CHAPTER SEVEN
The description of him dressed in a French fisherman's smock and trousers, and standing on the quarterdeck of one of the King's ships with his wife beside him wearing a badly torn dress cobbled up with sailmaker's thread, would soon, Ramage mused, be another story added to the fund of bizarre yarns which already seemed to surround him.
At least a westerly gale was not screaming over the ebb tide and kicking up the hideous sea for which Brest Roads were notorious; at least the stars were out and the moon had risen. And if there had been no war, he would regard this as the start of a pleasant voyage. But now in an instant it could all turn out very difficult. If one of those anchored French ships opened fire and the three forts lining the cliffs along the Gullet followed suit, then in this light wind the Murex would be battered ...
He picked up the speaking trumpet and the coppery smell seemed to complete the series of memories taking him back to the Calypso, to the Triton and then to the Kathleen.
'Let that cable run, Mr Phillips ... Foretopmen there: let fall the foretopsail.... Stand by, maintopmen!'
Strange orders, but ones carefully phrased because he had so few seamen. That delivery of potatoes had saved him - knowing how many men he would have available to handle the ship had allowed him to work out a rough general quarter, watch and station bill for two lieutenants, master and eleven seamen.
And what a bill! Seven sail handlers: four seamen for letting fall the foretopsail, three for loosing the maintopsail. Then the foretopmen had to slide down swiftly from aloft to haul on the halyards, and as soon as the yard was up, they had to hoist the jibs and staysails. The maintopmen in turn had to race down to tend their own halyard and then help the four remaining seamen who were to haul on sheets and braces to trim the yards and sails.
Of those four, two would have been helping the second lieutenant, Bridges, to let the anchor cable run ... The master, Phillips, would be on the fo'c'sle, making sure that the cable ran out through the hawse without snagging, and the headsails and their sheets did not wrap round things in that tenacious embrace so beloved of moving ropes. And he wondered if Swan, the young first lieutenant who was now waiting at the wheel, could remember how to box the compass in quarterpoints! It was something he would have known when he took his examination for lieutenant and, having passed, would have forgotten it...
Damnation, this wind was light... Better not too strong with such a tiny crew, but he needed enough breeze to get those topsails drawing and give him steerage way over the ebbing tide - by the time the Murex was drawing level with Pointe St Mathieu he would have dodged enough rocks and reefs to sink a fleet. The first of them was just abreast Fort de Delec, the dark walls of which he could already see perched up on the cliff on his starboard hand.
Ah! At last the foretopsail tumbled down as the men slashed the gaskets. He had made sure they had knives (it meant raiding the galley) to save valuable time: untying knotted gaskets (it was sure to be the last one that jammed) could cost three or four minutes.
Two men were coming down hand over hand along the forestay! The other two were coming down the usual way, using the shrouds. A puff of wind caught the sail so that it flapped like a woman shaking a damp sheet. To Ramage's ears, by now abnormally sensitive to noise, it seemed every ship in the anchorage must hear the Murex's foretopsail sounding like a ragged broadside.
Now the maintopsail flopped down with the elegant casualness of canvas in light airs.
A rapid thumping, as though a great snake was escaping from a box, ended with a splash and a cheerful hail from Phillips: 'Cable away, sir!'
'Very well, Mr Phillips,' Ramage called through the trumpet and warned Swan at the wheel, 'Be ready to meet her - the bow will pay off to starboard but for the moment the ebb has got her!'
The brig, with her bow now heading north as though she wanted to sail up the Penfeld river and into Brest, was in fact being swept sideways by the ebb down the Gullet towards the wide entrance, a dozen miles away and stretching five miles or so between Pointe St Mathieu on the starboard side and the Camaret peninsula to larboard.
The seamen were like ants at the base of each mast. Up, up, up! The heavy foretopsail yard inched its way upwards on the halyard and then a bellowed order saw it settle and the sheets tautening, giving shape to the sail.
The wind was still west; the feathers on the string of corks forming the telltale on the larboard side reassured him about that as they bobbed in the moonlight.
'I can feel some weight on the wheel now, sir,' Swan reported, as Ramage saw the maintopsail yard begin its slow rise up the mast. Damnation take the foretopmen, they had to make haste with those headsails: brigs were the devil to tack without jibs and staysail drawing, and already the Murex was gathering way as though she wanted to run up on the rocks in front of the Château.
Ramage lifted the speaking trumpet. He had to make them get a move on without frightening them into making silly mistakes. 'Foretopsail sheet men - aft those sheets! Brace men - brace sharp up!" Strangely-worded orders, but he had no afterguard.
Now he could see the sail outlined against the stars and it was setting perfectly, and Swan was cautiously turning the wheel a few more spokes.
'Maintopsail sheet men, are you ready? Take the strain - now, run it aft! Another six feet! Heave now, heave. Right, belay that! Now, you men at the braces, sharp up!'
The flying jib, jib and staysail were crawling up their stays - with this light breeze and their canvas blanketed by the foretopsail, three of the four seamen were hauling a halyard each...
'Amidships there! Hands to the headsail sheets ... Take the strain... ' He watched as the sails slowed down and then stopped their climb up the stays. 'Right, aft those headsail sheets ... Foretopmen, pass them the word because I can't see a stitch of the canvas from here!'
Cheerful shouts from forward and the moonlight showing the topsails taking up gentle curves indicated that his unorthodox method of getting under way and passing sail orders to a handful of seamen, all of whom would normally be doing just one of those jobs, was working.
'Don't pinch her, Mr Swan,' Ramage warned the first lieutenant. 'Just keep her moving fast, and then we'll have control. We'll have to put in a few dozen tacks before you put the helm down for Plymouth.'
Ramage paused and wiped the mouthpiece of the speaking trumpet, which was green with verdigris.
'You nearly ran down the matelots in the fishing boat as you were setting the maintopsail,' Sarah said. 'They hadn't made much progress.'
'I didn't hear you reporting,' Ramage teased.
'No, you didn't,' she said shortly. 'I didn't start the Revolution or the war.'
'Remind me to tell you how much I am enjoying our honeymoon, but first we must tack.'
And, he thought to himself, if the Murex hangs in irons we'll drift on to the rocks on the headland in front of the arsenal and opposite the Château: the current sets strongly across them on the ebb.
A quick word to Swan had the wheel turning, and he could hear the creak of rudder pintles working on the gudgeons, an indication of a quiet night.
Then he gave a series of shouted commands to the men at sheets and braces and slowly (too slowly it seemed at first, convincing him he had left it too late) the Murex's bow began to swing to larboard, into the wind ...
'Not too much helm, Mr Swan, you're supposed to be turning her, not stopping her ...' A first lieutenant should know that. Now the jibs and staysail were flapping across.