There was a sudden hiss of water and flapping of canvas and Ramage turned to see the Marie coming up into the wind, her jib flapping and the blocks squeaking as the main-sheet was hurriedly hauled in. The fishing-boat lost way as she turned north-west, the jib stopped flapping as the wind caught it aback, and a man was leaning on the tiller, keeping the helm over, so the rudder tried to push the bow round to larboard against the thrust of the backed jib trying to force it over to starboard,
The fisherman snapped an order, they bent to the oars, and a couple of minutes later Louis was standing in the bow throwing a line to a man on the stern of the Marie. The nearness of the two boats emphasized the height of the waves: it was far safer to board the Marie over her stern rather than risk the two vessels crashing together if the rowing boat went alongside.
With the line secured, Ramage and Stafford stowed the oars neatly, despite the protests of the fisherman that he would do that later. Ramage told the Cockney to board first and Louis waited for a smooth patch, then hauled on the line to bring the bow close. Stafford leapt up, and a moment later Ramage followed him. The Marie's stern began to lift as she seesawed over a crest and Louis waited a minute or two. By the time he had jumped on board Ramage had recognized the dark figures on the Marie's deck as Jackson and Rossi. A hurried question thrown at Jackson as they shouted goodbye to the fisherman and began to sheet in the backed jib brought the reply that all the dispatches had been delivered to Lord Nelson, who was on board a frigate at anchor in the Downs.
Five minutes later the Marie was reaching up to the nor'-nor'-west on the larboard tack with Dyson explaining that he wanted to get into the deep bay between Dungeness and Hythe and then bear away for the Downs, so that as far as any nosey Revenue cutter was concerned they had been fishing off the 'Ness.
Then, sitting in the little cockpit with Dyson crouched over the compass and Louis, Stafford and Rossi down in the cuddy, Ramage was able to extract from a Jackson obviously impatient to hear of his captain's adventures a full report on the delivery of the dispatches to Lord Nelson. The last courier had arrived in Boulogne on Sunday evening, Jackson said, with the news that 'the Italian gentleman' had been arrested by the gendarmes, although at the time he left Amiens both Louis and Stafford were still free. He had emphasized to Jackson that the dispatch he was delivering was of enormous importance.
Jackson said that as soon as he told Dyson they prepared to sail. By nightfall they were a mile off Boulogne and heading for the rendezvous. Fortunately the other Marie was fishing near the rendezvous, and leaving Dyson and Rossi to return to Boulogne, he went direct to Lord Nelson's frigate in the Downs. Fifteen minutes after handing over the dispatch he had been hurried below to the Admiral's cabin and ordered to tell him everything he knew.
'I tried to avoid saying anything about the smugglers, sir, apart from the name of the smack,' Jackson said defensively, as if anticipating Ramage's wrath, 'but His Lordship said he wasn't interested in people breaking a few laws, he was concerned about what had happened to you.
'So I just told him the bare bones of it, about how you'd been arrested in Amiens, but he saw through me: he might only have one eye, sir, but he can see through a six-inch plank. He got angry and told me you'd probably be guillotined, and the only chance of saving you depended on him knowing all the details.
'Well, I may have done the wrong thing, sir, but I then told him all I know - about the Corporal's brother, and how you and Staff had gone off to Amiens with Louis, and how you'd passed the dispatches back to Boulogne. At the end of it all he seemed very upset; he turned to the captain of the frigate and said, "We've got what we wanted, but it's cost us young Ramage: those damned French will chop his head off - probably have already. Damme, we can't afford to lose young men like him!"
'Well, sir, I hadn't much hope for you when we left Boulogne, and hearing His Lordship say that put the seal on it. When I got back on board the Boulogne Marie that night and told Slushy, he wouldn't believe it though - credit where credit's due. He reckoned that Louis was a match for them French policemen. Seems he was right!'
The hiss of a bow wave, the rattle of blocks and the flap of a sail high overhead made Ramage realize with a sudden shock which turned his stomach to water that the dark patch on the Marie's larboard bow was a large ship steering north. A blinding flash and thud warned him that she had opened fire.
'Wear round and run inshore!' Ramage shouted at Dyson. That was only a warning shot!'
Dyson thrust the tiller over and Jackson leapt to overhaul the mainsheet. Rossi, Louis and Stafford scrambled up out of the cuddy as the Marie's bow began to swing.
The jib flapped and a moment later the big boom slammed over and the Marie heeled in response. Hurriedly the jib was sheeted in and Ramage looked astern. She was a frigate - that much was clear in the darkness - and the Marie's sudden right-angled jink had taken her by surprise: already she had ploughed on to the north and the fishing-boat was safe from her broadside guns, though alert men at the stern-chasers might get in a shot.
As the frigate disappeared in the darkness, occasional shafts of moonlight through the clouds lit up her sails. No, she wasn't wearing round after the Marie. Ramage looked round warily to the south: no, she wasn't leaving the Marie to a consort following along astern.
'Sleepy lot over there,' Jackson commented to Stafford. They left it too late to fire that warning shot.'
'I ain't complaining,' the Cockney said. 'So 'elp me, 'ow the 'ell are we going to tell 'em we're reelly friends?'
Ramage strained his eyes in the darkness as a cloud across the moon hid the frigate's sails. There was something damned strange about the whole episode. Her captain was not sleepy - he was wide awake and probably standing on the quarterdeck with his night-glass: no one patrolling close inshore, watching for French ships trying to run the blockade, was anything but alert, and all his officers and lookouts too. There would be six lookouts - two on each bow, beam and quarter, and with a moon like this probably a man aloft as well.
Yet that warning shot had been fired astern of the Marie and much too late. It was fired when the frigate was in no position to cut her off and almost too far past to loose off a broadside. Given that she could not stop the Marie escaping, why fire a warning shot? Why fire when there was no time to wait for a response and, if none was forthcoming, follow it up with a broadside?
Ramage shrugged his shoulders: perhaps he was making too much of it: the frigate may have just fired a random shot to frighten a French fishing smack back into port, having spotted her at the last moment against the land and decided not to bother with a broadside. For the moment he was thankful that they were all still alive. But it was a long way to the English coast and that frigate might well turn south again, and she was certainly not the only one out patrolling that night.
They must assume that the Marie would meet her again. They could try to sneak out and hope for the best, risking the frigate thundering down and firing a broadside that would lift the Marie out of the water and scatter the pieces like driftwood. Or they could try getting close enough - waving a lantern, perhaps - and hailing her, explaining that the Marie was English. British, rather. He put himself in a frigate captain's position and knew it would not work until they were within a few miles of the English coast. No frigate captain would believe a British fishing-boat could be sailing close along the French coast: he would immediately assume it was some sort of trick and open fire - and who could blame him: why risk a frigate for the sake of some wild shouts from a fishing smack?