'The three of you had better repeat to me what your orders are.'
They looked at each other and Ramage pointed to the Marine, whose style of speaking derived much from the drill sergeants under whom he had served in the past.
'Hupon the horder "Light fuses!" sir - that'll be from you - I 'old the lantern hopen in such a position that William Stafford, hable seaman, and Arry, hordinary seaman, can happly the end of each fuse to the candle flame. I make sure each fuse is burning steady an' when Stafford 'as hassured 'imself as well, we run like 'ell to the boat, which will be halongside the larboard quarter.'
Stafford grunted. 'An' we proceed to row like 'ell out of range an' back to the Calypso.'
'You're sure you've used exactly a foot of fuse in fitting each one into a barrel?' Ramage asked him.
Stafford scrabbled about on the deck and then stood up, proffering a wooden stick with a fork cut in one end. 'It's exactly eleven inches to the cleft, sir; I cut it meself. First I measured orf a foot o' fuse, nipped it with finger and thumb, then used this 'ere fork in the end to 'old a bight of fuse while I pushed it down into the barrel. It takes an inch to fit in the fork. Before I pulled the stick out I pressed the powder down 'ard wiv my fingers, and then once the stick was out I pressed down again, so the fuse is firm in the powder. Then we wound rags round like a bandage to 'old the fuse steady in the centre of the bunghole.'
The Cockney could have answered Ramage's question with a simple 'Yes sir', but the fact that he had been sensible enough to get a stick of the right length and make a fork in the end showed that he was not blindly obeying orders.
'That was a good idea', Ramage said. 'We need explode only one barrel to send off the rest, but with fuses to five barrels we have five insurance policies.'
The three grapnel men were sitting by the foremast on the starboard side, their grapnels swinging and spinning at various heights above them.
'One last check', Ramage said. 'You've slung the grapnels at the right heights, so tell me what you do as we go alongside our French friends.'
'I'm out on the foreyardarm, sir', one man said promptly, 'an' I make sure the grapnels are swinging so they 'ook on.'
'And then?' prompted Ramage.
'Well, that's all, sir.'
'No, it's not, Smith, unless you want 150 tons of powder to blow you over the moon.'
'Oh yes', the seaman said sheepishly, 'as soon as we hear you shout "Abandon ship", or we see the grapnels are securely hooked on, we bolt for the boat, sir.'
'Which will be...?'
'Larboard quarter, sir.'
Ramage went on to find the three axemen, who were chatting with the topmen at the foot of the foremast. Having singled them out, he asked them about their remaining duties.
O'Rorke, who despite his name and the impression it gave of an Irish giant was a small, nimble man from Boston in Lincolnshire, who had first gone to sea as a young boy in the colliers bringing coal from the northern ports down to the Thames, took a pace forward.
'Grapnels, sir', he said at once. 'As we go alongside we try and toss extra grapnels on board. Extra to the ones rigged from the yards.'
'Are your grapnels ready?'
'Yes, sir, we've got two each; a fathom of chain and then rope on each one. The bitter end of the rope is made fast to something solid.'
'And where have you got them?'
'Well, two on the fo'c'sle, sir. They're my two, on account of me being reckoned a good thrower. Longish ropes on my grapnels so we don't snub in the Merle's bow too sharp. Two more by the forechains: Hurst here will be standing on the chains -'
'No', Ramage interrupted. 'Hurst, you stay inside the ship: if we run alongside the Frenchman, you'd be crushed standing in the chains. And you, Gough', he said to the third man, 'were you going to be standing in the mainchains? Well, don't. I appreciate both of you are picking the best places, but you'll get killed. I can't lose two men -1 want to be rowed back to the Calypso in time for a good breakfast!'
The three men laughed and two of them excused themselves, so that they could change the positions of their grapnels. Ramage, with a call to the topmen not to wait about once they heard 'Abandon ship!', walked back to the wheel, pausing by the lantern to look at his watch. More than an hour had passed and he looked forward in alarm.
The cliffs of the headland north of Cala Piombo showed up well, and he could just make out the Torre di Cala Piombo like a thin tree stump on the top of a round hill. A dark blobthis side of it showed where the French 74 was swinging to her anchor. Waiting for a convoy? Ramage speculated. Or perhaps expecting more 74s and attendant frigates to joinher. Ramage wished he had not started wondering, in case any of them began to arrive.
The Muscade had slowly passed across the Merle's stern so that as planned she was now on her seaward side. The French 74 would be windrode and heading westward, out of the gulf. Southwick would go alongside so that his larboard side would be against the Frenchman's larboard, his bow towards the 74's stern, while Ramage and the Merle would go starboard side on to her starboard. It was an elementary manoeuvre though, in battle, ships normally fought bow to bow and stern to stern.
Ramage could now see the 74, or rather her black blur, as a more definite shape against the jagged cliffs anchored perhaps a mile from the shore and well placed in the bay so that the headlands protected her from winds and swells.
What sort of an anchor watch would the French be keeping? With the wind light from the west and the moon still rising in the east, the Merle and Muscade had two great advantages: first, coming from the dark half of the horizon they were approaching an enemy who loomed up stark against the moon, and second they had a following wind with no worry about how the brigs would beat out again.
The gap between the Merle and the Muscade was slowly narrowing: each ship was sailing up the side of a long, invisible triangle lying flat on the sea which had the 74 at its apex. Now they were a mile apart; soon they would be separated by only the width of the French ship.
Stafford had both lanterns hidden abaft the mainmast so their light could not be seen from ahead, and from the sound of it was lecturing Arry and the Marine about the finer points of picking locks. Having served an apprenticeship as a locksmith and been taken up by the pressgang while he was making a living at it - by working at night, Ramage understood, and without the owners of the locks knowing about it - Stafford was undoubtedly an expert.
The Marine, Albert Coke, was naturally berthed aft with the rest of the Marines in the Calypso, between the seamen and the officers, and his duties meant he did not mix so much with the seamen. This night's work with Stafford and Arry was, Ramage could tell, quite an experience. Hearing first-hand accounts of burgling expeditions against 'some o' the best 'ouses in London' - a phrase Ramage had often heard Stafford use in the past when being teased by Jackson and Rossi - was obviously a new experience for Albert Coke.
Looking ahead, Ramage could see why they were now fast approaching the coast - or, rather, at night one always seemed to be going faster, although the speed remained the same. It was one of the tricks played by shadow, and with a moon this bright the shadow made the cliffs look like jagged pieces of coal held close to the face.
This time - indeed, for the first time ever that he could remember - he was approaching an enemy ship without sending the men to quarters. They were already as prepared for action as ever they could be, and their weapons were simply grapnels and lanterns, and some lengths of fuse ... None of the Merle's 6-pounders would be fired; no muskets were even loaded. There was far too much danger, with all that powder about, for there to be any guns discharged in the Merle, although a few men had pistols in case of trouble later.