remember you're back in the Mediterranean now. It has its compensations: there isn't a British admiral within a thousand miles, and we increase the distance every day. Nearly every day, anyway.'
The master grinned and waved vaguely towards the distant hills and mountains. 'I'm not complaining, sir. The nights are cooler, we'll dodge this year's hurricane season, and we've a better chance of seeing some action.'
'But we might face a Mediterranean winter - or even the Channel,' Ramage reminded him.
Southwick nodded and then looked first at one ketch and then the other. 'Which are you betting on, sir?'
'Neither,' Ramage said. 'I'm just putting up the prize guinea for the winning team.'
'I'm putting my money on the Brutus. Wagstaffe's a smart fellow, and this young Martin seems wide awake. I'm afraid Orsini's mathematics are so bad he won't be much help to Kenton, who's a long way from being a mathematical genius himself.'
'After the first shell, I should have thought a good eye for distances was more important,' Ramage said mildly.
Southwick shrugged his shoulders. 'Blessed if I know, sir,' he admitted. 'I've never served in a bomb ketch; never even seen one fire a round.'
'Nor me,' Ramage admitted. 'I spent three months in one as a midshipman, but we never fired the mortars. That's one of the reasons why I want to see what happens.'
Southwick looked at him knowingly from beneath bushy eyebrows. 'Aye,' he said enthusiastically, 'it's the kind of information that might come in useful one day.'
'One never knows,' Ramage said as he turned to the bosun and ordered: 'Hoist that signal now.'
He had been very careful in his instructions to the two lieutenants to ensure that they fired alternately, so that he could observe the fall of the shells. It was, as Southwick said, the kind of information that might come in useful one day - if you did everything wrong and Their Lordships put you in command of a bomb ketch . . . Officers did not have to accept such a command, but if the alternative, as it certainly would be, was to spend the rest of your life on the beach picking up seashells and looking longingly at the distant horizon . . .
Doing something wrong, being afraid to take a risk because of the doubtful wording of orders, being scared of doing something because you did not have written orders and thus allowing the enemy to escape: all these were the best argument for a captain having a private income. He need not be a rich man; just rich enough to avoid having to worry about the fate of a wife and children, if he had them. Then he could do what was best for the Service without worrying too much about the idiosyncrasy of an admiral. A nice payment of prize money was often just enough.
This was not to say that a rich captain could or should ignore or disobey proper orders or take needless risks. Occasionally a situation arose which was not properly covered by written orders, however, and where the captain should use his own initiative, confident that his senior officer and the Admiralty would back him. In fact he could not always rely on such backing; in fact, too, he might do the wrong thing. Ramage remembered his father's advice - better to be blamed for doing something than for doing nothing. All too often doing nothing was a form of cowardice; the form that paralyses your brain in the wish to avoid being blamed. The clerk's creed, in other words: you could not be wrong if you never made a decision.
What the devil all that had to do with firing a couple of dozen shells from a pair of captured bomb ketches he did not know; nor, for that matter, did he know why the Navy always called them bomb ketches, abbreviated, oddly enough, as 'Bb', since what their mortars fired were called shells not bombs. When did a shell become a bomb? Grenadiers threw grenades - which were sometimes called bombs, but perhaps only loosely by people who did not know. Anyway, the Admiralty named most of their bomb ketches after volcanoes, several of which began with 'V', so in the Navy List there were, for example, 'Vesuvius (Bb) . . . Volcano (Bb) . . . Vulcan (Bb)' although he could remember Tartarus, Terror and Thunder.
Southwick nudged him. 'Wagstaffe will be first,' he said. 'A couple of his men are already wrapping the slow matches round their linstocks.'
Ramage had a mental picture of young Paolo talking to Peter Kenton. He would have found out that there was no race against the watch; that it was the bomb ketch that blew up her cask with the fewest shells that won. Paolo was shrewd enough to know that the most vital shell of all would be the first one fired . . .
Over on the foredeck of the Fructidor the conversation had already taken place, just as Ramage had imagined it. While the half a dozen seamen and two powder boys were collecting equipment from the ketch's magazine, Paolo had managed to persuade Kenton to walk aft with him. Twenty-three-year-old third lieutenants, only two men removed from the Captain, treated midshipmen with disdain where service matters were concerned, and it was obvious to Kenton that Orsini had some idea he wanted to put forward. Orsini was a brave enough lad in action but had a little too much imagination at times . . .
'The first shot, sir,' Orsini said, taking great care that the 'sir' was clear and pitched at just the right level.
'What about it - are you afraid it'll push the mortar through the bottom of the ship?'
'No, sir. I was thinking about the second one, actually. Aiming it, I mean.'
'There's nothing difficult about that. We see where the first one lands, and that'll show us what correction we have to make for the second. It'll fall short, over, left or right... as simple as that. We then increase or decrease the charge, and train left or right.'
'Yes, sir, but I was thinking that Mr Wagstaffe might . . .' He broke off, hoping Kenton would guess.
'Might what?' Kenton demanded. 'He's a very experienced officer.'
'But I don't think he has ever fired a mortar, sir. Which means - with respect - that he's likely to make mistakes in aiming. We might make the same mistakes, too.'
'What sort of mistakes?' Kenton asked sharply.
'Well, it might be a common error with the first shot for the shell to fall short ... Or pitch well over.'
'It might,' Kenton agreed. 'But I don't see what we can do about it.'
'We could let Mr Wagstaffe fire first and see where his shell lands . . .' Orsini murmured casually. 'And make appropriate corrections before we fire.'
Kenton stopped suddenly and stared at Orsini. 'Supposing we haven't made the same mistakes in aiming that Wagstaffe makes? What then?'
'Well, then, we'll be introducing errors,' Orsini said cheerfully. 'it's a gamble. Not much of one, though,' he added hurriedly. 'We're just gambling that we'd be likely to make the same sort of mistakes as Mr Wagstaffe and Mr Martin. None of us are used to elevating a mortar and using a plunge nob -'
'A plumb bob,' Kenton corrected. 'Sometimes called a plummet.'
'. . . yes, a plunge nob, so we have nothing to lose in seeing how Mr Wagstaffe's first shot falls? Sir,' he added uncertainly, because Kenton had taken off his hat and seemed curious about something that might be inside it.
Finally Kenton jammed the hat back on his head, pointed at the flags being hoisted in the Calypso, and said: 'All right, m'lad, we'll gamble. We'll look daft if Wagstaffe's had the same idea and waits for us to fire!'
'He won't,' Orsini said earnestly, only just stopping himself from adding that it took an Italian to think of such good plans. 'The men are waiting,' he added, gesturing to the mortar.
As soon as he reached the gun, Kenton showed he had not wasted the half an hour spent reading the gunner's notebook. 'Right, line up, you men. Jackson, you are number one. You should have the plumb bob. Who has it? Right, give it to Jackson. Now, Jackson, you command, point and serve the vent - under my direction, of course. Stafford, you'll be number two, so you're responsible for the cartridge cases and measures. And don't forget - you might be measuring in single ounces so don't be heavy handed. You -' he pointed at the two boys, '- bring up the powder from the magazine.'
'Rossi, you'll be number three. You collect the fuses, load, help lift in the shell, run out the mortar and train.' He looked at the remaining three men. 'Gutteridge, you're number four. You provide a funnel for the powder, sponge, wipe the bottom of the shell to make sure there's no loose powder on it, take the fuse from the box and put it in the shell - don't forget one and a half inches must protrude. Then you help number three run out. Number five - that'll be you, Barnes. You bring up the shell with number six, and the two of you lift it up while number three guides it into the bore of the gun. Lower it gently. Then you help run out, and then help number three to train. Then you take a linstock and - when you get the order - light the fuse. Number six - that's you, King. You help bring up the shell, run out and train. Then you prime the vent. If necessary you'll have helped number three guide the shell into the bore.'
He made each man repeat his tasks and then said briskly, 'There are only nine commands you are likely to hear from me and they're fairly obvious: Run the mortar up - Cross lift to the right (or to the left) - Muzzle to the right (or the left) - Down (the bed bolster will be in place by then) - Load - Prime - Fire!'
He made the men repeat the sequence and then said suspiciously: 'You all seem to know your jobs and the sequence of commands very well - why is that?'
Jackson looked at Orsini, who winked, so the American said: 'Mr Orsini borrowed a notebook about this gun, sir, so we all sat around this morning and went over it. We were all curious, sir.'
'You didn't know the Captain was going to offer a guinea prize for target practice?'
Jackson shook his head. 'No, sir,' he said ruefully, 'otherwise we might have paid more attention.'
Kenton grinned sympathetically. 'Very well, let's get started. The magazine is open, fearnought blankets unrolled? Right, I see the water tub is there and the match tub. Slow matches alight and -' he looked carefully '- burning steadily. Very well, wet the decks, and then we can load.'
The deckwash pump started wheezing and spitting fitfully as King began working the handle, and as soon as water came out of the nozzle two other seamen filled buckets and sluiced the deck. The sun had heated the planking and it took several buckets before the wood stayed wetted.
Finally Kenton gave the signal and four of the men and the two powder boys ran below.
Listening for the sound of the Brutus's mortar firing, Kenton took out his watch and began timing. Finally Stafford arrived with his two wooden cartridge cases, cylindrical wooden boxes with lids that slid up and down on loops of line which also acted as carrying handles. He slid up one lid and began undoing the worsted bag, ready to measure out powder, while one powder boy held the second box, and the other waited to run for a third.
Barnes and King were now walking quickly towards the mortar with a wooden beam across their shoulders. Two thin ropes with hooks hung from the beam, the hooks going through the two carrying handles on the top of the black ball that was the shell. Until Kenton shouted at them to break step, they walked in time, cursing as the shell swung back and forth like a pendulum, catching them across the shins.
Jackson was walking round the mortar looking at the items the men had placed ready, and he named them out loud, as if checking a mental list. 'Plumb bob . . . two cartridge cases and measures ... sponge . . . funnel for the powder... two linstocks . . . four handspikes ... one priming wire ... There's Rossi with the fuses, and I've got a knife and the tube box . . . Here comes the carrying beam and the shell. That's the lot. . .'
Kenton looked at his watch. Two minutes so far - appalling time, but this was the first occasion. Then he noticed that Jackson had been naming the pieces of equipment out loud so that Orsini could check them against a list he was holding in his hand.
After that the six men went to work as though they had spent the last few weeks doing nothing but fire mortars: Gutteridge held the funnel in the fuse hole of the shell while Stafford measured out four pounds. Rossi handed the cone-shaped wooden fuse to Kenton, who said: 'We'll wait a few moments before cutting it. For a
