By now the men on the quarterdeck had removed the small wedge-shaped drawers which fitted into the slots round the circular top of the capstan, and which held bandages if the ship was frequently in action, or cloths for polishing brass if she was in port for any length of time. The men were now sliding the long capstan bars into the slots so that they radiated out like the spokes of the wheel of a haywain, but horizontal and at the height of a man's chest. As the last bar slid into place a boatswain's mate took a line and with it clovehitched each end to the next, as though adding the rim of the wheel to the spokes. This swifter, as it was called, made sure that none of the bars accidentally came out (an accident which could happen easily enough, without the swifter) should the men at one bar lose their footing.
Hellfire, Ramage thought to himself, the wind is coming up quickly: had it been out of a clear sky and brief, it would be called a colpo di vento, but as it is there is no doubt the captain of the Calypso has left weighing anchor so late that he is risking having to cut and run. Cutting and running to escape an enemy was all right, but telling the Board that one had to cut a cable and lose an anchor because of bad weather would bring down their wrath: not so much because of the value of the lost cable and anchor but because it revealed poor judgement and worse seamanship.
Ramage glanced at the distant stone wall partly enclosing the port, and then at the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs. 'Use the topsails to get the strain off the cable as soon as you can - but you haven't much room to tack.'
Aitken nodded and gave Hill an order. In a way it was amusing, Ramage thought: he was going to walk a few feet away apparently to watch the men at work at the capstan and then join Southwick, but actually he was giving Aitken the chance of handling the ship alone under what were difficult conditions. The only way Aitken would ever be absolutely confident was knowing that he could not make mistakes because the captain was not within earshot, ready to take command again. And now in turn Aitken was trying out Hill because this was the first time that the new third lieutenant had sailed with Aitken.
Ramage found the fiddler hurriedly tuning his fiddle. 'Hurry up,' he said, 'it'll be blowing a hurricane and we'll part the cable before you've hove a strain on that blasted catgut!'
Finally Ramage said: 'Come on, better flat forebitters than no forebitters at all: up on the capstan you go!'
The man grinned, revealing three or four yellow teeth and, ducking under the swifter, squeezed past two men standing ready to start pushing on their bar and scrambled up on to the top of the capstan.
The Calypso's bow was now rising and falling a good fifteen feet as the swell waves swept in, lifting high on the crests and plunging so quickly into the troughs that Ramage knew the men there would be feeling almost weightless, hard put to stand still because as the bow dropped they would be almost forced to trot a step or two.
The fiddler stood facing outboard, his knees flexing and tensing to keep his balance. He sawed once at the fiddle and then waved the bow confidently at Ramage, who promptly ordered: 'Start heaving, my lads!'
As Ramage recognized the familiar tune of one of the men's favourite forebitters, the foretopsail was let fall, the canvas flogging and almost drowning out the fiddle and the groaning of the capstan, until the yard was hoisted. Then the yard creaked as men hauled on the braces to trim it and the canvas stopped flogging as others heaved on the sheets.
'On Friday morning as we set sail . . .' the capstan men roared, pressing against the bars, each of the pawls clunking as it fell back into its slot in the barrel, preventing a sudden jerk overwhelming the men and spinning the capstan in reverse.
Further aft yet another sail began to slat, and now Ramage could hear the fiddle giving the tune, and the men bellowed the second line.
'It was not far from land . . .'
Ramage heard rather than saw the maintopsail being braced round almost overhead, the sail sheeted home and beginning to draw. Below decks forward, in the cable locker, men would be dragging the cable - as thick as a man's thigh - and coiling it down in a great circle, each ring smaller than the previous one. The nippers would be running back and forth smartly as the capstan turned the long, endless rope, the messenger, which first went round an identical drum beneath the capstan, then led two-thirds the length of the ship and round the voyol block secured right up in the bow (an enormous pulley) and finally back aft to the capstan extension.
The anchor cable itself never went round the capstan barrel extension on the deck below, midway between the mizen and mainmasts; instead it was briefly seized to the messenger by the boys using short lengths of line to nip it - hence their nickname, nippers - so that the cable was hauled along by the messenger until it reached the hatch over the cable locker, into which it slithered like an enormous serpent returning to its lair, the boys hurriedly unhitching their lines at the last moment and running forward to nip the cable again.
'Oh, there I spy'd a fair pretty maid...'
Now the men at the capstan bars were finding it easier as the frigate slowly beat up towards the anchor, one short leg before tacking, and then coming round on the other. The capstan swung fast on each leg but the men were slowed down, grunting with effort, each time the Calypso tacked and briefly the weight came back on the cable.
'With a comb and a glass in her hand . . .'
Ramage found himself beginning to hum the chorus.
'The stormy winds did blow,
And the raging seas did roar ...'
Ramage went forward to the fo'c'sle to join Southwick, who strode to the bow and looked down at the cable. He came back to report to Ramage: 'At short stay, sir.'
Ramage nodded: the anchor cable was now leading down into the water at the same angle as the forestay. The anchor was still holding, and Southwick signalled to Aitken, who was still standing on the quarterdeck near the capstan, speaking trumpet in his hand.
' While we poor sailors went to the top,
And the landlubbers laid below . . .'
It always surprised Ramage that men straining at the capstan bars with every ounce of strength, veins standing out like cords on their arms and necks, could spare breath for the words, but they could and seemed to gain strength, the capstan's revolutions speeding and slowing in accord with the singing and the tacking.
'Then up spoke a boy of our gallant ship,
And a well speaking boy was he . . .'
Southwick walked forward again and looked down at the cable. The Calypso swung once more as Aitken tacked her, and the capstan slowed down while the ship wheeled yet again on the cable, like a dog straining at its leash.
'I've a father and mother in Portsmouth town,
And this night they weep for me . . .'
Southwick came back. 'Up and down, sir; we're swinging on it,' he reported as he waved to Aitken. The next few minutes - almost moments - were going to be critical: with the cable now vertical, Aitken had to time the Calypso's moves so that she was tacking offshore at the moment the anchor lifted off the bottom.
'Then up spake a man of our gallant ship,
And a well speaking man was he . . .'
If the Calypso was tacking inshore, towards the cliffs, as the anchor came off the bottom, releasing the ship, there would not be room enough for her to go about because the anchor would not give that tug to bring the bow round. Even worse for Aitken, the sheer size of the anchor, swinging like an enormous pendulum in the water, would slow her down, dragging at her bow like a brake and preventing it swinging across to complete the tack.
'I've married a wife in fair London town,
And this night she a widow will be . . .'
Damnation, the frigate was pitching! This was when Ramage hated command: at a time like this he had no job to keep his mind occupied. Southwick was watching the cable and would soon be stowing the anchor; Aitken was judging his tacks. Hill, Martin and Kenton, and young Paolo, were down there on deck, busy with their allotted jobs. But Captain Ramage, having once given his orders, just had to keep out of the way, his most important tasks being to ensure his hat did not blow off, and nod when Southwick (out of politeness, not duty, because he had to report to whoever had the conn, Aitken in this case) made a report. The capstan men roared into the chorus once again.
'The stormy winds did blow, and the raging seas did roar . . .'
As they paused a moment before launching into the third line Ramage thought he heard a wild shout. Yes, it was coming from above. The only man left aloft was the masthead lookout and Ramage held on to the breech of a gun as he craned his head upwards.
Yes, there was the figure of the lookout. He was shouting - that much was obvious because his mouth was opening and closing, but the wind was whipping away the words. Frantically the man pointed to the south just as Southwick reported 'Anchor apeak ... anchor aweigh, sir' and signalled to Aitken.
The frigate began to forge ahead slowly while turning to larboard, away from the land, and the men fairly ran round the capstan, cheerfully bawling out the rest of the chorus:
'While we poor sailors went to the top,
And the landlubbers laid below.'
From that, Ramage thought inconsequentially, other landlubbers would assume that the poor fellows were lying down below, victims of seasickness or terror, but to a seaman 'lay' meant something quite different. 'Lay aft here!' meant come aft, and in the forebitter the wretched landlubbers had simply gone below.
Now the blasted ship had swung round so that the forward lookout was hidden by the yard, and Ramage walked across the fo'c'sle, braced himself and looked aloft again, trying to balance against the pitching. Now the man was gesticulating over the starboard beam.
Ramage looked to the south. Running down towards them under reefed topsails was a French frigate, identical in shape to the Calypso, but signal flags were streaming out from the halyards. 'What ship?' she was probably asking - the normal procedure when ships o' war met. And normally not a problem - unless the ship challenged was an enemy which would not know the correct reply. Ramage had half expected to meet the frigate one day: no doubt she was the French national ship that had carried the hostages from Santo Stefano to Giglio. But to meet her at the beginning of a scirocco while weighing anchor to move to a more sheltered place . . .
For a few moments he listened to the next verse: nothing could be done until the anchor was out of the water and the men began to cat it: the curious order, catting the anchor, which saw it hoisted on the cat davit, a thick wooden beam projecting from the side of the ship forward, often with a cat's head carved on the end. The purchase, or pulleys, were inset and took the tackle (which had a hook on the end) and hauled the anchor close up against the ship's side.
'Then up spoke the captain of our gallant ship,
And a valiant man was he,
