'It's still going to take a long time to make up that distance,' Ramage said gloomily. 'Half an hour, anyway. Still, the men can have their dinner; it's long overdue.'
It was as if the Furet was towing the Calypso, Ramage thought irritably; despite his recent gain, the distance hardly changed now - not perceptibly, anyway; just two identical frigates surging southwards with a quartering wind, one flying the Tricolour, the other British colours. The Calypso was by far the smarter, Ramage thought; but paint did not make a ship fast nor did scrubbed decks stop barnacles and weeds growing on the bottom. No doubt the copper sheathing was by now wafer-thin in places, no longer keeping the growth away, and it was equally certain that many thin sheets would have ripped off, leaving only the stubby sheathing nails sticking out like the heads of pins pressed into a pin cushion.
He would give anything to see the face of the Furet's captain, just to know what the man looked like. The Frenchman knew his business, that much was certain. Ramage would bet that the fellow had learned his profession under the old navy and, having no aristocratic attachments (and no enemies to accuse him falsely), had received well-merited promotion. Ramage felt that if he could catch a glimpse of the man's face he might be able to guess what his next move was likely to be, like a prizefighter watching his opponent's eyes for a warning of the next punch.
He lifted his telescope and saw the three heads facing aft at the taffrail, obviously watching the Calypso racing along in the Furet's wake. In the Tropics one would expect to see flying fish making their graceful waltzes over the wavetops, but they were nearly twenty degrees too far north . . .
Suddenly men were climbing up the Furet's starboard shrouds, going to the stunsail booms at the ends of the yards. Perhaps the French captain knew a trick to make them draw better. Curious that so much water was still pouring through the scuppers on the lee side - the men working the pumps must be getting tired.
'How long ago did you take the next to last altitude?' he asked Southwick, who consulted his slate and then looked at his watch.
'Seven minutes, sir. I've been taking one every four minutes.'
He had first noticed the pumps going just before Southwick took that sight. Say eight minutes. That was a long time to have the men pumping at that rate, because there was no doubt they were making that cranked handle spin, probably with a couple of bosun's mates standing over them with starters . . . Suddenly his thoughts froze as if a highwayman had jabbed him in the stomach with a pistol and demanded: 'Your money or your life.'
The Furet's pumps were going, and now there were men gathered at the starboard end of each of her yards, about to do something with the stunsails. What trick was that captain up to? No answer, no hint of a reason, came to mind.
'Stand by sheets and braces,' he snapped at Aitken, who snatched up the speaking trumpet and bellowed through it, although he was clearly startled by so unexpected an order, which would sacrifice the Calypso's stunsails and booms.
'Stand by at the larboard guns - yes, larboard, blast it!'
Again Aitken bellowed as he repeated the order, while Southwick hurriedly snatched up his quadrant and once again moved the vernier a fraction, noted the time and wrote the figures on the slate. All this Ramage saw only from the corner of his eye because he was watching the Furet through the telescope again.
Suddenly the head of the Furet's maintopgallant stunsail dropped a few feet and then streamed forward along the starboard side, flogging and twisting like the tail of a kite, and a moment later the rest of the stunsails were cut adrift, canvas and rope threshing in unison. She was going to turn suddenly to starboard, Ramage was certain of that and he was going to turn first to cut her off. If he was wrong he would lose a few hundred yards, but he had to gamble.
He shouted the order to Aitken and pointed at the quartermaster. An eight-point turn meant the men had to spin the great wheel several revolutions, and the quartermaster crouched ready over the binnacle, watching the compass and the dogvanes as well as glancing up at the luffs of the sails, which were beginning to flap as they lost the wind, although the yards were already being braced up.
'Larboard guns to fire as soon as they bear on the target,' Ramage said to Aitken, who again shouted the order through the speaking trumpet, although from the sound of the Scotsman's voice and the look on his face he probably thought his captain had suddenly gone mad because the Furet was still sailing on the same course with the Calypso astern of her.
Then the Calypso's bow began to swing to starboard, the Furet seeming to slide away over to the larboard bow, like an ice-skater . . . Ramage had guessed wrongly. Already the Calypso's sails were slatting overhead as seamen struggled with the sheets and tacks controlling the sails and braces which trimmed the yards, the stunsails tearing adrift and the stunsail booms breaking with a noise like fresh carrots snapping.
The guns' crews, having raced from one side of the ship to the other, busied themselves with side-tackles, train tackles and trigger lines. The gun captains stood ready with the trigger lines slack in their hands; second captains checked the powder in the pans and waited the order to cock the locks.
Ramage opened his mouth to give the order that would bring the Calypso back into the Furet's wake when the French frigate's transom disappeared, suddenly narrowing as gradually Ramage saw the whole length of the ship's starboard side appear: gunports open, stunsails slatting like streamers from each yard, sails flattened and fluttering as the yards were hurriedly braced sharp up. Now the two ships were racing along side by side, perhaps two hundred yards apart, both heading west, both with sails flogging as men struggled to trim them, and from forward in the Calypso came the first bronchitic coughs as three forward guns fired. A red eye winked once abreast the Furet's foremast, followed by three more further aft. Smoke began to stream from the ports and Ramage felt a heavy thump nearby as a roundshot crashed into the Calypso's hull.
Rapidly, because the ship had turned fast and suddenly brought the enemy into view, the rest of the Calypso's guns fired in a ripple of thunder, and the guns rumbled back in recoil, the men poised for them to stop so they could begin the ritual of sponging and reloading.
More of the French guns winked and smoked; behind him and to one side Ramage heard the crack-crack-crack of the Marines' muskets as they tried to shoot down the officers and the men at the wheel on the Furet's afterdeck.
He noted that the Furet's stunsail booms had all carried away, snapped by the long strips of sail blowing forward and wrapping round the braces, which would jam in the blocks when they tried to trim the yards.
The Calypso's fourth 12-pounder on the larboard side suddenly spun off its carriage, and a moment later Ramage heard a loud clang and a shriek of pain: a French roundshot had hit and dismounted it.
By now all the rest of the guns had been reloaded. Steadily each fired its second round at the Furet and Ramage, with nothing to do but await the outcome of the pounding, examined the French ship.
They were taking their time getting the sails trimmed; so much so that the Calypso was slowly drawing ahead. The Furet seemed to be heeled to larboard - but naturally, she was on the starboard tack. But - now she seemed to be heeled to starboard; in fact she was rolling, and rolling heavily enough to overcome the press of sails to leeward. They were rapidly clewing up the courses - but why reduce speed at a time like this? Now the topgallants were being furled. And the topsails.
Her gunports seemed to be nearer the water than one would expect, too. Then Ramage turned open-mouthed to Southwick, who was now standing beside him, and both men exclaimed simultaneously: 'She's sinking!'
'Aye, we must have had a lucky shot,' Aitken cried jubilantly but Ramage said: 'No, they've had the chain pump going for the past ten minutes, but I didn't realize what was happening.'
The Calypso had fired another broadside before Ramage noticed that several seconds had passed since the last French gun had been fired. He told Aitken to pass the order to cease fire.
'Watch her colours,' he told Southwick, and then snapped at Aitken: 'Stand by to heave-to and be ready to hoist out boats. Renwick, stand by with your men. I'll be calling away boarding parties in a few minutes.'
He turned to Aitken. 'Clew up the courses - use men from the guns if you need 'em because the topgallants will be next.'
There was nothing more dangerous and unnecessary than fighting with too much sail set; topsails were quite enough, giving complete control of the ship, and keeping the canvas high enough above the guns so that the muzzle flash would not start fires. For the first time in his life, he realized, he had been forced to fight under all plain sail. At least, he had stunsails and all plain sail set to the topgallants when he had to fight, because the Furet suddenly bore up ... Now the men were busy cutting away the torn stunsails and halyards and clearing the booms.
The French frigate was sinking all right: she had that slow, ponderous and ominous roll of a ship with many tons of water slopping around inside her, sluicing first to one side and then to the other. In a few minutes it would be too risky to put the Calypso alongside her in case she rolled so much that their yards locked together. Indeed, the way she was going, the whole ship might well capsize.
'They're trying to heave-to,' Southwick said, 'but I think the foretopsail braces have been cut. Ah, down they come! She's struck her colours, sir!'
Ramage was almost numbed by the speed of events. What had started off as a regular battle was turning into a scrap-bag of different experiences. And Southwick was right, the Furet had been trying to heave-to - what in God's name was going on now? He swung his telescope along her deck. Men were slashing at ropes with axes - several of them chopping with tomahawks as though frantically trying to drive home nails with hammers.
Suddenly the main yard slewed round drunkenly and the foretopsail yard, its halyard obviously let go at the run, the lifts parting, came crashing down across the foredeck. The rest of the sails and yards began to drop, swing, cant or flog as the men on deck slashed through sheets and braces, bowlines and tacks, halyards and lifts.
'We'll heave-to on the larboard tack, if you please, Mr Aitken,' Ramage said, 'and I want boats hoisted out.' He looked at the Furet again. 'Make sure the ship's company have pistols or muskets; we're going to have more than two hundred prisoners on board in an hour or so - less, probably. If she sinks, we'll need to sling over hammocks for the survivors to hold on to until we can fish them out. Not a good day for hammocks,' he added, gesturing to those used as bags to hold the roundshot. At that moment one of the masthead lookouts hailed that a xebec which he thought he had earlier seen leaving from the direction of Porto Ercole was now catching up fast and seemed to be flying a flag or pendant from the upper end of the yard.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Exactly fifteen minutes later Ramage leapt from the stern sheets of the Calypso's red cutter to seize a rope trailing over the larboard quarter of the Furet and scramble up, while the bowman tried to hook on and the rest of the boarding party grabbed at other ropes and began climbing the sinking frigate's side.
Ramage was unarmed; knowing that he would probably have to climb a rope he had taken off his cutlass belt and then, as an afterthought, remembering their presence when he bent over slightly, had taken the two pistols from the band of his breeches and put them down on deck.
The rope, hanging from the mizentopsail yard, was thick enough for climbing but worn smooth with use. Finally he reached the bulwark and swung himself
