The first page was headed 'Private Signals' with the note 'Channel Fleet' and the date. The first two paragraphs, signed by Admiral Clinton, showed their importance: they were, with the Signal Book, the most closely guarded papers on board any ship of war.
Ramage noted that the wording of the warning was similar if not identical to that in the document he had studied with Lieutenant Swan on board the Murex.
Any ship of war passing through the area cruised by the Channel Fleet would have a copy of this set of flag tables for challenging and distinguishing friend from enemy. The system was simple: depending on the day of the month (the actual month itself did not matter), there was a special challenge with its own answer.
There were four main vertical columns divided into ten horizontal sections. The first section of the first column contained the numbers 1,11,21,31, and referred to those dates. The section immediately below had 2,12,22, with 3,13,23 below and then 4, 14, 24, until the tenth section ended up with 10, 20, 30, so that every day in a month was covered.
The next column had the same two phrases in each of its ten sections: 'The first signal made is- , and 'Answered by a-', and referred to the next two columns. The third was headed by 'Maintopmasthead', and gave the appropriate signals to be hoisted there, while the fourth and last column headed 'Foretopmasthead' gave the signals to go up there.
Ramage noted that today was the eleventh of the month, and the date '11' was the second in the first column. The 'first signal' made would be a white flag with a blue cross (the figure two in the numeral code of flags) hoisted at the maintopmasthead and a blue flag with a yellow cross (numeral seven) at the foretopmasthead. One ship or the other (it did not matter which) would challenge first with those two, and be answered by a blue, white and red flag (numeral nine) at the maintopmasthead and a pendant over blue pierced with white (numeral zero) at the foretopmasthead. Numeral flags hoisted singly by a senior officer had a different meaning, but these were given in the Signal Book and there could be no confusion.
The last page of the booklet gave the private signals to be used at night - combinations of lights hoisted in different positions, and hails. Ramage noted that whoever thought up the hails must have an interest in geography: the month was divided into thirds, with the various challenges and replies being 'Russia - Sweden', 'Bengal - China', and 'Denmark - Switzerland'.
To complicate the whole system, the day began at midnight for the flag signals (corresponding to the civil day), while it began at noon for the night signals, and thus corresponded with the noon-to-noon nautical day used in the logs and journals.
Ramage repeated the numbers to himself - two and seven are the challenge, nine and zero the reply. He put the signals back in the wallet, knotted the drawstrings, and returned it to the drawer, which he locked.
How long before Jackson would be reporting?
The cabin was hot: he longed for the loose and comfortable fisherman's trousers, but they had been taken away with the smock by a disapproving Silkin, whose face was less lugubrious now he had the captain regularly and properly dressed in stockings, breeches, coat, shirt, stock and cocked hat. That the breeches were tight at the knees and the stock became soaked with perspiration and chafed the skin of the neck (and rasped as soon as the whiskers began sprouting again three or four hours after shaving) was no concern to Silkin: to him those discomforts were the sartorial price a gentleman had to pay, and Silkin regarded any article of clothing as 'soiled' if it was only creased.
Ramage knew that by now the men would be at general quarters: indeed, the Marine sentry had already reported that the men who would be serving the two 12-pounders in the great cabin and the single ones in the coach and bed place were waiting to be allowed in to cast off the lashings and prepare the guns, hinge up the bulkheads and strike the few sticks of furniture below the gundeck. Ramage picked up his hat and left the cabin, nodding to the guns' crews as he went up on deck and pulling the front of his hat down to shield his eyes from the sun, which glared down from the sky and reflected up from the waves.
He told Aitken the flag numbers for the challenge and reply, said he did not want the guns run out for the time being, and then joined Southwick standing at the quarterdeck rail, looking forward the length of the ship. Men were hurrying about but none ran: each had that sense of purposefulness that came from constant training and which led to them using the minimum of effort needed to do a task. The decks had already been wetted and sand sprinkled, so that if the ship did go into action the damp planks would stop any spilt powder being ignited by friction and the sand would prevent it blowing about as well as stop feet slipping.
The flintlocks had been fitted to the guns. Powder boys holding cartridge boxes sat along the centreline, one behind each pair of guns, while each gun captain had fitted the firing lanyard to the lock, the lanyard being long enough for him to kneel behind the gun and fire it well clear of the recoil. A small tub of water stood between each pair of guns with lengths of slowmatch fitted into notches round the top edge and burning so that any glowing piece fell into the water. They would be used only if a flintlock misfired. The cook had just doused the galley fire at the order for general quarters, and the slowmatch were the only things burning in the ship.
Below, 'fearnought' screens, thick material like heavy blankets, would have been unrolled and now hung down to make the entrance to the magazine almost a maze. Where men had now to jink about to get in, it was sure no flash from an accidental explosion would penetrate. The gunner was down inside the magazine, wearing felt shoes so that there could be no sparks inside the tiny cabin which was lined first with lathes and then plaster thickened with horsehair, and that covered with copper sheeting. The only tools allowed inside were bronze measurers, like drinking mugs on wooden handles, and bronze mallets for knocking the copper hoops from barrels of powder.
Close to each gun, stuck in spaces in the ship's side where they could be quickly snatched up, were cutlasses, pistols and tomahawks - each man knew which he was to have, because against his name in the General Quarter, Watch and Station Bill would be a single letter, C, P or T.
In less than a minute, Ramage knew, just the time it would take to load and run out the guns, cock the locks and fire, nearly two hundred pounds of roundshot could be hurling themselves invisibly at an enemy, each shot the size of a large orange and able to penetrate two feet of solid oak. Yet to a casual onlooker the Calypso was at this very moment simply a frigate ploughing her way majestically across the Western Ocean, stunsails set and all canvas to the royals rap full with a brisk Trade wind, the only men visible a couple of men at the wheel, three officers at the quarterdeck rail, and a couple of lookouts aloft.
Yet all this was routine: in the Chops of the Channel a frigate might be sending her ship's company to quarters every hour or so, as an unidentified and possibly hostile vessel came in sight. In wartime every strange sail could be an enemy. Admittedly, one saw a great many more ships in the approaches to the Channel and few would prove to be enemy, although so-called neutral ships trying to run the blockade were numerous. For a surprising number of people, Ramage noted, profit knew no loyalty - or perhaps it would be truer to say that whichever nation provided the profit had the trader's loyalty as a bonus.