Ramage and the Dido

Ramage put the telescope to his eye again. 'The Heron is fighting it out with the Requin: they're lying alongside each other, bow to stern. I hope the Sylphe doesn't do enough repairs to hoist her flag again and escape us.'

Southwick sniffed yet again. 'I think they've got all their work cut out keeping her afloat. We fairly riddled her hull. And I doubt if she has many men left alive to man the pump as well as knot and splice rigging - she took a terrible pounding. If they'd had any sense they'd have hauled down their colours before we got alongside her.'

Ramage nodded. 'Yes, she could have fired a few guns pour l'honneur de pavillon and then hauled down her colours. No one expects a frigate to take on a ship of the line.'

He looked across at Jackson and called: 'Won't she take a bit more? Can't you luff in the puffs?'

'The puffs don't last long enough, sir. But we're creeping up on her.'

Southwick, meanwhile, was busy with his quadrant, measuring the angle subtended by the Junon's main topgallant masthead. He made the last adjustment, balancing himself against the Dido's slight pitching, read the figures off the vernier scale, and consulted his tables. 'Four degrees twenty-one minutes,' he said, running his index finger down the column of figures. He read off the number opposite. 'She's just 745 yards ahead of us,' he said. 'There's no doubt, we're gaining on her.'

'Not fast enough,' grumbled Ramage, lifting up his telescope once more. Although there was no doubting Southwick's quadrant, the Junon did not seem any closer; she was ploughing her way to windward. She obviously intended to fight: she had her courses clewed up, like the Dido, so she was still under fighting canvas. If she was intent on bolting, Ramage thought, she would let fall her courses. Yet that was odd: she was bolting - she was abandoning the Requin, which was still fighting and which the Junon could rescue by swinging away to leeward and pouring a broadside or two into the Heron. Why? Why had she not let fall those courses? There must be a reason. Perhaps the captain had been killed and the second-in-command was still pulling himself together. Yet the obvious thing, if you were making a bolt for it, was to set every inch of canvas without wasting a moment.

There must be a reason for it, but what was it? Ramage shrugged his shoulders: there was no point in making wild guesses - not that he could think of even a wild guess.

'Five degrees six minutes,' Southwick intoned, and once again consulted his tables. 'Six hundred and thirty-nine yards, sir,' he reported. 'We seem to be overhauling her faster now. We must have a better slant o'wind. Give us another five knots o'breeze and we'll be sheering up alongside her and boarding in the smoke!'

Ramage still watched through his telescope, puzzled by the clewed up courses. Suddenly the outline of the Junon seemed to blur, then he saw the foremast lean, almost lazily, and topple back on to the mainmast before slewing round and falling over the side to leeward.

'Look at that!' bellowed Southwick. 'By God, our raking broadside did do some damage after all!'

And that explained why the courses had been clewed up: obviously the raking broadside had damaged the mast, cut the forestay or badly damaged the bowsprit, and the crew of the Junon had been so busy trying to make repairs that there was no question of setting the courses. Not that with the foremast in danger of going by the board, as it had just done, there was any question of setting the forecourse.

Southwick was still busy with his quadrant: the Junon had slowed down appreciably, with one mast over the side and the sails and yards dragging in the water like a brake. She was still under way - Ramage could see she was still leaving a wake, and the rest of the sails were still drawing. He could imagine frantic men with axes slashing at the tangle of shrouds and halyards to cut the mast free. With the main and mizen still standing they could manoeuvre the ship, though it would call for all the seamanship that the captain possessed.

'Six degrees five minutes!' Southwick said delightedly, consulting his tables. 'She's only 533 yards now!'

For a moment Ramage felt sorry for the French captain: he had lost his foremast because he had let himself be taken by surprise - he expected the Dido to sweep down his starboard side, and instead of that she had cut across his bow, raked him and come down his larboard side, where the guns were not ready. Now he was commanding a ship which he could barely manoeuvre and with a British seventy-four coming up astern, less than half a mile away. Admittedly a lucky French shot could send one of the Dido's masts by the board, but the French would indeed need to be lucky, cutting a stay. It would take more than one roundshot to do much damage to the Dido's mainmast, for instance, which was more than three feet in diameter.

One thing was certain, Ramage decided, this action was not going to degenerate into a battle of broadsides, with the Dido lying alongside the Junon and pounding away: the Dido could still manoeuvre, even if the Junon was reduced to an almost inert mass in the water. The French would have to watch their mainmast now: with stays torn away and sheets and braces ripped out, the mast might well be tottering, waiting to follow the foremast.

Ramage turned to Jackson. 'Steer to pass fifty yards off along the starboard side.'

Then to Aitken he said: 'Pass the word to the guns that we'll be engaging to larboard at fifty yards' range. Fire as the guns bear.'

Southwick was taking his last reading with his quadrant. 'Seven degrees thirty-six minutes - ah, that's more like it!' He read from his tables, a note of triumph in his voice: 'Four hundred and twenty-six yards, sir. We could stand off and tease her with the carronades!'

Would the Junon haul down her colours and save what would otherwise be a senseless slaughter? Ramage was not sure. Losing a foremast in these circumstances was a good enough reason for surrendering. Good enough, but not an overwhelming reason. Ramage thought for a moment of a French courtmartial, trying the captain for the loss of his ship. A case could be made out for surrendering - and an equally good case could probably be made out for fighting on, relying on that lucky shot.

He wished he did not keep thinking about the French captain's plight, but the fact was he did not look forward to what he had to do: it had been bad enough pounding the Sylphe in an action which would bring him no credit - a 74-gun ship was expected to pound a frigate into submission. Admittedly it would be different with the Junon, because two equally powerful ships had started off on level terms, and the Dido had gained the advantage by using surprise. But he hated the idea that the French captain would fight on because of pride, and probably cause the death of fifty of his men and the wounding of double that number.

Would a French captain be having these thoughts? He shook his head impatiently: no, he almost certainly would not. So it was his job to get fifty yards to windward of the Junon and pour in a full broadside to start the proceedings.

This was the first time he had been able to compare the windward ability of the Dido against another ship, and he was quite impressed by her performance: she had pointed higher than the Junon, which at the time had been all that mattered. One learned about one's ship at the oddest times. They were approaching the Junon fast now. The thunderclouds were clearing; blue patches of sky were hinting at a clearance. The wind was less gusty and perhaps a little stronger: there were hints of whitecaps on the water.

And now the Dido was within a few minutes of firing her larboard broadside into the Junon, and it was important to remember that although the French ship had lost her foremast and some of the larboard guns were obscured by sails hanging over the side, her starboard broadside was unaffected: every one of those guns would be loaded; at this very moment the French gunners would be waiting for the Dido to come into their sights.