Ramage and the drum beat

'Jackson! If you're so interested in what's going on down here you'd better leave the telescope with the lookout and reload my pistols.'

'Aye aye, sir.' Thankfully the American started down the ratlines.

Southwick cursed as the reflection showed he'd honed a slight flat into one side of the curved blade, but that bit of carelessness would have to be removed later because the men with the cutlasses were impatient to get at the stone. Southwick loved his sword and as he slid it into the rawhide scabbard, which was itself stiff enough to break a man's arm with a single blow, he reflected that it was a real fighting sword, heavy yet balanced, and the rasping of the shagreen covering on the handle against the palm of his hand reminded him he personally caught the shark, cured the skin and fitted it on himself. No, his sword wasn't one of those strips of tin decked out in pinchbeck wire that was only fit to wear on ceremonial occasions; it was a man's sword.

Unaware of the effect his own enthusiasm had had on his captain's thoughts and decisions during the past fifteen minutes, Southwick would have given anything to know what was in Ramage's mind; what his plan was to capture the frigate. To the Master the whole thing looked impossible, and he'd been in half a mind to tell Mr. Ramage so but couldn't think of a tactful way of saying it. Anyway, the captain had looked confident enough from the time the hulk first hove up over the horizon, and had guessed she was a Don long before she'd shown her colours. So obviously he had a plan, though Southwick admitted that if it'd been up to him he'd have squared away for Gibraltar by now, merely noting in the log the time the Spaniard's colours had been hoisted, and her position.

Standing to weather of the men at the tiller, Ramage appeared confident enough in his faded blue uniform and a battered hat, whose silk cockade was so frayed that it looked like a black dahlia. He sensed from the way the men bustled about that they thought these were the first moves in some brilliantly simple scheme to capture the frigate. But his mind had never been so barren of ideas, and the Kathleen was closing rapidly with the hulk - hell, how the scraping of that grindstone grated on his nerves.

He needed a red herring to draw across the Spaniards' bows to occupy their attention while he conjured up some plan to force them to surrender - but it'd need to be an explosive red herring to do any good, he thought gloomily.

An explosive red herring!

'Gunner's mate!' he bellowed. 'Mr. Southwick, pass the word for the gunner's mate!'

CHAPTER FOUR

George Edwards, the gunner's mate of the Kathleen, had issued the gun locks, spare flints, trigger lines and other equipment for the carronades from his store, and then gone to the tiny lead-lined magazine. After taking off his boots and putting on a pair of felt slippers, he emptied his pockets of metal objects that might make a spark, unlocked the door with a brass key and entered to issue the waiting gun captains with powder horns containing the fine priming powder for the locks.

The fire screens round the magazine had already been unrolled and were hanging down like thick blankets and dripping with water. By the light of the lantern placed outside and illuminating the magazine through a glass window, Edwards inspected the magazine men as they trooped in, stripped to the waist, bare footed, and with rags tied round their heads to stop perspiration running into their eyes - heaving out the cartridges in the magazine was hot and exhausting work. As Edwards looked slowly round the dimly lit magazine, methodically checking what he saw, the magazine men lined up ready to hand the neatly stacked cartridges from the racks out through the scuttle to the waiting powder boys.

Although he had not been back to his native Kent for more than a few weeks at a time in the last thirty years, Edwards had lost little of the Kentish burr in his voice and none of the slow, thoughtful, almost cautious habits of the fisherman, painfully learned during a boyhood spent in his father's fishing boat working among the treacherous shoals of the Goodwin Sands from Deal beach.

In build he was like one of the guns to which his life was devoted: slightly round-shouldered, barrel-chested with narrow thighs and long legs. From his shoulders to his feet his body had the same taper as a gun, his head forming the knob-shaped cascable at the end of the breech, his body the barrel.

For once Edwards was satisfied with what he saw in the magazine: thanks to the Captain he'd been able to exercise the men so they could be trusted to pass the cartridges to the boys with the minimum of fuss and movement; in fact they could do it blindfolded - that was how they'd been exercising for the past week.

For all that, Edwards was puzzled when he heard the word being passed that the Captain wanted to see him at once, and the sudden bright sunshine made him blink as he emerged on deck to find Mr. Ramage and the Master waiting.

Ramage said abruptly to him and the Master: 'We have to make the Dons think we can destroy their ship.'

Southwick said 'Aye aye, sir,' in a matter-of-fact voice, but Edwards thought of the row of gun ports along the frigate's side.

'How do you propose we should do it, Mr. Southwick?'

Both Master and gunner's mate knew by now this was the Captain's way of testing them, and while Edwards pondered carefully Southwick admitted frankly and characteristically: 'Haven't thought about it, sir. Must be some way, though...'

'Listen then, particularly you Edwards. I want you to be able to blow the stern off that ship.'

Ramage, nettled by Southwick's easy-going attitude and disappointed that neither looked surprised at what he's just said, mistook their confidence in him for indifference and snapped at Edwards: 'Any ideas?'

The gunner's mate shook his head. 'Sorry, sir, it's a bit - well, sudden, as you might say.'

Ramage nodded, realizing that resentment from either man at the present moment would mean he'd lose their cooperation.

'Well,' he said, noticing both Gianna and Antonio edging closer to hear, 'if the Dons can get a broadside into us, we'll soon be down there,' he pointed towards the sea bed, 'where the chart says "No bottom at ninety fathoms". So we've got to tackle her from ahead or astern, risking only her bow or stern-chasers.'

Ramage saw both men nod warily, obviously expecting another question to be shot at them.

'Now then, you can see she's lying with the wind fine on her starboard quarter, which means, Mr. Southwick?'

'That we can run across her stern, rake her with one broadside and luff round and rake her again with the other without getting into the arc of fire of her broadside guns!' the Master answered promptly.

'We could. Now supposing she was one of our own ships - on fire, perhaps, and we wanted to get the men off?'

Southwick thought for a moment, ruffling his hand through his hair. 'We could heave-to the Kathleen to windward and drift a boat down on a grass warp, sir.'

'And how does all that help us with our present problem of capturing an enemy ship?'

'Fill the boat with boarders?' Southwick asked hopefully.

'And have them picked off one by one by musket fire?'

Edwards' eyes narrowed. If it'd been a question of seamanship alone, Mr. Ramage would have sent for the master's mate and the bosun's mate as well as the Master, but certainly not the gunner's mate. Since he had been sent for, it must be something to do with guns - or powder. Well, there was no harm in guessing.

'Powder, sir? A few barrels in the boat and a long fuse?'

He was a man who spoke slowly and deliberately, as if every word was a shot to be aimed without haste and, when fired, to have the maximum effect on the target.

Ramage nodded and unexpectedly felt relieved. Perhaps his idea wasn't so wild after all if Edwards could guess it. He took a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, spread it on top of the binnacle and sketched with a pencil as he spoke. 'Precisely. An explosion boat. I want a big enough explosion to damage her stern and spring the butts of the planks - just a couple on the waterline would be enough; the pumps couldn't keep up with that. And she may be leaking already. So how much powder do we need in the boat?'