They might be like us, brandy in - the water casks.'
Southwick grimaced: he had not been allowed to forget the purser's concern, nor had he yet devised a satisfactory way of disposing of it.
Ramage settled himself in the sternsheets, careful that the butts of the pistols did not jab his ribs, and the gig cast off. Jackson steered the boat at the head of a small armada: immediately astern was the launch with twenty - four boarders and commanded by Wagstaffe, then the pinnace with sixteen under Baker and finally the cutter with another sixteen under Kenton, who was enjoying his first command in what he hoped would be an action.
In Ramage's gig Rennick sat stiffly on a thwart with his Marines, and, although his head did not move, his eyes missed nothing: any sign of movement on board the privateers, a grease stain on a Marine's tunic, a button missing, a musket butt whose woodwork showed a scratch which had not been carefully stained and then waxed.
As the gig leapt forward, the rowers' faces soon glistening and then running with perspiration, Ramage watched the sides of the channel and the privateers with all the concentration of a hungry poacher uncertain whether the gamekeeper really was ill in bed. Small rowing boats from which two or three men had been fishing suddenly scurried for the shore as they saw the boarders leaving the Calypso; men who had been working on the quays or walking along the paths lining the banks farther down stopped to watch, the more prudent of them then disappearing. A woman snatched up a small child and ran back towards Punda; a soldier on the Otrabanda side stood still, obviously uncertain what to do. Shutters slammed shut across many windows of houses facing the channel and sent gulls squawking off in alarm.
Then, as the gig approached, Ramage watched the privateers. The ten were anchored in pairs, the Trade wind swinging them diagonally across the channel. Presumably each pair was secured together to make it easier for the maintenance parties: half a dozen men could just as easily look after two privateers rafted up alongside each other as one. The first pair soon obscured his view of the rest, but they were all big vessels. The nearest was the largest and smartest - a schooner perhaps a little smaller than La Creole. He counted the ports - she was pierced for ten guns, and a couple of bowchasers. Were they carronades, intended to sweep the victim's deck with grapeshot as she approached? Black hull, buff masts, white topmasts. Booms Mack, which was strange. All the paint was dull and neglected, yet the sun reflecting from some of the rigging showed that it had been recently tarred.
The second privateer, beyond, was ketch - rigged, her hull painted green, the dark - green of slave ships, the colour of mangrove leaves so that they could hide in the narrow inlets, their hulls blending with the bushes lining the banks. Her lower masts were buff and her topmasts white, so anyone looking for them would be unlikely to spot them against the white of clouds. Ramage once remembered explaining all that to an Army officer, who expected the topmasts to be blue, to match the sky, not realizing that in the Tropics, and particularly on the Guinea coast, there was nearly always broken cloud scudding along. Yes, with that sweeping sheer and low freeboard the ketch was probably a former slaver now finding that in wartime privateering was more profitable.
He felt sure that the nearest privateer, the schooner, belonged to Brune; the leader, or most senior of the privateers, would choose the best berth. In an emergency, the schooner would be the first out of the harbour because she was the nearest to the entrance. And when Brune was on board but felt lie an evening in one of Amsterdam's brothels or cafes his boat had the shortest distance to row. ''
There I A definite movement behind that bowchaser, which was a carronade. And a blur of blue behind the first gun, die washed - out blue that French seamen always favoured. Ramage stood up, drawing his cutlass and waving it a couple of times to attract the attention of the boats astern before pointing to left and right. Even without looking astern he knew that Wagstaffe had started to turn the launch to larboard and Baker would swing the pinnace out to starboard, while Kenton moved over to larboard a few yards with the cutter to be between Ramage and Wagstaffe. The four boats, in line abreast, now made a series of individual targets and as, they took up their positions the men rowed even harder at the oars.
Suddenly the schooner's carronade and first two guns were run out, their barrels jabbing from the ports like black, accusing fingers. Ramage, feeling that the gig was rowing right into the muzzle of the carronade, suddenly stood up again and, using the speaking trumpet that he had brought with him, shouted in French: 'If you fire, we will give no quarter!'
For more than a minute nothing happened and Ramage reckoned that the threat, the sight of four boats laden with boarders, and the harbour entrance blocked by a British frigate, was going to be enough to make the men in the privateers surrender. But the carronade gave an obscene red wink; suddenly yellow, oily smoke spurted out and with a noise like ripping calico the sea fifteen yards away to starboard erupted as if a hundred great fish had broken the surface in a gigantic leap to escape a marauding shark.
The crash of the gun firing was deafening but a moment later, as if from a great distance, Ramage heard Stafford's voice, a mixture of awe and scorn: The capting'd flog us if we aimed that bad I'
'And hell flog you anyway unless you put your back into that oar,' Jackson snarled. They shouldn't miss with the next round.'
The Frog wiv the grapeshot'll drop it on 'is foot and waste time cussing.'
Ramage saw that the second and third guns, 6 - pounders, were trained more to larboard, at the launch and the cutter.
'Quick,' Ramage snapped at Rennick, 'have your men fire at the ports!'
He cursed himself for not doing it sooner. The chances of a musket ball hitting Frenchmen were slight - any Marine who could fire through a port from a fast - moving boat would be a king among sharpshooters - but the thud of musket balls into woodwork might spoil the enemy gunners' concentration. The gig's oarsmen's ears would soon be ringing as the muskets fired over their heads, but it was the only chance of saving the men in the other boats.
Rennick snapped an order that could be heard in all the boats and in a moment the Marines were standing, one knee on the thwarts. Ramage could hear a succession of dicks as the men cocked the locks and then, within a couple more seconds, all had fired and some were coughing as the smoke drifted back and caught their throats.
Forty yards to go: Ramage could see dried salt forming a grey band two or three feet broad above the privateer's water - line and the black paint had the mauvish tinge that came from too much sun, salt - and age. The seams of the hull planking were opening up with the heat of the sun constantly on one side.
The bow!' he called to Jackson. 'Stand by, men; well board over her bow: up the bobstay, anchor cable, anchor stock - men with broad shoulders give the little chaps a leg - up!'
The Marines were frantically ramming home fresh shot as they reloaded their muskets, and now most of them were priming. 'One more volley through the ports, sir?' Rennick asked. They've all got pistols.'
And why not, Ramage thought they were dose enough now that at least a few shot should get through the ports, and discharged muskets 'could be left in the boat because, as Rennick had just pointed out, each Marine had a pistol, like the seamen.
'Very well, but aim with care!'
Again mere was what seemed a ragged volley which in fact showed that each man was firing carefully, aiming for the narrow gap between gun and bulwark. There was more space at the top, but they were now so dose that the barrel of the gun helped protect the French gunners.