Dudley Pope - Ramage's Devil

The captain had been most emphatic, so Paolo did not mind hiding behind the gun with Auguste, while Gilbert, Albert and Louis crouched under the barrel of the next one forward. 'Orsini,' the captain had said, and Paolo could hear the words even now, 'you are not to get involved in the fighting: I have enough fighters; I want talkers!' But it was hard just crouching here and watching those men giving out cutlasses. The five of them could - but no, the captain had been emphatic.

He heard a dreadful screaming from right aft amid the shouting and cursing of a dozen men yelling in both French and English. Pistol shots, the clang of cutlass blades - accidente, the worst noise was coming from the gunroom: all the ship's officers and warrant officers must have been trapped there - and, Paolo knew only too well, they would have swords and pistols in racks outside their cabin doors. But with all these wretches rushing up from below and snatching up cutlasses it was not a question of cutting off the snake's head ...

Southwick had scrambled up over the starboard bow, helped by a couple of seamen and thankful that the anchor cable was thick because it was a struggle to get up on to the fo'c'sle. A French seaman emerged from the head, protesting loudly at being interrupted, but within moments he had been cut down and his body thrown over the side.

The master was just about to lead his men in a sweep across the fo'c'sle to clear out the group of men where the gangway met the fo'c'sle when the reflection from a lantern showed a white band.

'Calypso!' Southwick roared and heard a querulous Sergeant Ferris say: 'Can't find any more bloody Frenchies, sir! We've cleared the starboard gangway.'

'Calypso!' came a shout from the group on the other side and Southwick discovered Lieutenant Martin complaining that the larboard gangway was clear and he thought Mr Ramage and the rest of them were either aft on the maindeck or down on the lowerdeck.

'Calypsos!' Southwick bellowed, a sudden fear catching him: the fear that there was a good fight going on and he was missing it. 'Follow me!' He led the rush aft along the starboard gangway, pausing a moment to look at the maindeck and find a rope ladder to scramble down, but he was beaten to it by Martin and Ferris, who jumped.

There were many writhing men but little light on the maindeck: Southwick saw a couple of lanterns hooked up on the beams, and then, his eye caught by a dancing light aft, he saw a shouting and a grinning Aitken holding a lantern high with one hand, his cutlass slashing with the other.

Southwick stepped forward, both hands grasping his great sword. He paused a moment to look at the head of the nearest man, saw it had no white band, and swung. The shock of blade on bone jarred and he took a couple of steps forward to the next man.

Wagstaffe shouted to his men to get to the main hatchway but the noise drowned his voice. Wagstaffe realized too late that he and Kenton had made a mistake: the moment they had seen the starboard gangway cleared they should have secured the fore, main and afterhatches and cut down L'Espoir's ship's company as they scrambled unarmed up to the maindeck. Now dozens, scores of Frenchmen, were on the maindeck, snatching up cutlasses from the arms chests. Wagstaffe led his men across to the other side of the ship.

God, that noise in the gunroom!

The fighting was now almost entirely on the maindeck, with Southwick, Ferris and Martin slashing their way aft along the starboard side to meet Aitken and his men working forward, and Wagstaffe, Kenton and Renwick slashing and jabbing their way forward along the larboard side. Right aft, one deck lower, Ramage and his men fought through the gunroom with little room to swing a cutlass and all their pistols empty. Ramage eyed the swinging lantern: the remaining Frenchmen could have saved themselves if they had cut that down, but it seemed they dreaded the darkness.

Paolo watched the forehatch. No one had come up it for two, perhaps three minutes. 'Andiamo!' he said to the four Frenchmen, and then realized that with his excitement he had lapsed into Italian. 'Come on!' he corrected himself, added a very English 'Damnation!' and then said: 'Allons, messieurs!'

The lowerdeck was well lit: candles flickered at the tables and it took him a moment to realize that the curiously stark shadows on the deck were overturned forms. There was a great deal of shouting and cutlass clanging right aft, round the gunroom, but in his imagination Paolo could recall the captain's voice giving him orders.

He turned forward, picking up a lantern, and followed by the four Frenchmen passed the last of the tables.

'Déportés!' he called, and Gilbert, his voice agitated and cracking with emotion, started to shout but it ended as almost a scream: 'M'sieu le Comte! Here is Gilbert! Please, are you there!'

Paolo held the lantern higher. They were there all right, row upon row, men next to women, each held flat on the deck by a leg iron round the ankle, and waving near the back was a man who Paolo could see was too overcome with emotion to speak.

Paolo seized Gilbert's arm and pointed and gave him the lantern, and with a gasp of relief the Frenchman stumbled forward, trying to avoid the other prisoners but lurching as his feet caught ankles, eyebolts and the rods linking the leg irons. Now every one of the prisoners seemed to be shouting at once, every one of them and at the top of his voice or her voice. It was absurd; of that Paolo was sure. It was unseamanlike. Ungentlemanly and unladylike, too.

'Silence!' he shouted. 'Silence! Silence!'

He paused for breath. Yes, now he had silence down here except for the blood pounding in his ears, but right aft and on the deck above there was more shouting, screaming and clanging of cutlasses than he had ever heard before.

'Ladies and gentlemen!' he said, to consolidate the silence he had brought to this part of the ship. Then he could think of nothing to say. Fifty or more white faces stared up at him; a hundred or so eyes glinted in the candlelight as Auguste brought up another lantern. Mama mia, what would the captain say to these people if he was standing here!

'Ladies and gentlemen, I must apologize for the noise.' A woman started laughing, a laugh which rose higher up the scale and ended suddenly as someone reached across and slapped her to stop the hysteria.

'I am from the Calypso, one of His Britannic Majesty's frigates and commanded by Captain Ramage, and -'

'Count Orsini, I think!' The voice came from the back.

'At your service,' Paolo said carefully, an Italian count suspecting he was addressing a French one but determined not to give too much ground. 'You have me at a disadvantage, m'sieu.'

'I am Rennes, and Captain Ramage told me about you.'

Then Paolo remembered the rest of his orders. 'Forgive me for a moment. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we shall try to release you, once we have found the keys, but please stay here until Captain Ramage comes and tells you to move: unless you are wearing one of these white headbands, you might be killed!'

At the other end of the lowerdeck Ramage was cursing fluently in Italian, with Jackson and Stafford providing a descant of obscene English. There was a small doorway at the after side of the gunroom and the five Frenchmen (Ramage was unsure if they were officers or seamen who had been trying to escape from the messdeck) had managed to get through it, slashing and parrying with swords, and vanished into the darkness beyond. It was the tiller flat, a space the width of the ship across which the great wooden arm of the tiller moved in response to the wheel turning above. And now anyone going through that black hole was asking to be cut down by the men who could remain hidden behind the bulkhead.

Five men: of no consequence. With the captain dead they would soon surrender.