All these preparations, Ramage mused, because of the approach of another frigate which had almost certainly left Barbados a couple of days after the convoy, probably calling in on her way to England for routine despatches from Rear-Admiral Tewtin after visiting English Harbour, Antigua, braving the mosquitoes and general unpleasantness there to collect letters to the Admiralty and Navy Board, letters of absolutely no consequence. English Harbour had never been anything but an expense to the Royal Navy: even Rodney, after the Battle of the Saints (fought within seventy miles of English Harbour), had scorned the place and taken all his prizes (including the Ville de Paris, then the largest ship of war afloat) to Port Royal, Jamaica, seven or eight hundred miles away, giving Jamaica a sight still remembered, the largest fleet of ships of war ever assembled.
Ramage suddenly became aware that Aitken was talking to him and he quickly emerged from his reverie.
"That ship hasn't answered the challenge, sir."
Yet she had hoisted her numbers and a challenge. Probably some muddled lieutenant with the wrong edition of the private signals (they were changed monthly), having made the wrong challenge (therefore receiving what seemed the wrong reply), would now be scrabbling about trying to find the current signal book, being harassed by an alarmed captain.
In turn the captain would be angry because his lieutenant had made a fool of him over the challenge - and at the same time would know the seriousness of approaching a convoy and its escort without having made the correct reply to her challenge. Ramage was thankful not to be the lieutenant - though the fault was ultimately the captain's because the particular book of private signals with the daily challenge and reply was in his care and he should know them in case a strange sail came into sight.
He sighed: it was always the damned captain's responsibility, just as now he had to decide what to do about this approaching idiot . . .
He reached for his telescope, pulled out the tube and lined up the focusing ring. He balanced himself against the roll and was able to ignore the pitch. The view now brought closer by the telescope lenses showed a lower semicircle of dark-blue, almost purplish sea with an upper semicircle of duck-egg-blue sky, and right in the middle was the foreshortened frigate running down towards them. In a hurry, it seemed: she was still running under all plain sail, though surely a prudent captain would be clewing up the courses by now, if not actually furling, and certainly furling the royals, leaving the ship under topsails, ready to heave-to close to the Calypso.
Ramage studied her carefully. Sails - a few patches but everything in good condition. Paintwork - the black paint of the hull was still black (mottled with dried spray) but did not have that purple tinge which showed age, too much sun and too much sea. And the copper sheathing on the bottom, showing frequently as the ship pitched heavily in the following seas, was bright and seemingly new, as though she was not long out of drydock.
Ramage turned to Aitken. "She doesn't look French, from her condition. Sails and sheathing look almost new."
"That's what I thought, sir; but ploughing down under all plain sail and not making the correct reply to the challenge ..."
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Well, we're at general quarters so there's nothing more we can do until she gets closer."
Aitken nodded. "That's one thing about her, sir; she's steering directly for us and not trying to dodge round to get at the convoy."
That had been the first thing that Ramage had considered: to him a natural reaction on first sighting a strange sail was, did she menace the convoy?
"I think we'll accept that the Jason - if that's who she is - doesn't have such efficient officers as the Calypso."
"Probably has a less tyrannical captain," Aitken said in one of his rare flashes of dry humour.
Certainly a more erratic one, Ramage thought: the Jason was leaving herself with less than a mile in which to clew up courses, furl royals, round up and then back the foretopsail ready for the Calypso's approach, and unless she had a full ship's company (which was unlikely: if she had 150 men out of an establishment of 210 she would be lucky) the next few minutes could provide an object lesson in how not to handle a ship. A lesson which would not be lost on Aitken, Wagstaffe, Kenton and Martin, he noted grimly.
He was always thankful when some other ship, friendly or enemy, made mistakes which provided lessons for them: he had taught them just about all he knew; they had reached the stage where they were eager and well prepared to work things out for themselves. In effect he had taught them to add. multiply and. subtract; now they had to tackle the various sums that sea life threw at them. So far, each one (and Orsini, too, of course) had come up with the right answers.
Suddenly his mind slipped back several years and he saw himself through Southwick's eyes, a green young lieutenant put in command of the Kathleen cutter, knowing how to sail the damned ship but with precious little idea how to command her. That was the hardest part of teaching leadership - making young men realize that being able to tack a frigate in a high wind through a crowded anchorage proved only that they could sail a frigate, not necessarily lead men into battle. Yet going into battle and winning was their ultimate task.
And all that, he told himself crossly, is how Captain Ramage spends valuable seconds daydreaming instead of displaying the leadership he is always talking about.
But that damned Jason was showing no sign of getting ready to heave-to; she was surging along like a runaway horse tearing down a lane dragging a laden haywain.
Ramage walked over to the compass and glanced at the quartermaster, Jackson. There was no need to ask the question.
"She's just steering straight for us, sir: her bearing hasn't changed from the time we went to quarters."
So the Jason was approaching with the wind on her starboard quarter. To pass the Calypso or to round up at the last moment without the risk of a collision, she would almost certainly turn to starboard and then back a topsail. By the same token the Calypso, beating up to her on the larboard tack, with the wind on the larboard bow, would have to come round only a point or two to larboard to back her foretopsail, or bear away to starboard if there was any risk of a collision.
Southwick came up to the quarterdeck, obviously expecting that there would have to be some smart sail handling in the next few minutes and knowing he would be needed.
"Hope the captain of this frigate isn't senior to you, sir," he muttered.
"That thought just crossed my mind, too," Ramage said. He was sufficiently young and his name was low enough on the Post List that the odds were that the captain of the Jason was senior to him, and therefore safe from anything Ramage could say about the way he handled his ship. But should he be junior . . . Ramage would take perhaps two minutes and never raise his voice, but the Jason's captain would not act so stupidly again.
"From her pendant numbers she's the Jason," Ramage said.
"Aye, one of those three Thames-built frigates launched just before they signed that peace."
Southwick's comment was followed by one of his famous contemptuous sniffs which were a language of their own. Ramage recognized this one as referring to the peace treaty: a comment.on the stupidity of Addington in falling for Bonaparte's carefully baited agreement which gave him breathing space to restock his empty armouries, granaries and shipyards. The peace had lasted eighteen months, and the politicians were congratulating themselves instead of being impeached. Ramage dare not think of the Navy's condition if the First Lord had snatched that brief period of peace to carry out the threatened reforms. They were laudable and long overdue, aimed at rooting out corruption in high places and low, but not something to start in the middle of a war. Except, of course, St Vincent and Addington had been too shortsighted to realize that Bonaparte's Treaty of Amiens was simply an eighteen-month pause between campaigns.