Ramage and the Renegades

'How do you feel, sir?'

Ramage seemed to stir himself at the question. 'I'm all right. The arm is better but why is my right leg so stiff? It doesn't hurt much but I can't use it!'

'Don't try to for a few days: it's bandaged up. I don't think you've broken a bone, but several muscles were wrenched and there's considerable swelling.'

'But what happened?' Ramage, his voice getting stronger, had clearly recovered enough to become angry. Recovered enough, Bowen guessed, to try to scramble out of his cot - and probably fall over as it swung slightly. The cot, being a rectangular box slung low in what was little more than a large hammock, was easily capsized by someone trying to get out to one side without distributing his weight evenly.

A knock on the door and Silkin's voice heralded the arrival of the soup, which Ramage drank from a large mug with ill grace as Southwick supported him. He swallowed it all, refused more, and said to Bowen: 'Well, now tell me.'

'Southwick will tell you the earlier part in a moment. I am treating twenty-three men, apart from yourself, for various kinds of wounds, from widespread contusions to broken limbs. Jackson was hit across the head but should be fully recovered in the next twenty-four hours. Two men are dead - the men at the wheel. An enormous splinter seems to have spun across the deck and cut them down.'

'None of the twenty-three are in any danger, then?'

'No, sir: I've got them all cleaned up and bandaged, and where necessary, splints have been applied.'

'What happened to Southwick and Orsini, then?'

Bowen gestured towards the master, and Southwick said: 'Well, sir, you probably want to hear the whole story. I can tell you most of it; it's just the last part that someone like Stafford will have to tell.

'You remember we were just crossing the Lynx's stern for the third time? I'd said the gunners wanted us to pass farther off, to give them more time to see the target. Then we started firing that third broadside. The first six guns had just fired after I'd said something about "Now round we go again!" and that the grapeshot didn't seem to be doing more harm than a woodpecker -'

'Yes, yes, go on!'Ramage said impatiently.

'Well, that's very nearly the end of the story. There was an enormous flash and bang, and there was just a big ball of smoke where the Lynx had been. What was left of her - lengths of planking, chunks of masts and yards, even bits of bodies - were hurled for hundreds of yards. Scores of big pieces of timber hit us, sir, some coming in almost horizontally like roundshot, some falling on us a few moments later like sleet. But the force of the explosion, sir! It blew me and Orsini off the quarterdeck clear over the bulwarks into the sea. A dozen others were blown over from the maindeck, and we were all swimming round in circles while the Calypso sailed on with no one in command and no one at the wheel.'

It was too much to comprehend, Ramage decided, listening to this story lying in his cot and watching Southwick's suntanned face in the light of a guttering lantern ... 'Well, then what happened?'

'Stafford can best tell you about the ship, because he led a group of men and hove her to. Those of us in the water swam round in the wreckage wondering what would happen next, then we saw the ship heaving-to and suddenly we were being hauled into the two survey boats, which you remember we saw getting away from the beach. As soon as we were all on board they rowed like madmen towards the Calypso, and I saw then that Mr Martin had reached the ship from the Earl of Dodsworth and I guessed he was staying hove-to until our two boats reached him. Mr Aitken was rowing over from the Friesland. I'd guessed Mr Wagstaffe was out of action. To be honest, sir, I thought he'd been killed, along with you: I couldn't see how anyone could live through that explosion unless he was lucky enough to be blown clear over the side.'

'What did happen to Wagstaffe?'

Bowen coughed and took over the story. 'He knows nothing more than you and Jackson about the explosion, sir. You were all knocked out together. But (and this I saw as I ran up on deck; because the action was over, it was easier to start treating men there than carry them below) Stafford was getting some men together. They were stunned from the explosion but very quickly he had them backing the foretopsail.

'Just about that time someone saw a dozen or so men swimming in our wake and reported to me, but there was nothing we could do for the time being - I didn't know how badly hurt were the men lying round on deck. Two dozen looks like four dozen, with all that mess. Oh, then there was the fire, sir, which -'

'Fire!' Ramage exclaimed, lifting himself on his right arm. 'Fire on board this ship?'

'It was soon put out, sir, so rest easy while I tell you about it. Some of the burning debris from the Lynx landed on our sails. The maincourse took fire, but it was furled so some men soon beat out the flames. Fires broke out on the maindeck but all the men knew what to do; every cartridge was tossed over the side, all the larboard broadside was fired off because the guns were loaded, and the deckwash pumps and buckets soon had everything under control without getting up the fire engine.'

'Under control? What else burned?'

'Well, sir, some riggings, gratings, one side of the quarterdeck ladder - that sort of thing. It wasn't a conflagration, so the men could leave it while they did more urgent things. Heave-to the ship, tend to the wounded, look for you, that sort of thing. They were getting worried about you: there was only Jackson, knocked out, and two dead men by the binnacle (which was not even scratched). Then they found you still in your chair - which was just matchwood - lying under the muzzle of the aftermost gun on the larboard side. Apparently your leg was jammed in the wreck of the chair and it was only the back and one leg of the chair that stopped you from falling out through the gunport.'

'So you and Stafford took control?'

'Not me, sir, because I was busy with the wounded. Stafford was splendid. Then the moment the ship was hove-to, Martin and then Mr Aitken managed to get on board - they had been trying to intercept us, but until we hove-to, we were making five or six knots. Anyway, they came on board and Mr Aitken at once took complete command.

'He sent off Martin with the soundings and survey boats to collect the privateersmen prisoners in the five ships - I gather Martin made the prisoners row, threatening to shoot the first man that flagged.'

'So Aitken is in command? Where are we?'

'Mr Aitken is in command, yes sir, and making a good job of it. We are back where we slipped our anchor - Mr Aitken picked up the dan buoy under sail.'

Southwick grunted his approval. 'Made a very good job of it. I thought he'd have used the boats - we have five towing astern by now - but he got the cable on board and sailed the ship up on it while the men heaved in the slack. Couldn't have done it better myself.'

Ramage eased back into the cot again and stared up at the deckhead, the beams appearing to move when the lantern, which Southwick had returned to its hook, swung slightly as the ship gently pitched.

'The Lynx,' he said. 'Did you find any survivors?'

'We sent a boat to look,' Southwick said. 'They found no complete bodies. The water is so clear they rowed around looking for a long time. They could see some of the privateers' guns lying on the bottom a hundred yards apart. We were lucky some of them didn't land on us.'

'I think those privateersmen were lucky,' Ramage said, although he was talking to himself. 'We'd have taken them to England, where they'd have all been hanged. They might have escaped with jail if they hadn't used the passengers as hostages. Tomás and Hart were quite prepared to murder them.'