One thing was certain: the Marie couldn't spend the rest of the night sailing up and down the coast off Le Tréport. Of the alternatives, trying to sneak across the Channel was the most likely to succeed. Once again Ramage was puzzled by the frigate's last-minute warning shot. It was as if she had been expecting to find a ship to seaward of her, and had only spotted the Marie inshore at the last moment . . .
'We're getting close to the beach, sir,' Dyson murmured. 'Water gets a bit shallow!'
'Very well, bear up and run south, parallel with the shore. Jackson, Stafford - stand by the mainsheet; Rossi and Louis - jib sheet!'
Dyson leaned on the tiller and the seamen heaved in the sheets until both jib and mainsail were trimmed to the wind now on their starboard beam. The clouds, still broken up, let patches of moonlight skim across the surface of the sea, but there was no sign now of the frigate's sails over on the starboard quarter: she must have carried on northwards, probably intending to go up as far as Boulogne before turning south again. It was idle to speculate; all that mattered for the moment was that she had not turned back to investigate the Marie. No doubt her captain assumed that she was a French fishing-boat and had scurried back into port.
Scurry back into port! Yes, the last thing the frigate captain would expect was that she would go boldly offshore, heading for the middle of the Channel. Do the unexpected: surprise won battles. Ramage knew that most of his successful actions in the past owed more to achieving surprise than to clever planning.
'Stand by at the sheets! Dyson, we're going to bear up again: I want to get well out into the Channel. Forget that damned compass; just get her bowling along hard on the wind. South-west on the starboard tack should keep us clear of the frigate.'
'Aye aye, sir,' Dyson said crisply as the other four men made sure the sheets were clear.
For the first time in many days (weeks, in fact) Ramage felt exhilarated: he was back at sea, making his own decisions and with a good crew. Admittedly the vessel he commanded was very small, but it was only a matter of scale: a fishing-boat escaping from a frigate; a frigate escaping from a ship of the line . . . The problem was the same.
The men were ready and he gave Dyson the order. The Marie slowly edged round to starboard and the men grunted and swore as they hardened in the sheets, while Dyson edged her closer and closer to the wind. With the sheets turned up on the cleats, Ramage looked questioningly at Dyson: the Marie seemed a little sluggish.
'She likes a bit more jib, sir,' he said almost apologetically. 'Bit 'ard-mouthed she is, at the moment.'
'Rossi, give him a couple of feet on that jib sheet,' Ramage said. 'Easy now, mind it doesn't run away with you. Here, Stafford, tail on the end!'
Almost at once the Marie came to life; the sluggishness vanished and she was as skittish as a fresh horse, her bow rising and falling gracefully as she drove to windward across the crests and troughs, her stem bursting random wavetops into sheets of spray.
Ramage tapped Dyson on the shoulder as he hunched to one side of the tiller. 'I didn't know she had it in her; she's a real thoroughbred!' And Dyson knew how to get the best out of her, that was clear enough. Not only get the best out of her, Ramage suddenly realized, but how to sneak her past the frigates! He had probably been doing it once a week for several years! Ramage felt a bit sheepish at his earlier fears and was thankful he had kept them to himself. Not that this was the time to relax - the frigates would be patrolling very close in to Boulogne, since that was nearly every blockade-runner's destination. Down here, where the coast was a series of bays and headlands, they would be patrolling a much wider band, since blockade-runners might try to stand several miles out or creep along a mile off the beach.
Ramage gestured to the seamen. 'Stafford and Rossi - you keep a sharp lookout to larboard; Jackson and Louis - take the starboard side. We're small enough to stand a chance of spotting someone else before they see us, so we'll be able to dodge.'
The jail cell at Amiens seemed a lifetime away now; the time he and Stafford had spent hunched over the candle in the hotel room opening those seals was so remote that it might have happened to someone else. Soon, all being well, they would be working their way into Folkestone. No, not Folkestone! It would be too complicated trying to explain to the Revenue men why there were two identical smacks called Marie in the same port! If they made for the Downs, it would give him time to explain things to Lord Nelson. Then, perhaps, the Admiralty would write a discreet letter to the Board of Customs, and after a few expressions of outraged indignation, the Customs might agree ...
'Fine on the larboard bow, sir!' Stafford hissed. 'A schooner or summat: hundred yards away an' convergin'.'
'Bear away!' Ramage snapped. 'Let the sheets run, lads!'
Rakish hull, two masts, fore-and-aft rig - that much Ramage could see as the Marie began to turn away and then he was momentarily blinded by a ripple of flashes along the stranger's bulwarks. Above the squealing of the sheets running through the blocks, the flogging of the heavy sails and the creak of the gaff jaws on the Marie's mast, he could hear the dull popping of muskets.
Thank goodness the Marie turned on her heel like a dancer. A French chasse-marée! Damnation, that was what the frigate had been hunting! He dodged across the Marie's deck to keep her in sight as the fishing-boat headed inshore again, and saw that both hull and sails were shortening: she was turning after them: any moment she would wear and, with the wind right aft, she would be down on them long before they could get into shallow water.
Where the devil was that frigate now, he thought bitterly as he watched first the big mainsail and then the foresail swing over on the chasse-marée. They were in no hurry because they had their quarry in sight and knew they had the legs of her. The Marie had only one advantage, and that slight enough: she could tack and wear more swiftly, jinking like a snipe in front of a sportsman's gun.
If the Marie waited until she was nearly on her, until the chasse-marée'sdamnably long bowsprit was almost poking down their collars, then wore right across her bow at the last moment, risking a collision? It might catch the French ruffians unawares because they would expect the Marie to turn the other way. Not much of a surprise really, except that the men with the muskets would be waiting on the starboard side, and would have to dash over to the larboard as the Marie suddenly ducked under her bow.
The chasse-marée captain must be out of his mind, risking revealing his position to a British frigate by firing a lot of muskets at a fishing smack, for the flashes could be seen a long way off. Unless the Frenchman did not know the frigate was around . . . But surely he must have seen the flash of her warning shot at the Marie!
There's a battery on the coast just north of Mers,' Dyson said, as though reading Ramage's thoughts. 'That chasse-marée probably thought they fired the shot, not the frigate, and came up to have a look. Not our night, it ain't . . .'
Ramage guessed that that explained why a chasse-marée had opened fire on what was apparently a French smack: a shot from a shore battery would tell her that an enemy vessel was around. But there was no more time for idle thoughts: the chasse-marée was now racing up astern, her bow wave showing clearly in the patches of moonlight. She was slightly to larboard of the Marie's wake and fifty yards away: any minute now those muskets would start popping, trying the range.
'Dyson,' Ramage snapped, 'we're going to wear right across this fellow's bow at the very last moment. Just shave his stem. I’ll give the word, but be ready. The rest of you, stand by at the sheets. One kinked rope jamming in a block and she'll cut us in half, so have a care!'