"Yes, to windward, Mr Southwick; we don't want to have her blanketing us."
She was big: Ramage could see that the Triton's deck was just about level with the Lion's lowest row of gun ports. And as she pitched she showed the overlapping plates of copper sheathing below the waterline; sheathing foul with barnacles and weed. She had obviously been drydocked before leaving England, and Ramage knew that the two days spent at anchor in Barbados - plus a few days in Cork while collecting the rest of the convoy - were the only times the ship had been at rest since then. It was a miracle how the weed and goose barnacles managed to get a grasp and flourish. He was so absorbed in the eternal problem of keeping a ship's bottom clean that he only half heard Southwick's shouted orders to bear up and bring the Triton round a point to starboard to run close alongside the flagship.
"Man the weather braces ... Another pull on the sheets there! ... Tally that aft, men, and step lively!"
A brief order to the quartermaster and an injunction to "Watch your luff, now!" then Southwick's stream of orders stopped as quickly as they started, and the Triton was thirty yards to windward of the Lion and a ship's length astern of her. She would pass clear of the great yards which towered over the Lion and extended out several feet beyond her sides, and yet close enough for Goddard to shout without effort.
Speaking trumpet! Ramage turned to call to Jackson and found the American standing just behind him, the speaking trumpet ready in his outstretched hand. Ramage took it, stepped over to the larboard side and jumped up onto the breech of the aftermost twelve-pounder carronade. He turned the trumpet in his hand: he would first be putting the mouthpiece to his ear so that it served as an ear trumpet.
The Triton was overhauling the flagship fast and as he glanced forward, checking on the trim of the sails, Ramage saw that every man on deck was standing precisely at his post. Those that could had edged over slightly to larboard, as if to hear what was shouted from the flagship and be ready to anticipate any manoeuvres and orders. The sails overhead were trimmed perfectly and drawing.
As Southwick bellowed out an order to clew up the maintop-sail, reducing the Triton's speed to that of the Lion's - and so judging it that by the time it was done and the brig began slowing down, she would be abreast of the flagship - Ramage could hear an occasional deep thump high above him as the Lion's sails lost the wind when she pitched, and then filled again suddenly. And the creaking of the gudgeons and pintles of her rudder as the Triton swept past her transom, and the sloshing of water curling along her sides and round her quarters.
Then Goddard was staring down at him, a gargoyle on the edge of a church roof, and Croucher had appeared beside him at the break in the Lion's gangway. As Croucher lifted a speaking trumpet to his mouth, Ramage held his to his ear. Croucher's was highly polished. When he put it down his fingers would smell brassy, Ramage thought inconsequentially.
"Make a complete sweep southabout round the convoy and stop any ship reducing sail unnecessarily - even if it means getting inside the convoy. Then resume your position."
Reverse speaking trumpet; jam to the lips. "Aye aye, sir."
That's all. Down from the carronade, wave to Southwick indicating he was taking the conn, speaking trumpet to lips again, clew up the foretopsail, the ship slowing down, and the Lion drawing ahead again, Goddard watching because he probably expected the Triton to clap on sail and try to cut across the Lion's bow.
Bowsprit and jibboom now clear of the Lion's stern; let fall the main and foretopsails; down with the helm as we brace round on the larboard tack.
Everything drawing nicely, the convoy coming down to him as he beat across its front, and the sun sinking fast - it always seems to speed up when there's plenty to be done before darkness.
Southwick sidled over and said quietly, careful none of the men heard him, "Wasn't as bad as I'd expected, sir."
"No, just routine. Worrying, isn't it! And the order was passed quickly."
The last sentence was tactfully acknowledging that Croucher could have kept the Triton close by for twenty minutes or more, delaying passing orders on various pretexts. In that way he could force Ramage to juggle with the helm and sails to stay in position and avoid a collision. He could see himself eventually making a mistake which would result in the Triton's jibboom poking through one of the stern-lights in the captain's cabin - now of course occupied by the Admiral.
"We won't get far round a'fore it's dark," Southwick grumbled. "Weaving our way through the columns just to crack a whip across the backs of these mules - so help me, one o' them is bound to hit us, or mistake us for a privateer in the darkness and sheer off and collide with someone else."
Ramage laughed at the dejection in the Master's voice. "Well, tell the carpenter's mate to stand by with a boat's crew; we might need him to patch up one of your mules."
Ramage walked to the binnacle and bent over the compass bowl. Then he glanced at the leading ship in the first column. They'd pass well clear of her. Then he looked along the columns of ships as the Triton reached fast across the front of the convoy.
"We'll get all the first column into position, Mr Southwick. Maybe the rest will take the hint."
"A hint's a shot fired across their bow," Southwick said miserably.
Chapter Six
It was dark before the merchantmen were finally cajoled, bluffed and threatened into position. The Lark and the two frigates had helped by chasing up the ones at the rear, a task they had taken on themselves without orders from the Lion, who could not see them. Ramage had the feeling the frigates helped because they thought the signal must have been made to them as well and they'd missed seeing it.
As they finally passed the last ships in the northernmost column, led by the Topaz, Southwick took off his hat and ran a hand through his flowing white hair.
"It's not quite what their lordships have in mind," he said admiringly, "but it's the best way of getting mules back into position I've seen."
"It could be expensive on jibbooms," Ramage said.
"Worth it, though. Still, we mustn't do it too often, or else the element of surprise will be lost."
Ramage felt embarrassed at Southwick's praise; he'd done the right thing for completely the wrong reason. Exasperated by one particularly stubborn captain who flatly refused to shake out reefs or stop his men furling topsails, though the ships astern of him were having to bear away to pass because he was down to little more than the steerage way he intended to maintain all night, Ramage had finally lost his temper. He too had ordered his men to clew up sails until the Triton, which had been almost alongside the merchantman - with Ramage standing on the quarterdeck, speaking trumpet in his hand, throat sore from shouting at the Master, almost trembling with rage and frustration - began dropping back.
Eventually the merchantman had drawn ahead, and Ramage had conned the brig into a position directly astern of her. Then he had given the order to let fall the maintopsail, and the Triton had begun to pick up speed again. Gradually the distance between the merchantman's transom and the Triton's jibboom end narrowed: fifty yards, thirty, twenty-five and twenty.
Jackson had been sent out on the bowsprit and passed the word back through a chain of seamen how many feet were left - Ramage did not want any shouting. The gunner's mate was ordered to fire one of the forward guns with a blank charge in it, and then Ramage had looked up at the clewed-up foretop-sail, crossed his fingers and given the orders to let fall and sheet it home.