'Find a leadline—or make one up. Then take the boat and run a line of soundings from here to the far shore over there. I want to see where the channel is, so we know how close the privateers have to pass.'
Within twenty minutes Jackson was back to report that although the channel was fifty yards wide, the deepest part was close to the Jorum, which was lying right on the southern edge where the water shoaled suddenly from five fathoms to one. On the north side it shoaled gradually, he said, adding:
'Plenty of nasty little rocks sticking up, too, all along that side of the channel—like buoys at Spithead, sir!'
'Could you drop a bight of the anchor cable over one of them?'
Jackson slapped his knee. To make a snare? Easy, sir!'
'Carry on and do it, then. Pass it through the Jorum's hawse first and we'll haul in the slack later.'
Jackson ran forward, calling for men.
The first bonfire up on the hill had gone out Orion's belt, Sinus, Castor and Pollux — The stars were moving across the sky on their pre-ordained curves. Curious that Betelgeuse was so red and Sirius so sparkling white. As he looked down again he found he was almost dazzled by the stars, the hillside across the bay seeming speckled with fireflies.
Partly dazzled... again an idea slid through his mind. Dazzled! The men at the privateers' helm, the captain probably standing in the bow conning her, anxious in the darkness to keep in the channel yet avoid the Jorum, and equally watchful for a sudden windshift or eddy off the cliffs.
And as he gets abreast the Jorum... *
As the seamen heaved down on the windlass bars to turn the drum, which looked like an enormous cotton-reel, Ramage watched the cable curving upwards out of the sea, dripping as the strain squeezed out the water from between the strands.
From the schooner the cable stretched right across the channel to the rock on the far side where it was secured, and forming a gigantic trip rope which would be invisible in the darkness.
'Pity we can't get a bit higher, sir,' Jackson commented. 'It'd take out their foremast for sure.'
'I doubt it,' Ramage said, 'but anyway we can't.'
'Reckon it'll damage them much?'
'No—I doubt if it'll damage them at all.'
Jackson was silent for a minute or two, puzzling out its purpose if it wasn't going to do any damage. He finally had to admit defeat.
'May I ask ...'
Ramage, surprised at the American's bewilderment, said, 'After we broke through the raft, we had a devil of a job trying to see where the channel was, didn't we?'
Jackson agreed.
'But they've been in and out dozens of times and know where the channel is,1 Ramage continued. 'Very well, they get abeam of us, nicely in the middle of the channel, but jumpy because we're firing on them with the swivels ...'
Unintentionally Ramage paused, visualizing its happening.
'... Suddenly the ship hits something. If you were the skipper what'd be your first reaction?'
That we'd hit a rock!'
'But you know you're in the channel.'
'Then I'd be damned uneasy, sir!'
'What would you do?'
'Well, I'd take a quick look over the side and make sure!'
'All of which,' Ramage said dryly, 'would have wasted several seconds just as you're abreast of the Jorum.' 'True enough!' Jackson said emphatically.
'But you'd be even more jumpy if in fact the Jorum hadn't, up to that moment, so much as fired a pistol at you.'
The American waited, then knew that was all he was going to be told. He'd been through many adventures with his captain; on more than one occasion he'd known—or, he corrected himself, thought he knew—they'd be killed; but each time Mr Ramage had produced some apparently crazy idea which saved them.
And yet, Jackson realized, the ideas usually revolved round one sort of—well, almost a rule, which Mr Ramage was always trying to din into him: surprise. You could nearly always lessen the odds by surprising the enemy.
It had become a sort of game between them, too. All right, he thought, Mr Ramage had explained the purpose of the cable—just to make sure the first privateer captain is jumpy, so the cable's only part of the plot. But as usual Mr Ramage had given him a clue—if the Jorum had not, up to that moment 'so much as fired a pistol...'
Suppose the moment Mr Ramage felt the privateer hit the cable he opened fire with the swivels, musketoons and pistols? No, that was too obvious; he had something else up his sleeve, and Jackson couldn't fathom it.
Ramage looked at his watch and then glanced aft. The three men standing there as lookout were reliable and one of them had the night-glass. Surely Dupont had managed to get on board one of the privateers by now? Ramage felt confi dent the man didn't intend attacking the Jorum from the beach. He walked over to Gorton, calling to Jackson: 'Muster the hands aft; I want to have a word with them.'
As soon as the men were gathered round, with the three lookouts listening, Ramage stood with Gorton and explained his plan should the privateers try to sail out. As soon as he finished he asked if there were any questions, but there was none, and as he dismissed them the men scurried off in the darkness to prepare themselves.
A few minutes later Ramage heard one lookout speak sharply to another and saw he now held the night-glass to his eye.
Suddenly he turned.
'Captain, sir: the nearest privateer's weighing and she's just hoisting a headsail!'
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
As Ramage stood at the taffrail, night-glass to his eye and watching the opening where the Jorum had smashed through the raft, Jackson murmured:
'Like a ferret watching a rabbit hole!'
'Mutinous words, Jackson. Five dozen lashes at least.'
Jackson chuckled. 'Well, I'd sooner be on the ferret's side...'
'And flattery doesn't get promotion in this ship.'
Seeing the first privateer was now fifty yards from the gap but there was no sign of movement in the second, Ramage said: 'You'd better check that the lads in the boat are ready and their slow-match hasn't gone out.'
The privateer was now hoisting her mainsail and foresail. The wind was easterly, eight or nine knots.
And Ramage's hand was trembling with excitement, making it doubly difficult to follow the movements of the privateer in the night-glass, which inverted the image. But, he warned himself, the minutes it took that privateer to reach the Jorum were going to be among the most important in his life.
There was a hail from the shore. He swung round and answered.
'From Evans, sir: the Triton's a mile off, just south-west of the headland and he's going to loose off a rocket—Gawd, there it goes now!'
'Very well, tell Evans------'
'An' he's lighting the bonfire—we got a lot more brushwood to keep------'
'Very well, get back to Evans and tell him the first privateer's trying to get out. Smartly now!'
'Aye aye, sir!'
As Ramage turned back to watch the privateer his body went rigid: blast! Another mistake. The Jorum's boat should be setting off to warn Southwick. Who to send? He wanted to hold on to Jackson...
The privateer was two hundred yards off, the phosphorescence of her bow wave giving her a pale green moustache. Neatly trimmed.
'Stafford! Jackson! Lay aft here!'
Both men were beside him in a moment.
'Jackson—I'm changing the plan. Stafford—you've got to go at once in the boat to Mr Southwick. You see the privateer? Good—well, the Triton's a mile south-west of the entrance. Get out to her as fast as you can, tell Mr Southwick the position here and—listen carefully—tell him to heave-to right off the entrance. If there's shooting going on, he's to wait for daylight. But if he sees two white lights at our bow, one above the other, send a boat in for orders. Take a false-fire and a slow-match so Mr Southwick sees you. Hurry I'