Ramage's Signal

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

While Southwick sent away the two cutters and pinnace to take off the French from the three remaining merchant ships and the jolly boat rowed over to recall the gig and launch when they left the beach, the bosun's mates hurried through the Calypso sending the men to quarters.

Quickly and quietly they wetted and sanded the decks, put match tubs between the guns, half filling them with water, and set out larger tubs in which the sponges could be soaked when sponging out the guns. The gunner took the large, bronze magazine key from Ramage and went below to begin issuing flintlocks, lanyards, prickers and powder horns to each of the gun captains and be ready to issue cartridges to the powder boys.

Southwick was looking at his watch and cursing.

'We're lucky the dam' French 74 isn't steering for us; I've never known the men to take so long!'

'You must be patient', Ramage murmured, knowing his own reputation as the most impatient man in the ship. 'Don't forget we hardly have a gun captain left on board: nearly all the men are doing someone else's job, and they're not used to it.'

'Aye', Southwick admitted, 'but they've been exercised enough at exchanging jobs.'

'It's not the same. Telling every fourth man he's a casualty and making the rest move round is no good because each replacement sees what the previous man was doing.'

'I hadn't thought of that', Southwick said, and Ramage admitted the thought had only just come to him. In future - if there was a future, with a ship of the line coming into the gulf like the door of a trap closing - he would start all exercise at the great guns by jumbling the men's numbers. Or perhaps just subtracting three, so everyone had to change.

He swung the glass back to the French ship. She was still well outside the gulf and clewing up her main and forecourse, so she would enter the gulf in a leisurely fashion under topsails alone. In this light breeze! If her bottom had the usual crop of barnacles and she was in fact making for Cala Piombo, or even the one to the north of it, she had at least fifteen miles to sail, and she must be making only three or four knots.

All that made sense. If the French captain had never been into the gulf before, he was coming in under the worst possible conditions (barring a gale, of course): running in at night before a west wind meant he was coming up to a lee shore and sailing straight towards a full moon still low on the horizon, so that all the hills and cliffs were shadowy, making it very difficult to judge distances. The land at six miles would look as though it was only three miles away.

In fact, Ramage realized, almost giving an audible sigh of relief, the Calypso herself would be indistinguishable against the shadow of the cliffs and hills behind her, which from the Frenchman's position were higher than her masts. The French 74 would spot some of the merchant ships anchored much farther out, but they would be easily identifiable; just the coasting vessels she would expect to find anchored for the night in a place like the Golfo di Palmas.

With the nightglass Ramage could see the jolly boat, gig and launch returning to the Calypso from the beach and, a moment later, spotted one of the cutters leaving a merchantman. Only one? Then he detected movement beside another merchantman and saw the second cutter leave her and head for the shore. Either the men commanding the cutters were confident or disobedient, because both cutters were supposed to tackle a ship together ... Well, as long as there were no flares or flashes of musketry to attract the attention of the 74, it did not matter. It was, he thought, the sort of thing young Orsini would do - or Martin. Or, he admitted, himself when he was a midshipman or lieutenant.

Southwick now went through what Ramage knew only too well as his disapproving ritual. First he took off his hat and scratched his head; then he ran his fingers through his flowing white hair to straighten it out; then he jammed his hat back on again, rubbed his stomach with a circular motion, as though trying to assist his digestion, and then gave a sharp sniff.

'We cut and run, eh, sir, as soon as she's anchored?'

It was, of course, the only sensible thing to do: they would be able to see the 74 anchoring down at the other end of the gulf and the moment she had an anchor down and was busy furling sails the Calypso would cut her cable - indeed, they could start weighing now if they wanted to avoid losing both anchor and cable - let fall her topsails and courses, and beat out of the gulf, staying as far to the north as possible: shaving between the south end of Sant' Antioco and Isolotto la Vacca. The Frenchman, eight or ten miles to the south, would never catch them...

'Seems a pity, doesn't it?' Ramage said casually, trying to remember the details in Orsini's list of the main cargoes carried by the remaining merchant ships. Aitken had gone off with the six ships carrying the most valuable cargoes; those left here at anchor, and which he had been intending to burn tomorrow, were stowed with mundane things like the poor-quality powder, whose prize value Southwick had just been bemoaning.

Half an hour later Ramage and Southwick finally reached a compromise in the quiet of the cabin, and Ramage admitted that it improved the chances of success. Ramage had first intended using one ship, which he would command, leaving Southwick on board the Calypso.

This had brought an immediate and explosive protest from the master.

'Sir, I'm beginning to think you reckon me too old, or getting too stupid; this job is one for a lieutenant or master, not a post captain. I'm the only officer you have, but...'

'Nonsense', Ramage said, and to smooth Southwick's pride, freely admitted: 'It's not lack of faith in you; I'm just being greedy.'

Southwick had guessed that from the start, but he also knew that a display of injured pride represented his only chance of seeing any action tonight.

'Let me look at the list of cargoes again', Ramage said.

Orsini's writing, never very clear, had been little more than a scribble, done standing up as he talked to each master at Foix.

Most of the eight ships were carrying powder, but only two, the brigs Muscade and the Merle, carried any substantial quantity. The first had more than seventy-five tons on board, the second more than 150.

Ramage tried to picture one of them exploding. Unlike powder in a gun, where the only way the explosive force could go was up the barrel, powder stored in a ship's hold would explode in every direction; there was no way of aiming or channelling it.

It was like prize fighting: if your opponent swayed back when you punched him on his jaw, much of the force of your blow was lost. But if you managed to hold his head with your left hand and then hit him with your right, you might not kill him but would certainly knock him out, because the full force of the blow would be concentrated on a small area. The crowd betting on him might well set about you with stools, bricks and walking canes, but you would have the satisfaction of winning the fight.

He needed exactly that for the attack on the French 74 - a hand holding one side to avoid losing most of the effect of a merchantman exploding on the other.

The answer was, of course, to have a merchant ship exploding on each side at the same moment. And that was how the compromise came about.

'Who will you leave in command of the Calypso, sir?' Southwick asked.

'I've no choice: under the regulations it must be the next senior officer after you, which means the gunner.'

Southwick gave a rumbling laugh that lasted a full minute.

The gunner!' he finally gasped unbelievingly. 'He wouldn't even take responsibility for eight men and a jolly boat, let alone command of one of the prizes in Aitken's convoy. Now he's going to be stuck with the Calypso. Sir', he asked pleadingly, 'may I be the one to tell him?'

'Yes - and you'd better warn him that if neither of us comes back, he'll have to take the Calypso to Gibraltar.'

'I think Bowen had better be standing by with some medicinal brandy!'

'You know, Bowen wouldn't even blink if I told him that he had to get the Calypso to Gibraltar.'

'He certainly wouldn't', Southwick agreed, 'but he's an unusual surgeon.' 'Yes, and he can play chess.'

Southwick grinned ruefully. 'I'm getting the average down, sir; I doubt if I lose two games out of five to him these days.'

'I'm glad of that, but we'd better start preparing those two ships. The Frenchman won't be inside the gulf for another half an hour, but it's going to take time for us to get the Muscade and the Merle down to Cala Piombo, if that's where she anchors.'

'These blasted French names', Southwick grumbled, 'what do they mean?'

'Muscade is nutmeg -1 expect she was sailing to the spice islands of the West Indies before the war. Merle is simply "blackbird".'

Southwick nodded and picked up his hat. 'I'll go up on deck and see where our French friend has got to. I expect you'll want to pick our men.'

After the master had gone, Ramage took a pencil. He did not need the muster book to choose the men. From what he could remember of the Muscade and the Merle, both were brigs of similar size, about 250 tons. He had not considered them for Gibraltar because he guessed the admiral would refuse to buy in French powder.

He and Southwick needed the minimum number of men for the operation to keep the boats light. Escaping afterwards would mean rowing like madmen for several minutes. The fastest boat was the gig, so Southwick should have it for the Muscade. He would take one of the cutters with the Merle.

There would be no seconds-in-command; it would be a brief voyage for both brigs. A man at the wheel, eight topmen, three men to handle grapnels, three more for sheets and braces, and then light fuses, and a boatkeeper, and that would be all. That made sixteen, seventeen adding in himself or Southwick. The gig carried sixteen, with eight at the oars, so each boat would be only two-thirds full. The same for the cutter. The totals did not allow for casualties, but that could not be helped.

Small arms? A few pistols and cutlasses, but there should be no fighting. They would need several axes, plenty of slowmatch, flint and steel, and some lanterns to light the fuses.

Southwick came down the companionway and into the cabin as the sentry announced him.

'She's still about a mile or more outside the gulf beyond Sant' Antioco. She's not making more than a couple of knots under topsails.'

'The captain's nervous of the gulf all right, but he may not have a decent chart.'

Ramage quickly outlined his plans and his orders for Southwick, who protested at being given the gig. 'That's the captain's boat', he said. 'You should have her, sir.'

'I prefer a cutter, and anyway the boat carrying your weight has to be light.'

Southwick grinned and patted his stomach. 'Have you chosen your men yet, sir?'

'No - I'd like to have Jackson and Stafford, but I suggest you muster the topmen and divide them up. Some Marines for the slowmatch, seamen for the grapnels. Oh yes, and boatkeepers: as we're towing our boats they might get painters tangled ...' There was no need to elaborate on that risk.

'Can I go and tell the gunner now, sir?'

Ramage grinned and nodded. 'Then we'd better get over to our ships. At least we won't have to bother to weigh or buoy the anchor cables!'

Southwick paused a moment. 'Ten minutes for the slowmatch - isn't that rather long, sir?'

'Ten minutes is not a very long time to get everyone down into the boats and row a hundred yards.'

'I suppose not, sir, but I was thinking of the French boarding and putting 'em out.'

'They won't know where to look; they'll be taken by surprise and will assume the Merle and Muscade are fireships, so they'll be expecting flames.'

Ramage scrambled up the side of the Merle, a pistol butt grinding into his ribs, and followed by Jackson and the rest of the men in the red cutter, leaving behind only the boatkeeper. He kept the painter clear of the chainwhales and portlids as another of the men let the boat drift aft and then made up the rope on a convenient cleat with a cheery: 'You'll be best off if we make any mistake wiv the powder!'

Two seamen held lanterns while another two swung big mauls to drive out the wooden wedges holding the battens in place round the edge of the coamings to free the heavy canvas cover protecting the thick hatch boards.

'Just get out three boards', Ramage said, and the canvas was rolled back enough for them to be lifted up.

Even the weak light of the lantern showed that Ramage's guess had been right, and the powder had been stowed in the aftermost of the brig's two holds: the copper hoops of the powder barrels reflected a dull redness. They were well stowed with shifting boards. 'Bung up and bilge free', Ramage thought to himself: the bung of each barrel was uppermost, and none of the barrels rested against the side, or the bilge, of the ship. A wise shipper always paid a premium and specified that his goods, if in barrels, should be stowed 'bung up and bilge free', but the master of a ship carrying so much powder needed no urging: a bung working itself loose as the ship pitched would mean, if the barrel was not stowed bung uppermost, that a sixth of a ton of powder would cascade into the bilges and, despite the copper hoops, if one barrel rubbed against another, it could cause sufficient friction to ignite a few grains - fewer than a dandy would bother to blow from his sleeve if he spilled some snuff - and that would be enough to destroy the ship.

The top tier of barrels was only three feet below the level of the hatch coaming, and Ramage looked round for Stafford.

'You have those lengths of fuse?'

'Aye aye, sir.' Stafford held up a canvas bag.

The sight of the bag made Ramage angry again. He had asked the gunner for lengths of slowmatch that would burn ten minutes, with a foot left over at one end. The damned man had backed and filled, saying he could not be certain of the burning time of a length of slowmatch between five minutes and thirty. Finally Ramage had decided to use the much less rugged fuse, and fortunately the Calypso's magazine contained two types made from mealed powder, the finest available. But again the gunner had avoided specifying the speeds at which they burned, and an enraged and frustrated Ramage had made the man bring up his notebooks and found that they recorded that fuse made from good mealed powder burned at the rate of three inches in seven seconds and the other twelve inches in one minute. Ramage chose the slower and had then given the whole coil to Jackson and Stafford. After doing a quick sum, he told them to cut ten eleven-foot lengths. That would give each one ten minutes' burning time, plus a foot.

Five lengths had been handed over to Southwick for the Muscade, and now Stafford had five lengths for the Merle. Fuse burned fast, so for this sort of work long lengths were needed; on the other hand, with the longer fuse, as Jackson had pointed out, there was the advantage that when the fuse was first lit the flame was farther from the powder.

Already two seamen were calling from the outboard end of the starboard maintopsail yardarm to a third standing below. Ramage heard a thud as a rope dropped, then the rattle of chain. They were fitting the first of the grapnels which would hang from all the yards at varying heights, ready to catch in the French 74's rigging or any hull projection so that the Merle stuck to her like a burr on a woollen sock.

The topmen, without awaiting orders, were already aloft, checking over the gaskets holding the sails furled and slackening them, and making sure of the lead of halyards. As soon as they finished their work, the grapnel men would trace the leads of braces, sheets and tacks.

After glancing at his watch by the light of the lantern that Jackson was carrying (Ramage and Southwick had decided that apart from the 74 being too far away to see any lights, it would be quite natural for lanterns to be in use on board merchant ships at anchor) he found they were several minutes ahead of the rough schedule.

Ramage went back to the opened hatch and found Stafford and another seaman, Wells, inside and grunting as they gently tapped out the bung of a powder barrel using a small copper-headed maul.

Stafford glanced up and saw Ramage standing in the moonlight looking down at him. 'Yer know, sir, gives yer a funny feelin' sittin' on top o' a hunerd an' fifty tons o' powder!'

'I'm sure it does. Try standing', Ramage said unsympathetically. 'And even though I'm up here, I doubt if the extra inch of deck planking gives me much of an advantage.'

'S'pose not, sir, but this bluddy bung ... ah! Here she comes.'

The moonlight was bright enough for Ramage to spot the small hole in the top of the barrel and see how carefully Stafford wiped the bung clean of powder and put it down beside the maul. Then he pushed a finger into the hole, obviously testing how far it was to the powder, which always shook down like flour in a jar.

'Four inches', he said to himself. 'That means the fuse goes in eight inches. So a foot to spare were just right.'

He moved so that he was astride another barrel.

'Let's 'ave the maul, Arry.'

Again he began tapping to lift the bung of the new barrel, at the same time blowing gently to disperse any grains that came out with the copper-sheathed bung. Quickly he pulled it out, wiped off any traces of powder, and passed it and the maul to Wells.

Three inches', he announced after putting his finger into the bunghole. He saw Ramage still watching him. The French contractors seem 'onest enough, sir: they don't sell short measure.'

'There are no contractors', Ramage said. 'Like our Boardof Ordnance, they make their own.'

'Supposed to be poor stuff though, ain't it, sir?'

'Yes - but don't get careless! It burns all right, but not as evenly as ours. That means if you fire five rounds from the same gun at the same elevation you'll get first grazes at fivedifferent places.'

'Well, we won't have to bother here', Stafford grunted ashe slid carefully across to the third barrel and called for themaul.

Ramage walked aft to find Jackson turning the wheel one way and then the other. 'Just testing the wheel ropes, sir. Six turns from hard over to hard over.'

'You might look at the rudderhead and tiller, in case of rot...'

'Done that already, sir', Jackson said. 'By the way, the three axes are ready on the foredeck beside the cable.'

Slight movements in the rigging caught Ramage's eye, and he saw four grapnels spinning slightly in the breeze like dead carrion crows suspended outside a gamekeeper's lodge. The three men were now working out on the end of the foreyard, rigging the remaining grapnels.

Ramage walked forward to where the second anchor was stowed in its chocks. It was well lashed in its place so that a heavy sea should not dislodge it. Yet if the brig and the 74 collided, one of the flukes might well embed itself in the planking of the Frenchman's hull, a stroke of luck one could not rely on but might encourage. He told a seaman to collect an axe from the foredeck and cut some of the anchor lashings.

He waited until the man returned and described which to cut, not wanting to see the anchor suddenly drop over the side, because its cable was stowed below.

He walked aft to the lantern, looked at his watch again and saw they should soon get under way.

'Six minutes to go!' he bellowed so that all the men could hear.

At the hatchway he saw that Stafford and Wells had removed five bungs, and that one thin black line, a fuse, already led from the deck outside the coaming, over the top and down into the hold to the bunghole of a barrel, where it disappeared like an escaping snake. Stafford would have pushed the fuse well down into the powder, using precisely the extra foot of length, and it was held in place by an encircling collar of cloth pushed down round it, holding it steady in the centre of the bunghole.

A Marine was now standing by the coaming: his job was to make sure no one accidentally touched a fuse so that its other end was pulled out of a barrel.

Yet it was all too obvious!

As Ramage stood there looking at the hatch he put himself in the place of a French officer jumping down on to the Merle's deck from the 74 and seeing five sparkling and sizzling fuses leading down into a partly-open hold. In that moment he would know the Merle was not a fireship about to burst into flames and that he risked nothing if he snatched out those burning fuses and tossed them over the side.

He waited as Wells, under Stafford's direction, draped one more length of fuse over the edge of the coaming, then a third, fourth and finally the fifth. After a few moments, Stafford and Wells climbed out of the hold. Stafford, mopping his face, saw Ramage and said: 'It's remarkable 'ot down there, sir.'

'Come over here - now take a good look at it', Ramage said without comment.

'Yus, I see what you mean, sir: the first Frog on board is going ter see fuses and guess ...'

'Throw one of those hatch boards over the side, put down two again - leaving the gap against the coaming - and then pull the canvas cover back in place across the hatch, putting a roll in the edge so that it doesn't touch the fuses. Then 1 doubt if anyone jumping on board would spot anything in the excitement - the fuses should have burnt enough that they'd have gone under the canvas and out of sight.'

'Come on, Arry', Stafford said, 'but be very, very careful wiv those two planks.'

Ramage looked again at his watch.

'Four minutes to go', he shouted. 'Topmen aloft, axemen to the foredeck, helmsman to the wheel, grapnel men to the sheets and braces!'

He wondered if anyone else had ever given such a bizarre series of orders. He watched the men moving about, sure footed as cats and as shadowy in the moonlight.

'Two minutes to go. Topmen, are you ready?'

There were shouts aloft from both masts.

'Axemen, are you ready?'

Three yells came aft from the foredeck.

'Grapnel men, are sheets and braces sorted out?'

Laughs and shouts gave him the answer.

He went back to the hatch and was startled by the change: it would take a very careful examination to reveal that anything had been done to the hold since it was stowed in France or Spain; five thin lines hung down a few inches, but in the darkness no one would notice them; the hatch looked battened down, ready for sea.

'Excellent, Stafford and Wells. You'd both make good smugglers!'

'Excise men, sir', protested Stafford. 'Always on the side of the law, we are.'

Jackson was waiting by the wheel and Ramage looked yet again at his watch.

'One minute to go ... Stand by, axemen. Right, cut the cable!'

A series of thuds as the blades bit through the rope, a hiss of the cable snaking out the hawse and a splash as it dropped into the sea told him the Merle was adrift.

'Foretopmen - lay out - let fall!'

The foretopsail tumbled down, the moon now high and bright enough to give the sail some colour.

Slowly he went through the sequence of orders that set the brig's topsails and then the courses; orders that were adapted to the few men available. Jackson at the wheel needed no orders; he had already noted the approximate position of the French 74, although she was now too far away to see and had probably furled all her sails so that she did not show up against the hills and cliffs.

Ramage went aft to the taffrail and looked down at the cutter. The boatkeeper was asleep, lying curled up in the sternsheets. The painter was hanging clear, free of kinks, and Ramage decided to leave him, telling Jackson to give the man a hail once they neared the enemy.

Inshore, lit up by the moon, Ramage could see the Muscade under way on a parallel course and imagined Southwick looking across to make sure the Merle was all right.

Jackson said quietly: 'It's made Mr Southwick ten years younger, sir.'

'Has it really?' Ramage was startled at the remark because he had been so busy during the last hour on board the Calypso that, although he had been giving orders to Southwick - not many, because they were not necessary - he had not had time to notice his appearance.

'You know how it does, once he knows he's going to be able to get into a fight, sir', Jackson reminded him.

'But this isn't going to be a fight', Ramage said, finding himself puzzled again. 'As I told you all before we left the Calypso, if the French capture us they'll treat the brigs as fireships and hang us all.'

'Yes, sir', Jackson said in the stolid way that seamen had perfected over the centuries when they answered officers who clearly did not understand the situation.

The men at the sheets and braces had the sails properly trimmed, the topmen were down on deck and the axemen were hoisting the headsails. Soon they too were sheeted home, and the only man doing any work on board the Merle was Jackson, who turned the wheel occasionally a spoke one way and then another as he watched the luffs of the sails.

'Harvest moon', Jackson noted laconically, nodding his head to the east, where the full moon was now a golden disc well clear of the hills.

'Yes, the seasons race by. We're getting old, Jackson!'

'I was fighting the British afore you were born, sir', Jackson said dryly.

'If you live to a real ripe old age', Ramage said with affected seriousness, 'you can come and work for me: I'll find you a simple job on the estate - like sawing up the big logs for winter.'

'How many fireplaces would that be, sir?'

'Only a dozen or so, and the kitchens', Ramage said.

'So I can look forward to an interesting and restful old age.'

'Yes', Ramage said, 'we both can. You can vary the length of the logs and I'll measure them. We need to stay alive, that's all.'

'I'll tell Stafford that if he turns up at the gates of Blazey Hall when he's seventy he might get a job, too.'

'As long as he brings his own saw.'

'Perhaps Rossi could start younger', Jackson said, his face expressionless. 'The Marchesa might like to hear him singing and cursing in Italian from time to time.'

Ramage ignored the implication of Jackson's remark, but it started him thinking. Stafford at the age of seventy - that would be in about forty years' time. By then young Lord Ramage would have inherited his father's title and be the ancient and eleventh Earl of Blazey, nearly seventy himself. Who would be the Countess of Blazey? Who would he have married? She might even be a widow by then. Or more likely Lord Ramage would, in the phrase so beloved by lawyers and biographers, have predeceased his father, his head long since knocked off by a roundshot, and the earldom of Blazey, the second oldest in the country, would have become extinct, or been revived and given to some shoddy politician who caught the King's fancy.

He walked aft to throw off the gloomy thoughts, though he felt no embarrassment or irritation: standing on top of 150 tons of gunpowder with fuses leading down into the hold, and steering for an enemy ship of the line, meant that anyone with the slightest imagination could be forgiven for a few passing reflections on mortality. Yet making a habit of reflecting on mortality was a quick way of driving a man to seek answers in the bottle. Anyway, he thought as he glanced down at the still sleeping boatkeeper, it is a glorious warm night with a steady breeze. Jackson's harvest moon, and an unsuspecting enemy just down the coast, with Southwick and the other brig abeam. Aitken and his convoy would by now be well on their way to Gibraltar safe from interference because they were sailing under the French flag ... The Calypso seemed distant, another world. Paolo would have enjoyed being on this expedition, but he was learning more in Aitken's convoy.

Ramage sat down on the breech of one of the two 6-pounder sternchase guns and looked at his watch. Two hours past midnight. The wind might have freshened a little, but the brigs were slow, and if the damned jibs did not stop slatting he would drop them. They had almost a soldier's wind so that for most of the time the headsails were blanketed by the forecourse. He knew he was now getting jumpy; when the slatting of sails irritated him, it was time to relax. He began walking forward to talk to the men.

Stafford and Arry - everyone, including Southwick and Aitken, always referred to him by that name - and the Marine guarding the ends of the fuses were sitting on the deck, their backs against the hatch coaming, and Arry was just finishing some lurid story concerning another man's wife in Scarborough: a woman, it seemed, possessed of inordinate desires and a weary and pliant husband.

'The three of you had better repeat to me what your orders are.'

They looked at each other and Ramage pointed to the Marine, whose style of speaking derived much from the drill sergeants under whom he had served in the past.

'Hupon the horder "Light fuses!" sir - that'll be from you - I 'old the lantern hopen in such a position that William Stafford, hable seaman, and Arry, hordinary seaman, can happly the end of each fuse to the candle flame. I make sure each fuse is burning steady an' when Stafford 'as hassured 'imself as well, we run like 'ell to the boat, which will be halongside the larboard quarter.'

Stafford grunted. 'An' we proceed to row like 'ell out of range an' back to the Calypso.'

'You're sure you've used exactly a foot of fuse in fitting each one into a barrel?' Ramage asked him.

Stafford scrabbled about on the deck and then stood up, proffering a wooden stick with a fork cut in one end. 'It's exactly eleven inches to the cleft, sir; I cut it meself. First I measured orf a foot o' fuse, nipped it with finger and thumb, then used this 'ere fork in the end to 'old a bight of fuse while I pushed it down into the barrel. It takes an inch to fit in the fork. Before I pulled the stick out I pressed the powder down 'ard wiv my fingers, and then once the stick was out I pressed down again, so the fuse is firm in the powder. Then we wound rags round like a bandage to 'old the fuse steady in the centre of the bunghole.'

The Cockney could have answered Ramage's question with a simple 'Yes sir', but the fact that he had been sensible enough to get a stick of the right length and make a fork in the end showed that he was not blindly obeying orders.

'That was a good idea', Ramage said. 'We need explode only one barrel to send off the rest, but with fuses to five barrels we have five insurance policies.'

The three grapnel men were sitting by the foremast on the starboard side, their grapnels swinging and spinning at various heights above them.

'One last check', Ramage said. 'You've slung the grapnels at the right heights, so tell me what you do as we go alongside our French friends.'

'I'm out on the foreyardarm, sir', one man said promptly, 'an' I make sure the grapnels are swinging so they 'ook on.'

'And then?' prompted Ramage.

'Well, that's all, sir.'

'No, it's not, Smith, unless you want 150 tons of powder to blow you over the moon.'

'Oh yes', the seaman said sheepishly, 'as soon as we hear you shout "Abandon ship", or we see the grapnels are securely hooked on, we bolt for the boat, sir.'

'Which will be...?'

'Larboard quarter, sir.'

Ramage went on to find the three axemen, who were chatting with the topmen at the foot of the foremast. Having singled them out, he asked them about their remaining duties.

O'Rorke, who despite his name and the impression it gave of an Irish giant was a small, nimble man from Boston in Lincolnshire, who had first gone to sea as a young boy in the colliers bringing coal from the northern ports down to the Thames, took a pace forward.

'Grapnels, sir', he said at once. 'As we go alongside we try and toss extra grapnels on board. Extra to the ones rigged from the yards.'

'Are your grapnels ready?'

'Yes, sir, we've got two each; a fathom of chain and then rope on each one. The bitter end of the rope is made fast to something solid.'

'And where have you got them?'

'Well, two on the fo'c'sle, sir. They're my two, on account of me being reckoned a good thrower. Longish ropes on my grapnels so we don't snub in the Merle's bow too sharp. Two more by the forechains: Hurst here will be standing on the chains -'

'No', Ramage interrupted. 'Hurst, you stay inside the ship: if we run alongside the Frenchman, you'd be crushed standing in the chains. And you, Gough', he said to the third man, 'were you going to be standing in the mainchains? Well, don't. I appreciate both of you are picking the best places, but you'll get killed. I can't lose two men -1 want to be rowed back to the Calypso in time for a good breakfast!'

The three men laughed and two of them excused themselves, so that they could change the positions of their grapnels. Ramage, with a call to the topmen not to wait about once they heard 'Abandon ship!', walked back to the wheel, pausing by the lantern to look at his watch. More than an hour had passed and he looked forward in alarm.

The cliffs of the headland north of Cala Piombo showed up well, and he could just make out the Torre di Cala Piombo like a thin tree stump on the top of a round hill. A dark blobthis side of it showed where the French 74 was swinging to her anchor. Waiting for a convoy? Ramage speculated. Or perhaps expecting more 74s and attendant frigates to joinher. Ramage wished he had not started wondering, in case any of them began to arrive.

The Muscade had slowly passed across the Merle's stern so that as planned she was now on her seaward side. The French 74 would be windrode and heading westward, out of the gulf. Southwick would go alongside so that his larboard side would be against the Frenchman's larboard, his bow towards the 74's stern, while Ramage and the Merle would go starboard side on to her starboard. It was an elementary manoeuvre though, in battle, ships normally fought bow to bow and stern to stern.

Ramage could now see the 74, or rather her black blur, as a more definite shape against the jagged cliffs anchored perhaps a mile from the shore and well placed in the bay so that the headlands protected her from winds and swells.

What sort of an anchor watch would the French be keeping? With the wind light from the west and the moon still rising in the east, the Merle and Muscade had two great advantages: first, coming from the dark half of the horizon they were approaching an enemy who loomed up stark against the moon, and second they had a following wind with no worry about how the brigs would beat out again.

The gap between the Merle and the Muscade was slowly narrowing: each ship was sailing up the side of a long, invisible triangle lying flat on the sea which had the 74 at its apex. Now they were a mile apart; soon they would be separated by only the width of the French ship.

Stafford had both lanterns hidden abaft the mainmast so their light could not be seen from ahead, and from the sound of it was lecturing Arry and the Marine about the finer points of picking locks. Having served an apprenticeship as a locksmith and been taken up by the pressgang while he was making a living at it - by working at night, Ramage understood, and without the owners of the locks knowing about it - Stafford was undoubtedly an expert.

The Marine, Albert Coke, was naturally berthed aft with the rest of the Marines in the Calypso, between the seamen and the officers, and his duties meant he did not mix so much with the seamen. This night's work with Stafford and Arry was, Ramage could tell, quite an experience. Hearing first-hand accounts of burgling expeditions against 'some o' the best 'ouses in London' - a phrase Ramage had often heard Stafford use in the past when being teased by Jackson and Rossi - was obviously a new experience for Albert Coke.

Looking ahead, Ramage could see why they were now fast approaching the coast - or, rather, at night one always seemed to be going faster, although the speed remained the same. It was one of the tricks played by shadow, and with a moon this bright the shadow made the cliffs look like jagged pieces of coal held close to the face.

This time - indeed, for the first time ever that he could remember - he was approaching an enemy ship without sending the men to quarters. They were already as prepared for action as ever they could be, and their weapons were simply grapnels and lanterns, and some lengths of fuse ... None of the Merle's 6-pounders would be fired; no muskets were even loaded. There was far too much danger, with all that powder about, for there to be any guns discharged in the Merle, although a few men had pistols in case of trouble later.

He thought for a moment what would happen if the French were suspicious and opened fire. A French roundshot through the side of the Merle and into those barrels of powder would - well, they would know nothing about it although people would see the flash for fifty miles or more. The rumble might well wake up the mayor of Cagliari, who would assume there had been yet another earthquake.