'No, no! Luff up, luff up!'
'Merde!' screamed one of the men, stepping back from the wheel, 'make up your mind - sir!'
Bazin saw that the name Calypso was painted in blue on a gilt background, and edged with red. The colours were bright The studding - sail boom irons on the outer ends of the Calypso's yards were newly painted in black, in contrast to La Perle's, which were stained with rust.
This is a funny time for the Calypso to be hauling down the Tricolour. They have the Tricolour on one halyard and the British flag ' on another, so they can haul down one independently of the other. Perhaps the halyard has chafed through. Anyway, there is only a British flag now. And it is going to be a dreadful collision.
Southwick gave yet another of his prodigious sniffs, a sniff that contained a lifetime's contempt as well as a lungful of air. That Frog lieutenant couldn't be trusted with a bumboat full of whores,' he said crossly. 'Just look at those luffs fluttering. Ah - now he's having the yards braced up, but that isn't going to help him. And - the fool, he's paying off so much he's making more leeway than headway!'
La Perle was now coming crabwise down on to the Calypso's quarter. Two ships' lengths, Ramage reckoned.
'General quarters,' he snapped at Aitken. 'Guns run out, boarding party to stand by.'
The flapping of flags overhead reminded him. 'Orsini! Get that Tricolour down! Leave our own colours flying.'
'Shell stave in our larboard quarter, spring a dozen planks and carry away the mizen,' Southwick said matter of factly, drawing the great sword he had been wearing slung round his waist 'But if she damages us too much we can all shift on board her . . .'
Seamen were streaming up from below. Some were tricing up the gun ports while others ran out the guns. Men grabbed boarding pikes from the racks round the masts, others took up pistols from wherever they had stowed them. Marines scrambled on to the hammocks stowed in nettings round the quarterdeck, muskets loaded and waiting for orders from Lieutenant Rennick who suddenly appeared on the quarterdeck and posted himself near Ramage, ready for instructions.
Aitken, having passed all his orders, was now steadily and fluently cursing La Perle's first lieutenant, his Scots accent becoming more pronounced is he pictured the damage that would soon have to be repaired along the Calypso's quarter. None of them thought to look at Ramage; none except the quartermaster, who was Thomas Jackson. The American watched him from habit. He was not sure quite what the captain intended, but there must not be the slightest delay in passing a helm order. Jackson knew the men at the wheel were reliable, quite competent to watch the windvanes and the luffs of the topsails, and for the moment had to admit he could not see how the captain was going to get out of this situation. He heard the grumbles of the first lieutenant and the contemptuous snort's of Mr Southwick, and he noted that oddly enough the only person who was not worrying about any damage to the ship was the one man who would be held entirely responsible for it, the captain, and from long experience Jackson knew that if the captain was not worrying, then the odds were that there was nothing to worry about Personally, he had to admit that if he was the captain he would be - well, worried: that French frigate was not only sagging down on them but moving faster than the Calypso. Now she looked as if her bow would bit amidships: she'd shove her jibboom and bowsprit through the mainshrouds and the wrench would probably carry away the mainmast Ramage, rubbing the scar over his eyebrow and then snatching his hand away as he realized what he was doing, took one last look at La Perle and then briskly said to Aitken: 'Cut the cable!'
He walked over to an open gun port and looked over the side. The Calypso was still making more than a couple of knots; she had steerage way. The Frenchman was making a good four but slowing fast. And she would not hit the Calypso's quarter for two reasons - first, that foolish French lieutenant was still trying to luff her up, but was losing speed and control instead, and second, the sheer which turned the Calypso towards her could, with the wheel turned back, swing her away; swing her just enough that instead of La Perle's bow ramming the Calypso amidships she would crash her whole starboard side against the Calypso, as though she was intending to board. And the moment that happened ... He gestured to Jackson and gave the order which began the Calypso's sheer to starboard, swinging her stern away from La Perle, but agonizingly slowly.
He glanced back at La Perle: already her towering jibboom was abreast the Calypso's quarterdeck but passing it. Now the bow, and he could see the black paint peeling, rust weeps from iron fittings, stains where garbage was thrown carelessly over the side. Now the foremast . . . French seamen just standing there or peering over hammock nettings, astonishment or fear showing on their faces, but none wielding a cutlass or aiming a musket.
Now La Perle's sails flogging overhead, not drawing, and the sloshing of water as waves rebounded between the two hulls. But, Ramage realized, no orders being shouted across the French ship's deck.
La Perle's mainmast passing now. She is slowing down appreciably, her sails not drawing, and she is very close: you could lob a grapeshot on to her deck. The sheer to starboard is working welclass="underline" the two ships are now on almost identical courses but just slightly converging, and both are slowing down: La Perle because a desperate first lieutenant has braced up the yards too much and starved the sails of wind, the Calypso because the cable has been cut and La Creole has let the rest go and is already wearing round, determined not to miss the next few minutes.
Then the crash. For a moment Ramage, nearly flung off his feet, thought they had hit a rock, but the rending of wood as La Perle's hull scraped along the Calypso's told the story.
Crisp shouts along the Calypso's decks showed the junior lieutenants had their men in control. Grapnels Sew through the air to hook into La Perle's rigging and hold the two ships together, and then there was no more movement of the ships: La Perle was stopped alongside, her transom level with the Calypso's quarterdeck rail so that Ramage could see her three officers, one of them no doubt the first lieutenant, standing rigid on the quarterdeck, looking more like statues. They were all watching the Calypso's quarterdeck, as though expecting the devil to appear.
Ramage held the speaking trumpet to his mouth and shouted forward: 'Away boarders 1'
'Sir!' Southwick said pleadingly, and Ramage nodded, and the master ran down the quarterdeck ladder to join the boarding parties streaming over the bulwarks.
In the meantime the two ships began swinging to starboard: La Perle had more way on when she bit and she was slowly turning the Calypso to starboard, away from the beach. And that, Ramage realized, was what he wanted: the Calypso would end up to leeward of the French ship and, by letting fall her sails and cutting the lines to the grapnels, could get clear.
The shouting on board La Perle was unbelievable but, Ramage noted thankfully, there had been no pistol shots so far. The metallic clang of cutlass against cutlass was dying out - he'd heard only a few, less than a dozen. And all along the larboard side of the Calypso the guns' crews waited in their respective positions trying to see what was going on, and no doubt frustrated at not being allowed to fire even one broadside before the boarders were ordered away.
Ramage now aimed the speaking trumpet at La Perle's quarterdeck and shouted in French: 'Do you surrender?'
The French first lieutenant must be the tall, thin man, and he looked dazed. He had heard Ramage and turned to stare at him, jaw slack and puzzled. But he was giving no orders. In fact, Ramage suddenly realized, the poor fellow probably had not noticed the Calypso's Tricolour coming down at the run several minutes earlier, and at the very moment the Calypso's boarding party streamed over the bulwarks he had been expecting to hear a stream of abuse from Captain Duroc . . .