'Watch out!' Southwick bawled just as Ramage saw the Jason suddenly turning to larboard to cross the Calypso's bow. But was there room? Not if the Calypso continued slicing her way up to windward: there would be an almighty collision in a minute or two, with the Jason's starboard bow slamming into the Calypso's larboard bow.
'Back the foretopsail!' Ramage shouted at Aitken and turning to Jackson snapped: 'Hold her steady as she goes; the moment we get the foretopsail backed I don't want her to make a ship's length of headway.'
A ship's length would make all the difference whether the Calypso's jibboom missed or touched the Jason's shrouds and that in turn would decide whether the Jason tore out the Calypso's foremast by ripping away the jibboom and bowsprit, or the Calypso sent the Jason's masts by the board as her jibboom scraped along her shrouds like a small boy running a stick along a fence.
Seamen raced from the guns to the foretopsail sheets and the braces to haul round the foretopsail yard by brute force. Ramage had already seen that he could not help them by turning the Calypso into the wind because that could carry the frigate those few yards extra which could bring the Jason crashing into him.
But a quick look at the other frigate showed that she was making an attempt now to avoid a collision: it seemed that she was just determined to shave across the Calypso's bow and if there was any risk of a collision it was up to the Calypso to make the appropriate move.
Ramage was aware that Jackson was cursing the Jason's captain with a monotonous fluency but his words were drowned as the Calypso's foretopsail slatted and banged when the yard was braced round, and a glance over the side showed the frigate slowing down, as though she was sliding on to a sandbank. And there was the Jason running obliquely down towards them from only a hundred yards away. Ramage could now see patches stitched into her sails; her bow had grey patches of dried salt on the black paint. Her figurehead, brightly painted, was probably a representation of Jason himself. Although the guns were run out, black and menacing, there was not a man in sight: no seamen's faces at the gunports, no one on the fo'c'sle waving a cheery greeting (perhaps after thinking the captain had run things rather close), no one shouting a message through a speaking trumpet.
Suddenly the gun poking out of the first port gave an obscene red-eyed wink and then gouted smoke and, as the thunder of the explosion reached the Calypso the second gun fired, then the third and fourth in a ripple of flame, smoke and noise . . .
The Calypso was being raked by a British frigate, Ramage realized in a shocked rage and the shots were passing over with a noise like ripping calico: raked at a few yards' range and both ships had British colours hoisted.
The French poltroons who had captured the Jason were using a perfectly legitimate ruse de guerre when approaching under false colours, but the rules of war required that she lowered them and hoisted her own proper colours before opening fire . . .
And there was not a damned thing that he could do about avoiding the rest of the broadside because by now the Calypso was stopped hove-to, dead in the water and a sitting target as the Jason raced by.
But the Jason would pass in a few more moments and as Ramage listened for the crash of the Jason's shot tearing through the Calypso's hull and the screams of his men torn apart by shot or splinters, he shouted at Aitken to brace up the foretopsail yard and get the frigate under way again, otherwise if the Jason was quick she could wear round and pass across the Calypso's stern, raking her again with the other broadside.
Ramage saw, however, that if he was quick enough he could turn the Calypso away to starboard in an attempt to follow the Jason, preventing her from passing astern. Everything depended on whether or not the Jason's captain had anticipated him heaving-to, suddenly stopping the ship. Ramage thought not: anyone foolish enough to pass so close ahead, risking a collision but (more important in the light of the raking) making it harder for his gunners, who had to fire at a sudden blur passing the port instead of having a good look at the target fifty yards away, anticipated nothing.
The last of the Jason's guns fired and out of the corner of his eye Ramage could see the Jason's transom as she continued on the same course as before. Both Southwick and Aitken now joined him, the master bellowing through the speaking trumpet from time to time as the foretopsail began to draw. Jackson gave hurried orders to the men at the wheel to meet her as the bow began to pay off in the moments before the frigate came alive, moving through the water so that her rudder could get a bite.
'Damage, casualties?' Ramage demanded of Aitken and was startled by the puzzled look on the Scotsman's face.
'No casualties, sir, but a few sails torn and some rigging cut - nothing important.'
Southwick saw the unbelieving look on Ramage's face. 'That's quite right, sir: those gunners were all aiming high.'
Oh yes, an old French trick: dismantling shot to tear sails and rigging to pieces but leaving the hull and spars undamaged so that when they boarded the helpless ship they need only hoist up some spare sails and bend them on, and knot the parted standing, and splice the running rigging, and they had a ship they could use.
But what were the French doing? They were not racing for the convoy, nor were they tacking or wearing round to attack the Calypso again. What was their target? Their objective? The attack on the Calypso had been more like a flippant gesture than an act of war . . .
'You'd think they were just passing on their way to Guadeloupe!' Aitken exclaimed wrathfully, 'and they didn't even bother to wave . . .'
'Follow in her wake,' Ramage instructed Jackson, and Aitken began giving the orders to trim the sheets and brace the yards.
Ramage found himself tapping his cupped right hand with the barrel of the telescope, which he was still holding in his left hand. His brain had apparently stopped working: the shock of what had just happened had, in its unexpectedness, numbed him.
'Well,' he asked Aitken, 'we've a few minutes before we catch up with that scoundrel. Any ideas?'
'Absolutely none sir!' Aitken admitted. 'Why, I was waving at her when you ordered me to back the foretopsail, and that - well, that woke me up as I watched to see how close we were to a collision. Thirty yards, I reckon. Then the broadside started.'
Ramage turned to Southwick, who shook his head as a woman might spin a mop after it had dried. 'Same with me, sir. I was waving to the scoundrels when they began firing. I thought her captain was being very silly and showing off by passing so close across our bow. She looked like the Jason, though.'
'She was the Jason all right,' Ramage said. 'I recognized her and remember her figurehead, and she had it carved on her transom and nicely picked out with real gold leaf ...'
'So why did she open fire on us?' Southwick asked. 'Must have been captured by the French. But those damned French gunners were drunk or something to have aimed so high.'
'After our sails and rigging,' Aitken said.
'Don't believe it,' Southwick exclaimed. 'They were firing roundshot. The Jason probably doesn't have dismantling shot in her locker, since few British ships carry it, but if you're after sails and rigging you use grape or case. A keg of case or grape through a sail shreds it well enough. A roundshot - well, you can see -' he gestured aloft, '- just a hole punched through the cloth; nothing that can't be patched or stitched.'
'Very well,' Ramage said, watching the Jason as the Calypso finally turned into her wake, 'all that's over. What's she going to do now?'
'Beats me,' Southwick admitted. 'She's not even heading for the convoy. I'd understand her raking us in the hopes of sending one of our masts by the board, and then carrying on to attack the convoy - she's nicely placed to windward for that.'
Aitken took his hat off and scratched his head, a signal which Ramage interpreted as meaning he had a suggestion about which he was doubtful. Ramage looked at him with raised eyebrows.
'I was wondering, sir, if whoever commands the Jason is puzzled because the convoy is surrounded by three French-built frigates? If he's a Frenchman, could he have thought three French frigates had captured the convoy and he was coming down to join us to drink a toast to Bonaparte? Then suddenly at the last moment he saw we had British colours and bore up to rake us? That would account for her captain staying on the same course now and not making for the convoy.'
Before Ramage had time to answer, Southwick had seized on the same flaw that Ramage had spotted. 'Why was she flying the Jason's pendant numbers and British colours, then? If she thought the Calypso was also French, surely she'd have been waving a Tricolour and some French signal or other? But approaching another French frigate under British colours - that'd be asking for trouble, apart from being quite unnecessary.'
Aitken nodded. 'Yes, you're quite right: I didn't think long enough before I spoke.'
'We haven't much time,' Ramage said, 'so let's hear thoughts when they arrive!'
'What do you reckon, sir?' Southwick asked.
The more Ramage thought about it, the more puzzled he became. He acknowledged Jackson's report of the Jason's course. 'I'm certain of only one thing: we aren't going to find any answers by following her so far astern: let fall the courses, Mr Aitken. Out with your quadrant, Mr Southwick, and let's have some angles on the Jason's masts: I want to know the minute we start overhauling her.'
As Aitken turned away, calling out orders, Paolo, obviously annoyed at having no role to play so far, asked: 'No signals for La Robuste or L'Espoir, sir?'
'No, they know that they have to stay with the convoy. This is just the moment that a privateer lurking on the horizon would be praying for.'
As Southwick left the quarterdeck to get his quadrant and seamen swarmed up the ratlines and out on to the great lower yards to untie the gaskets securing the lowest and largest sails, Ramage relived the few brief minutes when the Jason raced across the Calypso's bow and her guns started firing.
There had been something he had noticed, something which, even while he was shocked by being raked by what everyone thought was a British ship, seemed odd. Something discordant, something which did not fit into the picture either of the French attacking under a ruse de guerre, or a - a what? Anyway, he'd noticed it in those split seconds but now he was damned if he could remember what it was. If he could remember, would it provide an answer? He was not even sure of that. It was in fact little more than a nagging thought, as though he had forgotten something but could not remember whether it concerned a button missing from a coat or to remind the butler that the dining room clock had stopped and needed winding.
The maincourse dropped from the yard with the gracelessness of a fat woman flopping into a low chair, but Aitken's staccato orders snapping across the deck from the mouth of the speaking trumpet sent some men forward hauling on the mainbrace and others aft, hardening in the sheets. A few moments later the forecourse came tumbling down, freed of the gaskets, and the yard was braced as the sail was sheeted home and trimmed.
Southwick bustled up with his quadrant, cursing that the courses would now get in the way, spoiling his view of the Jason.
'Not if you come over here,' Ramage said from the starboard side of the quarterdeck.
The master stood, legs wide apart to balance himself against the rolling, and carefully adjusted the quadrant until it showed him the angle between the Jason's mizenmasthead and her waterline. He scribbled the figure down on the slate kept in the binnacle box drawer.
'Timed that nicely,' he commented. 'Just as our courses started to draw. We'll soon see what effect they're having.'
Ramage nodded. 'But we'll have to get up the stunsails unless ...' He did not finish the sentence for a few moments. 'We have to keep the convoy in sight. If we haven't caught up with her by the time the convoy's drawing astern, we'll have to let her go'
'Then we'll never know what the devil's going on, sir,' Southwick grumbled.
'Maybe not, but our job is to protect the convoy, and anyway, I'm anxious to get home!'
