He thought for a moment what would happen if the French were suspicious and opened fire. A French roundshot through the side of the Merle and into those barrels of powder would - well, they would know nothing about it although people would see the flash for fifty miles or more. The rumble might well wake up the mayor of Cagliari, who would assume there had been yet another earthquake.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Once again Ramage took out his watch - the hands were easy to see in the moonlight. He was not really interested in the time; he wanted to clear his mind of depressing thoughts, like approaching a French 74 in a brig laden with 150 tons of powder. Time was of no consequence now; only distances mattered. The French ship - it was irritating not to know her name - was perhaps a mile away: the distance was difficult to judge because she was bow-on and against the black cliffs. A mile, say, and the Merle was making about four knots. In fifteen minutes it should be all over, one way or another.
He joined Jackson and bent over the compass, taking a rough bearing of the Muscade and then of the French 74. He could imagine Southwick doing the same on board the Muscade.
The enemy a mile away to leeward: soon he would not be able to shout, except for the final orders in the last mad moments, in case the French heard the English words. So now was the time for his little speech; the one the men always seemed to expect, even though the words could only be banal.
'Calypsos', he called, 'we have slightly less than a quarter of an hour to go.' Surprising how being rather precise about the time gave the impression of carefully measured sextant angles of the Frenchman's mainmasthead and calculations using tables.
'I'm sure you can all see our target, and you can see the Muscade over on our starboard beam. The Merle and the Muscade are the two jaws of a pair of nutcrackers. You can see the nut dead ahead, almost in the shadow of the cliff. The only nut ever cracked with more than two hundred tons of powder!
'But our nutcrackers will probably only work if we get the nut squarely between us. We can rely on Mr Southwick and the Muscade. As far as the Merle is concerned, we have very little to do, but it has to be done correctly.
'First, I have to get this ship alongside that 74. If I gowrong, I expect Jackson will put me right.' That drew a laugh from all the men, who knew that the pair of them had been in action together several dozen times.
'As I'm doing that, topmen will be clewing up the maintopsail and then the foretopsail. Before that - in five minutes' time - you'll have furled the fore and maincourses.
'You grapnel men will hook us on with at least six grapnels.' He had to pause as the other men jeered and thegrapnel men protested their skill. 'As soon as the topsails are clewed up and the grapnels hooked on, Stafford and Arry will - when I give the order - light the fuses.
'By that time the boatkeeper, who at the moment is astern in the cutter, fast asleep, will with Jackson's help have the cutter ready alongside the larboard quarter. As soon as I hear from Stafford that the fuses are burning steadily, I shall order "Abandon ship", and we get down into the cutter and row seaward very quickly. Seaward because the French will find it harder to fire at us with muskets from over their bow, and because it is darker to seaward.
'If there is any problem with the fuses, we'll leave Stafford behind to deal with it because he has such nimble fingers.'
Again that brought laughter and some teasing of Stafford, and when the men were quiet again Ramage said: 'From now on, no more talking; sound carries on a night like this, and we want the sentries and lookouts in that 74 to remain merely curious why a couple of their brigs are coming up to them; we don't want 'em too suspicious. Not until we're alongside, anyway, when we'll allow them to begin to wonder!'
He looked across at the Muscade and then ahead at theFrenchmen. It was time to take in the courses.
'Man the main and fore clew garnets, buntlines and leechlines', he called, and within minutes the Merle's two biggest sails were furled on the yards. It was as if a great door had been opened forward: now he had an uninterrupted view of the sea and sky and the land: the orange disc of the moon, the hard black, wavy shadow of hills and cliffs, and the hint of a white line where waves were breaking and swirling among the rocks, like a hinge between the sea and the sky.
The French ship of the line was getting large now: first her royal masts, thin and spidery, rose above the dark hills behind; then Ramage could make out her topmasts and yards. And as he watched he could see out of the corner of his eye the Muscade exactly in position in relation to the Merle; both brigs were approaching the apex of the triangle.
Were ten minutes enough for them to get clear in the boats? He began to wonder, and the more he thought about it the more he wished he had added another five minutes. Southwick, for example, was not as nimble as the young seamen, and he would insist on being the last down into the gig.
What kind of explosion would 150 tons of powder make, plus seventy-five tons on the other side? And - he realized his mistake in forgetting it - all the powder in the French ship's magazine: that would go up too, and she was unlikely to be carrying less than fifty tons. There would be something approaching a tidal wave; they would have to watch out for it as they fled. To be pooped by the tidal wave you caused yourself would be the crowning, or drowning, irony.
He could make out almost every detail of the Frenchman now: the rigging was black lace, like fishing nets drying on stakes, the yards the bare boughs of a tree in winter. The ship was swinging slightly from odd wind currents bouncing off the hills, or eddies as the sea rebounded from the base of the cliffs. Just enough of a swing that neither he nor Southwick would be able to approach on a course parallel with the Frenchman's centreline; they would have to come in at a slight angle so that they could avoid her jibboom and bowsprit if she swung, jinking by putting their helms over at the last moment so the brigs turned inwards, like two arms clasping a package.
The French ship was all black: she swung just enough for him to see that she had no strake of light colour or white to pick out the sheer. Her portlids were closed so the guns were neither loaded nor run out. Her yards were not square - but then she was French, and if she stayed there at anchor for a week, they would still be almost a'cockbill. Southwick will already have noticed that!
She was lying to a single anchor; that was obvious from the slight swing, but Ramage thought he could make out the cable on the larboard bow. That too would make sense if she anticipated wind and swell from the south.
No shout and no challenge. Had the brigs been ships of war they would have had to be ready to answer the night challenge - lanterns arranged in a particular pattern - with an answer that differed only in the positions of the lanterns; but merchant ships were issued with neither challenge nor reply.
'Are you ready there at the fuses, Stafford?'
'Aye aye, sir; we have two lanterns.'
He looked up at the mainyard and, making a trumpet with his hands, called softly: 'Man the fore and maintopsail clewlines and buntlines ... Hands stand by the sheets ...'
The ship of the line was now fine on the starboard bow.
'That's as far as she swings to starboard?' he asked Jackson.
'Yes, sir. I've been steering on that.'
'You may have to come up a point at the last moment -'
'Sir - look at the Muscade!'
Stafford was calling urgently from the hatch and Ramage looked over to find Southwick's brig drawing aft and heeling over to larboard. No, not just drawing aft but being left astern!