He heard shouting from aloft, and then Swan's question to the masthead lookout. 'Where away? ... You are sure? ... French built from the sheer? Very well, keep a sharp lookout!'
Then the shout from the top of the companionway, 'Captain, sir,' but by then Ramage had given Sarah a hasty kiss and his foot was already on the first step.
Swan repeated the bearing. 'Dead ahead, sir, and the lookout says he sees her well as we lift on the swell waves. Thought I glimpsed her sails for a moment.'
'Strange how helpless one feels without a bring-'em-near,' Ramage commented. 'I should have borrowed one from the flagship.'
'I can't see anyone giving up his glass, even for Captain Ramage,' Swan said jocularly.
'There!' called the master, 'I glimpsed a sail then. That's her, dead ahead!'
CHAPTER TEN
An hour later the brig and the frigate crossed tacks, the Murex passing half a mile ahead.
'No signals flying,' Swan commented.
'So I see. But now we are to windward of her, so hoist her pendant and make number 84.'
Swan snapped out an order to two seamen, who began hoisting the three flags forming the Calypso's pendant numbers, and told two more to hoist eight and four.
'Pass within hail, isn't it, sir?' Swan asked. 'You have the book,' he said apologetically, 'but I'm presuming it hasn't been changed.'
'Yes, but whether or not Captain Bullivant chooses to obey is another question. He might assume a brig is still commanded only by a lieutenant.'
'I think if I was him and a brig tacked across my bow and gave a peremptory order, I'd assume she had a senior officer on board!'
'We'll see,' Ramage said. 'In the meantime, have 173 bent on and ready for hoisting, and have number one gun on the larboard side loaded with a blank charge. There's no need to send the men to quarters: have Bridges and a couple of men do it. Here's the key to the magazine. It was still in the desk drawer.'
Swan was enjoying himself hoisting flag signals with orders for Bullivant, that much was obvious, and his enjoyment revealed more about Bullivant than his earlier comments. Ramage handed him the Signal Book, knowing that the first lieutenant could not remember the meaning of 173.
He quickly leafed through the pages, which were cut at the side with the signal numbers printed in tens.
'Ah,' Swan said, 'a gun and that should produce results!'
'Yes, we'll tack again; they're ignoring 84.'
Ramage saw Bridges and two men running to the forward gun on the larboard side, where seamen in answer to Bridges' earlier shouted order were already casting off lashings.
Out came the tompion; a man held the flintlock in position and hurriedly tightened up the wing nut to clamp it down. The gun was quickly run in and a cartridge slid down the bore and rammed home. The gun was run out again, a quill tube pushed down the vent and priming powder shaken into the pan.
Bridges held up his hand in a signal to Ramage, who was watching the Calypso as she sailed on, approaching their starboard bow.
'Mr Swan, we'll pass very close across the Calypso's bow...' Ramage gestured to the two seamen who had bent on the three flags representing the signal 173, Furl sails.
Ramage watched the Calypso out of the corner of his eye and said to the seamen: 'Leave up the pendant numbers but lower 84.'
By now Swan was bellowing orders and the brig's bow was turning to starboard, canvas slatting, the ropes of sheets and braces flogging, spray flying across like fine rain as the bow sliced the tops off. waves. Then, with Swan giving the word to haul, the yards were braced round and sheets trimmed so the sails resumed their opulent curves. The Murex began to leap through the water again - right across the Calypso's bow.
'Oh, nicely, nicely!' Swan exclaimed. 'Less than half a cable - we'll be able to throw a biscuit on to her fo'c'sle as we pass across her bow!'
'Stand by,' Ramage shouted, and saw the gun captain kneel with his left leg thrust out to one side, the triggerline taut in his right hand.
The Calypso was a fine sight, bow-on and just forward of the Murex's beam. Men were peering over the bulwarks; Ramagethought he saw the lookout at the foremasthead gesturing down to the deck.
'Hoist 173!' Ramage said to the seamen and watched the three flags soaring upwards. He turned forward. 'Mr Bridges, fire!'
The gun spurted flame and smoke, and a moment later came the flat 'blam' of an unshotted gun firing, the standard signal drawing particular attention to a hoist of flags.
Ramage watched the Calypso for the first sign that she was altering course or clewing up sails. There was only one more signal that he could make (108, Close nearer to the Admiral) but if Bullivant ignored that too, what next?
Were the luffs of the courses fluttering slightly? As the Murex passed across the Calypso's bows the frigate's masts had for a few moments been in line, but now the brig was hauling out on the Calypso's beam and it was hard to distinguish an alteration of course. But... yes ...
Swan exclaimed: 'She's bracing her courses sharp up, sir! Yes, I can see men going up the ratlines. There, she's starting to clew up!'
Ramage judged distances and times. Better than Bullivant he knew how long it would take to clew up the big forecourse and the maincourse, the lowest and largest sails in the frigate; then, as the Calypso slowed down the foretopsail would be backed, the yard braced sharp up so that the wind blew on the forward side. With well trained crew and Aitken and Southwick, she could be hove-to a good deal faster than the smaller but undermanned Murex.
'She's heaving-to,' Ramage told Swan. 'Cross her bow again and then as soon as we're to windward, heave-to.' Was there any point in sending the Murex's men to general quarters? Ten guns, five each side, and only a dozen or so of the men had ever fired them. No one would know his position in a gun's crew. No, there would be chaos, and ten guns against the Calypso, with her well trained, experienced crew, would do about as much harm as the shrill cursing of bumboat women.
'As soon as we've hove-to, I want the cutter hoisting out to take me across to the Calypso.'
Swan looked anxious, his eyes flickering from Ramage to the frigate. 'Sir, Bridges and Phillips are quite competent to handle this ship. May I come with you to the Calypso? Not because I'm being nosy,' he added hastily, 'but I'd be happier if you had an escort.'
Ramage had been thinking not of an escort but of something that might prove more necessary. 'Yes - but you'll be coming as a witness. Keep your eyes and ears open. Try and remember exact phrases. I can't tell you more than that because I don't know what the devil we're going to find.'
As the cutter surged down and rounded up alongside the Calypso, Ramage recognized several of the faces watching from over the top of the bulwark, but no one was waving a greeting and no one was standing at the entryport.
Aitken? Southwick? Young Paolo? They must be on board, and although they could never expect to find their old captain arriving alongside in a brig's cutter, surely some of them would have recognized him by now, since he had deliberately stood up in the sternsheets of the cutter for the last hundred yards. Surely someone would be watching through a telescope. The whole episode of a brig making peremptory signals to a frigate was unusual enough to make the cutter's arrival a matter of considerable importance.
It seemed only a moment later that the cutter was alongside and Ramage leapt for the battens just as the cutter rose on a crest. He sensed that Swan was right behind him. A rope snaked down from the Calypso to serve as a painter.