'We'll clew up the courses, Mr Aitken,' Ramage said briskly. The Scotsman picked up the speaking trumpet and gave the order that sent men running to the buntlines and clewlines. Quickly the corners of the big lower sails were drawn in diagonally towards the masts and then the middles of the sails were hauled upwards, until the great sails looked like bundled laundry.
Ramage walked to the side and peered down at the sea from a gunport, and then he looked ahead again. 'We'll hand the topgallants, too, Mr Aitken,' he said, and the moment the first lieutenant shouted the orders, topmen swarmed up the shrouds and out along the yards, folding the sails and securing them against the yards with gaskets. They were doing it as thoroughly, Ramage noted, as they would a 'harbour furl', where a sharp-eyed port admiral would be ready with criticisms.
So now the Calypso was reduced to topsails - what was generally regarded as 'fighting canvas', although none of Nelson's ships of the line, hurrying because of the falling wind, had reduced sail: like Nelson, they were content to let enemy shot do the furling for them.
Ramage watched the French frigate carefully. If the captain was awake, then the Calypso's shortening sail should alert him. Frigates did not suddenly reduce sail in the middle of a battle without a reason. Come to that, frigates did not suddenly break through the line.
Yes, the French frigate was certainly at general quarters, with her guns run out, as of course they should be, and obviously loaded with roundshot or grape. But she seemed strangely uninterested in the Calypso - a sister ship, too, that a moment's thought should remind someone on board had been captured by the British . . .
At that moment a particularly large swell wave made the frigate yaw, and Ramage could at last read the name carved on her transom. Le Hasard. Green lettering - which had made it so hard to read - picked out with red. No gilt. The captain had obviously made do with what the dockyard had issued.
He told Aitken the name, but the Scotsman merely said: 'She'll get a new name in the British service!'
Half a mile, and one point on the starboard bow.
At that moment Aitken pointed astern. The look on the first lieutenant's face made Ramage turn quickly.
The French Neptune, ship of the line, had turned to the north and was now getting into the Calypso's wake, perhaps three quarters of a mile astern. Was it a coincidence or was she coming after the Calypso?
That did not matter much, Ramage realized immediately: the moment the Calypso opened fire on the frigate, the Neptune would come up on the other side and pour in broadsides: that was unavoidable. Something, as Nelson had written, must be left to chance - and he had left the ship of the line astern to chance . . .
Well, he could forget all about the attack and sneak back through the line of battle and take up the position he should never have left. He could, but having made all these preparations he was not going to.
Or he could try to race the Neptune and get alongside Le Hasard, perhaps overwhelming her before the Neptune could catch up. But even if he took the Hasard, the Neptune would be alongside moments later, and a ship of the line's broadside . . .
He had avoided Le Brave's broadsides by guile; there was no way of avoiding the Neptune's.
He realized that he could keep the bluff he was going to use on the Hasard and try it on the Neptune. But it was only bluff; it was not a magic suit of armour that would keep out the Neptune's roundshot. But, he shrugged his shoulders, it was the only trick he could play.
Five hundred yards to the Hasard. 'Stand by guns' crews and grapnel men,' he said to Aitken, raising his voice against the rumbling broadsides. It was annoying to have to use the Scotsman to relay every order, but Ramage had long since realized that his voice did not carry.
The Calypso's guns would fire once, then most of the men would snatch up weapons and board. Should he have ordered two broadsides? Even three? Damnation, he told himself crossly, the boarders are the ones who will carry the enemy; one broadside of the Calypso's roundshot battering into planking will only make a lot of noise and smoke.
Four hundred yards . . . and the Neptune is closing up fast. Does her captain realize what is happening or is it just a coincidence? Might he not guess until the Calypso, guns firing, crashes alongside the Hasard?Or has he realized and is even now stalking the Calypso, waiting for the moment he can range alongside?
Three hundred yards. He could picture the Calypso's gun captains, down on their right knees, left legs flung out to the side, squinting along the sights of their guns, giving last-minute elevation orders to the handspike-men. The second captains would be waiting impatiently to cock the flintlocks and leap to one side, clear of the recoil; the gun captains would already be holding the trigger lines, ready to give the tug that would send the flint down to make the critical spark.
Two hundred yards - and yes, through his glass he could see that the French officers on the Hasard's quarterdeck were now alert. One was running towards the quarterdeck ladder; another was snatching up a speaking trumpet. A third was waving his arms, and a fourth was wrenching a pistol from his belt.
One hundred yards. He looked round at Southwick and raised his hand. Stafford and his shipmates began to bob and weave among the braziers.
Ramage looked across at the coxswain. There would be one more helm order - the one that would bring the Calypso crashing alongside the Hasard and, the rudder hard over, hold her there while the grapnels flew. If only Sarah could see this. And his father. Frigates did not stand in the line of battle - well, if only father would (in his splendid French) tell that to the Neptune . . .
Fifty yards - a frigate's length . . . now the first few guns of the Calypso's broadside are firing ... a shout to the quartermaster . . . Aitken is bellowing at the grapnel men to throw high and hard . . . More guns firing . . . the officer on the Hasard's quarterdeck is firing his pistol, obviously overexcited . . . Astern the Neptune is getting very close, the wineglass curve of her tumblehome and her masts nearly in line showing that she is almost in the Calypso's wake.
'Mr Southwick!' Ramage shouted, and almost immediately there was a faint crackling and then smoke billowed up from braziers on the quarterdeck, to be carried by the breeze over the starboard side.
'It works!' bawled an excited Aitken. 'Just look at it!'
At the root of the billowing smoke cloud Ramage could see Rossi and Stafford and the Frenchmen tossing handsful of what seemed like wet dust on to the flickering braziers.
Ramage hurried to the larboard side to look astern at the Neptune, which had been hidden by the tumbling smoke. How would the clouds of smoke appear to her?
Several sharp crashes showed that the Hasard's gunners were firing. Thank goodness - fire from her would make it seem more likely from the deck of the Neptune that the British ship was ablaze . . .
'Most of the grapnels are secured, sir!' Aitken shouted. 'We're right alongside!'
'Away boarders!' Ramage yelled over his shoulder, still trying to watch the Neptune. She had not altered course: she was steering to come close alongside the Calypso. In perhaps four minutes they'd all be blown to pieces.
But anyway, Southwick's trick certainly produced smoke: the breeze was blowing it right across the Hasard's deck: Ramage could imagine the Frenchmen coughing and spluttering, gasping for breath. Thank God the breeze was from the west, from the Calypso to the Hasard.
And it was time he boarded the Hasard as he had planned: to lead the seamen and Marines. But should he continue with the wet powder to make a smokescreen? What would the Neptune conclude if the smoke suddenly stopped? At the moment she must think the whole after part of the Calypso was on fire. Would that be enough to make her keep her distance, for fear the Calypso's magazine would go up, hurling blazing wreckage all over her?
'Keep that smoke coming, Mr Southwick!' he called. And this was a splendid breeze, blowing in just the right direction, even if he could not see across the Hasard's deck. If only the wind had bulk, so that it would be a shield between the Calypso and the Neptune; a shield that would ward off that broadside that the French gunners were preparing.
If only he had attacked the starboard side of the Hasard: then he would have the Hasard as a shield between him and the Neptune's broadsides . . . The French 74 would never risk hitting the Hasard . . .
But the wind is west! he almost screamed at himself, snatching a quick glance astern at the Neptune before shouting at Aitken: 'Let fall the courses! Quartermaster, keep the wheel hard over! Southwick, more smoke! Jackson, look quickly and tell me how our boarders are getting on!'
Would those grapnels hold, though? They were on comparatively light lines - light so that they could be thrown easily, but not particularly strong because it was always assumed there would be several - as indeed there were. But would they be strong enough to withstand the wrenching? Strong enough to hold the Hasard alongside while the Calypso swung her round?
The devil take it, there was just a chance!
'Courses, Mr Aitken, and let fall the topgallants! Watch those sheets and braces!'
Now there was a defiant shouting and the popping of muskets from the Hasard: more than a hundred of the Calypso's seamen and all her Marines were swarming across the Frenchman's decks, fighting pike against cutlass, tomahawk against musket. Ramage could picture the bitter battle in the smoke drifting like banks of fog.
Overhead the great courses suddenly flopped down and as the yards were braced and the sheets hauled home the canvas took up the familiar curves. Then, higher up the masts, above the topsails, the topgallants spilled down and filled at once as men hauled on the halyards. The smoke seemed too thin as the sails bellied out, but Ramage realized it was a lucky fluke of wind.
For a few moments there was nothing for him to do, except look astern at the Neptune and wonder. Would the Calypso's sails draw in time so that, secured alongside the Hasard by the grapnels, she could pivot round, turning the Hasard and forcing the French frigate between her and the Neptune for long enough to act as a shield?
Would the grapnel lines hold the two ships close enough together? Anyway, at the moment the Calypso's hull was pressed hard against the Hasard: open gunports in both frigates would be jamming against each other as they rolled in the swell; the two ships' chainplates would probably lock; just long enough, Ramage prayed, for the Calypso to wrench the Frenchman round.
He stared ahead over the Calypso's bow. Yes, the horizon was beginning to shift. The Santissima Trinidad and her attackers, which had been on the beam, were gradually drawing round on to the quarter. The Calypso's sails were filling enough to lever round the Hasard.
But in time?
He looked astern at the Neptune. She was rolling heavily in a swell wave which shook the wind from her sails and then let them fill with a bang. Two hundred yards? Perhaps less.
But supposing this trick worked, what then? Would the Neptune heave-to and try to save the French frigate? Or (Ramage looked across the line of battle and through a gap saw more British ships coming into battle) would the Neptune make a bolt for the north, towards Cadiz and in the company of the van ships, which (so far, anyway) showed no sign of turning back to come to the help of the centre and rear?
Among thirty-three line-of-battle ships, one frigate more or less should make no difference - unless the captains were old friends: joined together by some revolutionary act in the past, or friends from the time that the Neptune's captain also commanded a frigate?
