'They were, but no one saw me go back. Nor was there anyone - as far as I knew - who could corroborate that I found him with his face blown off.'
'Except me, sir.'
‘Yes, except you. But I didn't know you knew - and,' Ramage gave a bitter laugh, 'you didn't know I didn't know you knew!'
'Trouble was, sir, you were all talking in Italian. I knew you were having a row with that other chap, but none of us knew what it was about... Still, I can square that when the court sits again.'
'Maybe - but I'm afraid the court might not believe you now: they might think we made the story up.'
They could, sir; but they've only got to ask the rest of the lads in the gig. They can vouch that I told them what I'd seen soon after I got in the boat: before the lady collapsed.'
'Well, we'll have to see. You'd better take the pistols and check them. And tell the steward to get me some supper.'
'Man the - er, windlass,' Ramage told the Bosun's Mate, and at once the shrill, warbling note of his call pierced the ship, sounding eerie in the darkness.
Ramage was tired; his eyelids felt gummed up, and he cursed himself for not making an inspection of the ship the previous evening: handling a small fore-and-aft-rigged cutter was a vastly different proposition from a square-rigged frigate: apart from the sails, the little Kathleen had a tiller instead of a wheel and a windlass instead of a capstan: he'd nearly made a fool of himself with almost his first order, just managing to change 'capstan' to 'windlass' in time.
The foc's'lemen and the ship's half dozen Marines ran to the foredeck and a couple of them disappeared below: they would stow the cable as it went down into the cable tier.
There was plenty of wind; too much but for the fact that the sea would be calm close in, where the mountainous coast formed a lee. He'd have to watch out for the tremendous gusts funnelling along the occasional valleys which ran down at right-angles to the sea: that was how many a ship lost her topmasts....
Despite her ripe sails, he saw the Kathleen had a solid enough mast, thicker than a man's waist and made of selected Baltic spruce - well, no doubt the Admiralty contractors swore it was selected. The long boom, just above him as he stood on the quarter-deck, projected several feet beyond the taffrail, like a gundog's tail. The heavy mainsail was neatly furled along its full length, secured by gaskets, and the gaff lashed down on top.
Jib and foresail were in tidy bundles at the foot of their respective stays: the big jib on the end of the bowsprit - which stuck out horizontally beyond the bow for forty feet, like a giant fishing rod - and the foresail at the stemhead itself.
'At short stay, sir,' Southwick shouted from the fo'c'sle. The anchor cable was now stretching down to the sea bed at the same angle as the f orestay.
'Right - keep heaving.'
Now to hoist the mainsail. Jackson passed the speaking trumpet, and Ramage bellowed, 'Afterguard and idlers lay aft!'
A group of seamen ran towards him.
'Ease away downhauls and tack tricing lines ... Off main sail gaskets!'
Swiftly some of the men slacked away ropes while others scrambled along the boom to untie the narrow strips of plaited rope holding the gaff and mainsail to the boom.
'Up and down, sir!' called Southwick from the fo'c'sle. With the anchor cable now vertical, the anchor had no bite on the sea bed: blast, he'd left it a fraction late: the anchor wouldn't hold, yet he had no sail set to give him control.
'Anchor's aweigh!' yelled Southwick.
'Man the topping lift - haul taut and belay ... Overhaul mainsheet... Man throat and peak halyards.'
The men tailed on to the ropes that would hoist the heavy gaff and sail up the mast. As soon as he saw they were ready he shouted:
'Haul taut - hoist away! Handsomely, now!'
Slowly the sail crawled up the mast, the canvas flogging in the wind.
'Man and overhaul the mainsheet ... Look alive, there! Right, tally aft the mainsheet.'
He turned to the quartermaster and seaman at the tiller. "Up with the helm - now, meet her ... That's it - steady as you go.'
The topping lift was slackened away so that the mainsail took up the weight of the boom. Hmm - it was patched but sat well.
It was good to be under way again, even if getting a cutter out of a crowded anchorage presented plenty of problems. He'd never commanded one before and didn't know how long she took to react to various combinations of rudder and sail. Some fore-and-aft-rigged ships preferred the headsails hardened in and the mainsail trimmed fairly free; others just the opposite.
But he was damned if he was going to ask Southwick — it’d very soon be obvious which the Kathleen liked. The only gamble for the moment was how quickly she'd gather way and give the rudder a chance to get a bite on the water, so he could control the ship. If she was slow, making a lot of leeway before picking up speed, then there were enough ships anchored to leeward - including Commodore Nelson's - to make a collision inevitable.
The anchor and cable were still hanging vertically and dragging in the water under the bow like a brake, but judging from the increased speed with which the men were working the windlass, in a few moments the anchor itself would break the surface. He rattled out a series of orders as the ship's bow paid off to starboard, and first the foresail and then the jib crawled up their stays as men sweated at the halyards.
Both were quickly sheeted home and at once the ship came alive: no longer was she inert in the water, pitching and rolling to her anchor cable like a lumbering ox at the end of a rope: the sea gurgled round her straight stem and swirled along the hull before tucking under her quarter and bubbling aft in the wake.
On the foredeck men hooked the cat to the anchor and hauled it up the last few feet to the cat-head, the beam of wood sticking out on each side of the bow like a tusk of a wild boar, where another tackle clapped on one of the flukes hoisted the whole anchor parallel with the ship's side.
Because her bows had paid off to starboard he'd been able to hoist the headsails with the wind on the larboard side; and it was the larboard tack that would take the Kathleen northward towards Macinaggio.
Like a trotting horse breaking into a gallop, the Kathleen surged ahead: her stem sliced through the sea, flinging up a foaming white bow wave. He saw the shadowy outline of a big transport anchored ahead and promptly ordered the sheets to be hardened in and the helm put down to bring the Kathleen hard on the wind.
As she heeled well over under the increased pressure on her sails, with the sea swilling in at the lee gun ports3 Ramage noticed a nervous glance from Southwick, who had just come aft: the Master wasn't used to passing close to windward of big ships, when the slightest miscalculation - or even an extra large wave - meant all the difference between clearing by a few feet and colliding. Southwick was, of course, quite right; it was safer to pass to leeward, but it wasted time because the sails of a tiny vessel like the Kathleen would be blanketed by the sheer bulk of a big ship and lose the wind for several valuable moments.
Ramage told the quartermaster to bear away slightly, ordered the sheets to be eased, and gradually brought the cutter round on to the course which would take them up to the wreck of the Belette. There was a lot of weight on the tiller for just two men. If the wind increased he'd have to use relieving tackles. Should he set the jib topsail? No, nor the gaff topsaiclass="underline" the cutter was already making a good eight knots and clapping on more sail would only make her heel more without adding to her speed. It was a mistake many people made.