Now the Calypso was turning the Hasard fast: topgallants, topsails and courses against the Frenchman's topsails only: the two ships were fairly spinning! Now both frigates had their sterns pointing at the line of battle - and the Neptune was a ship's length away: Ramage could make out the planking of her hull, interrupted by the black stubby fingers of her guns, run out ready. Her sails were patched; they were old, pulled out of shape by too much use. And he could almost distinguish the lay of the rope of her rigging. The foretopsail yard curved so much it looked as if it was sprung. Dun-coloured hull, mast hoops black.
Would she risk a raking broadside into the Calypso's stern? Unless every gun was carefully aimed, there was a good chance that some of the shot would rake the Hasard too.
Ramage shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was nothing more to be done about the Neptune: the Calypso was doing her best to force round the Hasard as a shield, the smoke was now streaming forward over the Calypso's quarterdeck as she turned in the wind.
'Belay that smoke, Mr Southwick! Have the men heave those braziers over the side. You're now in command!'
With that Ramage unsheathed his Patriotic Fund sword with his right hand and hauled out a pistol with his left. 'Come on!' he shouted at Jackson and made for the quarterdeck ladder, followed by Aitken.
The Hasard's maindeck was crowded. The lines of the grapnels flung aboard the Frenchman from the Calypso's deck were stretched tight, holding the two frigates together, and from the ends of the yards more grapnels were swung out and hooked into the Hasard's rigging.
There were still pockets of smoke across the French ship's deck and Ramage ducked through a gunport, leapt across the gap to one of the Hasard's open ports - noting that the lids just caught each other, despite the tumblehome - and a moment later he was racing for the Hasard's quarterdeck, shouting 'Calypsos, to me Calypsos!'
A Frenchman lunged at him with a half-pike and Ramage slashed it to one side with his sword. Blurred in the corner of his eye he saw the muzzle of a musket pointing at him, but from behind there was a sharp crack: presumably Jackson's pistol had taken care of it.
There were some of the Calypso's Marines: Sergeant Ferris was holding the barrel of a musket and swinging the butt round his head like a flail as he ploughed through a group of Frenchmen, roaring curses and threats.
Ramage saw a screaming Frenchman running at him with a cutlass, flung his pistol left-handed into the man's face and sliced upwards with his sword. As the man collapsed he leapt over the body and made for the quarterdeck ladder.
He was conscious that Jackson was beside him and Aitken, shouting threats in broad Scottish, was just behind. Grinning faces blurred as he ran but he just had time to register they were Calypsos.
Suddenly someone was tugging his shoulder and shouting. Aitken. 'There she goes! By God we did it! There she goes!'
An excited Aitken was pointing over the larboard quarter and, across the Hasard's quarterdeck, Ramage saw the enormous bulk of the Neptune sliding past. He registered that she was a fine sight - and that her guns were not firing: the Calypso was completely shielded by the Hasard though, judging by the slatting of canvas, Southwick and his men must be doing some hasty sail trimming.
Now he was almost at the top of the quarterdeck ladder, slashing at a Frenchman's legs and hurriedly leaning to one side as the man fell. And there was the entire quarterdeck, a replica of the Calypso's but full of men fighting desperately, cutlasses slashing and pikes jabbing.
'The wheel!' Ramage shouted, and with Jackson and Aitken they slashed and parried their way towards it. A French officer, dead from a gaping head wound, hung over the wheel, his coat caught in a spoke. Ramage had just reached the binnacle when a cursing, sword-slashing Rennick reached it from the other side.
'Steady!' Ramage bellowed, recognizing the bloodlust in the Marine officer's face.
'Oh, it's you, sir!' Rennick exclaimed, as though startled in the midst of the frenzy. With that he turned and rushed aft, to where Marines were still fighting it out with a group of French seamen.
From forward the popping of pistols and muskets and the clashing of cutlass blades showed that neither the waist nor the fo'c'sle had been secured, and then Ramage realized that most of the fighting on the quarterdeck had suddenly stopped and a Frenchman - Ramage recognized him as an officer - was shouting at the top of his voice that the ship surrendered. At that moment for Ramage everything went black.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ramage came to knowing at first that he was lying on a hard deck, that his head rang as though inside a bell, and someone was pouring water over him from a bucket - salt water, which made his eyes sting.
As the red mist cleared from his eyes and with a great effort he managed to get them to focus, he found he was lying on the Hasard's quarterdeck with Jackson dousing him and Aitken kneeling beside him while Rennick, musket at the ready, stood at his feet.
There was still the smell of the Calypso's powder smoke and he could just distinguish a group of seamen - French seamen - being guarded by a party of the Calypso's Marines.
'Are you all right now, sir?' Aitken said anxiously.
No bones were broken; only his head throbbed as though an enthusiast was whacking it with a caulker's maul.
'Wha' happened?'
'As that French officer shouted that he surrendered the ship, you stopped to listen and one of the French seamen fetched you a crack across the head with the butt of a musket.'
'Feels as though he dropped an 18-pounder on me,' Ramage muttered. 'Have we secured the ship?'
'Yes, sir,' Aitken assured him. 'The French officer,' he added, 'is waiting to surrender his sword to you - and apologize.'
'The captain?'
'No, second lieutenant. The only surviving officer. Seems Rennick and his Marines did for the others.'
'Too bad,' Ramage growled, struggling to stand up. 'Here, give me your shoulder.'
Then, as though the noise had been blocked out for a while, he heard the rolling thunder of the battle to windward. 'What happened to the Neptune?'he asked.
'Went on. Never fired a shot. Afraid of hitting this ship.'
'I thought she might wear round on to our larboard side.'
'She seemed to be in too much of a hurry to get up towards Cadiz,' Aitken said. 'And from what I can see of the battle, I don't blame her!'
By now Ramage was on his feet. There were twenty or thirty bodies sprawled in grotesque attitudes across the quarterdeck.
'What about the fo'c'sle and waist?'
'Hill, Kenton, Martin and Orsini are securing the prisoners.'
Ramage fought off a wave of dizziness. 'Casualties?'
Aitken shook his head regretfully. 'Seems we've lost at least eight men dead and thirteen wounded, one badly,' he said. 'We're getting the wounded across to the Calypso so that Bowen can get to work. The Frenchmen, too.'
Ramage, his vision still blurred, stared across at what had been the line of battle. Now it had become a ragged row of scattered groups of ships, many with masts gone by the board or topmasts canted like bent stalks. And every one of them coated with thick smoke: with some it was pouring from gunports as the breeze coming through the weather ports drove it out of the lee ones; with others, sails brought down on collapsed yards had caught fire, probably from the muzzle flash of the guns. Great ships now had less dignity than drunken men sprawled insensible in an alley outside a gin mill.
Ramage tried to put his thoughts together. Prisoners, wounded, and - he looked up at the wispy strands of clouds, mare's-tails coming in from the west and the distant outriders of bad weather - now secure the prize.
Well, he was going to get no help from the other ships: each one had enough emergencies of its own. So first, prisoners - how many? Probably a couple of hundred. Very well, leave a hundred on board the Hasard and shift the rest over to the Calypso. Sergeant Ferris and half the Marines can stay on board the Hasard, with fifty seamen: that should deal with the prisoners.
Wounded? Well, Bowen will have started his grisly work: he and his loblolly man will have all the help they need sent down to them by Southwick.
Colours! He glanced astern hurriedly, to see that the French colours had already been hauled down. Aitken saw where he was looking and said: 'Jackson's gone back on board the Calypso to get British colours, sir - in fact, here he comes!'
They watched as the American hurried over to the seaman with the ensign halyard. The French Tricolour had already been taken off and was lying on the deck. Jackson tied a bowline on the hoist of the British colours and the other seaman (Ramage recognized him as Rossi) then secured the Tricolour. They shook out the flags to check that they were the right way up and then Rossi pulled down on the halyard while Jackson made sure the flags, British above French, were clear and then kept a strain on the other end of the halyard until the head of the British colours reached the block.
'Congratulations, sir,' Aitken said. 'You'll soon have a collection of this class o' frigate!'
Ramage, his head still wanting to spin, grinned feebly. 'Find Rennick,' he said. 'Send word to Bowen how many wounded he can expect.'
The Marine lieutenant, grinning happily, soon reported to Ramage.
'Prisoners,' Ramage said, surprised how much effort it took him to concentrate his thoughts and enunciate the word, 'what's happening?'
'All secured, sir. Kenton's men are guarding those on the fo'c'sle, Hill has them rounded up in the waist, and Martin has them under guard here on the quarterdeck.'
'What about those below decks?'
'Sergeant Ferris and a dozen men are working their way through the ship, sir. The corporal has just reported to me that just about every Frenchman seems to have come on deck when we boarded: didn't want to be trapped below, I reckon.'
'You can't repel boarders down below,' Ramage said, and immediately regretted such a long speech as the caulker's maul battered his head.
'What about that French lieutenant?'
'He's waiting over there, sir,' Aitken said. 'Are you ready?'
