Ramage’s Mutiny

CHAPTER NINETEEN

At daybreak the following morning the Jocasta was within fifteen miles of La Guaira, running along a jagged coast where mountain peak after mountain peak reared up only a few miles from the shore, the lower slopes covered with thick green forests. The coastline was a series of bold cliffs, looking like bastions defending the coastline from the constant battering of the sea, broken by occasional gaps where sandy beaches were backed by palm trees. Almost everywhere a heavy surf broke with a thunder that could be heard a mile offshore, spray erupting in white clouds as the waves surged along the rocks.

Ramage looked down at the chart spread on the binnacle box and then glanced up at the mountains. There were two ridges, the nearest with peaks rising to 4000 feet, the second which soared up to 9000 or more. And the three peaks that concerned him most were clear enough: the nearest was Izcaragua, nearly 8000 feet high; then six miles to the west was Pico de Naguata, the highest at 9000 feet, and joined by a long ridge which ran for seven miles to join Pico Avila, 7000 feet high and only three miles from La Guaira. Caracas, the capital of the province, was several miles inland, high among the mountains. There, thought Ramage, the Captain-General will soon be sitting down to his breakfast, blissfully unaware that horsemen are galloping over the mountains to warn him that La Perla has gone. Before they arrived, with luck, more horsemen would be galloping up the twisting road from La Guaira to tell him that La Perla was off the port.

La Guaira - he knew precious little about it. An open anchorage with deep water close to the shore, the port built on a narrow plain between two masses of rock . . . That could be almost anywhere. It was defended by the Trinchera Bastion on the eastern side and by El Vigia, a castle overlooking the port from a height of about four hundred feet. According to Southwick the anchorage was occasionally swept by enormous rollers from the north, coming two or three at a time; walls of water sometimes two miles long which wrenched ships from their anchors and tossed them up on the beach like driftwood.

And that, Ramage thought, is all we know about La Guaira, and entirely due to Southwick's habit of filling notebooks with details of places whenever he could find someone who had been there. It was the main port of the province of Caracas, and (in more peaceful times) fresh water could be obtained from a small reservoir which had been made some five hundred feet above the town by damming up a river. Southwick's notebook added that the main exports were cocoa, coffee, hides, dyewood and medicinal roots. A "particular cargo" comprising those mundane items and captured only by risking the Jocasta would make Admiral Davis explode with more flame and violence than had destroyed El Pilar . . .

Rennick was parading his Marines. They looked smart enough, and Ramage thought he detected a satisfied swagger in their bearing since they had blown up the forts. It would do no harm; they had a right to be proud of themselves and their officer. Although even Rennick did not know it yet, they would soon have to go below to take off their uniforms and put on seamen's clothing. Any sharp-eyed watcher on shore with a telescope would spot those uniforms and know they were not Spanish; moreover, some of the Jocasta's mutineers might be living in La Guaira, only too anxious to help their Spanish masters.

The Marines to wear seamen's clothes, Ramage reflected, is about all I have decided about how we are going to cut out this merchant ship. Rennick has paraded his men, the gunner has been round inspecting the guns, Southwick and the bosun have checked over the tiller ropes and are now busy making sure that they missed nothing in yesterday's examination of sheets, braces and halyards. Aitken has the conn, and every one of them, from the First Lieutenant to the cook's mate, assumes that Mr Ramage has a completely foolproof plan for cutting out the ship, just as they were now convinced that he planned the Jocasta's capture to the last detail from the first moment he sighted the Santa Barbara.

His plan at the moment was to haul down that Spanish ensign as soon as possible; the sooner the Jocasta was sailing under her proper colours the better, although for the time being, to avoid raising the alarm, because they were now rarely a mile from the shore, the red and gold flag of Spain was streaming in the wind. The frigate was still La Perla as far as the Spaniards were concerned - at least at this end of the Main.

Everyone on board was cheerful enough - except Paolo. Since the funeral services he had been taking many vertical angles of every peak that Southwick clapped eyes on and had the height noted on the chart. Ramage doubted if Paolo's book of tables had ever been used so much as it had in the past hour or two. The Master was being deliberately harsh with the boy, beginning with the way he stood as he held the quadrant. "Balance yourself as the ship rolls by swaying your body from the hips upwards, " he had growled. "Don't move your buttocks; you look like a fishwife walking down Billingsgate Hill! "

Now half a dozen seamen were hoisting up the grindstone: after the fighting across the Jocasta's decks there were many cutlasses with nicks in the blades which would have to be ground out, and Ramage shuddered at the thought of having to listen to the scraping once again. The cook would come up on deck soon, announcing to anyone who cared to listen that he had "to put a sharp" on his cleavers: cutting up salt tack always took the edge off them. He always appeared when the grindstone was set up; he always made the same announcement, and no one ever listened. But when they had boarded the Jocasta, Ramage had seen the cook join one of the boarding parties, a meat cleaver in each hand. He was a deceptive man, so thin he seemed to be starving, and normally so quiet that no one would guess he enjoyed nothing better than boarding an enemy ship.

Once again Ramage looked along the line of mountains. He had never seen a shoreline so constantly beaten by rollers; there was always a jagged line of boiling surf thundering into the foot of the cliffs, flinging up fine spray which hung as a heavy mist, blurring the slots and crevices. Yesterday he had occasionally seen small boats inshore, fishermen from the villages built wherever there was a gap in the cliffs or where a bend in the coast formed a sheltered bay and gave them a lee. They must be hardy men, working under a blazing sun with a heavy sea running most of the time. Presumably starvation faced them if a week of heavy rollers prevented them from launching their boats.

The Jocasta was making a fast passage: with this soldier's wind the hourly cast of the log showed she was making an effortless ten knots. During the night he had expected the stunsails to carry away at times as occasional but brief gusts came up astern without warning.

The Main was a strange and unpredictable coast, and he wished he had sailed it before. This curious light over the mountains, for instance: as the sun came up it had not washed the peaks in its usual pinkness; instead it had cast a cold, almost whitish light, bringing with it an almost frightening clarity and throwing harsh, sharp-edged shadows. Every crack and crevice, valley and distant precipice showed up in the telescope as though it was only five miles away, instead of twenty. In contrast, there had been a haze yesterday which, up in the Leeward and Windward Islands, always warned of strong winds to come. Now today there was this clearness. It could mean anything or nothing. Southwick's notebook referred to calderetas sweeping down from the mountains, but gave no further details. Still, if they occurred only once or twice in a year there was no reason to suppose they would bother the Jocasta . . .

He was getting jumpy; it was as simple as that. He had been lucky at Santa Cruz and if he had had any sense he would be on his way back to English Harbour. Instead he was bound for La Guaira, commanding - as far as any onlooker was concerned - His Most Catholic Majesty's frigate La Perla. Only another dozen miles to go; already Pico Avila was looming up high, towering over La Guaira just as Pico de Santa Fe stood at the back of Santa Cruz.

He looked down at his clothes. Providing he did not wear a hat, they were similar enough to the Spanish naval uniform. Southwick, with his chubby face and flowing white hair, would hardly pass for a Spaniard but, he told himself, people usually saw what they expected to see: at La Guaira they were waiting for Captain Velasquez to arrive in La Perla . . .

Southwick walked up to report on his inspection: "The tiller ropes are sound, sir, and so are the relieving tackles. Hardly a new rope in the ship but nothing needs changing. Just as well, since there isn't a spare coil anywhere. We might get some from the Calypso when we meet her."

"Very well. We'd better start getting ready for entering La Guaira."

Southwick eyed him curiously. "Aye, aye, sir. We'll be anchoring?"

"I don't know yet, but the Spaniards will be expecting us to, so we have to have everything ready."

"The men at quarters?"

"Yes, but hidden below the bulwarks. Guns loaded but not run out and boarders standing by."

Southwick obviously had many more questions to ask, but he nodded and said: "Very well, sir, I'll see to it."

Aitken, as First Lieutenant, had to know what was going on, and Ramage walked aft to where he was standing near the binnacle and gave him his instructions. "I'll take the conn, " Ramage said. "We'll be there in two or three hours."

By now the grindstone was hard at work, one man working the handle, another pouring water into the trough through which the bottom of the stone turned, and a third moving the blade of a cutlass across the spinning wheel. He then sighted along the blade and, when satisfied, put it to one side, picking up another from the waiting pile.

The sun was getting hot; already the deck was uncomfortably warm and Ramage began pacing the quarterdeck. The glare from the waves as they surged past the frigate made his eyes ache and it would get worse as the sun climbed higher.

Paolo, having satisfied the Master that he could now work out the distance off by the vertical angle, was marching up and down, hands clasped behind his back, a frown on his face.

"Mr Orsini, " Ramage said, "you look worried. Are sines and tangents still bothering you?"

"Oh no, sir. It's my dirk. The blade is chipped and I was hoping I could put it on the grindstone before they stow it."

"How on earth did you chip it?"

"When we boarded the Jocasta, sir. I was warding off a cutlass, and I think the blow made a dent in the edge."

Ramage stared at the boy. "You boarded the Jocasta with your dirk?" he demanded.

"Why yes, sir: it's a very good dirk: the best that Mr Prater had. Aunt Gianna went with me to Charing Cross - Mr Prater is the best sword cutler in London - and told him she wanted the finest dirk for me."

"I know all about Mr Prater, " Ramage growled, "but that dirk is not for fighting! Why, it's only a twelve-inch blade. I've told you before, use a cutlass."

"But I had a cutlass as well, sir, " Paolo protested. "I was using my dirk as a main gauche, but I had to ward off one Spaniard's blade with the dirk and kill him with the cutlass."

A main gauche! In the days when duellists paid little attention to rules, a man held a dagger in his left hand, hoping to use the sword in his right hand to swing his opponent round with a parry, leaving him wide open to a jab from the dagger. Paolo had learned duelling in Volterra; his tutor had obviously impressed on him the merits of surviving.

"Very well, " Ramage said, "you can have five minutes. But let the seaman put the dirk on the stone; you'll grind away half the metal! "

Aitken was going round the deck and as he called names from a list in his hand men went obediently to collect boarding pike, tomahawk or cutlass. Ramage noticed that the first thing a man did was to examine the point or edge and some, with obvious grunts of disapproval, went over to the grindstone.

As soon as Paolo came back to the quarterdeck, his newly sharpened dirk slung round his waist, Ramage gave him a key: "You'll find a Spanish signal book in the second drawer of my desk. Bring it up here, and look through it. You'll find it easy enough to understand."

If anything happened to Gianna, or she died without having a son, her nephew Paolo would be the next ruler of Volterra. Well, he was getting a good training in leadership. Perhaps Gianna was shrewder than he had given her credit for when she asked him to take Paolo as a midshipman. She knew better than anyone what was needed in a ruler of that turbulent Tuscan state, where treachery was a commonplace and, once the French were driven out, revolution would probably join it. He shivered at the thought of what Gianna would face when she returned to Italy. The way things were at the moment, with the French armies victorious from the North Sea to the gates of the Holy City, it was some consolation (for him anyway) that it would be a long time before she could go back to Volterra.

He shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts. For a few moments he had been among the smoothly rounded hills of Tuscany, and it was almost a shock now to find himself staring at the sharp peaks of the Main - peaks which made him feel uneasy for reasons he could not understand but which, from long experience, he knew he should not ignore. And yet, he thought helplessly, what was it that he ought not to ignore?

Men were stowing the grindstone as Southwick bustled up, pointing to a headland just coming clear of the land on the larboard bow: "I'm sure that's Punta Caraballeda, sir. About six miles this side of La Guaira. We'll sight two smaller headlands, Cojo and Mulatos, and then we're in the anchorage."

Ramage nodded. Caraballeda was about five miles away. "We'll send the men to quarters as soon as Caraballeda is abeam. We can -"

He broke off and looked to the south. The wind was falling away and there was still a curious light over the peaks, a harsh white light as though the sun was trying to break through thin high cloud, but the only cloud in the sky was a scattering of balls of cotton. The Jocasta slowed perceptibly and the quartermaster looked anxiously at the dog vanes on the hammock nettings. Each vane was made up of a number of corks with feathers stuck in them and suspended by thin line from a small staff, and they were no longer streaming out in the breeze; instead they were bobbing and jerking as the wind became fitful. Ramage glanced aloft and decided to follow his instincts even if it left him looking foolish. He reached for the speaking trumpet. "We'll take in stunsails, topgallants and courses, Mr Southwick, and double reef the topsails if we have time! "

The Master stood for a moment, obviously dumbfounded, his eyes going to the south, trying to discover the reason for the Captain's completely unexpected move. Then the habit of discipline took over as Ramage began bellowing the first of the orders.

"All the studding sails - ready for coming in! "

Seamen stopped what they were doing and ran to their stations, a handful racing up the rigging. The suddenness of the order alerted them all that something unexpected was happening, and as Ramage continued his stream of orders the halyards were eased, tacks started and downhauls manned. Swiftly the studding sails were lowered and the booms rigged in, slid along the yards out of the way.

Now it was the turn of the topgallants, the highest of the squaresails that the Jocasta was carrying.

"Man the topgallant clewlines. . . Hands stand by topgallant sheets and halyards . . . Haul taut! "

Ramage watched the men aloft struggling with the sails and was thankful the wind had eased. He glanced back to the south. Nothing had changed; the peaks seemed to be making their own light, like phosphorescence, but the wind continued to fall away. He put the speaking trumpet to his lips again.

"Let go the topgallant bowlines. Look alive, there! ... In topgallants! "

So much for them. Now for the fore and main courses, the largest and lowest of the sails.

"Lower yard men furl the courses... Trice up ... lay out..." So the stream of orders continued until the two great sails were, like the topgallants, neatly furled on the yards, and only the topsails were still set, each nearly 2000 square feet of flax, alternately bellying in a puff of wind and then hanging limp.

Ramage glanced yet again at the mountains. Aitken had hurried up to the quarterdeck, Southwick was standing at the rail, and both men were watching him. There was no expression on their faces: the Captain was giving the orders, and they and the ship's company were obeying them. Obviously they wondered why the Captain should be taking in sail in a falling wind, and Ramage realized that Southwick saw nothing strange, let alone ominous, in the light over the mountains.

Double-reef the topsails? The Jocasta's speed would drop to a couple of knots, the pace of a child dawdling to school. Ramage was obeying his instincts rather than the rules of seamanship, and he was liable to be ordering the topmen aloft within half an hour, setting the sails again. He looked at the mountains. Nothing had changed; nor had his instincts stopped nagging him to get the Jocasta jogging along under double-reefed topsails.

He raised the speaking trumpet to his lips and soon reached the last of the orders: "Lower topsails . . . trice up and lay out . . . take in two reefs! " Now the topmen were working out on the yards, hauling at the stiff cloth of the sails and tying the reef points. "Lay in, " which sent the men scrambling along the yard to the mast, was followed by "Lower booms, " when the stunsail booms were dropped until they were lying along the yards; and then came "Down from aloft! "

Now there remained only the orders for the men on deck: "Man the topsail halyards . . . Haul taut . . . Tend the braces, step lively there! ..." Finally, with a glance at the dog vanes: "Trim the yards . . . Haul the bowlines! "

As Ramage reached out to put the speaking trumpet back on its hook at the side of the binnacle box he saw Southwick point over the larboard side and Aitken's face suddenly freeze the moment he looked.

A long line of tumbling spray was racing over the water towards them: a great squall which must have come down the side of the mountain was now tearing up the sea. This side of the squall line the wind was little more than a breeze; beyond it there was a gale. Following it down the side of the mountains in a solid blanket were black clouds, writhing and twisting and tumbling towards the shore like lava from a volcano.

"Eight points to starboard, steer north! " Ramage snapped at the quartermaster, and snatched up the speaking trumpet to give the orders that would brace up the yards and trim the sheets as the wind arrived. He wanted the squall to catch the Jocasta on the starboard quarter, giving her a chance to pick up way as the tremendous wind hit her. If it caught her on the beam it would simply lay her over; even if it did not rip her masts out she might not be able to convert the enormous pressures on her sails and masts into a forward motion, and they would capsize her, like a storm blowing down a fence.

As the men ran to the sheets and braces Ramage glanced towards La Guaira and was startled to see the whole coast hidden by the same kind of tumbling cloud pouring from the peaks, the sea already a boiling mass of water for a mile or more offshore, and the squall line moving out, slow but inexorable. The yards were coming round, the two men at the wheel were hauling desperately at the spokes and the quartermaster was already shouting to another two seamen to bear a hand. Ramage hurried to the binnacle and peered in at the compass, conscious that the sunlight was fading rapidly, like the beginning of a solar eclipse.

Eight points should do it, and the ship's head was beginning to swing. Over on the larboard quarter what had been a line of spray was now a steep wall of blackness, a swirling mass of rain and cloud and spray reaching up sheer like the face of a cliff.

"Must be a caldereta, " Southwick muttered, his voice betraying awe at the sight.

"I hope the rigging is going to stand up to it, " Ramage said sourly. "There's a gale of wind there . . ."

It was still nearly a mile away, advancing slowly. Again Ramage thought of lava crawling down a mountain side, or a glacier, moving slowly but with enormous strength, crushing everything in its path.

The guns were still secured, the boats lashed down. The Jocasta was now steering up to the north, still on the starboard tack, with a veering wind and almost directly away from the coast. There was nothing more he could do except wait and hope the wind inside that rain would be steady in direction. If it veered too fast and caught the Jocasta aback, the masts would go by the board. Ramage had a sudden picture of Admiral Davis's face as he tried to explain what had happened . . . but to be able to explain, he thought inconsequentially, he had to be safely back in English Harbour . . .

Three quarters of a mile now and the wind was veering slightly. A puff of warm wind, and then another, and the black wall seemed to be speeding up. Ramage reached for the speaking trumpet. "All hands! All hands! " he shouted. "Hold on for your lives when this squall hits us."

Aitken was watching him. "Nice range for a broadside, " Ramage said.

"I'd reach it with a musket, " the First Lieutenant said, and a few moments later added: "Or a pistol! "

Then it was on them; a series of ever-increasing blasts lashing them with rain and salt spray which streamed in almost horizontally, needle sharp on the face and blinding for the eyes. The noise reached a crescendo, the wind invisible yet seeming solid, screaming into the rigging, battering at bodies, tearing at sodden clothes, whipping up ropes' ends like coachman's whips.

Ramage, blinded even though he had held his hands over his eyes, felt the Jocasta slowly heeling: not the easy movement of a roll as a wave passed under the ship but a gradual inexorable tilting of the deck as the enormous force of the wind pressed against every square inch of hull, masts, yards, ropes and sails; as though she was being hove down for careening.

She was not paying off! Eight points had been too much; the ship was dead in the water and gradually going over. He managed to blink his eyes open for a moment and saw the men fighting, eyes shut, to hold the wheel, but the quartermaster had lost his footing and was struggling on his back in the lee scuppers like a stranded fish. And along the starboard side the seas, driven before this tremendous wind, were piling up like snow against a wall. Southwick was clutching the quarterdeck rail; Aitken, spreadeagled on the deck, was holding on to an eyebolt, and the whole ship was inside a cocoon of streaming rain and spray: he could barely see the end of the jibboom. A moment before the stinging salt made him shut his eyes again he saw that the reefed maintopsail was in shreds but, by a miracle, the foretopsail was holding, a bulging, swollen grey curve straining every stitch and seam.

He realized he was now gripping the cascabel of a 6-pounder gun and hard put to keep on his feet, but as he sorted out what he had just seen in his mind he knew that the Jocasta was on the verge of capsizing: a few more pounds of pressure, a few more degrees of heel . . . Already the water was . . . Suddenly he felt the ship recovering from being a dead mass: she seemed to give a massive shrug and the hull began to move, life slowly coming back to her as she gathered way.

The wheel! Blinking away the salt in his eyes he scrambled to the wheel. Three men were holding on to the spokes, pulling down with all their weight, but the fourth man had fallen.

"Hold her! " Ramage bellowed, seizing a couple of spokes and hauling down, "hold her, otherwise she'll broach! "

Now, with his back to the wind and rain and spray, it was easier to see, and the ship was slowly, agonizingly slowly, coming upright as she turned to bring the wind aft: all the enormous strength was now beginning to act on the foretopsail and the transom, trying to thrust her before it instead of pressing along the starboard side, trying to lay her over on her beam ends.

"Ease her! " Ramage gasped, able to do little more than guess the wind direction, and the four of them let the wheel turn slowly, a spoke at a time. "Another couple of spokes . . . and two more . . . two more . . . that's it: hold her there! "

He staggered to the binnacle, noting that the wind vanes had disappeared, wiped the compass glass and saw the ship was steering north by west. A moment later the quartermaster was beside him, his face streaming with blood from a cut on the brow.

"Sorry, sir, I'm all right now! "

"North by west, " Ramage shouted, "hold her on that! "

He realized that the sound of gunfire was in fact the main-topsail: the torn cloths of the sail still secured to the yard were flogging violently and shaking the whole mast so that the decks trembled. But the double-reefed foretopsail was holding; it was holding and keeping the Jocasta running before the wind, pulling her like a terrified mare being dragged from a flooded stable.

Ramage looked round for Southwick and saw that somehow he had managed to get down to the maindeck and was collecting a party of topmen to send aloft to secure the remnants of the maintopsail. But two seamen were crouched over Aitken and a moment later Ramage saw Bowen staggering across the quarterdeck towards the First Lieutenant. The surgeon must have come up the companionway the moment he could climb, knowing that there would be injured men needing his attention.

Southwick was dealing with the torn topsail, Bowen was attending to Aitken; what else needed doing? The quartermaster's face was a red smear as rain spread the blood. The man was white-faced and wiping his eyes with the back of his hands, but he was watching the compass and turning to give an occasional order to the men at the wheel.

Then Ramage noticed Jackson hurrying up the quarterdeck ladder and looking round anxiously. He saw Ramage and, reassured, was about to turn and go back to the main deck when Ramage waved to him and pointed to the quartermaster.

The American understood immediately and went over to tap the bloodstained man on the shoulder, but the man shook his head. Jackson pointed at Bowen and then at Ramage, and gave the man a shove away from the binnacle. With the wind still screaming it was almost impossible to talk, and Ramage went over to the binnacle to shout in Jackson's ear: "Hold her on this course unless the wind shifts! "

Jackson nodded and bellowed back: "You all right, sir?"

Ramage nodded in turn and pointed to Aitken and the quartermaster, who was now kneeling beside Bowen, more anxious to help him attend the First Lieutenant than be treated himself. "How are things on the main deck?"

"No one hurt, " Jackson shouted. "All the gun tackles held. A few pikes came out of the racks, otherwise everything's all right. We were holding on tight! "

With Jackson acting as quartermaster and the fourth man back at the wheel, Ramage struggled to collect his thoughts. The foretopsail was holding, the heavy rain was easing slightly, and with the ship running off before the wind there was not so much spray - or, rather, it was coming from astern so he could look ahead without feeling that salt-tipped needles were puncturing his eyeballs. The Jocasta had nearly capsized - his fault entirely: he had come round eight points, and it should have been only half that, but the ship had saved herself (or, perhaps, the thanks were due to Sir Thomas Slade, the man who designed her). As far as he knew the only real damage was a blown-out maintopsail.

Was she leaking? Had these driving seas sprung a plank? More than one plank, in fact? Ramage looked round and saw that Paolo was now standing by the capstan, rubbing his head as though he had just recovered consciousness. As the boy turned Ramage beckoned to him.

"Are you all right?" he shouted.

"Yes, sir, I bumped my head."

"Very well: go down and find the carpenter. Have him sound the well and report to me."

Paolo pointed to the quarterdeck ladder: the carpenter was struggling up it, having to pull himself up against the pressure of the wind. He made his way to Ramage and saluted. "I sounded the well, sir, " he bawled. "A couple of feet of water, that's all. From spray down the hatches."

"Sound every ten minutes and report to me. I'll let you have men for the pump as soon as I can. Anyone injured below?"

The carpenter shook his head and gave a wry grin. "Rare old mess down there, sir; lots of things weren't secured! " With that he made his way to the ladder, cautiously working his way forward from gun to gun, the wind pushing him invisibly and the pitching of the ship trying to fling him.

A movement in the rigging caught Ramage's eye and he saw that men were fighting their way up the ratlines, obviously sent aloft by Southwick. They were lying flat against the rigging as they climbed, fighting the wind which was trying to wrench them off, and reminding Ramage of lizards.

Was the shrill scream of the wind gradually easing? It was hard to tell; at the moment it seemed to have been blowing for hours instead of minutes. He was thankful he had memorized the chart for this part of the coast; there was nothing ahead but Los Roques, the group of cays and reefs making a long, low barrier running from east to west, and they were still sixty miles or so to the north, another seven or eight hours' sailing.

A few minutes later the rain had stopped and the wind was certainly dropping: the topmen had reached the yard and were beginning to slash at the shreds of the topsail, careful that flogging reef-points did not cut them.

Ramage suddenly realized how cold he was: his boots were half-full of water, squelching and sucking as he walked, and his sodden clothes stuck to him like a soggy piecrust. Bowen was now standing up and helping Aitken to his feet. The First Lieutenant staggered for a moment or two, held by Bowen and the injured quartermaster; then he braced himself and made his way over to Ramage.

"I'm sorry, sir; I lost my footing."

"Are you all right now?"

"Yes, sir, just a bump on the head."

Aitken's hair was plastered down and sodden with blood, and he was pale. Ramage looked questioningly at Bowen, who nodded. "Very well, as you can see -" Ramage gestured aloft "- we have to get another topsail from the sail room and bend it on. Are you up to it?"

"Yes, sir, " Aitken said, his voice now firmer. "Give me half an hour and we'll have a new sail drawing! "

Ramage nodded and Aitken made his way down to the main deck. They had been very lucky, Ramage reflected, but he was resentful at losing the topsail. There was a lot of work ahead, hoisting the spare sail up on deck and then swaying it aloft in slings, securing it to the yards and fitting sheets, bowlines, clewlines, buntlines . . . there seemed to be more rope than canvas. Yet there was some 1600 square feet of canvas, a quadrilateral thirty-six feet along the head where it was secured to the yard, and fifty-six feet on the foot, and thirty-six feet deep.

As the rain stopped the wind eased down and began to back. Jackson was already watching the luff of the foretopsail and Ramage guessed that with luck they would be steering direct for La Guaira within half an hour.

Suddenly he thought of the Calypso: how far offshore did these calderetas extend? By now Wagstaffe should be a good sixty or seventy miles to the north, close to the chain of reefs and cays. Obviously the calderetas were caused by the mountains; he could only hope that they exhausted themselves within thirty miles or so. Wagstaffe was unlikely to be suspicious of the unusual light that preceded them; his first warning - if they reached that far - would be the wall of black cloud. Ramage pictured the frigate floating dismasted, utterly helpless. He cursed himself for not giving Wagstaffe definite instructions about which side of the chain of islands he was to sail: now, if the Calypso was not at the rendezvous, he would be hunting for a hulk somewhere in at least 250 square miles. If Wagstaffe had kept south of the islands and then lost his masts he would end up among Los Roques, stranded among rocks, coral heads, reefs, cays less than twenty feet high . . . Admiral Davis might yet end up with only one frigate.

Two and a half hours after the caldereta had first hit the Jocasta, the frigate was stretching along the coast in bright sunshine under all plain sail, the wind back in the east and steady. Punta Caraballeda was abeam to the south and Ramage could see Punta el Cojo on the larboard bow with, just beyond it, Punta Mulatos, which was only two miles short of La Guaira.

The new maintopsail was losing its creases; mercifully it had not been attacked by rats in the sailroom. The reefs had been shaken out of the foretopsail and the courses had been let fall and sheeted home. Ramage had not set the topgallants or stunsails, but apart from that the Jocasta showed no sign of the assault by the caldereta. All the men were wearing fresh clothes and the hot sun had dried out the decks. Ramage, already perspiring in the scorching sun, found it hard to believe that less than three hours ago he had been shivering with cold, his teeth chattering in a howling wind.

"Six miles to La Guaira, sir, " Southwick reported.

Six miles, three quarters of an hour's sailing. Ramage looked across to Aitken: "Beat to quarters, but don't run out the guns. Load with canister."

He turned aft, to where Paolo was crouching down, slowly turning the pages of a book in the sun. "How is that coming on?"

"Nearly dry, sir; you can turn the pages without risking tearing them. The colours have run, but I can distinguish the flags."

An hour ago Ramage had wanted to look through the Spanish signal book and he had gone to the binnacle drawer to find it still half-full of rainwater and spray, the book floating like a tiny raft. He had cursed the skill of joiners who had made a watertight drawer, and set Paolo to work with a towel, drying the pages with cautious dabs and then finishing off the job with the heat of the sun. The pages were curling and the cardboard cover had warped, but the printed words had not been affected.

Paolo handed him the book and Ramage looked through the signals. What was the Spanish flag procedure? He had searched through the papers on board, but there was no record that La Perla had ever been given Spanish pendant numbers, the three-figure sequence of numeral flags used in the Royal Navy to identify ships, and which were always hoisted when going into a harbour or anchorage.

Should he fire a salute, and if so to whom? La Guaira was simply a port, not the capital of a province; the senior official would be the Mayor. Again, he had no idea how many guns a mayor rated - if any. The signal book gave him no ideas; he shut it and gave it back to Paolo. Better to ignore salutes and pendant numbers than to get them wrong; doing the wrong thing was more obvious than omitting something. Better offend the Mayor by not giving him his salute than make him suspicious by firing the number of guns reserved for someone like the Captain-General of the province. And anyway, Ramage thought to himself, there should not be much time for feelings to be ruffled or suspicions aroused.

By now the Marine drummer was striding round the main deck beating a series of ruffles. In a few moments the gunner would be hurrying below to open up the magazine and men were already getting ready to load the guns. Rammers, used to drive home cartridges and shot, the sponges which would be soaked with water to swab and cool the guns and extinguish burning debris, and the handspikes used to train the guns, were being unlashed ready for use.

Other men were putting two types of tubs beside the guns: one would be filled with water for the sponges; the other would have lengths of slow match lodged in notches cut round the top edge, the burning ends hanging inside, over the water, so they could not accidentally ignite the stray grains of gunpowder which were almost inevitably scattered over the deck in the heat of action. Unless a flintlock failed to make a spark, slow matches would not be used to fire the guns; they were merely insurance.

More men were waiting for the pumps to be rigged so they could wet the decks while others stood by with buckets of sand, ready to sprinkle it on the planking to stop the guns' crews slipping. Cutlasses and tomahawks were already hung up along the inside of the bulwarks; the boarding pikes were waiting in their racks round the masts, like Roman fasces.

Ramage, glancing up at the red and gold flag of Spain streaming out overhead, could see no reason why anyone should not think that the frigate was La Perla, carrying out the orders of His Excellency the Captain-General of the Province of Caracas, arriving when expected, on passage to Havana.

Punta Caraballeda was on the quarter and Punta el Cojo was on the beam when Aitken arrived on the quarterdeck to report the ship ready for action. A minute or two later Southwick, who had been busy with his quadrant measuring the horizontal angles between the three headlands, announced that they were just over a mile from the shore.

Both men stood waiting expectantly. Now, they thought, the Captain will give his instructions. Aitken was excited, anxious to know what plan the Captain had for capturing the ship with the "particular cargo"; Southwick was concerned only that he should not forget any part of the instructions. Ramage thanked them both and commented: "We should be seeing Trinchera Bastion in a few minutes. It's on the hills to the east of the port. We won't see Miguel Fort until we are almost off the town."

"No, sir, " Southwick said stiffly, having made the copy of the chart Ramage had been using, and knowing that his Captain was being evasive. "And until we round Punta Mulatos we won't be able to see into the anchorage."

"Yes - tantalizing, isn't it?" Ramage remarked off-handedly, looking over the larboard bow with his telescope. "Curious that we haven't seen any fishing boats drifting after the caldereta. Those fellows know what to look for, and get on shore in time."

"We know - now, " Southwick said crossly. "At least, I do; I think you knew already, sir."

Ramage lowered the telescope and stared at Southwick. "I've never seen a caldereta before in my life! "

"But you handed the sails in time, " Southwick protested.

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Barely, but you know as well as I that any sudden change in the visibility always means a change in the weather, no matter whether you're in the Tropics or the Chops of the Channel."

"A change in the weather, yes, " Southwick conceded, "but that came up like a white squall."

Ramage, unable to explain that he set more store by his own instinct than in weather lore, much of which contradicted itself, resumed his examination of the coast with the telescope and said: "There's deep water to within a musket shot of the shore along here, but I want a man ready in the chains."

Aitken hurried away to station a man with a leadline ready in case the Captain suddenly called for soundings.

Jackson, standing to one side of the binnacle, his eyes moving methodically from the compass to the luffs of the topsails, was surprised at both the First Lieutenant and the Master. There was more excuse for Mr Aitken because he had sailed with the Captain for only a few months, but Mr Southwick ought to know better. The pair of them had been quizzing Mr Ramage to know what he intended to do when they arrived at La Guaira, as though he should have a cut-and-dried plan for cutting out a ship from an anchorage he had never seen.

That showed how much they really knew about Mr Ramage. He could come up with a masterly plan at times - and usually the secret of its success was its simplicity. But where he was brilliant was in his ability to keep a completely open mind until the last moment. He would look round with that grin on his face, probably rub one of those two scars over his right eyebrow, give a few quiet orders, and that would be that.

The secret, and the American almost sighed as he recalled how many times he had tried to explain it to Stafford and Rossi, was in two things: Mr Ramage could spot an opportunity - a weakness in the enemy defences - which other men would miss; and then he was lightning-quick in deciding how to take advantage of it.

Stafford partly understood it, since Jackson had pointed out that a burglar rarely knew what he would find when he broke into a house. Usually he had only a few minutes to decide whether he would take a set of bulky silver candelabras and cutlery from the dining-room table or waste time looking for jewellery that might be hidden anywhere in the house. Staff, who freely admitted that he turned his skills as a locksmith in such directions as burglary "when times was 'ard”, had chuckled then, but this morning, before the squall, he had been like everyone else in the ship's company, trying to guess the Captain's plan.

Jackson growled at the men at the wheel and they hurriedly heaved at the spokes to bring the ship back on course. The wind was following the coast, steady from the east. Curious how that squall suddenly came up from the south: a miniature gale, really, with the wind switching back the moment it cleared.

It had been a close call: some of the men reckoned the Jocasta heeled over so far that the ends of her lower yards had touched the water. Jackson had to admit he had not been looking; he had grabbed a ring bolt with both hands and prayed that one of the guns on the windward side would not break loose and come skidding across the deck to crush him.

He grinned happily to himself. One day he would count up how many times he had been quartermaster when Mr Ramage took a ship into action. Meanwhile he must remember to keep an eye on young Mr Orsini; if anything happened to him the Marchesa's heart would break. It was hard to know whether the lad was brave or stupid, but the way he set about those Dons in Santa Cruz - on the deck of this very ship - with a dirk in one hand and a cutlass in the other. . . He had plenty of courage, and Jackson was thankful he had been able to cut down the Don who had got behind the boy and was about to spit him with a boarding pike. It had been all over in a second, and Mr Orsini never knew how close he had been to death.

"I can make out the Trinchera Bastion, " Ramage said casually.

"You should be able to see into the anchorage in a few moments, " Southwick said.

"I can already, " Ramage said. "It's empty."