bulwarks looking rather like horses' heads, and which Aitken recognized as swivel guns, covered in protective canvas covers that distorted their shape.

“How many men can you distinguish?” Ramage asked. “Only four, sir. Perhaps more will come up when she gets closer.”

Ramage looked across at Martin. “It's going to be quite a jump down. Are you sure you won't break your necks?”

“Quite sure, sir.”

Ramage looked at Paolo, who had changed his usual weapons of a cutlass with his midshipman's dirk to use as a
main gauche,
to two pistols clipped in his belt and the dirk, which was shorter than the cutlass.

Jackson favoured a half-pike and two pistols. Four feet and a half long including its sharp iron head, the half-pike was a good jabbing weapon with an ash staff stout enough to ward off a slashing cutlass. Both Stafford and Rossi remained loyal to pistols and to cutlasses, with the belts pulled round so that the blades hung down their backs, out of the way and less likely to trip them up.

The remaining two seamen were made by a wilful Nature as the exact opposite of each other, although they were close friends. Baxter and Johnson came from the same village in Lincolnshire, attended the same tiny school together for two years before going to work with their fathers as labourers on adjoining farms—and were picked up by the same press-gang sent out on a swing through the countryside from Lincoln.

Baxter, at six feet two inches, was the tallest man in the
Calypso
and had wide shoulders and a chest that looked as though they could break a capstan bar by leaning on it. He also had one of the quietest voices and gentlest natures of anyone aboard. He had only one weakness, drink. When, as Johnson would say fearfully, “the drink was in him,” Baxter became an enraged ox who could interpret a shipmate's accidental glance as a mortal insult.

By contrast, Johnson was so small that the top of his head barely reached Baxter's shoulder. His voice was shrill and when provoked—which was rarely—he sounded like a nagging shrew, but his was the only voice that Baxter really listened to, apart from petty officers and officers giving orders.

Both men were superb pistol shots. No one knew how it happened because, as Johnson once admitted, the only guns they used as boys were shotguns, and then only for poaching. As if to partner the ability with pistols, both men were excellent with cutlasses. Baxter could use his height and strength to chop his way through a crowd: Johnson was as nimble as a Morris dancer and could swerve, duck and parry to the utter confusion of enemy seamen trained to use a cutlass as a slashing weapon with the same finesse as the ship's cook using a cleaver to cut twenty-pound blocks of salt beef.

Ramage spoke once more to Martin: “The canvas bag—ah, I see you have it. You've checked it holds all you need?”

“Aye aye, sir. Chart, tables, signal books—French and English—and a list of the convoy. Orsini has my sextant, and Jackson the set of French flags we've just sewn up.”

Ramage glanced astern and was startled to see how fast the
Passe Partout
was approaching. Martin and his men looked a fine party of French seamen: white trousers (grubby) and blue shirts (torn) were not the French naval uniform because at this time there was not one for seamen, but it was just the rig that a smart captain would insist his men wore, because sewing their own clothes (or paying a shipmate to do it) made it as easy to use white and blue cloth as any other.

“Deck there—foremast here!”

Damn! The last thing Ramage wanted with that tartane so close was a lot of bellowing in English, and Aitken snatched up the speaking-trumpet, which would at least funnel his voice upwards.

“Deck here!”

“There's another ship coming up well astern of the convoy, sir. Enemy, I reckon, because they're all keeping away from her!”

“Very well, I'll send a man up with a glass.”

Southwick lumbered over to Ramage, sniffing as he walked, like a disgruntled bloodhound. “Can only be one of two things, sir,” he said.

Ramage nodded. “I know.”

“Either,” Southwick said, drawing out the word and carrying on as if he had not heard his Captain's reply, “Algerine pirates up from the coast, or a British privateer.”

“Yes. Which are you putting your money on?”

“Algerine. We can sink an Algerine and all the Frogs will cheer us, but a British privateer …”

“Yes,” Ramage answered shortly, his mind working fast. Fifteen French merchant ships would be waiting—were at this moment waiting for him to beat back to them and drive off or sink whatever it was, Algerine or British. He looked aloft impatiently and saw that the man sent up with the telescope was just settling himself and opening the lens tubes.

But the
Passe Partout
was now very close—and, damn and blast it, was obviously intending to come close alongside to lar-board in plain view of the convoy.

“Deck there—French ship's—”

“Shut up!” Aitken's brief shout was deliberately slurred. Ramage swung his glass across the convoy and saw that several of the ships were now hoisting flag signals with a speed that contrasted with their earlier leisurely response to his. As he watched he saw a string run up on the
Sarazine,
to be followed by a flash, a spurt of smoke and a muffled bang as she fired a gun to draw attention to it.

Aitken looked with his glass and then opened the French signal book. “On the first hoist is
‘Enemy vessel,'
the second signifies
‘bearing'
and the third is
‘north-west.'
”

“Ignore them. I didn't know you spoke French,” Ramage said. “A little. I read it better.”

“The book gives only ‘Enemy,' doesn't it? Not more explicit—ah, here comes the man with the glass. What did you see, Kelso?”

The man was almost breathless from his climb up and down the mast, and he gave the glass back to Aitken, handling it carefully as though it would explode.

Do not rush him, Ramage told himself, just be calm and nonchalant; do not scream at the poor fellow a question like: “Well, what did you see, you damned fool?” After all Kelso did have the sense not to shout down what he had seen, a shout which would almost certainly be heard by the
Passe Partout,
which was being waved—thank goodness for that!—to the starboard side by Orsini, who was standing on the taffrail, holding on to one of the poop lanterns and using the speaking-trumpet to shout his shrill French.

“I had a good look at ‘im, sor,” Kelso said, unsure whether he should report to Southwick, Aitken or Ramage, who were now gathered round him in a group.

“You did, eh?” Ramage said to get the man's attention before the poor fellow's head swivelled off. “And what did you make of her?”

“Scunner-rigged, goes to windward like a round shot, an' got every stitch o' canvas set, even ringtails on the main, I reckon.”

“A schooner, eh?” Ramage said unhurriedly. “You didn't get a sight of her flag, of course.”

“Oh noo, sir, she's too far away for thaat!”

No more Devonians, Ramage swore to himself; I'll never ship another Devonian, however fast he says he can talk.

Southwick jabbed the man in the ribs with his forefinger. “British or Algerine?”

“Oh, British, sir,” Kelso said at once. “I reckon I recognize her, too, unless someone's copying her style o' paintwork.”

“Well?” Southwick demanded.

“She's the old
Magpie,
used to sail out o' Brixham. I was a privateersman afore the press took me up, an' she was m' first ship after the war begun. Her hull, y' carn't mistake it: alternate strakes o' black and white, carried well up under the run.”

“M'sieu! M'sieu!”

It was Orsini, shouting to draw his attention and gesticulating over the starboard side. And there Ramage could see over the bulwarks the upper part of the
Passe Partout
's lateen sail only a few feet away, a great bird's wing of canvas.

He had only a moment to make up his mind as he absorbed the situation. The
Magpie
might already be attacking the convoy, but whatever she was doing she must be sent off—preferably happy at saying goodbye to the pick of fifteen enemy ships. But in this wind a frigate so obviously French as the
Calypso
could not get within five miles of a fore-and-aft rigged vessel like a schooner, and what would the convoy think of a French frigate talking to a British privateer instead of trying to sink her? The
Passe Partout
was close alongside, racing along as only a tartane or a xebec could in this breeze.

Ramage snapped at Aitken: “Take command of the
Calypso!
”

With that he grabbed the Scot's arm and pulled him to the ship's starboard side, where they could look down on the tartane, whose captain was obviously showing off to the Navy how close he could sail his ship to the frigate.

Ramage pointed down at her. “Lay us alongside her for two minutes,” he told Aitken, “but don't do her any damage. Watch for that lateen yard!”

Ramage looked round for Martin. “Are your crowd ready? Come on then, lads, let's go!”

R
AMAGE jumped down on to the
Passe Partout
's deck, realizing as he dropped that it was farther than he'd thought, and landing with a thud that brought him to his knees. As he stood up he caught a foot in a ringbolt and sprawled across the deck. A moment later a French seaman helped him up in a cloud of garlic and he saw, eight or nine feet farther forward, another seaman helping Baxter.