Yet a few days ago - yesterday, in fact - he had been sure it would work. He'd thought of the idea, spent a couple of hours trying to find faults in his plan, and had spent many hours since looking for loopholes. So why did he now think it would not work? The explanation was quite simple, of course: he was a coward, and before any action he always had these moments of quiet desperation, quiet panic, quiet fear. The quiet coward. Some men were secret gamblers, others secret drinkers. Some were wife - beaters, and others had nameless secret vices. And you, Your Lordship? Oh, I'm a secret coward . . .
Now it was too late to change his mind; the French frigate was slicing her way up to them, spray flying from her bow, port lids triced up, guns run out, Tricolour streaming out in the freshening breeze. Her sails were patched and the wetness of her hull could not hide the lack of paint. She was being sailed well but her captain was letting her sag off, so she'd have to tack to stay up to windward . . . Now she was furling her courses. Very sensible and the standard move before going into action. She should dew up her topgallants, too - ah, yes, she was doing that now, and the men were going out on the yards to furl them.
The Calypso must be a puzzle to that French captain: sails bundled untidily on the yards, ports closed, a dozen or so men lounging on top of the hammock nettings, idly watching the approaching frigate just as they might look incuriously at passing bumboats in port. The large French Tricolour hoisted over the British ensign showed she had been captured. She was obviously French - built, so presumably had been a British prize. But there could be no doubt about the little schooner bravely towing her towards Amsterdam: French - built, Tricolour flying, her decks lined with men.
More important, Ramage had reckoned, the French captain of La Creole would have shifted to his new capture, the Calypso. Apart from having considerably more comfortable quarters, it would be the obvious place for him. Now it all depended on the captain of the approaching French frigate. Was he a flashing - eyed revolutionary or a rough sea - lawyer the Revolution had dragged up from the lowerdeck and put in command? Or a former royalist who had hurriedly turned his coat in exchange for keeping his neck intact and getting promotion? By now France was getting over the shortage of trained captains caused by the Revolution's habit, in the first few months, of executing anyone that looked like an aristocrat, a bout of republican enthusiasm which had killed off France's best captains and admirals and often put in their place men who made up in political glibness what they lacked in seamanship or leadership.
Whatever the type of man in command of that frigate, Ramage knew the whole success or failure of his operation depended on him seizing (and keeping) the initiative. The enemy ship was now close enough that telescopes could distinguish flags.
'Hoist the French challenge,' he told Aitken, and warned Orsini: 'Watch for the reply.'
Two seamen hurriedly hauled at the halyard on which the three flags of the French code making up the day's challenge were already bent. Ramage was thankful that the French system of challenge and reply was less complex than the British - and the page on which it was printed in tabular form and which had been slipped into the signal book was for a whole year.
He aimed his telescope at the French ship. Over there the French captain would be puzzled all right. The Frenchman would be assuming that the schooner's captain would be only a lieutenant and therefore his junior. He had every reason to think that he would now take command of the whole situation; that he would escort La Creole and her prize into Amsterdam (and no doubt find a way of claiming a hefty share of the prize money).
Three flags were jerking their way aloft and almost immediately, before they were properly hoisted, Orsini reported, his voice squeaking with excitement: 'She's made the correct reply, sir. And there go her pendant numbers. I'll have her name in a moment, sir.'
The boy glanced down at the book. 'Pendant number one three seven, sir' He turned to the back of the book where ships of the French Navy were listed by their numbers. 'One three seven is La Perle, sir.'
Moments were counting now: La Perle, approaching from the Calypso's quarter, would have read her name on the transom and wasted time looking her up in the list: she was not there because her name had been changed when she became part of the Royal Navy. So La Perle's captain, already no doubt puzzled by the fact the challenge had been made by the Calypso and not the obvious victor, La Creole, would have no way of being sure of the seniority of the officer in the Calypso who had made the challenge.
'Quickly now,' Ramage snapped. 'Hoist one three seven and the signal for the captain to come on board - forty - six.'
So far so good: forty - six ordered 'the captain of the ship designated' to come on board the ship making the signal, and anyone seeing it hoisted would assume (Ramage hoped) that the officer making it knew he was the senior. The captain of La Perle would guess that whoever was on board the Calypso knew his seniority, but he knew nothing of the Calypso. More important, he knew no lieutenant commanding La Creole would have the impertinence to order him on board. La Perle's captain should be very puzzled but, if Ramage's guess was correct, he would obey. Any officer in that Frenchman's position would (if he had any sense) obey because if he came on board and found that a junior officer had given the order, he could spend the next day or two making the fellow's life a misery.
The violent flapping of cloth, sounding like a squall hitting a line laden with wet laundry, made him glance up. The flags were being run up smartly, with Paolo almost dancing with impatience as he spurred on the two seamen hauling at the halyards.
Ramage resumed his watch on La Perle. As she danced about in the circle made by the telescope he could see just how scruffy she was; her guns were run out, of course: seventeen a side, so she was pierced for thirty - four. But as she heeled in the gusts there was a dirty mark all the way along her waterline, the mark of a ship that spent much time in harbour without her captain making sure a boatload of men with scrubbing brushes kept her clean. And the yards - rust streaks marked the wood and the canvas, showing no one bothered to have the irons of the stunsail booms chipped and scraped and painted. Rust marks weakened canvas, quite apart from looking untidy. The headsails sagged even though the wind was little more than a stiff breeze, showing that the forestays were slack and no one had bothered to take up the slack in the halyards as the ropes stretched. The sight of La Perle would give any British admiral 'She's acknowledged, sir,' Orsini called.
Aitken did not even look round; Southwick was still taking a bearing of her. The only person to catch Ramage's eyes as he glanced across the deck was Jackson. Was the American the only one who realized that everything had depended on that signal? Not everything, Ramage corrected himself, but at least the success of the first part of his plan.
How odd to see the Calypso's decks so bare! A French frigate within three cables (he could distinguish men on board her now, so she was less than 700 yards away) and getting ready to heave - to to send over a boat - and the only sign of life on the British ship's decks was the men lounging on the hammock nettings, two or three watching from the fo'c'sle, and a few men on the quarterdeck.
He was wearing a seaman's white duck trousers and an open - necked blue shirt with a cutlass belt over his shoulder; Aitken and Southwick had also borrowed clothes from some of the men and also wore cutlass belts, without cutlasses. No breeches in sight - hurrah for France; this was the age of the sons - culottes. Breeches meant oppression; trousers stood for democracy. The Calypso's decks were a picture of egalitarian slackness - viewed from La Perle anyway. The Frenchmen could not see the men waiting below, more than one hundred and fifty of them, ready to race up, trice up the port lids and run out the guns, which were already loaded, with handspikes, rammers and sponges lying beside them, and trigger lines neatly coiled, not in their usual place on the breech of each gun where they might be spotted by a sharp - eyed Frenchman aloft with a telescope, but on the deck.