By now the two men who had been entrusted with shaded lanterns had climbed on board and were lighting up a few yards of deck. Ramage snatched one of the lanterns before plunging below, realizing he was a good target for any Frenchman who had a pistol.
There had been only one lookout: that was obvious. Had his shouts been heard below, where men would be sleeping in their hammocks? Or in the gunroom, where the officers would be in their cots? No one had answered the sentry, at any rate, and as he made his way down to the gunroom Ramage coughed when the smoke from the guttering candle in the lantern caught the back of his throat. Now he was standing at the gunroom door, holding the lantern high. There was no movement: the officers were snoring in their cabins, and Ramage was sure that the shouting would not be heard down here. He put the lantern down on the table, sheathed his sword and pulled out the two pistols. Then, with more boarders crowding into the gunroom behind him, he banged on the table with the butt of a pistol until he heard two or three sleepy voices asking in French what was the matter.
As soon as he was sure the officers could hear him, he shouted out a peremptory command in French: everyone was to fall in outside their doors. A few voices, still sleepy, asked who he was. He repeated the order, and told them to hurry.
At that moment he heard muffled shots from forward: boarders were having trouble with men sleeping forward on the lowerdeck. It would not take those men more than a few moments to roll out of their hammocks, though they would have to grope their way to find where cutlasses were stowed.
The first of the officers stumbled out of his cabin and stood by the door, blinking in the light of the lantern. More followed until all the officers, looking comical in their nightshirts, were standing uncertainly in their doorways. Ramage looked round at the boarders and recognized a corporal of Marines. 'Keep all these men standing where they are: shoot anyone that tries to move!'
With that he ran up on deck to find out that the captain had been taken in his bunk and was at present standing by the binnacle in his nightshirt guarded by two Marines. But there were sounds of fighting coming from below, and at that moment he found Aitken standing beside him.
'Some Frenchmen have got hold of swords, sir: quite a number of them, in fact.'
'All right, where's your party?'
'Right here, sir: we've just boarded.'
'Very welclass="underline" let's join the fight!'
He heard more shots as he and Aitken hurried below, and he found the lowerdeck in chaos: men crouching because of the low headroom, crowded by all the hammocks slung from the deckhead, were slashing and parrying with cutlasses and by now shouting at the tops of their voices in English and French.
There was hardly any light: here and there a lantern glowed dimly on the deck, casting weird shadows. The heat made the air seem almost solid and the lanterns were smoking.
A man appearing apparently from nowhere suddenly hurled himself at Ramage, slashing with a cutlass. Ramage parried the first blow, having stuffed the pistols back in his belt and drawn his sword when he left the gunroom. Ramage was hard put to see the next slash because of the heavy shadows and parried instinctively. Then he caught sight of the assailant's face, which was partly hidden as he crouched down to avoid the deck beams, and slashed at the throat. The man gurgled and collapsed.
The problem was distinguishing Dido from Alerte, and Ramage cursed himself for not telling his men to wear white headbands. Still, most of the Alertes were either naked or just wearing trousers, as they had tumbled from their hammocks, while the Didos were wearing shirts and trousers, and many of them did have bands round their foreheads to keep their hair and perspiration out of their eyes. But the bands were not white, Ramage noted; they were grubby strips of cloth often obscured by hair.
There was only one way of sorting out the Didos from the Alertes and he took a deep breath and then bellowed out: 'To me, Didos! To me!'
The crowd of men gave a convulsive heave and Ramage found himself surrounded by men wielding cutlasses and chattering with excitement. He waited a minute or two and then shouted: 'Right, follow me - charge them!'
He was conscious of Jackson on one side and Rossi on the other, with Aitken very close, as he ran crouching towards the waiting Frenchmen, who were obviously bewildered at suddenly finding themselves standing alone. As Ramage lunged at the nearest Frenchman he heard a solid thudding above him: he recognized the noise of axes slamming away at the anchor cable. That meant the topsails had been let fall, which in turn meant that any moment now the Alerte would be gathering way.
And that meant his place was up on deck, starting to sail the frigate out of the anchorage, not fighting hand to hand below decks.
'Come on!' he shouted at Jackson and, careful not to turn his back on the French, he made his way up on deck.
'Take the wheel,' he told Jackson, and in the darkness he could make out the topsails hanging down from the yards. Even as he watched they began taking up their shapes as men obeyed their orders and sheeted home the sails and braced up the yards.
Now was the time to let Southwick know that the frigate was under way, so that he would light a couple of lanterns to guide them. 'Where's the rocket?' he asked Jackson and the American said apologetically: 'Still in the boat, sir.'
'Hurry up and get it - I'll take the wheel,' Ramage said crossly, and seized the spokes as he looked aloft again at the sails.
The wooden spokes felt smooth with wear as he turned the wheel slightly and thought to himself ironically: here is a captain of a ship of the line trying to steer a frigate on a straight course. He could feel a faint breeze on the back of his neck and was thankful because he could not see the sails very clearly and there was no light in the binnacle.
He could just make out the two Marines guarding the French captain and he called to them: 'One of you come and light the candle in the binnacle from your lantern.'
That was something else he had forgotten: to detail a man to see to the binnacle light. Well, he was learning; if he ever cut out a frigate again things would be different.
Still, some things had gone right: the topsails were set, men had cut the anchor cable at the right time, and the sails had been trimmed and the yards braced round. Soon the rocket would be sent off and then he would have to look out for the two lights, one above the other, which the Dido would hoist.
Then Jackson was back with the rocket and launcher tube just as the Marine shut the binnacle door having lit the candle. Ramage quickly looked at the compass card, squinting as he focused his eyes. He was steering west-north-west. As far as he could estimate, the Dido would be a couple of points over on the larboard hand. Anyway, west-north-west kept them clear of any obstacles and for the moment he was more worried about coral reefs and shoals of sand than he was about the French.
Just as he was thinking that, Hill suddenly appeared. 'Mr Aitken sent me, sir: the French have surrendered! At first just a few of them cried for quarter, and the next moment all of them did. Many of them were unarmed and realized they didn't stand a chance.'
'What's Aitken doing now?'
'Sorting out the prisoners with Rennick, sir: we've taken twenty as hostages - I told the rest of them that the hostages would be run through if they didn't behave.'
'Very well. Go back and tell Mr Aitken to come up here and leave the prisoners to Rennick and Kenton. You had better stay down there where your French will be useful.'
By now Jackson had set up the rocket and Ramage said: 'Right, fire it. Use the candle in the sentry's lantern.'