get under way again, wearing round and running down to meet her.
He gave a stream of orders to Aitken, who began bellowing through the speaking trumpet. Southwick had produced his great sword from somewhere and was buckling it on: Silkin, his steward, was offering him pistols and a cutlass and belt. Ramage took the pistols as Silkin assured him they had been carefully loaded, and took off his hat for a moment as the steward slipped the cutlass belt over his head and settled it across one shoulder. He tucked the pistols into the band of his breeches, after assuring himself they were at half cock, thanked Silkin and watched as the Calypso, foretopsail now drawing, wore round to head down towards the two anchored bomb ketches. The maintopsail was drawing again - Aitken did not have to be told that one did not chase after escaping French frigates with the maintopsail still clewed up.
A shout from Aitken and there was a heavy rumble across the decks as the starboard side guns were run out; then, after a pause as the guns' crews ran across to the other side of the ship and took up the side tackles, another rumble as the larboard guns were hauled out so that their muzzles stuck out through the ports, stubby black fingers.
Closer to him there was a grating noise and a series of thuds as the carronades were run out on their slides. Thirty-six 12-pounder guns, eighteen a side, and six carronades, three a side ... all loaded and ready.
A pillar of water spurted up vertically just astern of the French frigate, and smoke was mixed in the shower of water droplets: one of the mortar shells had just missed and burst in her wake: extraordinary that the fuse should continue burning under water. The Board of Ordnance always claimed that they would, but he was never quite sure what sort of tests the soldiers were likely to make to prove the point. What an explosion it had made . . .
An orange flash turned into oily brown smoke just ahead of the French frigate, and Ramage realized that his lads in the bomb ketches were shooting with quite fantastic skill; they needed just a little more practice at firing at a moving target. . . A little more, he thought ruefully; they had never fired a mortar at a moving target in their lives, and he doubted if there were any officers serving in the Navy who had.
Now the Calypso was beginning to move fast through the water with the wind on her starboard quarter; the French frigate was quite clear of the harbour and for the moment appeared to be heading straight for the two bomb ketches, as though determined to sink them in revenge. On the other hand she might be trying to make sure she had enough offing to run clear without getting close to Isolotto. French charts might not be very accurate.
An isosceles triangle, he thought: that's what we make. The Frenchman is one corner, the bomb ketches another, and the Calypso at the top, on a course which should cut the triangle in half. Bisect it, he corrected himself, and found he wanted to giggle.
A puff of smoke from the French frigate's bow showed that one of her guns had been fired; then another puff warned that a second had gone off.
Southwick looked across at Ramage and shrugged his shoulders.
'Nowhere near us or the bomb ketches,' he said. 'They must be excited over there. They're going to bear away - they might try a broadside.'
Ramage could see the stubby black muzzles of the frigate's broadside guns: whoever commanded her was doing a remarkably good job of recovering from the surprise attack: he had his ship under way and in a few minutes - it might even be seconds - he would be ready to exchange broadsides. Had there been time to load those guns? Ramage thought of the rush to get the key to the magazine, the line of powder boys waiting to collect the powder charges . . . But of course the French might have left the guns loaded ... No ship of the Royal Navy would lie alongside a consort with loaded guns, but perhaps the explosion on the other frigate showed that the French considered the risk worth taking.
The French frigate now had headsails drawing and was beginning to bear away to the south. She would pass very close to the Fructidor and, Ramage guessed, would give her a raking broadside which would probably blow her out of the water. The British colours flying from the two bomb ketches looked defiant but the frigate was moving fast now and the bomb ketches had nothing to defend themselves with; they had no cannons, not even muskets. Kenton and Orsini probably had pistols - which meant only that they were free to shoot themselves if they wanted to deprive the French of the honour.
Ramage glanced down at the compass, across at the dogvanes and then ahead again to the frigate and the two bomb ketches. There was no time to use men needed at the guns to let fall the topgallants: the Calypso's topsails were rapfull of wind and that was that. He gave a quick order to the quartermaster, who had the men at the wheel bring the Calypso half a point to starboard.
'Will we make it, sir?' Aitken muttered, doubt obvious in his tone.
'We might,' Ramage said shortly. He was heading the Calypso for the invisible point where the French frigate would probably turn away to starboard to begin her run clear of the whole harbour and the point where she would fire her larboard broadside into the Fructidor.
The Calypso had two choices: Ramage could either bear away or round up short of the Frenchmen, firing a broadside at her and hoping to scare her captain into turning away prematurely, or he could stay on his present course and try to ram or to get alongside the Frenchman. In any case the penalty for being a few moments late would be seeing the Fructidor destroyed. He tried to think of it as just the destruction of a bomb ketch, deliberately trying to keep the picture of young Paolo, Jackson, Rossi, Stafford and young Kenton from his mind . . . why in God's name had he ever let them all serve in the same ship? They were part of his own life. Now the Calypso and the French frigate were in a dreadful race, one to save and one to destroy them.
'We stand a chance,' Southwick said, giving a sniff that betrayed his own doubt. 'We could try a ranging shot with the bow-chase guns ...'
Ramage shook his head. 'A waste of time, and we don't want smoke obstructing our view.'
The Calypso's bow wave was hissing and the men at the guns, coloured strips of cloth bound round their heads to stop the perspiration running into their eyes, were beginning to cheer as they scrambled up on to the guns for a better view of the desperate rush to rescue the little bomb ketch.
They began to cheer and shout defiance and dreadful threats at the French frigate, and Ramage guessed that at least the Fructidor would hear the voices carried across the water by the wind. That might be a tiny grain of comfort for the little group of men watching the French frigate bearing down on them and waiting for the turn away which would bring all her guns to bear.
'She has a hundred-yard lead on us,' Southwick said bitterly. 'She'll just get across our bow, turn and fire and then bolt before we get there ...'
'Why's he risking it?' Aitken asked, obviously puzzled. 'Just to sink a bomb ketch!'
'Revenge,' Southwick said promptly.
Ramage pointed towards Isolotto. 'He has to come out this far before he can turn away - he daren't try to pass between Isolotto and the shore, and the Fructidor's unlucky enough to be anchored just where he turns ...'
Ramage bent over the compass again and once more called out a slight alteration of course. The Frenchman was not increasing speed; it was just. . .
'He has a hundred yards' lead,' Southwick said again, this time his voice angry. 'That's all.'
'Less,' Ramage said quietly. 'I estimate less than two ship's lengths. He'll be able to fire as he bears away, and by the time he's on his new course we'll be about seventy-five yards astern of him, just sitting in his wake, and only the bow-chasers will bear . . .'
It would all be over in two or three minutes. By now it seemed that every man in the Calypso was screaming threats and defiance at the French, completely ignoring training and discipline. Ramage's only regret was that he could not join in. The French frigate's hull was becoming shiny as spray made wet patches on the dull hull to reflect sunlight from the waves. She was slightly grey at the bow, like the muzzle of an old black dog, but it was just dried salt crystals. Her sails had been patched time and time again, but they were all cut well, and properly trimmed: the man commanding her knew his job.
All the guns were loaded: Ramage was sure of that because he could see a face or two at each gunport; men watching and waiting for the target to come into view. He swung his telescope across to the Fructidor. The men were grouped round the mainmast. There was nothing they could do except wait for that dreadful broadside.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The shell that crashed down on to the southernmost of the three frigates, bursting a few moments after missing the main yard and rigging and hitting the ladder leading down to the mainhatch, exploded in a confined space, so that the blast and flame swept through the canvas-and-lathe bulkheads and reached the hanging magazine, breaking the windows that allowed light to shine in from the outside, and flashing across an opened cask of powder from which the gunner and his mate were filling cartridge cases in readiness for the resumed voyage to Crete.
Both men, thankful to be away from the neighing and cursing on deck, wore the regulation felt slippers instead of boots or shoes, so that they would not make any sparks with their feet; both men used copper ladles and the cask was bound and lined with copper, because copper against copper made no sparks.
They knew nothing of the impending attack; the two bomb ketches had been expected, and their arrival had been reported to the frigate's captain, who, after checking that the senior captain's frigate had already sighted them, did nothing more. The only unusual noise that penetrated the magazine had been the occasional terrified neighing of a horse which found itself suddenly swung high into the air from the raft, and occasionally there was the sharp drumming of a horse's hooves on the deck as it kicked out wildly before it could be calmed down after being lowered.
The gunner was a mild-mannered little man, once an artilleryman who had deserted from the royal service and, swept up by the Revolution, had joined the navy, where his knowledge of guns had brought him rapid promotion. He had enjoyed the promotion but not service at sea. His only previous knowledge of water had been watching the Loire flow past his little home at Tours, on the Quai d'Orleans almost opposite the Ile Aucard, just where the ferrymen came alongside the rickety wooden jetty, usually drunk and always cursing - not at anything in particular, but because the Loire flowed strongly on its way down to Angers and Nantes, before emptying into the Atlantic. In fact the Atlantic was usually the target of the ferryman's curses; the Loire, he complained, was always in too much of a hurry to get swallowed up by the Atlantic.
The shell which exploded blasted through the bulkheads with the result that in a fraction of a second the half-opened cask of powder went up and sent off the rest of the magazine, nine tons of powder. Not all of it was meant for the ship; five tons were for the flagship which they were due to meet in Crete, and one ton was for the garrison. They were due to embark another ton which the artillerymen were supposed to be bringing with them; in fact, it was the knowledge that more casks of powder were due later in the day that had made the gunner call his mate to help fill some cartridge cases: the arrival of more casks would so restrict the room in the magazine that the work would be twice as difficult.
The shell was the third fired by the Fructidor. Although Ramage thought she had fired without interruption, Kenton had watched the fall of the first shell from the forward mortar and even as Jackson and Stafford were touching their linstocks to the powder at the after mortar and Rossi was beginning to swab out the forward one, Kenton had ordered the spring to be slackened away two fathoms.
