"Mr Southwick!" His voice was high and he hoped the men would not notice. "Mr Southwick - I'm laying us aboard that rascal!"
He put the speaking trumpet to his mouth: "Man the weather braces - tend the lee ones ... Quartermaster, larboard four points ... Ease away and haul in; run away with it, lads ... right, tally aft those sheets ..."
Why hadn't he shaken the reefs out of the topsails? He had thought of it earlier and decided against it for fear the Peacock would see men out on his yards, but he'd been wrong: he needed every square inch of canvas now to catch up.
As the Triton's bow swung round towards the Topaz, the great yards overhead slowly moved, keeping the sails filled. Men, one behind the other on the ropes like one side of a tug of war, hauled and strained.
Within a minute the Triton was steering for the head of the convoy. He could just see the Peacock silhouetted, larger and closer. The convoy was moving slowly to starboard; he now needed to steer a converging course, slightly crabwise to starboard.
Hurriedly he shouted once again the orders to trim the sails. A few words to the quartermaster and the Triton's bowsprit swung slightly to starboard, heading towards where the Peacock should be in a few minutes. Should be - damn and blast, he'd never make it under just topsails, but it'd throw the ship – and himself, if he was honest - into confusion if he set the forecourse now, and then tried to get it clewed up as he turned alongside the Peacock.
Last-minute rush and stupidity was what lost battles, and he was proving it...
With the wind almost dead astern, the Triton was at last picking up a bit of speed: the seas, too, were now dead astern, instead of being on the quarter, and that small fact added its quota to her speed through the water.
"Puzzle to know whether to raise the alarm or not," Southwick said, and Ramage realized that the old Master was thinking aloud, not asking a question. He was holding something out to Ramage - a cutlass.
As Ramage took it he noticed that Southwick had buckled on his own huge sword, a real meat-cleaver.
"You stay on board, Mr Southwick," he said. "No dashing over with a boarding party. That will be Appleby's job. Hear that, Appleby?"
"Aye aye, sir," the Master's mate answered cheerfully, waving his cutlass. "My party's all ready."
Since Ramage had guessed what the Peacock probably intended he had done all he could to counter it. But there was still just a chance that he was completely wrong and the Peacock entirely innocent.
There would be nearly a minute, as the Triton turned on to a parallel course, in which he had to decide whether he shouted a cheerful warning to the Peacock, or fired a broadside into her, killing a dozen possibly innocent men.
He didn't want to be babbling sail and helm orders while he made up his mind so he turned to the Master: "Mr Southwick, take the conn, if you please. Steer to converge on the Peacock. We'll luff at the last moment if she's not up to mischief; otherwise put me alongside her."
The Master said: "It'll be a pleasure, sir; leave it to me."
Leave the ship to me, he might have been saying, but don't make any mistakes with the thinking part. Ramage felt deep affection for the man, and wondered if anyone else could give so much and such good advice without speaking a word.
Ramage stuck the cutlass in the deck beside him and watched the Peacock through his night glass, cursing the inverted image. There were no more than three or four men on deck but suddenly the main and forecourse changed shape, like curtains being lifted to the yards.
"They're clewing up their courses!"
Southwick had spotted it too and Ramage put down the glass. The Peacock was less than a hundred yards from the Topaz and yet none of Yorke's people had shouted or fired a warning musket. They might have spotted her, but since they knew nothing of last night's episode they might not be suspicious. He pictured the officer of the watch idly watching...
Should he fire a shot to warn the Topaz or hold on and hope to surprise the Peacock by slapping the Triton alongside her?
He was just going to order the forwardmost gun to fire a warning when he saw sails moving beyond the third ship in the column. It was the Peacock's next ahead and he'd forgotten all about her. He'd clean forgotten half the potential enemy force, but it didn't make much difference as it happened. There was nothing he could do about it: the Peacock would occupy all his energy.
Now Southwick was bellowing the order that would bring the Triton alongside the runner and was looking to Ramage for orders. Were they to open fire or not? Was he to crash the brig alongside, risk carrying away masts, and prepare to send a boarding party over as soon as the carronades had swept the decks a few times?
Ramage could not decide. All he could see were three or four men on the Peacock's quarterdeck, and a few more men clewing up the courses. There was nothing really wrong with that and the Peacock still had fifty yards or so to go before she was abreast the Topaz. Then the distance between the masts changed slightly: the Peacock was turning to larboard: turning just enough so that a further turn of a few degrees to starboard could lay her alongside the Topaz!
But still nothing had happened that could tell him for certain that the Peacock was an enemy ship bent on attacking the Topaz rather than a friendly ship out of position on a dark night...
"Sir!" Southwick had been wailing the word for several seconds. He had to know now whether to luff up or lay her alongside: no further delay was possible.
"Put her alongside," Ramage heard himself shouting and, using the speaking trumpet, added: "Gun captains! Hold your fire until I give the order - then aim for the quarterdeck!"
The Triton's jibboom had been pointing just ahead of the Peacock, but in response to Southwick's orders it swung away to starboard and the merchantman moved round to broad on the Triton's bow. The combined movement of the two ships made it seem as though the Peacock was coming sideways towards the Triton; a fast-moving nightmare. Upside down in the night glass, black maggots swarmed suddenly over the Peacock's decks, and without consciously registering what he had seen, Ramage bellowed:
"Gun captains - fire as you bear!"
As the first carronade fired the flash lit up the Peacock like a flicker of summer lightning. With awful clarity he saw that the Peacock's decks were now covered with armed men. Scores and scores of them had been hiding below the bulwarks. As other carronades fired he saw more men pouring up from below, their cutlasses glinting in the flashes of gunfire. The Peacock was not yet alongside the Topaz, which he could just make out twenty or thirty yards beyond. Almost unbelievably the Triton had arrived just in time.
Just in time, if he could stop the Peacock being manoeuvred those last few yards to the Topaz. Nothing could save the Topaz or even the Triton from that swarm of men once the Peacock was alongside.
"Aim at the wheel!" he screamed at the men at the carronades. "Gun captains - the wheel!" In the flashes of gunfire he saw Jackson standing on the bulwark carefully aiming a musketoon, methodically aiming and firing it and passing it down to be reloaded, while another loaded one was handed up to him. Standing beside him on the bulwark, Ramage saw that the men in the Peacock were in confusion, and guessed her captain had been so sure he'd get alongside the Topaz before the Triton could reach him that he had all his gunners at the larboard side guns, ready to sweep the merchantman.