And still the Jason came on. He lifted his telescope again and examined her carefully. She was getting too close in view of her odd behaviour. Her guns were run out on both sides, tiny, jutting black fingers. Her ensign was British, but she had lowered her pendant numbers. Ah ... they were beginning to clew up the courses, but slowly, as though the ship was manned by cripples or the old and infirm. No, he was not being fair because the Calypso's ship's company had served together for years and as far as sail handling was concerned it mattered not at all whether it was blowing a gale or the ship was becalmed, whether tropical sun dazzled or it was a dark night.
"Took long enough," Southwick commented. "Perhaps half the ship's company's down with black vomit - could be," he added. Ramage wondered - sickness usually hit a newly arrived ship, and the Jason did not look as though she had been very long in the West Indies. A ship serving in the Tropics somehow acquired a bleached look; the sails would be faded, the paint on the hull would show it, even though recently applied . . . Somehow the frigate looked as though she was fresh from England. It was a feeling that Ramage could not have explained, and when he mentioned it to Southwick the master nodded. "Not a sheet of copper sheathing missing, as far as I can see. That alone rules out much service in the West Indies!"
Ramage looked astern at the convoy. The great mass of ships was now far enough away that they merged into a narrow band on the horizon, a band which now took on the colour of the sails like a faintly reddish blur of smoke. Yet the Jason's lookouts would have spotted it; her officers must have examined it with their telescopes. It must be obvious to the captain of the Jason that the Calypso was one of the convoy's escorts, so why all this prancing about?
Ramage lifted his telescope once more. Yes, the other frigates had obeyed his instructions: L'Espoir had moved out to starboard, up to windward of the convoy and able to cover the front by running down to leeward. La Robuste had moved across from the leeward side to take the Calypso's place astern and to windward. So the convoy was still covered: until they were all well away from the islands there was always a chance of French privateers attacking from Guadeloupe. That butterfly-shaped island had plenty of bays providing perfect bases for privateers. They could sail westward to intercept ships bound from Barbados to the more important islands to the northwest, like Tortola; or eastwards to intercept the Europe traffic. These privateers should be kept under control by the Royal Navy ships based in Antigua, but these days few people placed much reliance on English Harbour, which seemed to have an enervating effect on anyone based there.
Meanwhile what the devil was the Jason up to? Now half a mile away and steering an opposite course to the Calypso, she was perhaps five hundred yards over to larboard, which meant she would pass too far off to hail. She had no signals hoisted; nor would there be time to answer if she hoisted one now. And Ramage had no idea who commanded her. . . someone senior, or some young fool at the bottom of the Post List who wanted to cut a dash?
The Calypso was slicing her way up to windward but unable to close the five-hundred-yard gap. Considering she had not been careened, her bottom must be cleaner than he thought. But what the deuce was he to do with this Jason idiot? Just bear away as she passed and run back with her to the convoy? Why the devil did he not hoist a signal?
Probably, Ramage decided, her captain was a man sufficiently high on the Post List who had identified the Calypso and guessed who commanded her and now wanted to catch him out in some silly game - like hoisting a signal at the last moment and demanding an instant answer. The price of a little hard-earned fame in the Navy, Ramage had discovered, was to be the object of envy (jealousy was perhaps too strong a word) of all the failures who were senior on the Post List. They wanted, it seemed, to prove that he had feet of clay, and Ramage could almost hear the refrain - "There, that shows him he's not as clever as he thinks he is!" It was tiresome, boring even, for someone quietly doing his job . . .
"Watch out!" Southwick bawled just as Ramage saw the Jason suddenly turning to larboard to cross the Calypso's bow. But was there room? Not if the Calypso continued slicing her way up to windward: there would be an almighty collision in a minute or two, with the Jason's starboard bow slamming into the Calypso's larboard bow.
"Back the foretopsail!" Ramage shouted at Aitken and turning to Jackson snapped: "Hold her steady as she goes; the moment we get the foretopsail backed I don't want her to make a ship's length of headway."
A ship's length would make all the difference whether the Calypso's jibboom missed or touched the Jason's shrouds and that in turn would decide whether the Jason tore out the Calypso's foremast by ripping away the jibboom and bowsprit, or the Calypso sent the Jason's masts by the board as her jibboom scraped along her shrouds like a small boy running a stick along a fence.
Seamen raced from the guns to the foretopsail sheets and the braces to haul round the foretopsail yard by brute force. Ramage had already seen that he could not help them by turning the Calypso into the wind because that could carry the frigate those few yards extra which could bring the Jason crashing into him.
But a quick look at the other frigate showed that she was making an attempt now to avoid a collision: it seemed that she was just determined to shave across the Calypso's bow and if there was any risk of a collision it was up to the Calypso to make the appropriate move.
Ramage was aware that Jackson was cursing the Jason's captain with a monotonous fluency but his words were drowned as the Calypso's foretopsail slatted and banged when the yard was braced round, and a glance over the side showed the frigate slowing down, as though she was sliding on to a sandbank. And there was the Jason running obliquely down towards them from only a hundred yards away. Ramage could now see patches stitched into her sails; her bow had grey patches of dried salt on the black paint. Her figurehead, brightly painted, was probably a representation of Jason himself. Although the guns were run out, black and menacing, there was not a man in sight: no seamen's faces at the gunports, no one on the fo'c'sle waving a cheery greeting (perhaps after thinking the captain had run things rather close), no one shouting a message through a speaking trumpet.
Suddenly the gun poking out of the first port gave an obscene red-eyed wink and then gouted smoke and, as the thunder of the explosion reached the Calypso the second gun fired, then the third and fourth in a ripple of flame, smoke and noise . . .
The Calypso was being raked by a British frigate, Ramage realized in a shocked rage and the shots were passing over with a noise like ripping calico: raked at a few yards' range and both ships had British colours hoisted.
The French poltroons who had captured the Jason were using a perfectly legitimate ruse de guerre when approaching under false colours, but the rules of war required that she lowered them and hoisted her own proper colours before opening fire . . .
And there was not a damned thing that he could do about avoiding the rest of the broadside because by now the Calypso was stopped hove-to, dead in the water and a sitting target as the Jason raced by.
But the Jason would pass in a few more moments and as Ramage listened for the crash of the Jason's shot tearing through the Calypso's hull and the screams of his men torn apart by shot or splinters, he shouted at Aitken to brace up the foretopsail yard and get the frigate under way again, otherwise if the Jason was quick she could wear round and pass across the Calypso's stern, raking her again with the other broadside.