"He seems to make a habit of rescuing beautiful damsels in distress."
"Yes, doesn't he," Yorke said, ignoring the sarcasm. "Very lucky for the damsels, wouldn't you say? Saved the Marchesa from Bonaparte's assassins, and Sarah (that's his wife) from a crowd of half-breed pirates."
"All right, all right," she said, "I was just being catty. If he wasn't married I'd sit on a rock and imitate a Siren ..."
"But the Sirens lured poor sailors to their doom," Yorke protested.
"So they did," Alexis said drily and with a straight face.
CHAPTER SIX
Shortly after dawn next morning Ramage stood at the forward end of the quarterdeck staring into the greyness, although his thoughts were several thousands of miles away. He heard the traditional hail from the lookouts on deck at six different positions round the ship, "See a grey goose at a mile" - the signal for a couple of men to go aloft, one to the foremasthead and the other to the mainmast, and watch the horizon.
Because Admiral Clinton would be continuing a tight blockade of Brest, and there had been no frigate flying into Barbados with a warning that the French Mediterranean fleet had left Toulon and broken through the Gut into the Atlantic, the Royal Navy for the time being could take one thing for granted: that the chances were that any squadron or fleet of ships they sighted would be friendly, although single ships could be privateers.
Anyway, the Calypso's eyes could now see a good deal further and almost every minute, as the sun, although still hidden, came up the eastern side of the earth heading for the horizon, the circle of visibility widened. After spending a moonless night unable to see more than a couple of hundred yards (the advantage of a tropical night was the clarity of the stars, which made their own light) the lookouts would soon be able to see to the horizon; from a height of eye of one hundred feet, they could see a distance of ten miles, and a ship beyond that would be visible the moment the tips of her masts began to rise over the far side of the horizon.
The officer of the deck, the small and red-haired third lieutenant Kenton, whose heavily freckled face was continually peeling because of the sun, came up to Ramage and formally reported that the lookouts were aloft.
Kenton waited for the next step in the routine by which one of the King's ships greeted a new day at sea in wartime. At the moment, every one of the Calypso's 12-pounder guns and six carronades were ready to fire: the ship was at general quarters, the way every King's ship met the dawn at sea, ready to defend herself or attack.
Ramage took one last look round the horizon (almost a formality, since Kenton's telescope would have spotted even a distant gull perched on a bottle).
"Very well, stand down from general quarters." Kenton saluted and then turned away, grasping the japanned speaking trumpet. The son of a half-pay captain, he had inherited all his father's seagoing characteristics except a stentorian voice. Kenton's shouted orders needed the help of the speaking trumpet to lob his voice as far as the fo'c'sle.
The men ran in the guns and secured them, covered the flintlocks with aprons, small canvas hoods that tied down securely to protect the flint and mechanism from salt spray, put pistols and muskets back into the deck lockers, slipped the ash staves of the long boarding pikes into the racks round each mast, and then made their way below.
Ramage saw the fourth lieutenant coming up the quarterdeck ladder to relieve Kenton. Young Martin was, with Kenton, the newest of the Calypso's lieutenants but at twenty-three or four - Ramage could not remember which - Martin had already experienced as much action as most officers saw in a lifetime. The son of the master shipwright at the Chatham Dockyard, Martin was known throughout the ship as "Blower", an improbable nickname used openly by his fellow officers and discreetly by the rest of the ship's company and bestowed out of admiration, because Lieutenant William Martin was a superb flautist. He played the wooden tube as though it was a part of his own body: the sheer pleasure that it and music gave him found an echo among the men, who did not care whether he was playing an obscure piece of baroque music or one of the traditional forebitters, used when the men were heaving at the capstan, bringing the anchor home.
Ramage watched the two young lieutenants: Kenton reporting the course and any orders from the captain that remained unexecuted (there was none), plus any unusual occurrences, thus carrying out the captain's standing orders for handing over the deck. The two lieutenants now faced forward, and Ramage guessed they were discussing the convoy. Yes, there were still seventy-two ships, and considering all things they were in reasonable formation. For that Ramage knew he could thank a night of steady southeasterly winds and probably the impression he had made at the convoy conference. But steady winds and past impressions did not last; one should never trust the weather or one's memory . . .
A convoy under way with dawn breaking is always an impressive sight, and he continued looking at the ships. The increasing pinkness now spreading over the eastern horizon like a water-colour wash gave the flax of the merchant ships' sails a warmth which was gently shaded by the curve into which the wind pressed them. Yet it was hard to believe the ships were more than toys being pulled by unseen strings across a village pond: at this distance each seemed much too small to be carrying hundreds of tons of valuable cargo in her hold. For all that, cargoes from the West Indies were smelly rather than exotic, he reminded himself, mostly molasses and hides . . . Sometimes there were more aromatic spices such as nutmeg, but molasses were a touchy cargo, liable to absorb the smell of anything else stowed near it.
In England it was an hour before noon. In France about the same. What was Sarah doing at this moment? Could she be at home with her parents - in London, or their estate in Norfolk? Or was she a prisoner in France? Bonaparte must be a vile man: never before had women been treated as prisoners of war - at least, among civilized people. Nor, for that matter, were civilians accidentally caught in a country by a sudden war - oh, to hell with it; continually worrying would not tell him whether or not she was safe, although worrying was all he could do. Worry and watch over these damned mules across 3,500 miles of the Western Ocean - more if the winds played tricks and headed them.
"The Emerald, sir," Martin reported, his voice seeming to come from another planet. "Wheft at the foretopmast - 'To communicate with the commander of the convoy'."
"Very well," Ramage said in the usual response. "Can you see any other sail beyond her? Has the Robuste hoisted any signal?"
If there was an emergency - a privateer in sight or a French man-o'-war - then the Emerald would have hoisted the appropriate signal, and the Robuste would have sighted her as well. No, Sidney Yorke had a routine message to pass - probably, Ramage guessed, the opening round in the social invitations exchanged between the more important merchant ships and escorts. In fact it was usually restricted to the commander and one or two merchant ships whose masters were old friends. Whatever the circumstances, such invitations broke up the monotony of the voyage, both for the officers invited and the men who had to row them over: the hospitality usually included the men, and it was a wise coxswain who kept an eye on the drinking in the fo'c'sle.
"Well, Mr Martin, let's pass within hail of the Emerald and see what she has to say."
"Aye aye, sir."
"And Mr Martin, let's do it in the fewest tacks and gybes possible, from this position. Over to her and back here again."
"Aye aye, sir," Martin said doubtfully, knowing this was a test.