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.
No sideropes, so the Calypso was not extending the usual courtesy to the commanding officer of another ship o' war, but perhaps there had not been time to rig them. There had, of course, and Ramage knew it, but he also knew that when Aitken and Southwick proposed it, Bullivant might have refused.
Up, up, up... cling to the battens with your fingers, keep your feet flat against the side of the ship to prevent the soles of your shoes from slipping ... Yes, that gouge in the wood there was so familiar and that scarph in the plank there ... He could remember the actions in which the hull had been damaged.
Suddenly his head came level with the deck and a moment later he was through the entryport, standing on the deck itself and staring into the muzzle of a pistol held by a man he had never seen before but who was wearing the uniform of a post-captain. He had a single epaulet, showing he had less than three years' seniority, Ramage noticed inconsequentially.
'Stop!' the man bellowed. He was young, stocky, with a round face mottled with - was it anger? The pistol in his right hand was beautifully made, the barrel damascened, the silver and gold tracery of inlaid patterns catching the sun. The silver tankard in his left hand also had an intricate design worked all round it. And the man, who seemed too excited to string together a coherent sentence, took a pace forward as Swan stepped on deck.
'Stop, both of you!' He gestured with both hands as though shooing a hen back into her coop, and an amber liquid spilled from the tankard.
'You see, pirates! Look at him, a sans-culotte!A Republican pirate. And the other one ...' he paused, catching his breath and then unexpectedly took a long drink from the tankard. '... He's wearing the ... the King's uniform ..."
Ramage saw that the speech was becoming more slurred and the man's eyes were glazing. The man - Ramage guessed it must be Bullivant - turned and pointed. Ramage recognized the lieutenant in Marine's uniform as Renwick, now white-faced, fear showing in the way the lips were drawn back. Ramage had seen Renwick facing broadsides, muskets fired at close range, pistols from a few feet, dodging the slash of cutlasses, but the Marine officer always grinned because he loved battle. Fear? A moment later he realized why.
'Shoot these men!' Bullivant screamed. 'Come on, you have your file of Marines ready! The devil's work... that's what these French swine are doing...' His speech was slowing and Ramage glanced round.
There they all were, in a circle of men with fear on their faces: Aitken, the Scots first lieutenant, Wagstaffe, the red-haired and freckle-faced Kenton, his face red and peeling from the effect of wind and sun, young Martin, the fourth lieutenant, and old Southwick, his white mop of hair as usual trying to escape his hat and suddenly reminding Ramage of straw sticking out from under a nesting hen. And Paolo, his normally sallow face now white, his hooked nose bloodless, as though he was some young Italian model for a Botticelli painting.
Then Ramage saw that every one of the men on deck, seamen and Marines, was watching him, horrified by Bullivant's words. Renwick was making no move. The sergeant of Marines stood firm. Yes, they must be thinking, their old captain has by some magic come back, dressed as a French fisherman, and their new captain has just given orders to shoot him.
Now the signal for the physician of the fleet made sense: Bullivant had been driven mad by drink and presumably Aitken had hoisted that signal at a time when Bullivant could not see it - when he was below.
Where was the surgeon, Bowen? Even as Ramage glanced round once again, he saw the surgeon coming up the companionway, carrying a big flask. Now everyone was watching Bowen, and Bullivant was smiling: it was the vapid smile of an idiot, ingratiating and welcoming.
'Ah, Mr Bowen ... Welcome, you bring me sustenance ... you see the demons I face.' He waved both pistol and tankard towards Ramage and Swan. 'Here, you are just in time. ' He held out the tankard and Bowen poured liquid from the flask. Bullivant took a sip, swallowed and then gulped like a calf at a cow's udders.
Swan, pressing with his elbow, caused Ramage to look down. The Murex's first lieutenant had a Sea Service pistol tucked in the waistband of his breeches and was trying to draw Ramage's attention to it while Bullivant, head back and tankard to his lips, had his eyes closed.
This situation was what every officer dreaded. Relieving a captain of his command was juggling with the risk of being charged with treason. What was madness on the high seas could appear to be perfectly sane behaviour when the captain soberly described it to a row of hard-faced officers forming a court-martial in the peace and quiet of a guardship's cabin in Plymouth or Portsmouth. The whole edifice of discipline was built on the authority of a senior officer - a seaman obeyed a bosun's mate who obeyed the bosun who obeyed a lieutenant who obeyed the captain who obeyed a captain senior to him or an admiral who obeyed the Admiralty: it was all in the Articles of War... Many covered every aspect for maintaining command - numbers XIX, XXII (carrying the death penalty for anyone even lifting a weapon against a superior), and XXXIV ... and of course, XXXVI, the so-called captain's cloak, covering 'all other crimes' not covered by the Act. None provided the means of depriving a man of command...