But if Captain Ramage failed in this self-appointed role of rescuer riding a (borrowed) white horse, what then? Well, the resulting court-martial would make the trial establishing his father as a scapegoat for the government look like a hunt cancelled because of heavily frozen ground. At best, Captain Ramage would spend the rest of his life on half-pay. At worst? Well, at least being cashiered with the disgrace of being 'rendered incapable of further service in his Majesty's Naval Service'.
Yet it really boiled down to ignoring the Admiralty. By chance he had been able to recapture a British brig from the enemy, and without his activity the Murex would have been added to the French Navy. That was where the chance ended. Did he owe it to Jean-Jacques to try to rescue him? A debt of honour? That was using a rather high-flown phrase, but supposing Ramage had been seized and taken off to some improbable prison, and Jean-Jacques had escaped and knew where he was? Jean-Jacques would attempt a rescue. That was all there was to it, really, although the Admiralty would certainly not agree.
To make an enormous dog-leg course to call at Plymouth to get provisions, men and water would wreck everything because it would probably mean that a couple of frigates would be sent in his place, and a vital week lost - at least a week; more if there was bad weather. It would take a couple of days to convince the port admiral at Plymouth of the importance of such a rescue and pass a message to the Admiralty (though with the new telegraph, Plymouth could send a signal to London and get a reply in a few hours), then watering and provisioning the frigates would take another day or so ... By the time they were clear of the Chops of the Channel (and perhaps driven back by a westerly storm or gale) L'Espoir would be a third of the way to Cayenne; a third of the way to the Île du Diable. At this moment, though, the Murex brig was only a matter of hours behind her. Yet without enough men to do any good and perhaps short of provisions and water. But no more than fifty miles ... If L'Espoir had careless or apathetic officers of the deck, poorly set sails and inattentive men at the wheel, plus the feeling that once clear of Brest they were safe from the Royal Navy, the smaller Murex, sailed hard, would be able to make up the gap.
'I'm going below for half an hour,' he told Swan. 'Report when you can see Ushant.'
Sarah was awake, unused to the swinging cot, which was little more than a large hammock with a shallow, open-topped frame fitted in it, like a box in a net bag.
'I preferred going to and from India,' she said teasingly. 'A proper bed is more comfortable.'
'You wait until there's rough weather. Going to windward in a blow and that cot will swing comfortably, while a fixed bed tosses you out.'
'How do I get out of it, anyway?'
'You don't; you're marooned!'
'Do you want to get some sleep?' she offered, sitting up with her tawny hair tousled, naked because she had only the clothes she had worn in the fishing boat. The lantern light seemed to gild her and he turned away quickly, reassuring her and telling her to stay in the cot. Stay in the cot, he thought to himself, or the captain will not concentrate on his charts ...
He put the lantern on the hook in the beam just forward of the desk. The charts were rolled and stowed vertically in a rack fitted on one side of the desk. Checking what charts were there meant removing each one and partly unrolling it. He sat at the desk and made a start. English Channel, western section, including the Scilly Islands; English Channel, eastern section, including the mouth of the Thames and the Medway. North Sea ... in four sections. Ireland, the southern half. The Channel Islands. St Malo to Ouessant (the French spelling and the detail showed it was probably copied from a captured one). Ushant to Brest and south to Douarnenez... Those were probably the charts for her last patrol... Half a dozen more left. North Atlantic, southern section...
Ramage unrolled it. It covered from the southwestern corner of Spain to the eastern side of the West Indian islands, and down to the Equator, yet giving very little detail of the South American coast. There was Trinidad - which anyway could be identified by its shape. No reference to Cayenne, though; it must be about there, just a kink in the ink line of the coast, north of Brazil.
He looked at the remaining charts. A French one of the islands of St Barthélemy, St Martin (with the southern half owned by the Dutch and given its Dutch name, St Maarten), Anguilla and well to the north, just a speck, Sombrero. Then another two of the group just to the southward, Nevis and St Christopher. And two more, St Eustatius and Saba. A detailed chart of Plymouth ... and Falmouth ... and, finally, the Texel, showing the northwestern corner of the Netherlands.
All in all, Ramage thought wryly, he was no better off than he would be with a blank sheet of paper and his memory; in fact he was going to have to draw up a chart or two for himself. For the moment, though he had to try to put himself in the French captain's place.
When sailing from Europe to the West Indies or the northern part of South America, the trick was to pick up the Trade winds as soon as possible without getting becalmed in the Doldrums. Which meant sailing where you could be reasonably sure of finding steady winds. Every captain and every master had his own invisible signpost in the Atlantic; a sign which said 'Turn southwest here; this is where the northeast Trade winds begin.'
For Ramage it was 25° North latitude, 25° West longitude. And - he took a pencil from the desk drawer and a crumpled sheet of paper which he smoothed out enough to make it usable.
According to the copied French chart, St Louis church in the centre of Brest, just north of the Château, was 48° 23' 22" North, 4° 29' 27" West. That, within a mile, was where L'Espoir had sailed from, and she was bound first to the magic spot, 25° North, 25° West. Which ... was ... about ... yes, roughly seventeen hundred miles to the south-southwest.
Then, from the magic point it was to Cayenne ... about ... another 2,000 miles, steering southwest by west. Say 4,000 miles altogether, and let no one think that steering southwest by west from the magic point would bring him or his ship to Cayenne: he would probably start running out of the Trades by the time he reached 12° North; from then on he would be trying to fight his way south against a foul current which ran northwest along the coast of Brazil. Caught in the right place, it helped; but if the wind played about, whiffling round the compass (which it could do in those latitudes) then the current would sweep the helpless ship up towards the islands - towards Barbados, for example, where the British commander-in-chief was probably lying at anchor in Carlisle Bay.
Ramage looked at his brief calculations again and then screwed them up.
Sarah asked: 'When do you think we shall be in Plymouth if this weather holds, dearest?'
'In about three months.'
'No, seriously. Our families will be worrying.'
'I expect the Rockleys will be worrying about you, but mine will make a wrong guess and give a sigh of relief that I am safely locked up in a French prison while they will expect you to be lodging with a respectable French family.'
'Is that how it would have been, normally?'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'I should think so. Anyway, my parents will not be worrying, and I'm sure as soon as they get the word they will be calling on your people.'