Voyages of Ramage - Full

 

Chapter One

Ramage felt dazed and grabbed at the thoughts rushing through his head: he guessed it was a nightmare, so he would soon wake up safely in his cabin; but for the moment his mind was apparently separated from his body, floating along free like a puff of smoke in the wind. All that noise sounded like continuous thunder and now he was beginning to wake up, hesitating and unwilling to open his eyes and slide from blissful and contented drowsiness into the sharp bright light of consciousness.

Yet he felt a vague uneasiness, wondering if he had overslept and would be late on watch. Uneasiness gave way to apprehension as slowly he realized the thunder was of gunfire: from an enemy’s broadsides, punctuated by the occasional deep-chested, bronchitic cough of his own ship’s 12-pounder cannons firing, followed by the familiar cartwheels-across-a-wooden-bridge rumble of the trucks as the carriages jerked back in recoil until they reached the limits of the thick rope breechings, which groaned under the strain of halting them.

Then, as his sense of smell returned and the acrid fumes of gun smoke burnt the back of his nostrils, he realized–

‘Mr Ramage, sir!… Mr Ramage, sir!’

It was his name, but they were shouting from a long way off, reminding him of his childhood when he had gone over the fields and into the woods and one of the servants called him back for a meal. ‘Master Nicholas,’ they’d shout, ‘you come this minute; ’is Lordship’s terrible angry when you’re late.’ But Father was never angry; in fact–

‘Mr Ramage! Mr Ramage – wake up, sir!’

But that isn’t a servant’s voice – there’s no Cornish burr: it’s a boy calling – a frightened and almost hysterical boy with a sharp cockney accent.

‘Mr Ramage – ohmygawd do wake up, sir!’

Now a man’s voice joined in, and they began shaking him as well. Heavens, his head hurt: he felt as if he had been bludgeoned. The enormous grunt and rumbling interrupting them must be another 12-pounder going off close by and slamming back in recoil.

Ramage opened his eyes. His body still seemed remote and he was startled to find himself lying with his face pressed against the deck. The pattern on the planking was really most extraordinary. He noticed – as if seeing it for the first time – that constant scrubbing and holystoning with sand and water had worn away little alleys of soft wood between the harder ridges of the grain. And someone must swab up the blood.

Blood staining the scrubbed planks: the words forming in his mind shocked him into realizing he was now conscious, but still curiously detached, as if looking down from the masthead at his own body sprawled flat on its face between two guns, nose pressed against the deck, arms and legs flung out, like a rag doll on a rubbish heap.

They shook him violently and then rolled him over.

‘Come on, sor…come, Mr Ramage, wake up!’

He opened his eyes reluctantly but his head spun for several moments before he could see their faces, and even then they were distant, as though viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. Finally, by concentrating hard he managed to focus the boy’s face more clearly.

‘Yes?’

God, was that his voice – a rasping croak like a holystone being dragged across a dry deck?

‘Yes – what’s the matter?’

The effort of speaking brought Ramage’s memory back with a rush: it was a stupid question: everything was the matter when late one sunny September afternoon in the year of Our Lord 1796 a French 74-gun line-of-battle ship, the Barras, trapped His Majesty’s frigate Sibella, of 28 guns…

‘Ohmygawdsir, it’s awful,’ gabbled the boy. ‘All dead they are, sir, an’ a shot caught the Captain right–’

‘Steady boy: who sent you?’

‘Bosun, sir – said to tell you you was in command now, sir: everyone else’s killed and the Carpenter’s Mate says there’s four feet o’water in the well and the pumps smashed, sir – can’t you come on deck, sir? ’Ere, I’ll ’elp you,’ he added pleadingly.

The urgent, terrified note in the boy’s voice and the phrase ‘You was in command now, sir’ helped clear Ramage’s head (which was beginning to throb in time with the pumping of his heart) but the significance was chilling. Every junior lieutenant dreamed of commanding a frigate in action; but that terrible rumbling a few hundred yards away – as though some giant god of mythology was hurling bolts of lightning through the frigate’s hull, butchering men and timber alike – was the French line-of-battle ship firing her broadside, some 35 heavy guns. The spasmodic coughs and grunts close by were obviously all that remained of the frigate’s puny broadside of 14 light guns.

No, that was not included in a junior lieutenant’s dream of glory; nor was having the command thrust upon him when most of his wits had been scattered by a blow on the head and so far refused to return. Still, this deck was deuced comfortable…

‘Come on, sor: I’ll ’elp you up.’

Ramage opened his eyes again and, as he recognized one of the seamen – a fellow Cornishman named Higgins, or Briggins, or some such name – realized he had been slithering back into sleep or unconsciousness, or whatever it was that drained the strength from his body and befogged his brain.

Higgins – or was it Briggins? Oh, it didn’t matter – stank of sweat: cloying yet sharp, but it did not burn the nostrils like smoke from the guns. As they hoisted him to his feet Ramage closed his eyes to stop his head spinning, and he heard Higgins or Briggins roundly cursing another seaman: ‘Wrop his bloddy arm round yor bloddy neck, else ’e’ll fall down. Now hold his wrist. That’s it. Now walk ’im, you heathen Patlander!’

Ramage’s legs flopped one in front of the other while the Cornishman on one side and the Irishman on the other dragged him along: they probably had plenty of experience of getting a drunken shipmate out of a tavern.

In front, through the smoke swirling across the decks and curling into strange wreathing patterns as it was caught by eddies of wind coming in at the gun ports, danced the boy, whom he now recognized as the First Lieutenant’s servant. The late First Lieutenant’s servant, he corrected himself.

‘What the ’ell now? ’Ow are we ter get ’im up the ladder?’

The ladder from the main deck up to the gangway and quarter-deck has eight rungs – Ramage was pleased with himself for remembering that – and is only wide enough for one man. Eight rungs mean nine steps to the top, and every one of those eight rungs is mine to command.

The stupidity of the thought shocked Ramage into realizing he was making no real effort to pull himself together: the two seamen could carry him no farther: he was on his own: up those eight rungs was the quarter-deck where, as the new commanding officer, he now belonged: where several score men were looking to him as their leader.

‘Where’s a tub?’ he asked, freeing himself from the men’s grasp.

‘Just here, sir.’

He lurched a couple of paces and knelt beside it. When the ship beat to quarters before the action began, small tubs of water had been placed near the guns for the men to soak the sponges used to swab the barrels of the guns. As he plunged his head into the water he gave a gasp of pain, and groping fingers found a big swelling and a long gash across the back of his scalp. The gash was not deep, but enough to explain why he had been unconscious: probably a flying splinter of wood.

Ducking his head again, he swilled water round in his mouth, and spat it out, then pulled the wet hair back from his forehead, took several deep breaths, and stood up. The sudden movement set his head spinning again but already he felt stronger; the muscles were coming back to his legs.

At the foot of the ladder he paused, a spasm of fear twisting his stomach: at the top carnage and chaos awaited him. Decisions, vital decisions, had to be made and orders given – by someone who had been below, commanding one division of the guns for most of the action, his field of view restricted to what could be seen through a gun port, and unconscious for the rest of the time.

As he struggled up the ladder Ramage found he was talking to himself, like a child learning something by rote: the Captain, First and Second Lieutenants must have been killed, which leaves me the next senior. The boy said the Bosun had sent word that I’m in command, so presumably the Master was also dead, otherwise the message would have come from him. Well, thank God the Bosun survived, and let’s hope the Surgeon’s been spared and stayed sober.

How many of the Sibella’s guns have fired in the last few minutes? Four or five, and they are all on the main-deck, which means the upper-deck guns and carronades must be out of action. With only four or five guns firing on the engaged side, how many of the ship’s company are still alive? There’d been 164 answering last Sunday’s muster.

Two more rungs and I’ll be at the top. Another broadside from the Barras on its way: strange how gunfire across water sounds like thunder – and now the tearing canvas sound of passing round shot, and the horrible punching which shook the ship to the keel as more shot crashed into the hull.

More screams and more men killed. His fault, too: if only he’d hurried he might have done something that’d saved them.

Now his head was level with the narrow gangway running the length of the ship, joining fo’c’sle to quarter-deck, and he realized it would soon be twilight. Then he was on the gangway itself, staggering over to the bulwark. But he hardly recognized the ship: on the fo’c’sle the carronade on each bow had been wrenched from its slide and piles of bodies showed the crews had been killed at the same time. The ornamented belfry and galley chimney had vanished; great sections of the bulwark along the starboard side were smashed in and dozens of rolled-up hammocks lay scattered across the deck, torn from their usual stowed positions in nettings on top of the bulwarks.

Looking right aft across the quarter-deck he saw that all the rest of the carronades had been torn from their slides, and round each of those on the starboard side were more bodies. One section of the main capstan was smashed in, leaving the gilded crown on top hanging askew; and instead of the double wheel just forward of the mizenmast, manned by a couple of quartermasters, there was just a gaping hole in the deck. Shot had bitten chunks out of the mizenmast – and the mainmast. And the foremast, too. And bodies – it seemed to Ramage there were more bodies sprawled about the deck than men in the whole ship’s company; yet seamen were still running about – and others were working the remaining guns on the deck below. He saw four or five Marines crouching down behind the bulwark abreast the mizenmast reloading their muskets.

And the Barras? Just as Ramage looked out through a gunport the Bosun ran up, but he told him to wait a moment. God, what a terrifying sight she was! Silhouetted against the western horizon, below which the sun had set some ten minutes ago, the great ship seemed like a huge island fortress in the sea, black and menacing, apparently impregnable. And so far as the Sibella is concerned, Ramage thought bitterly, she is impregnable. She was under a maintopsail only and steering parallel with the Sibella about 8oo yards away.

Ramage glanced across the ship, over the larboard side. Almost abeam and perhaps a couple of miles away was the solid bulk of the Argentario peninsula, a sprawling mass of rock joined to the mainland of Italy by a couple of narrow causeways. Monte Argentario itself, the highest of the peaks, was just abaft the beam. The Barras, ranging up to seaward, had the Sibella neatly trapped, like an assassin with his victim against a wall.

‘Well, Bosun…’

‘Thank Christ you’re ’ere, sir: I thought you’d gone too. You all right sir? You’re covered in blood.’

‘A bang on the head. What’s the position?’

The Bosun’s face, blackened by smoke from the guns, was striped where runs of perspiration following the wrinkles showed the tanned skin beneath and gave him an almost comical appearance, like a sorrowful bloodhound.

Obviously making a great effort to keep his voice calm and not forget anything in his report to the new commanding officer, he waved a hand aft. ‘You can see this lot, sir: wheel’s smashed and so’s the tiller and rudder head – can’t rig tackles ’cos the rudder pendents is shot away. Ship’s just about steering herself, with us helping with the sheets and braces. Chain pump’s smashed, so’s the head pumps. The Carpenter’s Mate says there’s four feet o’ water in the well and rising fast. The foremast will go by the board any minute – just look at it. I dunno what’s holding it up. Mainmast is sprung in two places with shot still embedded, and the mizen in three.’

‘And the butcher’s bill?’

‘About fifty dead and sixty or so wounded, sir. One round of grapeshot did for the Captain and the First Lieutenant. The Surgeon and Purser were–’

‘Belay all that: where’s the Carpenter’s Mate? Pass the word for him.’

While the Bosun turned away, Ramage glanced back at the Barras. Hadn’t she just come round to larboard a little, just a few degrees, so her course was now converging slightly with the Sibella’s? He thought he could see a movement indicating seamen trimming the maintopsail yard round a fraction. Did they want to get even closer?

The Sibella was sailing at about four knots and yawing through four points. She would steer herself better if the sail aft was reduced, so that the foretopsail pulled her along.

‘Bosun! Clew up the main and mizen topsails and set the spritsail.’

With no sails drawing on main and mizenmasts, the wind would not tend to push the ship’s stern round, and the spritsail, set under the bowsprit, would help the foretopsail, though it was almost too small to help much in such a light wind.

As the Boson’s shouts set the men to work, Ramage saw the Carpenter’s Mate approaching: he seemed to have smeared more tallow on his body than on the cone-shaped wooden shot plugs which he had been hammering into the holes in the hull.

‘Well, make your report.’

‘More’n four feet o’ water in the well, no pumps, six or more shot betwixt wind and water, an’ three or more below the waterline – must have hit as she rolled, sir.’

‘Very well: sound the well again and report to me at once.’

Four feet of water. Mathematics was Ramage’s weak point and he tried to concentrate, knowing the Barras’ next broadside was due any moment. Four feet of water: well, the Sibella’s draught is just over fifteen feet, and every seven tons of stores taken on board put her an inch lower in the water. How many tons did that four feet of water swilling about down below represent? What did it matter, anyway, he thought impatiently: what matters is the Carpenter’s Mate’s next report.

‘Bosun – have some men cut away the anchors. Tell them to keep their heads down: we don’t want any more casualties.’

Might as well try to get rid of some weight to compensate for the water flooding in. That would save about five tons in weight – decrease the Sibella’s draught by just over half an inch. It’s almost ludicrous, but it’ll give the men something to do: with so many guns out of action seamen were now wandering around aimlessly, waiting for orders. He could save plenty of weight by heaving damaged guns over the side, but with the few men available it would take too long.

The Carpenter’s Mate was back. ‘Five feet, sir, and the more she goes down the more shot holes there are being submerged.’

And, thought Ramage, the deeper the holes the more the pressure of water…

‘Can’t you plug them?’

‘Most of ’em are too big, sir – all jagged. We could fother a sail over ’em if we got the way off the ship…’

‘When did you last sound?’

‘Not above quarter of an hour all told, sir.’

One foot of water in fifteen minutes. If it took about seven tons to put her down an inch, how many for a foot? Twelve inches times seven tons – eighty-four: that meant in fifteen minutes at most eighty-four tons had flooded in. How much more could she take before she sank or capsized? God knows – nothing about that in seamanship manuals. Nor would the Carpenter’s Mate know. Nor the constructors, even if they were within hail. Right, let’s have some action Lieutenant Ramage.

‘Carpenter’s Mate – sound the well every five minutes and report to me each time. Get some more men to help plug shot holes – any within a couple of feet of the present water level: stuff in hammocks – anything to slow up the leaks.’

Ramage walked to the rail at the forward end of the quarter-deck from force of habit, since it was there he had spent much of his seagoing life while on watch.

Now, he thought: what do we know? The Barras can do what she likes: she’s the cat, we are the mouse. We can’t manoeuvre, but she’s just come round to a slightly converging course. How many degrees? Perhaps twenty. When would the two ships meet?

More bloody sums, Ramage thought crossly. The Barras was 800 yards away when she altered course. So – take the 800 yards as the base of the triangle, the Barras’ course as the hypotenuse, and the Sibella’s course the opposite side. Question: the length of the opposite side… He could not think of a formula and ended up guessing that the Barras – providing she did not alter her present course again – would finally converge and collide with the Sibella at a point a mile ahead.

The frigate was making a little over three knots. Three into sixty minutes…they’d meet in twenty minutes: by then it would be almost dark.

Again red flashes rippling along the Barras’ side; again the thunder. The French are firing raggedly – or, more likely, each gun is being carefully aimed by an officer, since they have no opposition to fear. But none of the shots hit the hull: crashes and the noise of tearing canvas warned him the French were aiming at the masts and spars.

If he was the Barras’ captain, what would he do? Well, make sure the Sibella is crippled – which is why he’s now firing at the rigging – then run alongside in the last few minutes before darkness, board – and tow the Sibella back to Toulon in triumph. And that, he thought, is just what he is going to do: her captain is timing it beautifully, and he knows that for the last few hundred yards before he gets alongside, we’ll be so close he can call on us to surrender. He’ll know we can’t repel boarders…

Ramage realized his own position was almost ludicrous: he was in command of a ship which, ghost-like, was sailing herself without a man at the wheel – without a wheel for that matter; but it didn’t matter a damn anyway, because within half an hour he’d have to surrender. Unable to fight, and with the ship full of wounded, he had no alternative.

And you, Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, he told himself bitterly, since you’re the son of the discredited tenth Earl of Blazey, Admiral of the White, can expect little mercy from the Admiralty if you surrender one of the King’s ships, no matter the reason. The sins – alleged sins, rather – of the father shall be visited on the sons, yea even unto the something or other generation, according to the Bible.

But looking around the Sibella’s deck, it’s hard to believe in God: that severed trunk with the legs encased in bloody silk stockings and the feet still shod in shoes fitted with elegant silver buckles, is the frigate’s former Captain, and next to it presumably the First Lieutenant, whose days of toadying are finished. Ironic that a man with an ingratiating smile permanently on his face should lose his head. What a shambles: a seaman, naked except for trousers, sprawled over the wreckage of a carronade slide as if in a loving embrace, his hair still bound up in a long queue, a strip of cloth round his forehead to stop perspiration running into his eyes – and his stomach ripped open. Beside him another man who seems unmarked until you realize his arm is cut off at the shoulder–

‘Orders, sir?’

It was the Bosun. Orders – he’d been daydreaming while all these men left alive in the Sibella waited, confident he would perform some miracle and save their lives: save them from ending their days rotting in a French prison. The devil take it: he felt shaky. Ramage made a great effort to think, and at that moment saw the foremast swaying. Presumably it had been swaying for some time, since the Bosun had already wondered why it had not gone by the board. Gone by the board…

Yes! Why the devil hadn’t he thought of that before: he wanted to cheer: Lieutenant Ramage has woken up: stand by, men: stand by Barras… He felt a sudden elation, as though he was half drunk, and rubbed a scar on his forehead.

The Bosun looked startled and Ramage realized he must be grinning.

‘Right, Bosun,’ he said briskly, ‘let’s get to work. I want every wounded man brought up on deck. It doesn’t matter how bad he is: get him up here on the quarter-deck.’

‘But sir–’

‘You have five minutes…’

The Bosun was every day of sixty years old: his hair – what was left of it – was white. And the man knew that bringing the wounded on deck risked them being slaughtered by a broadside from the Barras. Only he hasn’t realized yet, Ramage thought to himself, that now the Barras is firing only at the rigging; she’s stopped sweeping the decks with full broadsides of grapeshot because she knows she’s killed enough men. If she fires into the hull again the wounded below are just as likely to be hit by the ghastly great jagged wood splinters which the shot rip up – he’d seen several pieces more than five feet long.

Wounded on deck. Now for the boats. Ramage ran aft to the taffrail and peered over: some boats were still towing astern in the Sibella’s wake, having been put over the side out of harm’s way as the ship cleared for action. Two were missing, but the remaining four would serve his purpose. The wounded, the boats – next, food and water.

By now the Bosun was back.

‘We’ll soon be abandoning ship,’ Ramage told him. ‘We must leave the wounded on board. We have four boats. Pick four reliable hands, one to be responsible for each boat. Tell them to take a couple of men – more if they wish – and get sacks of bread and water breakers ready at the aftermost gun ports on the starboard side. A compass for each boat, and a lantern. Make sure each lantern is lit and the boats have oars. Join me here in three minutes. I am going down to the cabin.’

The Bosun gave him a questioning look before turning away. The ‘cabin’ in a frigate could mean only the Captain’s cabin, and Ramage knew that to mention going below to a man accustomed to seeing armed Marine sentries at every gangway and ladder when in action, to stop people bolting to safety – oh, the devil take him; there isn’t time to explain. How much will the fellow remember when he gives evidence at the court martial that always followed the loss of one of the King’s ships? If they live to face one…

In the cabin it was dark, and Ramage ducked his head to avoid hitting the beams overhead. He found the Captain’s desk, and was thankful there had been no time to stow the furniture below when the ship cleared for action. Now, he said, deliberately talking aloud to himself to make sure he forgot nothing: first, the Admiral’s orders; second, the Captain’s letter book and order book; third, the Fighting Instructions; lastly – damn, the signal book would be in the hands of one of the midshipmen, and all the midshipmen were dead. Yet above all else the signal book with its secret codes mustn’t fall into French hands.

He fumbled for the top right-hand drawer – he’d often seen the Captain put his secret papers in there. It was locked – blast, of course it was locked, and he had neither sword nor pistol to force it open. At that moment he saw a light appear behind him, filling the cabin with strange shadows, and as he swung round a nasal voice said: ‘Can I help you, sir?’

It was the Captain’s cox’n, a cadaverous-faced American named Thomas Jackson, and he was holding a battle lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other.

‘Yes, open this drawer.’

Jackson thrust the pistol in his belt and walked over to one of the cannon on the larboard side of the cabin. The carriage had been smashed by a shot and the barrel lay across the wreckage. In the light of the lantern Ramage was startled to see the bodies of three men – they must have been killed by the shot that dismounted the gun.

The American came back carrying a bloodstained handspike, the long wooden bar made of ash and tipped with a metal shoe, used to lever round the carriages of the guns when training them.

‘If you’d hold the lantern and stand back, sir…’ he said politely.

He swung the handspike so that the shoe smashed the corner of the desk. Ramage wrenched the drawer open with one hand and gave the lantern to Jackson.

‘Hold it up a bit.’

He pulled the drawer right out. On top of several books and papers was a linen envelope with a broken seal. Ramage opened it and took out a two-page letter, which was headed ‘Secret’ and signed ‘J Jervis’. They were the orders, and he put them back in the envelope and tucked it into his pocket. He glanced at the books, the first of which, labelled ‘Letter Book’, contained copies of all recent official letters received in the Sibella and all those written. The second, labelled ‘Order Book’, contained copies of all orders the Captain had given and received, except, probably, the last one from Admiral Jervis. Next came the Captain’s Log – usually little more than a copy of the one kept by the Master.

Then there was a sheaf of forms and signed documents – the Admiralty believed the King’s ships could not float without having a vast number of papers on board to give them buoyancy. ‘Cooper’s Affidavit to Leakage of Beer’ – hmm, that concerned the five casks found to be damaged at Gibraltar; ‘Bounty List’, ‘Conduct List’, ‘Account of Paper Expended’… Ramage tore them up. Here was the copy of the Fighting Instructions – it was sufficient to destroy that – and the slim volume containing the Articles of War, the set of laws by which the Navy was governed. They were far from secret; indeed by law had to be read aloud to the ship’s company at least once a month, and the French were welcome to them.

Apart from the signal book, and some charts, that was all he needed.

Ramage turned to Jackson. ‘Go to the Master’s cabin and collect all the western Mediterranean charts and sailing instructions you can lay your hands on, and the Master’s log. Bring them to me on the quarter-deck. Put them all in a seabag with a shot in the bottom, in case we have to dump them over the side in a hurry.’

He noticed a strange quietness beginning to settle over the ship and as he made his way out of the dark cabin, fumbling for the companionway leading to the quarter-deck, he realized wounded men had stopped moaning – or maybe they’d all been taken on deck out of earshot – and he could hear once again the familiar creak of the masts and yards, and the squeak of ropes rendering through blocks. And there was a less familiar noise – the slop of water down in the hold, and strange bumpings: presumably casks of meat, powder and various provisions floating around.

The ship herself felt sluggish beneath his feet: all the life, the normal quick reaction of the hull to the slightest movement of the rudder, the exhilarating surge forward as an extra strong gust of wind caught the sails, the lively pitch and roll as she rode the crests of the swell waves and plunged across the troughs – all that has gone. Instead, as if she has suffered some ghastly internal haemorrhage, the ton upon ton of water swilling and surging about down below as she rolls is exerting its weight first on one side and then on the other, constantly changing her centres of gravity and buoyancy, and playing fantastic juggling tricks with her stability.

The Sibella, he thought, shivering involuntarily, is dying, like some great animal lurching through the jungle, mortally wounded and capable of only a few more steps. If a sudden surge of water to one side or the other doesn’t capsize her first, then once the weight of the water pouring in through the ragged shot holes in her hull equals the weight of the ship herself, she will sink. That’s a scientific fact and only pumps, not prayers, can prevent it.

As Ramage climbed up to the quarter-deck he had a momentary impression of stepping into a cow shed: the stifled moans and gasps of the wounded men sounded like the lowing and snuffling of cattle. The Bosun was carrying out his orders quickly, and the last of the wounded were being brought up: Ramage stepped back a moment to let two limping men drag a third, who appeared to have a broken leg, to join the rest of them lying in rough rows at the forward end of the quarter-deck.

None of the Sibella’s guns had fired for several minutes and the wind blowing through the ports had dispersed the smoke; but the smell of burnt gunpowder lingered on, clinging to his clothes, like the curious odour that hangs about a house long after flames have gutted it.

Yes, the Barras was where he had expected to see her – just forward of the beam and perhaps five hundred yards away. He suddenly realized she had not fired for three or four minutes. She had no need to: the damage was done. It was hard to believe that less than ten minutes had passed since the Barras made that slight change of course; even harder to realize that she first came in sight over the horizon only an hour ago.

Ramage heard the mewing of some gulls which had returned after the gunfire and were now wheeling in the Sibella’s wake, waiting hopefully for the cook’s mate to throw some succulent rubbish over the side.

Over the larboard beam, the north-western end of the Argentario peninsula was beginning to fade in the darkness rapidly spreading across the dome of the sky from the eastward. Just here the land curved away and flattened out into the marshland and swamp forming the Maremma, which stretch southward for almost a hundred miles, to the gates of Rome. The next big port was Civita Vecchia, thirty-five miles to the south. That was shut, on the Pope’s orders, to both French and British ships.

To seaward, beyond and above the Barras – which was now, in the gathering night, little more than a silhouette – the Dog Star sparkled, a pale blue pinpoint of light like a diamond on dark velvet. The Dog Star, the chilly downdraught of wind from the maintopsail, the rattle of blocks, occasional hails from lookouts, and the creak of the masts and of the timbers in the ship’s hull – for many months they had been as much a part of his life as hunger and chill, heat and tiredness. And all of it reduced to a shattered ship manned by shattered seamen within a few minutes of the sails on the horizon being recognized as belonging to a French line-of-battle ship. There had been no time to escape, and as the Barras ran down towards them she had seemed a thing of great beauty, gently dipping and rising in elegant curtsies as the swell waves passed under her, every stitch of canvas set, including studding sails. Even as she ranged herself abeam to windward, her ports open, and the stubby black barrels of her guns poking out like threatening fingers, she had still been a thing of beauty.

Suddenly she had vomited spurts of greyish yellow smoke which, quickly merging into one great bank, had hidden her hull from view. Then she had sailed out of it, trailing thin wisps of smoke from her gun ports, while the Sibella appeared to lurch as she was hit by an invisible hail of shot: iron shot ranging in size from small melons to large oranges and which at that range cut through three feet of solid timber, sloughing up splinters as thick as a man’s thigh and as sharp as a sword blade.

The first broadside had seemed more than the Sibella could stand; but she had sailed on, while the French used grapeshot in several guns for their next broadside. Ramage had seen these egg-sized shot fling a man from one side of the ship to another, as if punched by an invisible fist; others had collapsed suddenly with a grunt or a scream, death heavy inside them. He had seen several of the Sibella’s 12-pounder cannon, each weighing more than a quarter of a ton, thrown aside by the Barras’ round shot as though they were wooden dummies. Then he had been knocked unconscious.

After the little Sibella had been battered until she was a leaking wooden box full of smoke and flame, agonizing wounds, screams, defiant yells and death; after the majority of the eight score men who had made her a living thing and sailed her halfway round the world were at this moment lying dead or wounded, staining with their blood the decks they twice daily scrubbed, it now seemed incongruous – blasphemous almost – that the stars could begin to twinkle and the sea still chatter merrily round the Sibella’s cut-water and gurgle as it creamed away in the wake astern, showing for a few brief moments the path the frigate had sailed before smoothing away the memory that she had ever passed.

Ramage forced himself to turn away from the bulwark: day-dreaming again when all he intended to do was assure himself the Barras was still holding her course. He now had only ten minutes or so left in which to finish his plan, which would either save his men’s lives or kill them. These were, he supposed, the minutes for which eight years of life at sea should have trained him to meet.

The Bosun came up and said, ‘We’ve got most of ’em up now, sir: about another dozen left. An’ I reckon there’s less than fifty of us still on our pins.’

He saw the Carpenter’s Mate waiting.

‘Just under six feet, sir. It’s them new holes going under as she settles deeper.’

Ramage realized several dozen men near by, including many of the wounded, were listening.

‘Fine – the old bitch will swim a lot longer yet. There’ll be no need for anyone to get their feet wet.’

Brave talk; but these poor devils need some reassurance. He glanced across at the Barras. Does her captain realize the Sibella isn’t under control? With his telescope he can see the shattered wheel, and guess that if she could be manoeuvred her officers would have already tried to wear round in an attempt to escape.

‘Bosun, as soon as the last wounded man is on deck, muster the unwounded here. I want a couple of dozen axes as well. By the way, who was the signal midshipman?’

‘Mr Scott.’

‘Have some hands look for his body and find the signal book. None of us leaves the ship until it’s found, and you can tell the men that.’

The American cox’n, Jackson, came up to him, holding a canvas sea bag.

‘All the Master’s charts and sailing directions, the log book, and muster book, which I found in the Purser’s cabin, sir.’

Ramage gave him the documents from the cabin, with the exception of the Admiral’s orders. ‘Put these in the bag. Men are looking for the signal book. Take charge of it when it’s found. Now find me a cutlass.’

‘The signal book, sir,’ said a seaman, holding out a slim and blood-sodden volume.

‘I’ll take it,’ said Jackson, and put it in the bag.

Ramage glanced across once again at the Barras. There was not much time left.

‘Bosun! Those axes?’

‘Ready, sir.’

Jackson came back, a couple of cutlasses under one arm. ‘You’ll be needing this, sir,’ he said, handing him a speaking trumpet. The bloody man thought of everything. Ramage walked aft and scrambled up on to the hammocks along the top of the bulwark. Let’s hope the French don’t open fire now, he thought grimly. He put the speaking trumpet on his lips.

‘Listen carefully, you men, and don’t be afraid to ask about anything you don’t understand. If you carry out my orders to the letter we can get away in the boats. We can’t help the wounded: for their sakes we must leave them for the French surgeon to look after.

‘We’ve got four boats that can still swim. From the moment I give the word you’ll have only two or three minutes to get into those boats and pull like the devil.’

‘Excuse me, sir, but how can we stop the ship to get into the boats?’ asked the Bosun.

‘You’ll see in a moment. Now, the Frenchman out there.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘He’s converging on us. In eight or ten minutes he’ll be almost alongside, ready to board. And we can’t stop him.’

At that moment the ship gave a lurch, reminding him of the water still flooding in below.

‘If we haul down our flag, obviously we won’t get away in the boats. So we’ve got to fool him to gain time. If we wait until he’s almost alongside, then suddenly stop the ship, he’ll probably be taken by surprise and sail on past us. But we’ve got to do it so quickly he doesn’t get a chance to open fire. Before he has time to wear round again we’ve got away in the boats – after putting the ensign halyard in the hands of one of the wounded, so he can surrender the ship!’

‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but ’ow can we stop the ship?’ a Marine asked.

‘There’s only one way: drop something over the side so that it acts as an anchor. And to make absolutely certain the French don’t have time to fire we want to turn hard a’port at the same time. In soldiers’ language,’ he said to the Marine, ‘we “left wheel” while Johnny Frenchman marches on ahead.’

‘What do we drop over the side, sir?’ the same Marine asked gloomily, as though he’d heard it all before and knew it would not work. He sucked his teeth, as if they were all he had left to relish.

‘We stop the ship like this,’ said Ramage, restraining a sudden urge to shake the man and wishing he hadn’t given permission for them to ask questions. He spoke slowly and clearly: he wanted no mistakes. ‘The foremast is almost gone: nearly all the shrouds and backstays on the starboard side are cut. A dozen men with axes can cut the rest in a few moments and the mast will go by the board – over the larboard side. That’s our anchor. More than five tons of mast, yards and sails dumped in the water but still held by the larboard shrouds will suddenly drag the ship’s head to larboard – which is the way we want it to go.

‘And we help her by setting the mizentopsail and spanker the moment the foremast goes by the board. That’ll give the stern a shove just as the wreckage of the foremast is pulling the bow round.’

‘Aye, sir, but what about the Frenchman?’

It was another seaman and he genuinely wanted to know: he was not a professional Doubting Thomas like the toothsucker.

‘If she’s running almost alongside us and we suddenly turn away in not much more than our own length, she’ll have only a few seconds to fire. If she does fire,’ he remembered to add as a warning to the men there must be no delay, ‘then she’ll rake us. None of you’ll see Portsmouth Point again if we get even half a broadside coming in through the transom, so say your prayers and don’t make any mistakes.’

Only a few minutes to go. What else? Oh yes–

‘Now the boats: Bosun, you’ll command the red cutter; Carpenter’s Mate, the black cutter. You, the captain of the maintop – Wilson, isn’t it – you’ll have the gig. I’ll take the launch.

‘Now – final orders. You there’ – he gestured to a dozen men nearest the taffrail – ‘you are axemen. Get axes from the Bosun, then go forward and stand by the all remaining fore shrouds and back stays on the starboard side. Sort yourselves out and wait for the Bosun to give the order to start cutting: that’ll be the minute he hears me shouting in French.’

Ramage remembered to look across at the Barras. Still closing the gap. The sands of time…

‘Right, carry on, then.’

He gestured to Wilson: ‘Collect some topmen and stand by to set the mizentopsail and spanker. Do nothing until I give the word: then haul as if you were heaving for Heaven. Then get the boats round to the ports at the half-deck, starboard side.’

The Barras was less than three hundred yards away now: hard to judge in this light. Perhaps five minutes to go. Providing, he thought with a sick feeling of apprehension, the Frenchman does what he’s supposed to…

‘Bosun, Carpenter’s Mate, Wilson–’

He jumped down from the bulwark as the three men gathered round. ‘As soon as we’ve turned and the way’s off the ship, go below and get the men into the boats. Cast off as soon as you’ve enough on board. Try to keep in touch – we’ll pass a line from boat to boat as soon as we can. Otherwise we’ll rendezvous five hundred strokes due north: that’s roughly five minutes’ rowing towards the Pole Star. Any questions?’

There was none. The Bosun was calm enough: now someone was giving him orders he was reacting smartly and efficiently. The Carpenter’s Mate was a phlegmatic soul and Wilson was a devil-may-care sort of man.

‘Carry on, then.’

The Bosun hesitated a moment as the other two turned away and from his stance seemed embarrassed.

‘I wish your Pa was ’ere, sir.’

‘Don’t you trust me, then?’

‘No, no!’ the Bosun said hastily. ‘I mean – well, I was with ’im that last time, sir. It was all wrong what they did. But ‘e’d be proud, sir!’

With that he disappeared forward. Strange, thought Ramage, that he’s never previously mentioned sailing with Father. Hardly encouraging to remind the son of ‘what they did’ at this particular moment – although it is, in a way; as if the Bosun intended to reaffirm his loyalty.

Two more things remained and yet another glance at the Barras warned him he had very little time. He looked round to make sure Jackson was near by, and the American said wryly, ‘You’d just about reach her with that knife of yours, sir!’

Ramage laughed: his prowess at knife thowing – he had learnt the art as a child in Italy from his father’s Sicilian coachman – was well known.

He walked across to where the wounded were lying, careful not to trip over the dead men sprawled in grotesque attitudes.

‘You men – I’ll be seeing you soon at Greenwich!’

One or two of them raised a wry cheer as he mentioned the home for disabled seamen.

‘We have to leave you, but we’re not abandoning you!’ (Would they understand the difference? He doubted it.)

‘With half a dozen guns left we can’t fight and they’ – he pointed towards the BarrasSibella