Bastia was sliding astern. Gianna would not have seen him leave in the darkness, although the Kathleen must have passed within half a mile of the bottom of the Viceroy's garden. Ramage had been so absorbed in handling the ship he hadn't even glanced that way.
'Mr Southwick, hand over the conn to the Master's Mate and come aft with the Bosun's Mate.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
As the Kathleen thrashed her way northward Ramage felt a sudden exhilaration: a cutter might be one of the Navy’s smallest warships, but she was one of the handiest: her fore-and-aft sails allowed her to sail so much closer to the wind that she could outmanoeuvre a far bigger square-rigged opponent, her ability to dodge helping to make up for the enemy's overwhelmingly superior guns. It was the story of the terrier and the bull - the terrier was safe enough as long as he dodged the sweeping horns and the violent kicks.
Ramage went over to the weather rail abreast the mainmast, where he could use one of the Kathleen's carronades to steady himself if the ship gave a particularly violent roll, and talk to the Master and Bosun's Mate without everyone overhearing.
Hellfire, those shrouds and runners looked old: if appearances were anything to go by they should part any minute and let the mast go by the board. The mainsail, bellying upwards above him, had more patches than a Neapolitan beggar's cape; even the darkness couldn't hide that.
'Oh yes,' he said, suddenly noticing Southwick and Evans waiting. 'Oh yes, there are a few things I want to go over.'
Swiftly, For Evans' benefit, he explained how the Belette was lying at the foot of the cliff.
'It's no good making detailed plans until we get a good look at her. But if she scraped over the reef losing only her rudder, then with our draught the reef's no danger to us. We can go in on the same course as the Belette. All we want is deep water close along her larboard side.'
How shall we get the men off, sir?' asked Southwick.
'I want to luff up alongside and hold on long enough to get them all on board. Holding on is your responsibility, Evans.'
'Grapnels, sir?'
'Yes, but first of all, protection for ourselves: I can't luff up suddenly and slap our bow alongside her because we'd lose the bowsprit: we've got to do it gently. On the other hand I don't want to scrape down her side - her chainplates and davits would tear our rigging to pieces. So make up three long sausage-shaped fenders: boarding nets stowed with hammocks, old rope - anything. When I give the word, sling one forward, one amidships to protect our own chainplates, and the other right aft, on our quarter.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
'And I want half a dozen boarding grapnels ready, each with at least ten fathoms of line. Pick six of the best men and detail off one for the bowsprit and the rest along the starboard side - cat-head, main chains and so on. They've got to give a good heave when I give the word and hook on to the Belette.
'Make up some heavier lines to hold ourselves alongside if necessary,' he added. 'The grapnel lines may not be stosng enough.'
Southwick said, 'There'll be a lot of men coming on board...'
'Yes: as soon as they arrive, send 'em below: the Belette’s officers are the only exception - unless we're under fire, in which case I'll need their Marines to help.'
'Are the French likely to be making trouble?' Evans asked.
'Yes, but probably not at first: they'll be attacking the Tower, I imagine.'
'They could set fire to the ship, sir,' Southwick pointed out.
'Yes, they could; but soldiers won't know how badly she's damaged, so I think they'd probably leave her for their own people to salvage.'
'Now, our carronades won't elevate enough to be much use covering the men's escape from the Tower to the wreck; but our Marines can have a bit of target practice. Pick half a dozen seamen who are handy with muskets to help them. Get all the spare muskets loaded and stowed, with powder and shot, somewhere dry and easy to get at, ready for the Belette's Marines.
'That's alclass="underline" any questions? No? Right, carry on, then.'
Ramage went down to his cabin after glancing round the horizon. The wind had not increased and Appleby, the young Master's Mate, was keeping the men busy trimming the main and headsail sheets, slackening and tautening as occasional valleys and headlands varied the wind's direction.
At the bottom of the ladder he acknowledged the sentry’s salute, crouched as he went into the cabin and sat down on his cot, letting it swing as the Kathleen rolled.
He was enjoying himself. He listened to the rudder creaking on its pintles, and occasionally a sea surging up on the quarter hit the tuck of the stern with a thump. His nose reminded him that just below the little cabin was the breadroom, stowed with sack upon sack of hard biscuit and, judging by the musty smell, none too fresh. And also beneath him was the magazine, filled with barrels and bags of gunpowder. It was often said, as an illustration of the pitfalls facing a captain, that commanding one of the King's ships was like living on a powder barrel. A cutter was one of the few types of vessel where this was not just a simile.
The Tower and the wrecked Belette were hidden beyond another small headland until they were almost abeam of the Kathleen. Ramage was relieved to see the frigate lying roughly as he expected, like a huge whale thrown ashore in a gale. But blast her lieutenant for not mentioning in his report that there was this second headland to the south, barely a couple of hundred yards from the one on which the Belette was now stranded. The chart did not show it, but Ramage saw that after the Kathleen turned to come alongside the wrecked ship, if he made a mistake and overshot slightly, the cutter could easily run on to the second headland before she could bear away to seaward and get clear....
'Mr Southwick!'
The Master hurried over. 'Make a sketch in the log of how she's lying in relation to those two headlands: you can modify it in detail later. It'll be useful if someone else has to come in to salvage or burn us!'
Ramage looked at the Tower again. Magnified several times in the telescope, it appeared to be only a few hundred yards away. Sixteenth-century Spanish in design and in good condition, it stood a reddish-grey circular column a short distance from the edge of the headland, its only entrance a hole in the side some fifteen feet above the ground.
A puff of smoke from the top of the Tower drifted away in the wind, looking harmless enough, then another, followed by several smaller ones. The Belette's crew were busy with their brass six-pounders and muskets, but he could not see their targets.
The Tower did not seem damaged, so presumably the French hadn't been able to bring up field pieces - hardly surprising since it would be tough going even for a mule across this sort of countryside.
Ramage looked again at the Belette herself. As the Kathleen continued northward, the bearing of the frigate had changed and he could now see she was in fact lying at an angle of about thirty degrees to the cliff, her stern to the northward, just as Probus had said. Her masts, snapped off close to the deck and leaning against the cliff, looked like three steep catwalks.
What on earth was that on top of the Tower? Pieces of bunting? No, three signal flags! They were lashed to a pole which someone was waving violently, though careful to keep his head below the parapet.
'Jackson! The signal book, quickly.'
But his days as a midshipman were close enough behind for Ramage to read the flags and remember their meaning. Blue, white and blue vertical stripes; plain red; and a French Tricolor. The first two were signal number thirty-one, which meant 'Ships seen are—'. The Tricolor indicated the ships were French.