Dudley Pope - Ramage's Devil

Ramage waved back, followed by Southwick and Aitken, and L'Espoir came to a stop and then gathered sternway as the wind pushed against the forward side of the foretopsail. An anchor splashed into the water as Ramage again put the telescope to his eye.

Enough men on the fo'c'sle to deal with the anchor; enough topmen waiting at the foot of the shrouds to go aloft and furl the sails. Enough, but fewer than L'Espoir would have had if she was not armed en flûte.

L'Espoir's anchor cable was making less and less of an angle with the water as she moved astern and more cable was paid out; finally she stopped, the curve in the cable disappearing as it was straightened by the weight on it, and at last her captain was satisfied the anchor was well dug in. Both topsails were furled, and while the topmen were busy aloft the rest of the ship's company crowded the side, staring at the other two frigates, the islands and the distant low shore.

'Their first sight of the Tropics,' Southwick commented. 'A line of mangroves and three big lumps o' rock with pretentious names.'

'Not pretentious to those prisoners,' Ramage reminded him. 'When they sensed the ship was in calmer waters, and then heard the anchor go down ... They know it could only be the Île du Diable. No doubt quite a few of them expect to leave their bones here.'

The light was going fast now; already a dozen of the brighter stars and planets were showing through as if shy of anyone knowing they had been there all the time but outshone by the sun.

'I'll go and get meself ready, sir.' Southwick excused himself and went down to his cabin in the gunroom.

'That sword of his, sir,' Aitken said. 'Is it a family heirloom or something? I've never seen anyone using a two-handed sword!'

'Two-handed and double-bladed,' Ramage said. 'He doesn't jab or chop with it; he whirls round like a dancer spinning with a scythe. With his white hair flying and him bellowing like a livid bull, nothing clears an enemy's ship's deck faster!'

He looked at his watch, having to hold it up to catch the last of the light. 'Just seven. Let's hope Wagstaffe has his people ready.'

'Your orders were clear enough, sir. An hour after sunset, if she came in during the evening.'

Ramage went to the larboard side and looked through the port. Île Royale, just forward of the beam, was beginning to blur at the edges, the darkening sky making a smoothing background to the otherwise stark outline. Already La Robuste was difficult to see against the distant mangroves, and the russet-coloured L'Espoir seemed to have gone to sleep, as though the flurry of activity with anchoring and furling sails had exhausted her.

On board the Calypso men were placing lanterns in the normal positions, as though she was greeting the night in the normal way at anchor. A sharp-eyed observer might have wondered why there was no lantern at the entryport - but then, he might think, who was likely to come on board?

'We can start, Mr Aitken,' Ramage said eventually. 'Start by getting those boats still astern hauled round to the boom.'

Nearly every man in the Calypso's ship's company was now on the maindeck and gathered in groups of twenty around the officers. There was one small group by the mainmast, one which Ramage thought of as 'Paolo's Party'.

Paolo stood in front of the four Frenchmen and inspected them. It was now dark and the men were almost invisible: like Paolo and everyone else in the ship, their faces, necks, hands and bare feet were smeared with lampblack, and each man had a wide strip of white duck tied round his head, covering his forehead and knotted behind, the ends left to hang down.

'Now, keep your hands from those headbands,' Paolo instructed in French. 'They're the only thing that will distinguish you from the French crew: remember, our people in La Robuste, and all the men here, have orders to kill or capture anyone without headbands - except the déportés, of course.'

'We understand, m'sieu,' Auguste said. 'We follow you.'

Ramage stood at the inboard end of the boom. 'Mr Renwick, your men should board.'

Renwick, indistinguishable from a cook's mate who had spent the last hour cleaning out the galley coppers, led the way past Ramage followed by his twenty men, and Ramage was surprised how far it was possible to distinguish the white headbands. Renwick was at the end of the boom and beginning to scramble down the ladder, yet his bobbing head was clear.

'Now Mr Southwick ... mind that meat cleaver of yours!'

Ramage felt rather than saw the master grip his hand and shake it. 'Thanks for letting me go, sir,' the old man said. 'M'sword was getting rusty!' he murmured.

He could just see Renwick's boat drifting clear, the men lifting the oars from their stowed positions along the thwarts. Binding all those damned oars with old cloths, bits of worn sail canvas and finally new duck had caused more trouble than anything else. The duck for the headbands and the oars - ah, Ramage felt angry at the thought of it. That blasted purser, asking to whom he should charge it! Well, admittedly the purser would have to pay unless he received a written authorization from the captain to issue it, but that was hardly the moment to burden everyone with bureaucracy. Probably the wretched fellow wanted the signature on the paper before the captain left the ship in case the captain did not come back alive! Anyway, Southwick saved the wretched man's bacon by declaring there was a grave risk that many yards of duck and sail cloth, some messdeck forms and tables, a couple of dozen worn pistols and twice as many muskets, along with fifty cutlasses whose blades were now so pitted they'd serve better as saws, were going to be written off as 'damaged or lost in battle'.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty ... That was Southwick's party. 'Mr Aitken ...' The first lieutenant looking, Ramage thought, as 'lean and hungry' as any yon Cassius with blackened face, led his men out on to the boom just as Southwick's boat drifted clear and close to Renwick's.

Again Ramage counted. Yes, that was Aitken's party.

'Orsini ...' The midshipman led his four men along the boom.

'Jackson ...' the coxswain appeared out of the darkness, 'Lead on.' Yes, he recognized the outline of Stafford. A muttered 'Buona fortuna, commandante,'came from Rossi. Nine ... eleven ... fifteen ... twenty.

Then Ramage was standing there alone except for a shadowy figure. 'Well, bosun, it's the first time you've had command of a frigate! Look after her until I get back!'

'Good luck, sir,' the bosun said. 'I'd prefer to be coming with you.'

'I know, but tonight you have to look after the Calypso.'

As Ramage walked out along the boom, hearing the wavelets slapping below, he cursed his own softheartedness. The man who should have been left in command was the gunner, a wretchedly weak-willed man whom Ramage had been intending to replace for a year or more, but the prospect of a long battle with the Board of Ordnance and the Navy Board had made him keep the fellow. It was said that Southwick had not spoken a word to the man for more than a year ...

He hitched his cutlass round to the centre of his back and pushed on the two pistols in his belt, and then went down the ladder. He stepped over feet and reached the sternsheets, to find himself with Paolo and the four Frenchmen, the rest of his own group being further forward. Jackson called softly to the man at the bow, who pulled the painter through the block and the boat drifted clear of the ship. The large black mass blotting out the stars on one side was the Calypso: the three shapes close by were the other boats. Over there was Île Royale which, like the Calypso, was only identifiable because of its outline against the stars.

Ramage was never really sure whether it was a hiss or a purr, but the sound of a boat's cutwater slicing through a calm sea was very restful, like going to sleep on board the ship with wavelets faintly tickling the hull. The men were breathing easily because they were rowing at a comfortable pace and the oars were groaning softly in the rowlocks instead of squeaking and clicking: the cloth lashings and the greasy slush from the cook's coppers wiped into the open-topped square rowlocks were effective.