Ramage and the Dido

'We can always hold off and keep this range.'

'No, our only hope of avoiding a battering match is to get her to run ashore. Maybe they'll take fright after we get alongside.'

Southwick hitched his sword round a bit, as if reassuring himself that he was still wearing it. 'It'll make a change for me to board someone,' he said, intending to forestall Ramage from telling him that he could not join the boarding parties. There was little he enjoyed more than swinging his big two-handed sword as he swept into the midst of a group of Frenchmen. Yet with his flowing white hair and cheery red face he looked like the peaceful parson of a country parish, more used to writing out his sermons than wielding a sword. Southwick was, Ramage considered, the most deceptive-looking man in the Dido's ship's company.

The gap between the two ships was closing faster now: the outline of the Achille was becoming more definite, even though she still had a ghostly quality as the flickering from her own guns and the Dido's lit her up, throwing weird shadows across her sails and making her hull seem to tremble.

The range was down to less than a hundred yards when Southwick exclaimed: 'She's turning!'

At almost the same moment Ramage noticed that her bowsprit was diverging slightly to starboard. Not much - maybe a point. But no, the swing was continuing. The captain of the Achille had suddenly decided to sheer off rather than risk being boarded. But was he watching the Dido and not looking to starboard?

Ramage willed his guns to fire faster, so that the French captain concentrated on the Dido. He tried to put himself in the Frenchman's place. Yes, he could imagine himself being obsessed with watching the enemy: it was the obvious thing to do, particularly when he seemed to be moving into a position to run alongside and board.

Again he looked forward at the Achilles bowsprit, and in the gun flashes he was sure she had turned another point to starboard. Two points. Three should be enough. Four would make it certain. As he watched, feeling almost dizzy as the flashes nagged at his eyes, he was sure the French ship was still turning. The only reference point was the Dido's own bowsprit, which was also turning to starboard but at a slower rate.

He gave Aitken the order to bring the wheel amidships, to stop the turn. Every yard the Dido made to starboard brought her that much nearer to Pointe des Nègres, apart from making it harder to distinguish how much the Achille was turning. The French captain had it in mind that the Dido was trying to come alongside to board, and that was all that mattered: he probably would not notice that she had in fact stopped her turn: the gunfire and darkness would obscure that. Or at least he hoped it would.

With the Dido's helm amidships he could not distinguish for certain that the Achille was continuing the turn to starboard - turning increasingly faster as her rudder got a bite on the water. How long would it be now?

Another roundshot ripped overhead, only a couple of feet clear of Ramage and Southwick as they stood together on the quarterdeck. This time neither man moved; both were trying to see beyond the Achille's bow, for a sight of the cliffs. Suddenly a ripple of fire from the Dido's guns made a concentrated flash which showed Ramage the cliffs: not where he had been looking, across the French ship's fo'c'sle, but just ahead of her.

'Larboard your helm!' he bellowed at Aitken. 'We'll be on the rocks ourselves in a few moments.'

Even as he shouted the Achille seemed to stop in the water and then appeared to draw astern as the Dido forged ahead and began to turn to seaward away from the cliffs and away from the Achille.

Slowly the gunfire died down as the gun captains realized there was no target, and the night became black. Black with blotches of grey as the eyes tried to recover from the dazzling effect of the muzzle flashes.

'We've done it!' Southwick shouted triumphantly. 'She's gone up on the rocks!'

'I'm not sure we're going to get clear in time,' Ramage said cautiously. 'I can't see a damned thing.'

'I'm blinded too,' Southwick admitted. 'All those flashes were too much. But God, how black it is now.'

Ramage waited anxiously as the Dido turned and Aitken shouted orders for trimming the sails and bracing the yards. Would that sickening crunch come as the Dido's bow rode up on the small reef of rocks extending seaward from the Pointe des Nègres or would she turn in time?

Just at that moment cloud cleared away and let starlight down on to the cliff, giving Ramage a sense of direction and letting him see that the Dido would pass clear. But as he looked over the Dido's quarter he could see the black hump of the Achille, seemingly hunched up at the foot of the cliff, her shape hard to identify.

Suddenly Southwick gave a bellow of alarm, followed up by an apologetic report that the Scourge was fine on the larboard bow. 'In the darkness she looked bigger than a brig,' he said. 'I thought we were in for more trouble.'

Ramage said, 'Stand by to anchor. We want to put a few more broadsides into the Achille at first light, apart from making sure she doesn't refloat tonight.'

'She must have been making six knots or more when she hit,' Southwick said. 'I don't think she's going to get off tonight.'

'What's the rise and fall of tide here?' Ramage asked.

'It's only a couple of feet at springs, and it's neaps now, so a foot o' water isn't going to do her much good.'

'Let's have a cast of the lead and put an anchor down,' Ramage said impatiently. 'I don't want to move too far away from that Frenchman, just in case he manages to get off.'

Southwick bustled off to the fo'c'sle, shouting orders for the anchor party, as Aitken called for topmen ready to furl the topsails.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dawn came with painful slowness. The ship's company went to general quarters, to meet the first hint of daybreak with the guns loaded and run out. During the night the cloud had come and gone, so that one minute the starlight showed the cliff and the Achille and the next minute they were blotted out by a bank of cloud drifting across the sky from the east. There was no sign of movement from the French ship of the line; Southwick, watching with the nightglass, swore that the French had not rowed round taking soundings.

'That could mean they are holed so badly it doesn't matter what the depths are,' Ramage pointed out.

'True,' Southwick admitted, but added: 'If they're holed that badly, they'll never get off without help.'

Now, as the blackness slowly turned to grey, Ramage watched the ship through his telescope. No, she did not seem to be floating low in the water. But yes, perhaps she was up a bit by the bow. It was hard to be sure in the half-light, but Ramage found himself impatient to know.

Where was the convoy - when and where was the Achille due to meet it? He could not wait around too long off Fort Royal and Pointe des Nègres because he had to get down to the south to wait off Cabrit Island for the merchant ships to arrive. Why the devil was it that so often one was supposed to be in two places at once?

The Scourge passed close and Ramage grasped the speaking trumpet and shouted to Bennett. 'Thanks - that was a good job of shadowing. You can see the result. Now get down to Cabrit Island and keep a watch there.'

Bennett waved an acknowledgement and the brig turned away to head southwards.

With almost startling suddenness it was daylight and Ramage could see the Achille clearly. She had run up on the landward end of the short reef running seaward from the cliff. The cliff itself was a good fifty yards away.

'If she'd been twenty yards further out she'd have passed clear,' Southwick said, and snapped his telescope shut. 'Her captain is an unlucky fellow.'

'He's going to have a hard time at his court martial explaining why he was so close inshore,' Ramage said dryly. 'Gun flashes or no gun flashes, he was passing the Pointe much too close.'