Aitken and Wagstaffe both arrived on the quarterdeck together, and Ramage looked questioningly at the first lieutenant. "We haven't much time, Mr Aitken," he said.
The Scotsman recognized the tone because it was the nearest Mr Ramage ever came to being querulous, and he grinned cheerfully. "Lines for the grapnels are already rove, sir, and 1 have a couple of dozen men hidden below the bulwarks and securing the grapnels."
Ramage nodded. "Well, if I don't see them at work presumably the Jason won't. Now listen, the pair of you, this is what I intend doing." Quickly he explained that Wagstaffe would be in command of the Calypso. This brought an immediate protest from the second lieutenant that he would be left out of any fight and Ramage looked at both Aitken and Southwick. "There are times," he said with mock exasperation, "when I wish the three of you would go up on the fo'c'sle and settle all this among yourselves."
Southwick, fearing Ramage would change his mind, said hurriedly to Wagstaffe: "You're greedy. You had a good scrap with the last prizes and took command of one of them while I had to stay in the Calypso."
"Well, I am the second lieutenant."
"And I'm old enough to be your father and grandfather," Southwick growled, "and even if you are a commission officer, if you're not careful I'll put you across my knee!"
The remark was just enough to set them all laughing. Wagstaffe agreed it was Southwick's turn and looked serious when Ramage pointed out that having command of the Calypso gave him responsibility for the convoy, "Even though the captains of L'Espoir and La Robuste will take it from you the moment they know anything has happened to me."
Ramage left the deck for a few minutes, going down to his cabin and returning with a cutlass and belt slung over his shoulders and a mahogany case containing a brace of pistols. He knelt down at the case to load the pistols while Aitken hurried below, promising to collect Southwick's sword because the master was still busy with his quadrant.
Finally, as Aitken returned wearing his own sword and with a Sea Service pistol tucked in his belt, handing Southwick his sword and a pistol, Ramage told the master: "Put your quadrant away somewhere safe: we can rely on our own eyes now!"
Eyes, he thought bitterly, but not brain. What the devil was going on in the Jason?Was she really being sailed badly to lure on the Calypso?Why were all the men hidden - it could not be from fear of sharpshooters. At least the mythical Jason had a ship full of heroes to help him when he sailed in the Argo to find the Golden Fleece. Still, the equally mythical Calypso offered immortality and eternal youth to Odysseus when he was shipwrecked on her island. All of which, Ramage reflected, shows that recalling Greek mythology is a great help if you want to pass the time and keep your thoughts from getting occupied with more troublesome matters.
The Jason was on the starboard tack, with the wind fine on her starboard quarter. She would expect to be attacked on that side, from to windward, and no one but an idiot would attack from to leeward. From the Jason's point of view the Calypso would be unlikely to attack from to leeward because the wind would blow the smoke from her guns straight back on board, blinding her officers and choking the gunners. More important, if the Calypso attacked from to leeward, the Jason could drop down on to the Calypso, while the British ship would have to get up to windward to close the range. The weather gauge ... to many admirals they were the only three words that mattered, although they were as confining as a canvas straitjacket.
Yet those three words explained, Ramage reflected sourly, why several famous admirals had won peerages for what were tactical disasters, complete failures which the politicians (ignorant of tactics) had, by the judicious distribution of peerages and knighthoods, turned into great victories with stirring speeches in Parliament.
That was why Vice-Admiral Nelson had not made himself very popular among the Navy's senior flag officers: before his victories at the Nile and Copenhagen, it was enough for the admiral commanding a fleet to break the enemy line and capture three ships - then England rang the bells for a great victory and gave him a peerage. St Vincent took four ships in his victory - but two of those were captured by Nelson . . .
But the Nile and Copenhagen had set new standards: for three, read a dozen or more. Yes and give credit to Admiral Duncan at Camperdown because his victory over the Dutch was hard won and complete, and Rodney at the Saints. But the Glorious First of June, so proudly hailed by the old guard, was by the new standards a disaster, a Glorious Failure.
Very well, Captain Ramage, prepare for your attack on this strange ship the Jason . . . There's four hundred yards to go, you've made your little speech to rally the men, all the guns are loaded, the men have cutlass, pikes and tomahawks to hand, and pistols too; the grapnels are ready to fling on board the enemy.
He turned to the quartermaster, Pegg, who had taken over the job usually carried out by Jackson. He was a wiry, gipsy-faced seaman, famous in the Calypso for his hatred of Welshmen. "A point to starboard - as though we are going to pass the Jason five hundred yards to windward."
Pegg gave the order to the helmsmen as he brushed his carefully plaited black hair to one side and, grinning happily, muttered to himself: "But we ain't though, I'll bet all the takings from a Michaelmas Fair." Since he had been given instructions, Pegg was not taking much risk.
Ramage caught the sense of the gipsy's words and smiled to himself: the "takings" that Pegg had in mind were not the profits made by the stallholders, but the haul made by the "dips", the light-fingered pickpockets who regarded the fixed fairs as the times in the year when they could clear good profits to see them through the winter. Like a "dip" planning his campaign, Pegg could see that the obvious way of attacking the Jason was to overhaul her and settle down five hundred yards to windward and pound her with the 12-pounders, later perhaps closing in to give her a taste of the carronades loaded with canister or grape. But Pegg had sailed with his captain too long ever to expect the obvious: he had also learned that the obvious was the most easily countered.
A broadside first? Ramage knew there was no time to reload, so that the starboard broadside would be no better than a single pistol shot. What would be best, smoke, noise and confusion - or just silence: a cold-blooded silence?
Well, he was doing the unexpected and it had better be right: looking forward, he could already see Aitken going to each division, explaining to the officers in charge and the men serving the guns exactly what they were to do when the time came. Aitken stood, and was apparently talking, with all the authority of the man who knew for certain what would happen. A lucky fellow. Ramage thought and glanced at the two pistols in his belt. The flints were good and Ramage thought of the flint knappers tapping away with their special hammers so that the flints flew off like someone slicing a crisp cucumber. A man's life could depend on a good flint . . .
CHAPTER NINE
Ramage stood at the starboard side of the quarterdeck rail with Wagstaffe beside him. The quartermaster Pegg had moved between Ramage and the men at the wheel so that he should not miss a hurried order, but almost imperceptibly the Calypso was closing with the Jason. Even without a glass they could see the gingerbread work on the scroll on the transom: JASON was carved there, the letters picked out in gold against a red background. The scrollwork enclosing it all was picked out in blue. Not my choice of colours, Ramage thought, but obviously some other man's personal taste clashed with the normal dictates of heraldry. At least the name was gilded - the man who sought the Golden Fleece did not have to suffer the indignity of having his name painted in tawdry yellow.