Ramage and the Dido

Southwick sighed and took off his hat, running his hand through his hair in a familiar gesture. 'I think that's the biggest explosion I've ever seen. I don't suppose we'll find many survivors.'

'No, but we'll look. Anyone who survived that deserves to be rescued.' He pulled out the tubes of his telescope again and adjusted it, then he looked over the larboard bow at the two frigates, which were about a mile away. 'The Heron and the Requin are still at it. As soon as we've got the boats in the water, we'll leave them to search for men and go up and put a stop to those frigates squabbling. They must be causing a lot of casualties.'

The maintopsail yard was braced sharp up as the last of the boats were lowered into the water and the crews scrambled down rope ladders into them. Ramage directed Jackson to steer for the oily-smooth patch of water in which an almost incredible amount of debris was floating.

'Enough wreckage there to build two ships - or so it seems,' commented Aitken. 'Plenty for survivors to cling to.'

The Dido hardened in sheets and braces and headed up towards the two frigates which, almost hidden in a cloud of gun smoke, were now lying with their bows to the north, and side by side, pounding each other with their broadsides.

'Damned hard to make out which is which with all the smoke,' commented Southwick.

'The nearest one is the Frenchman,' Ramage said. 'She has something about her sheer that reminds me of the Calypso.'

'Funny how we keep thinking about her. I'm beginning to see the advantages of a ship o' the line at long last: you've more between you and the enemy's shot!'

'I don't know that's such an advantage: there are many more shot flying around.'

'Aye, there's that to it, and I suppose most of them are bigger. Still, up to now we've been lucky.'

'Yes, a frigate and a ship of the line isn't a bad score to start with. We were lucky with the Junon, though: raking her bow so many times must have smashed her up forward. And a lucky shot started that fire. I wonder what it was.'

Southwick shrugged his shoulders. 'Could have been anything. Most probably a roundshot hit a cartridge. Or maybe it wasn't us at alclass="underline" it could have been started accidentally by the French. Must have been chaos forward, after our broadsides.'

It took fifteen minutes for the Dido to work her way up to the frigates: the wind turned fitful and once the big ship was left almost becalmed, Ramage tantalized by the thunder of the frigates' guns.

Finally the Dido was in position, two hundred yards on the Requin's larboard quarter, and ready to make the final run in to pour a broadside into her. The gunners on the starboard side were warned to be ready, and Ramage found himself feeling slightly queasy: he could remember only too vividly what the Dido's broadside had done to the Sylphe.

The Requin, like the Heron, was almost hidden in smoke and the flash of her guns firing played in it like summer lightning among evening clouds. The Dido approached slowly on her larboard quarter, Ramage watching her closely with the telescope. Not watching the ship, but watching the Tricolour, now hanging limp in a cloud. Suddenly he saw what he had been waiting for - the flag came down at the run: the French, seeing the Dido coming, had very sensibly decided the only way of escaping complete destruction was to haul down their colours before the ship of the line had a chance of firing a broadside into them.

'Put us alongside, Mr Aitken,' Ramage said. 'I doubt if the Heron is in much of a shape to take possession of her.'

Ramage waited for Aitken to pass the necessary orders and then sent one of the midshipmen to fetch Rennick. The Marine captain arrived in a hurry and stood to attention in front of Ramage.

'As soon as we get alongside I want your Marines to take possession of the frigate,' Ramage said. 'Be very careful they don't get mixed up with a boarding party from the Heron. The smoke should be clearing very quickly, so there'll be less chance.'

Rennick strode off, glad to have something specific for his Marines to do, and quickly the men were drawn up in files under the two lieutenants, one to board from forward, the other aft.

The Dido was carrying more way than Aitken expected and he gave the order to clew up the topsails a minute too late, so that she crashed into Requin with a thump that threw some of the Marines off their feet. But almost at once Rennick was bellowing orders and the Marines swarmed across the gap between the two ships, while Ramage was thankful that in addition to telling the Dido's gunners not to fire he had ordered them to run their guns in, so their muzzles would not be torn aside by the Requin's

topsides.

Ramage suddenly remembered that the French captain would probably formally surrender to the larger ship, the Dido rather than the Heron, and sent a midshipman hurrying down to his cabin to fetch his sword. As soon as the boy arrived back with it he put it on, saying to both Southwick and Aitken: 'You ought to be wearing swords: these French have fought well and we owe them the courtesies.'

Five minutes later, Rennick came back on board with the French captain escorted by two Marines. The Frenchman was about thirty years old, with a lean face, aquiline nose and sallow complexion. He spoke some English and, proffering his sword, haltingly began explaining why he had surrendered.

He had only just started when, helped by two of his lieutenants, the captain of the Heron hobbled on board, his shin tied up with a bloodstained bandage.

He was an older man, heavily built and with a chubby face and grey eyes. 'Edward Eames,' he said as he introduced himself to Ramage. 'I'm sorry I took so long to get over here, but the beggars winged me just before they hauled down their colours, and I had to get a lashing put on it - it was spilling a lot of blood and filling m' boot.'

Ramage introduced himself and spoke quickly so that the Frenchman would not understand what he was saying to Eames. 'I've only just arrived alongside so I'll go by what you say. This fellow seems to have put up a good fight: do we let him keep his sword?'

Eames nodded vigorously. 'It was touch and go before you arrived: he fought well enough.'

Ramage turned to the Frenchman and said in French: 'Please keep your sword and regard yourself as a prisoner at large: you could not be expected to fight on.'

'The Junon - what happened?'

'She caught fire and blew up: my boats are looking for survivors - though I don't expect there to be many.'

'We saw the explosion,' the Frenchman said, 'and we realized our last chance had gone: we just had to fight on against the frigate, but when you approached . . .' The man shrugged his shoulders.

'You did the wise and honourable thing,' Ramage said. 'Now you'll be taken back to your ship.'

He repeated it to Rennick. 'He's a prisoner at large. I'm just going to discuss with Captain Eames here who takes possession of the ship.'

He turned to Eames. 'Is your leg all right? Would you like my surgeon to have a look at it?'

'No, thank you. I'm all right. That Frenchman seems a decent sort of chap. Put up a deuced determined fight.'

'Yes. It must have been very depressing for him when he saw the seventy-four blow up: she was his last hope.'

'Yes, you'd already put paid to the other frigate. By Jove, your broadsides smashed him up.'

Ramage nodded. 'I was commanding a frigate until recently,' he said drily, 'and I ran into a couple of seventy-fours in the Mediterranean. I speak with experience of both sides when I say there's no disgrace in a frigate hauling down her colours when she meets a seventy-four.'

'I hope a court of inquiry would agree with you,' Eames said. 'I think some of them expect you to run up a butcher's bill before striking.'

'Then they've neither experience nor imagination,' Ramage said. 'Now, let's go down to my cabin and decide what we do next.'