the Santa Barbara, one of His Most Catholic Majesty's ships, would have found the Calypso flying the 'bloody flag' of mutiny and with her mutineers anxious to follow in the footsteps of the Jocasta. Captain Lopez would have ordered her to make for Santa Cruz after having put people on board to keep an eye on things.
Hoisting the signal 'Lead the fleet', the Santa Barbara had then followed the Calypso. Now, off the entrance to Santa Cruz, Lopez would have found the wind foul for the entrance, so that both the Calypso and the Santa Barbara would have to be towed in. What could be more natural than having both ships heave-to while he went across to the Calypso to give the mutinous Englishmen their final orders?
The Santa Barbara's boat came alongside and the cook's mate climbed on board with his lieutenant to make his way to the quarterdeck while the boat was hauled aft to tow astern. The cook's mate's appearance at the gangway was met with hoots of laughter and catcalls: he was a popular man and, with the cook, one of the wealthiest men on the lower deck. Selling slush to his shipmates was one of his perquisites: it helped soften the board-like bread, or bind it together when it had become so old it began to crumble. The cook's mate had quick wits and a ready tongue, and as he made his way aft he kept up a barrage of imitation Spanish. Finally he reached the quarterdeck with his lieutenant and Ramage called: 'Don't salute anyone: come up to me! '
The Calypso was close enough to Castillo San Antonio that anyone with a powerful telescope could see down on to the frigate's quarterdeck. When the cook's mate - looking remarkably like Lopez - reached him, Ramage saluted him with a flourish.
'Captain Lopez! '
'Well, brother Ramage - that's what Mr Wagstaffe said I was to call you once I got this uniform on - well, as I was saying, sir, Mr Wagstaffe said as 'ow I was to tell you for sure, sir, that there weren't no message, sir.'
'Good. Now I want you and your lieutenant to keep striding up and down here on the quarterdeck. Make sure that you can be seen by everyone in these forts up here - they're watching us with telescopes. You see the entrance channel? Good, point along it. You've just given me my orders. Now I understand what you mean. Oh no I don't! ' He called to the seaman dressed as the Spanish lieutenant. 'Come closer - you are supposed to be translating everything to me.'
Ramage turned back to the cook's mate. 'Point up at one of the forts. Now the other. When I salute, you start marching up and down. Not like a Marine, ' he added hastily. 'You're in charge of everything, so swagger about! '
It was time to hoist the boats out. The men already had their orders - that was the only way to ensure enough confusion to satisfy the watchers from the forts - and Ramage said: 'Brother Aitken, the committee would like you to hoist out the boom boats and choose enough men to row them. You'd better double-bank 'em; it's not a long row but the quicker we . . .'
Ramage turned to the Master as Aitken hurried forward: “Brother Southwick, I must disturb your revolutionary thoughts long enough to have the quarter boats lowered.'
'Aye, brother Ramage. You know, sir, I get a strange feeling when I think this was the way the Jocasta really did come in.'
Ramage grinned reassuringly. 'I had the same feeling yesterday when you and the cook were scattering all that sheep's blood! '
Ramage watched the cook's mate and the seaman: they made a passable counterfeit of the real thing - the cook's mate was waving his arms, gesturing with Latin exuberance. The seaman, not to be outdone, began gesturing back and Ramage was just going to interrupt when he realized that the real Captain Lopez probably had to put up with a lot of interference from his young but influential second-in-command.
Shouts from amidships and the squeal of ropes rendering through blocks told him that a tackle was beginning to lift one of the boats and would soon be swinging it over the side and lowering it.
'Brother Baker, ' Ramage called. 'To the fo'c'sle please, and stand by the hawsers ready for taking the ship in tow.'
'Aye, aye - I mean, yes brother Ramage.'
Everything was proceeding at a leisurely pace; the current was slowly sweeping the Calypso and the Santa Barbara to the westward, but Ramage had allowed for an hour's delay. Normally, heaving-to and hoisting out the boats would take less than fifteen minutes. However, the longer the Calypso was lying in front of the two forts the better; the Spaniards were getting used to the idea and there was time for messengers on horseback to be sent off to report to the Mayor. Everyone, Ramage thought to himself, was being reassured; it was another Jocasta all over again; another frigate to be added to His Most Catholic Majesty's fleet for the expenditure of a small reward to the leading mutineers.
Finally Aitken came back to the quarterdeck. 'All ready for towing, sir - I'm sorry, sir, I mean brother Ramage. The boats are alongside, the hawsers are ready to run.'
Ramage looked over towards the entrance. He could sail the Calypso another five hundred yards, and save the men rowing, but could the leader of a group of mutineers? Summers could, from his own account, but it was not worth the risk of arousing the suspicion of the Spaniards.
'It's time for our Captain Lopez and his lieutenant to return to the Santa Barbara. As soon as they're clear, we'll furl the topsails. First the main, then the fore. That'll pay off the bow to starboard, and by the time the boats have the slack out of the hawsers we'll be heading in the right direction.'
He called over to the cook's mate, giving instructions. The man strutted over, stopped in front of Ramage and then swung round and pointed dramatically to the maintopsail. A moment later his hand moved out again towards the foretopsail.
'How's that, sir?'
'Fine. Now - you are the translator, ' he told the seaman in the lieutenant's uniform. 'Translate! '
'Do I need any of the armwaving, sir?'
'No, just talk. All right, that's enough! Now, Captain, you will go back to the Santa Barbara - after I've saluted you.'
With that Ramage saluted and went to the break of the quarterdeck as the two men walked to the gangway. It was all going well - even to the thin layer of cloud forming to leeward of Pico de Santa Fe, which would cause a spectacular sunset. But in fifteen minutes, he realized, the Calypso would be in the entrance to Santa Cruz, midway between the forts, the muzzles of their guns a bare seventy-five yards away on either side.
Aloft, the men furled the maintopsail quickly, but they were deliberately careless with the gaskets. Some of the strips of canvas were tied tighter than others; three were not tied at all. The Calypso's bow began to pay off, and then the foretopsail was furled, and again some gaskets were left untied. All the fewer to untie when he gave the order to let fall the sails, Ramage noted, and was pleased that the men had remembered their orders.
Now the Calypso's bow was turning towards the harbour entrance, pulled by the boats which were out of sight from the quarterdeck, hidden by the bow. And the closer the frigate approached, the narrower the channel seemed to become.
'Brother Aitken, ' Ramage said, 'take your mutinous thoughts to the fo'c'sle and pass them aft at the top of your voice if we seem to be straying out of the fairway. I can't see properly from here.'
'Aye, aye.'
At that moment Southwick sidled up to him and sniffed: 'Don't like this one bit, sir - brother, rather.'
'How so?'
'I don't know. The feeling that those damned Dons are watching every move we make. It's uncanny. Here we are, towing in, large as life, and they're just staring at us . . .'
'You'd sooner they were shooting, eh?'
Southwick laughed, a laugh which began deep in his large belly. 'Not at this range! But I never guessed, and that's a fact; I had it all wrong! '
'Never guessed what?'
'How you were going to get us into the place, sir - brother! I thought all the blood on the deck was to show how the Santa Barbara captured us. Didn't seem very likely to me; I nearly said so. Aitken was worried, too.'
Ramage swung round and stared at the Master. 'You never guessed? Why, it was so obvious I didn't bother to explain! '
'Not to us, it wasn't, not until you said we'd mutinied and we were to call each other 'brother'. I suppose we'd got it into our heads that you'd take the Santa Barbara in, and leave the Calypso anchored outside. Fill the brig up with men and send her in under the Spanish flag to cut out the Jocasta.'
'Too risky, ' Ramage said, and stared up at Castillo San Antonio, now towering over the Calypso's larboard side. He counted the muzzles. 'Fourteen guns facing this way, and fourteen to seaward. And that other one over there, El Pilar, has twenty to seaward and sixteen covering the channel.'
'Why too risky with the Santa Barbara alone, sir - brother?' Southwick persisted.
'The Dons in the forts would get suspicious. Just think about it. If mutineers had handed the Calypso over to Lopez his first concern would be to get her into Santa Cruz. He wouldn't trust them an inch and he wouldn't leave her anchored outside with her ship's company still on board while he went in with the Santa Barbara. Why leave her there? No, he'd want to see her go in first.'
Southwick sniffed again, showing his doubts. 'He might want to rush in first to make sure he gets all the credit.'
'No one else can take that away from him. Anyway, if the Santa Barbara went in first, the Mayor, Port Captain, Bishop - they'd all swarm on board. Where would you hide your boarding party? How would you persuade the real Lopez to make the right answers?'
'Didn't think of that, ' Southwick admitted cheerfully. 'We tied ourselves up with the idea of making use of the Santa Barbara. Here! Look at that! '
Flags had been hoisted from on top of San Antonio. Ramage grabbed a telescope and saw that they made up a three-number signal. Three? There were only one- and two-flag signals in the Spanish book. It was obviously addressed to the Santa Barbara, and whoever had ordered it to be hoisted knew that Lopez would understand it. What the devil could it mean? Suddenly the fourteen muzzles came into sharp focus. Through the telescope he could see the heads of the Spanish artillerymen. There was an officer peering down at them, using a small glass.
What if they opened fire? The Calypso must not fire back. Cause confusion - yes, if San Antonio opened fire, Ramage decided, then the Calypso would hoist signal flags wherever a signal halyard was rove. Two-flag signals which would send the Spaniards running to the book; two-flag signals which would buy time because every minute that passed saw the Calypso getting further along the channel, further from the muzzles of those guns.
Fear was chilling him; the breeze dried the cold perspiration that was soaking his shirt. Three flags, three pieces of coloured bunting flapping at the top of San Antonio's flagstaff, could wreck everything. He glanced at the channel. If there was any chance of the Calypso being badly damaged, he'd sink her so that she blocked the middle of the channel.
He swung the telescope round to look at the Santa Barbara and remembered telling Wagstaffe that the whole operation could depend on him. It could, and at this moment it did. He saw two flags being hoisted on board the brig: number 50. Yes, Wagstaffe had been quick to react; number 50 meant: 'Signal not understood though flags distinguished.'
What the devil were the Dons asking Lopez? Something was needed to divert their attention! Ramage picked up the speaking trumpet, noting that the Calypso was now in the middle of the channel and precisely between the two forts.
