Ramage and the Freebooters

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

With his lungs feeling they were about to burst and the muscles in his shins aching so much he was almost crying with pain, Jackson hauled himself up to the rock on top of the cliffs forming the southern entrance to Marigot and looked seaward. For many seconds the darkness was just a red haze, the air whistling in his throat as he struggled for breath and perspiration running into his eyes despite the white doth round his head.

Gradually, as he regained his breath and his head stopped throbbing, the horizon took on a definite outline. And to the south-west, a small dark shadow in the distance, he saw the brig.

He was too weary to be impatient with Mr Ramage: he knew Mr Southwick would be there. The swearing and grumbling behind him grew louder, then the crackling of twigs as men barged their way through the low bushes. A moment later Gorton, followed by several Tritons, joined him.

'Ah—just nicely placed to catch the offshore wind, Jacko!' he commented. 'He'll be up here in an hour. Wonder if he saw our rocket?'

'Doubt it,' Jackson said. 'Is Evans here?'

'Aye and m'rockets.'

'The rest of you men—start collecting stuff for bonfires,' Gorton said. 'One here, one there and a third just beyond.'

Gorton pointed down to the entrance to Marigot and said to Jackson. 'Not very wide...'

'No—I'm not surprised they towed us in.'

From up here Jackson could just make out the gap where the Jorum smashed through the raft, showing the channel between the sandspits leading into the lagoon. And almost directly below where he stood was the dark shape of the Jorum, like a stranded whale thrown up on a beach.

The two privateers, which had been anchored at the inner side of the lagoon, were indistinguishable against the background of mangrove swamps, showing they were very close in because the water of the bay was smooth and shining in the darkness.

'What d'you reckon Mr Ramage plans to do, Jacko?' Gorton asked.

'Don't reckon he has a plan. Can't have, if you think about it. We can't start anything; just wait to see what the privateers do and hope the Triton gets here in time. We've done our share—it's up to her now.'

'How so?'

'Well, we've found the privateers' base and they're still in it. Until the Triton gets here we've got to stop 'em getting out if they try to bolt, because if they get to sea we'd never catch them. But that's all, as far as I can see.'

Is that why he beached the Jorum just down there?'

'Yes, though if they really try to sail we probably can't stop them with your swivels. Knowing Mr Ramage, my guess is he reckons the privateers won't try to because they think we can stop 'em!'

'He's a cool one,' Gorton said. 1 was still trying to puzzle out why we went through the spit like that when he beached her.'

Gorton's admiration was genuine and frankly spoken, and Jackson said, 'He's a cool one all right. You get used to it, though! You ought to have been with us when we rammed a Spanish sail of the line in our last ship—a cutter not much bigger'n your schooner 1'

'What?'

'Tell you later—we'd better start getting back to the Jorum. Old Dupont could be paying us a visit soon!'

Gorton nodded as he looked round and saw the men had built up three piles of brushwood and were having to scramble down the side of the hill to cut more. And the Triton would have no difficulty in laying the entrance on this tack.

'Evans—loose off one of your rockets.'

He saw the glow of a slow-match as Evans blew on it; then the rocket spurted flame for a moment before hissing up into the sky, to burst high over their heads.

He looked over at the Triton, and a couple of minutes later a white rocket rose lazily from the brig and burst into several white stars. He knew Southwick would already have taken a bearing of Evans's rocket and even now was probably bending over the chart, working out whence it had been launched.

Gorton gave the men their instructions. 'Light one bonfire in fifteen minutes' time. Watch for any rockets from the Triton—they might send one up just to make sure it's our bonfire and not one lit by the privateersmen. If you see one, then Evans is to fire one. Is that dear?'

'Aye aye.'

'The bonfire may last ten minutes. Now use your common sense how soon you light the second and third, but the third one must be burning when the Triton's very close. Mr Ramage may send a boat to meet her, so make sure a man comes down to tell him when she's a mile off.'

'What if we spot anything back there—where the privateers are, or Dupont's men?' Evans asked.

'Good point. Three pistol shots for privateers moving, two for Dupont's men. And send a man down with a message as well—fast!'

*

Ramage suddenly realized he'd made a bad mistake when Evans's rocket soared up and later he glanced up at the hill to see the glow of the first bonfire, a bright beacon signalling his stupidity.

He sat down on the hatch coaming, cursing softly. Up to the moment the rocket was fired from the top of the hill all the privateersmen knew was that their prize schooner was a trap. There was nothing to make them suspect one of His Majesty's brigs of war was in the offing.

Most likely they would try to destroy the Jorum by boarding from the beach—probably waiting until daylight—and then sail both privateers to some other hiding place.

It was unlikely the rocket fired from the Jorum when she was alongside the jetty would have alarmed them: an hour had passed without anything happening. But now the rocket from the hilltop and the bonfire was a clear warning that one of the King's ships was dose enough to need a beacon...

And, Ramage told himself angrily, if Dupont—or whoever leads them—has any sense, he'll make a bolt for it now: he'll try to get both privateers to sea at once, before a warship arrives off the entrance to blockade him in.

Ramage jumped up and walked along the deck cursing aloud, men scattering out of his way, startled at his behaviour. Suddenly his foot caught on a rope and he pitched flat on his face.

Scrambling up and livid with anger he bellowed: 'Jackson, why the devil's this rope lying all over the deck?'

'Dunno sir, I didn't put it there.'

'Who did?'

Jackson hesitated, then said flatly, 'Dunno, sir.'

'Tell me, blast you, or I'll have you flogged!'

'Well sir, it's part of the foremast shrouds, so in a way you...'

It was farcical and Ramage knew it, suddenly bursting out laughing. The more he laughed the more farcical it seemed and everyone on board joined in. By the time he had managed to stop, Ramage thought of the men shouting their makeshift battle cry as the Jorum ran aground, and that set him off again until, hiccoughing and with tears streaming from his eyes, he staggered back to the coaming and sat down again.

Gradually the laughing died down, and soon Jackson was standing in front of him.

'Ship's cleared for action, sir, and I've had the boat hoisted out, too.'

'Good. Are you proposing a fishing trip with Fuller?'

Jackson laughed. 'Well sir, Fuller did bring his fishing line.'

'Is that true?'

Ramage knew the Suffolk man lived for fishing, and Jackson sounded serious.

'Yes sir—he never moves without his line.'

'Pity he's up the hill, then, because you're in for a long row soon.'

'Can I pick my men now, sir?'

'Yes—but you're not going for a while.'

As Jackson walked away Ramage looked at his watch. More than an hour since the Jorum broke through the raft— more than time enough for Dupont to lead his men round the bay—even allowing that he would have to climb into the hills to avoid the mangrove swamps. Or had Dupont boarded one of the privateers?

Yes—that was a possibility. Each privateer was short of the fifty or so men, not to mention the boats, who had been killed with the grenades. Had they more boats? Unlikely— Ramage knew if he had been a privateer skipper faced with boarding the Jorum he would have sent off every available man and boat. Which also meant that if Dupont hadn't a boat at the jetty, they'd have to make a raft to go on board the privateers because few of the men would be able to swim; certainly none would risk sharks by swimming in the dark.

The devil take it; if only he could calculate all the possibilities at the same time, instead of having a series of afterthoughts which meant it was ages before he managed to make the right decisions. And his present tiredness didn't help.

All right, assume the privateers will make a bolt for it. To stop them the Jorum has the five swivels, half a dozen musketoons and a few pistols. And twice that number wouldn't stop them—not desperate men always living in the shadow of the noose, knowing no one would show them mercy, that capture meant trial and the death sentence as pirates, whether or not they carried letters of marque.

Very well. It was three hundred yards from the Jorum to the other side of the bay. How wide was the channel? How dose did the privateers have to pass to get out? A couple of ideas drifted through his mind, but he had to concentrate on overcoming his weariness before he could hold on to them long enough to examine their possibilities.

He called for Jackson and told him:

'Find a leadline—or make one up. Then take the boat and run a line of soundings from here to the far shore over there. I want to see where the channel is, so we know how close the privateers have to pass.'

Within twenty minutes Jackson was back to report that although the channel was fifty yards wide, the deepest part was close to the Jorum, which was lying right on the southern edge where the water shoaled suddenly from five fathoms to one. On the north side it shoaled gradually, he said, adding:

'Plenty of nasty little rocks sticking up, too, all along that side of the channel—like buoys at Spithead, sir!'

'Could you drop a bight of the anchor cable over one of them?'

Jackson slapped his knee. To make a snare? Easy, sir!'

'Carry on and do it, then. Pass it through the Jorum's hawse first and we'll haul in the slack later.'

Jackson ran forward, calling for men.

The first bonfire up on the hill had gone out Orion's belt, Sinus, Castor and Pollux — The stars were moving across the sky on their pre-ordained curves. Curious that Betelgeuse was so red and Sirius so sparkling white. As he looked down again he found he was almost dazzled by the stars, the hillside across the bay seeming speckled with fireflies.

Partly dazzled... again an idea slid through his mind. Dazzled! The men at the privateers' helm, the captain probably standing in the bow conning her, anxious in the darkness to keep in the channel yet avoid the Jorum, and equally watchful for a sudden windshift or eddy off the cliffs.

And as he gets abreast the Jorum... *

As the seamen heaved down on the windlass bars to turn the drum, which looked like an enormous cotton-reel, Ramage watched the cable curving upwards out of the sea, dripping as the strain squeezed out the water from between the strands.

From the schooner the cable stretched right across the channel to the rock on the far side where it was secured, and forming a gigantic trip rope which would be invisible in the darkness.

'Pity we can't get a bit higher, sir,' Jackson commented. 'It'd take out their foremast for sure.'

'I doubt it,' Ramage said, 'but anyway we can't.'

'Reckon it'll damage them much?'

'No—I doubt if it'll damage them at all.'

Jackson was silent for a minute or two, puzzling out its purpose if it wasn't going to do any damage. He finally had to admit defeat.

'May I ask ...'

Ramage, surprised at the American's bewilderment, said, 'After we broke through the raft, we had a devil of a job trying to see where the channel was, didn't we?'

Jackson agreed.

'But they've been in and out dozens of times and know where the channel is,1 Ramage continued. 'Very well, they get abeam of us, nicely in the middle of the channel, but jumpy because we're firing on them with the swivels ...'

Unintentionally Ramage paused, visualizing its happening.

'... Suddenly the ship hits something. If you were the skipper what'd be your first reaction?'

That we'd hit a rock!'

'But you know you're in the channel.'

'Then I'd be damned uneasy, sir!'

'What would you do?'

'Well, I'd take a quick look over the side and make sure!'

'All of which,' Ramage said dryly, 'would have wasted several seconds just as you're abreast of the Jorum.' 'True enough!' Jackson said emphatically.

'But you'd be even more jumpy if in fact the Jorum hadn't, up to that moment, so much as fired a pistol at you.'

The American waited, then knew that was all he was going to be told. He'd been through many adventures with his captain; on more than one occasion he'd known—or, he corrected himself, thought he knew—they'd be killed; but each time Mr Ramage had produced some apparently crazy idea which saved them.

And yet, Jackson realized, the ideas usually revolved round one sort of—well, almost a rule, which Mr Ramage was always trying to din into him: surprise. You could nearly always lessen the odds by surprising the enemy.

It had become a sort of game between them, too. All right, he thought, Mr Ramage had explained the purpose of the cable—just to make sure the first privateer captain is jumpy, so the cable's only part of the plot. But as usual Mr Ramage had given him a clue—if the Jorum had not, up to that moment 'so much as fired a pistol...'

Suppose the moment Mr Ramage felt the privateer hit the cable he opened fire with the swivels, musketoons and pistols? No, that was too obvious; he had something else up his sleeve, and Jackson couldn't fathom it.

Ramage looked at his watch and then glanced aft. The three men standing there as lookout were reliable and one of them had the night-glass. Surely Dupont had managed to get on board one of the privateers by now? Ramage felt confi dent the man didn't intend attacking the Jorum from the beach. He walked over to Gorton, calling to Jackson: 'Muster the hands aft; I want to have a word with them.'

As soon as the men were gathered round, with the three lookouts listening, Ramage stood with Gorton and explained his plan should the privateers try to sail out. As soon as he finished he asked if there were any questions, but there was none, and as he dismissed them the men scurried off in the darkness to prepare themselves.

A few minutes later Ramage heard one lookout speak sharply to another and saw he now held the night-glass to his eye.

Suddenly he turned.

'Captain, sir: the nearest privateer's weighing and she's just hoisting a headsail!'