Ramage

He'd just told Jackson to get the flags bent on the halyards in readiness when Southwick came aft to report that the mainmast was now clear of wreckage.

'Right,' snapped Ramage. 'We'll go about at once.'

 Three minutes later the Kathleen had turned and was plunging in towards the shore again, hard on the wind, sluicing spray washing away the dark stains on the deck by the dimounted guns and farther aft, where the men at the mainsheet had been killed.

 If the French gunners had used grape or caseshot instead of ordinary round shot ... Grape would have done much more damage aloft than just smash the topmast; case shot - forty-two iron balls each weighing four ounces - would have fanned out to kill just about everyone on deck. Ramage shivered.

He'd better give the Belettes as much time as possible to get ready - it would be no easy task giving orders to four score or more seamen crowded into that Tower.

'Jackson - hoist both the signals, but make sure you've got the "Preparative" before the second one.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

 Ramage watched a red flag followed by a flag quartered in red and white squares soar up the halyard.

To Prepare for Battle, one of the most exciting signals in the book....

Through his telescope he saw the Tower acknowledge.

 Then, on another halyard, Jackson hoisted a flag divided horizontally into five blue and four white stripes: 'Preparative'.

Finally the American hauled away at a two-flag hoist, the first a blue cross on white, the second horizontal stripes of blue, white and red - 'To lay the enemy on board...'

Once again the Tower acknowledged.

 Everything depends on the timing ... everything depends on the timing ... Well, not everything: if the men in the Tower failed to carry the Belette by boarding, no timing in the world would save the Kathleen from being blown out of the water because he wouldn't know of their failure early enough to get clear.

 Looking round the deck, Ramage saw the rolls of hammocks in boarding nets which he had ordered the Bosun's Mate to prepare for when the Kathleen went alongside-before he knew the French were in occupation. It'd be worth getting them rigged over the side. And the hands for grapnels - had any been killed? He walked over to Southwick and gave him the necessary instructions.

 Perhaps the wind was easing off after alclass="underline" earlier he had noticed momentary pauses, as if the Libeccio was occasionally holding its breath. He had often seen half a dozen pauses like that herald the change in ten minutes from a strong wind to nothing, leaving a ship becalmed and wallowing in a nasty sea, with everything aloft thumping and slatting and everything below jumping up and down as if it had St Vitus' dance. Supposing he was becalmed a hundred yards short of the Belette, after the seamen had left the Tower... ?

 Ramage swayed in time to the cutter's rhythmic rolclass="underline" the Belette was a mile ahead and he was steering the same course as before. The 'Prepare for Battle' and 'Board' signals were flying, the latter qualified by the all-important ‘Preparative'. The main and jib sheets were eased so that both sails were spilling a lot of wind, reducing the cutter's speed to about five knots. They'd be alongside the Belette in about twelve minutes.

Ramage walked over to the quartermaster, who was standing on the weather side of the tiller, with a seaman to leeward.

‘You understand your orders?'

The quartermaster grinned confidently.

‘Y es, sir: same as before, only this time I luff her up and lay alongside the Belette, so our transom is level with theirs.'

 'Good: do your best: mind the bowsprit — we don't want to harpoon the Belette with it.'

Both the quartermaster and seaman laughed.

 Ramage was thankful he'd hove-to and shifted over the larboard-side carronades to replace the damaged ones to starboard: it had been hard work, but worth it. He walked over to the crew of the aftermost gun. Their cutlasses and boarding pikes were stuck into the bulwark on each side of the port, ready to be snatched up at a moment's notice. The gun was loaded, and the tompion closed the muzzle against spray. A gaudy yellow and red striped rag — judging from the grease one of the men had been wearing it round his forehead - covered the flintlock, and the trigger line was laid on top. To one side of the gun was a grapnel, its line coiled down. The once-smooth planking of the deck was deeply scored where the shot from the Belette had flung aside the carronade that this one replaced.

'Who's the man for the grapnel?'

 A burly seaman in grimy canvas trousers and faded blue shirt stepped forward.

'Me, sir.'

'And you know where I want that grapnel to land?'

 'If we get alongside like you said, sir, then I pop 'im over the bulwarks just above the second gun port from aft'

'And if we stop short?'

'Over the taffrail, sir.'

 'Fine. Don't forget to let it go when you throw: I don't want you to fly across to the Belette.'

The rest of the gun's crew laughed and a moment later the seaman, who had not at first understood Ramage's joke, joined in.

Ramage walked forward, having a word with the crew of each gun. He checked how the sausage-shaped fenders had been lashed over the side and made sure they were clear of the muzzles of the guns.

Standing by himself near the stemhead, Ramage found a  small, thin and almost bald seaman waiting patiently with a grapnel and coil of line at his feet.

 He seemed hardly the right man to heave a grapnel, yet the Bosun's Mate had chosen him to be in the most important and difficult position of all - at the end of the bowsprit, clear of the jib.

Ramage asked him: ‘How far can you throw that?' 'Dunno, really, sir.'

'Forty feet?'

 'Dunno, sir: but a deal farther than anyone else on board.' ‘How do you know?'

 'Last cap'n had a sort of competition, sir. Got meself an extra tot.'

 'Good,' Ramage smiled. ‘Heave like that again and you'll get a couple of extra tots!'

'Oh, thank'ee, sir, thank'ee: John Smith the Third sir, able seaman. You won't forget, sir?'

 The man's eyes were pleading. For all he knew, in - well, about eight minutes' time - he would be out on his lonely perch facing a murderous fire from the French, and the prospect left him unworried. But the chance of an extra couple of tots of rum - that made his eyes sparkle and brought with it a sudden anxious fear, that the captain might forget.

'I'll remember,' Ramage said, 'John Smith the Third.'

 'Akshly, sir, I just remembered it's "the Second" now, sir: one of the other two dragged his anchors at number four gun.' Ramage looked ahead at the Belette. So three John Smiths had sailed from Bastia. With luck two would return. The other, as his namesake had just phrased it in seamen's slang, was dead. Bastia... Gianna was doing - what?

 He strode aft again along the weather side of the deck, calling to Jackson for his telescope.

 'Might as well have these, too, sir,' the American said, offering him the pistols Sir Gilbert Elliot had sent on board.

'Oh - yes, thank you.'

He undid the bottom buttons of his waistcoat, pulled the flaps back and pushed the long barrels into the top of his breeches.

'And this, sir.'

Jackson handed him the sword.

 Ramage waved it away. 'You keep that: I've enough already.'

He bent down and eased the throwing knife so that it was loose in its sheath in his boot.