But there was a strange atmosphere, as though they had met the coldness of a crypt. The excited dash that surged the Calypsos over the Jason's bulwarks was slowing down: far from men being in desperate cutlass-against-pike, pike-against-tomahawk, pistol-against-pistol duels, they were slowing down to a walk and looking round with all the curiosity of bumpkins at a fair. And beyond - or was it round them? - other shouting: that of frightened men shouting in English, as though desperately trying to establish their true identities before being run through, spitted by a pike or cut down by a tomahawk.
Was this the trap? English prisoners forced to shout for quarter at the instant the Calypsos boarded? Creating confusion and making them pause just long enough for the French to shoot them down?
Ramage looked round wildly, saw no immediate explanation and carried on his dash towards the man in the black coat who (Ramage blinked but kept his pistol raised) was now walking towards him, arms outspread in a welcoming gesture: just as a parson would greet a valued parishioner or, more likely, the patron of his living.
Above the din Ramage could hear the man saying in a normal voice: "Ramage, isn't it? I've heard so much about you, my dear fellow, and I'm so glad we meet at last!"
Was this the trap? Ramage stopped and motioned with his pistol that the man should stand his ground. Southwick and Aitken stood warily, like hunters waiting for the prey to walk into their gun sights, and the Calypso's boarders had all stopped and were watching Ramage, waiting for a signal or order.
Ramage glanced at Aitken and snapped: "Talk to her gunners!"
The first lieutenant, as he took the few paces to the nearest gun's crew, realized how quickly his captain was thinking: the gunners would reveal their nationality, why they had fired high when raking the Calypso, and who or what their captain was.
There were six men grouped round the nearest gun, all crouching, and none was armed: there was no sign of a cutlass, pistol, tomahawk, pike or musket; in fact a glance showed Aitken what they should have noticed from the Calypso, that the boarding pikes were still clipped into the racks fitting round the masts like dogs' collars.
The nearest man, holding the trigger lanyard, was obviously the gun captain but his face was white under a superficial tan and his eyes avoided Aitken's glare. He still stood in a half-crouch, as though he had just been kicked in the belly. To Aitken he looked like a pickpocket caught in a congregation and singled out by the parson up in the pulpit for special castigation.
"Do you speak English?" Aitken demanded.
The man nodded nervously.
"Well, stand up straight and tell me what's going on." Aitken suddenly realized something else. "Where are all the officers apart from the man in the black coat and a few midshipmen?"
At last the seaman threw the lanyard over the breech of the gun, out of the way (Aitken noticed the lock was not cocked, so the gun could not be fired), and stood to attention.
"All the officers are down in their cabins, sir. One of them could tell you. Yes, sir," he said eagerly, the idea becoming more appealing as he thought about it, "they'd all be able to tell you, 'specially the first lieutenant."
"You tell me, quickly!" Aitken snapped, slapping the flat of his cutlass against his leg, "or else you'll all be dead men in a couple of minutes: you fired on one of the King's ships. That's treason, to start with."
"Oh no!" the man protested in an agonized voice, and several of the others round the gun now stood up straight and added their protests. "We fired over you sir," the man said excitedly. "All of us did, even though we'd been told to rake you."
Ramage, out of earshot, called impatiently and Aitken said: "Quickly now, this is the Jason and one of the King's ships?"
"She's that," the man said. "Commissioned in Plymouth the week after the war started again. Bound from Barbados an' Jamaica with despatches."
"Why did you open fire?"
"Go on, sir; ask one of the officers," the man said evasively, his body wriggling like a hooked fish.
Aitken's brain felt numbed: if the man in black was the captain, the officers were down in their cabins, and the men were crouched down round guns whose locks were not cocked, then what the devil was going on?
"What were your orders if and when you were boarded by us?"
"Orders, sir? Oh Gawd, sir, it ain't like that at alclass="underline" please go an' ask the officers 'cos they know all abart it."
"So none of you are going to fight us?"
"Fight you?" the man said in alarm. "Strike me, we bin 'oping fer weeks something like this would 'appen."
Aitken turned and reported to Ramage, who thought for a moment and then snapped out orders. "Rennick," he told the Marine lieutenant, "get all these men at the guns lined up on the fo'c'sle, with your Marines surrounding them."
Then, with his pistol covering the man in the black coat, he told Southwick: "Have all the Calypso's grapnels unhooked and hauled inboard. As soon as she's free I want Wagstaffe to get her clear and keep a gunshot to windward of us."
He looked round for Jackson and waved him over. "Collect half a dozen men here."
Then he turned to the man in the long black coat who was still standing there, calm and not a bit alarmed at having men from another ship swarming over the deck of his own ship; in fact, Ramage realized, the man had a strange remoteness, like an effigy in a church which had watched over the funerals, weddings and christenings for centuries and would continue until the church fell down, unless another Cromwell came along.
Ramage tucked the pistol in his belt and slid the cutlass back into the frog and deliberately looked the other man up and down. He said loudly to Aitken, aware that the words might well have to be remembered as evidence at a court of inquiry: "I wonder who this man is - you notice he is not wearing any sort of uniform. Green trousers, a long black coat, no hat . . ."
"Aye, sir," Aitken said, realizing the point of Ramage's remark. "There's no telling who he is."
"Come, sir," Ramage said, "you have the advantage of me: you have guessed who I am, but I only know your ship has just been firing at mine."
"Shirley, my dear Ramage, William Shirley at your service, a captain in the Royal Navy but lacking, I fear, your distinction."
"You have your commission?" Ramage asked sharply.
"Oh yes indeed, it's in a drawer in my desk. Shall we go down to my cabin and find it?"
"Later," Ramage said. He wanted witnesses to all the conversation with this man. "Less than half an hour ago you approached my ship in the Jason flying the wrong challenge and then giving the wrong answer when my ship hoisted the correct challenge."
"My dear fellow, you don't say so?" Shirley seemed genuinely upset. "How careless of me. Still, no harm came of my omission, I'm glad to say."
"No harm?" Ramage looked round at Aitken to make sure he had heard, and noticed that Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were among several other seamen who had, almost without realizing it, grouped round Shirley, covering him with their pistols. "You narrowly missed colliding with my ship and then fired a raking broadside into her. Do you call that 'No harm'?"
"A raking broadside?" Shirley repeated in a puzzled voice. "My dear Ramage, you are mistaking the poor Jason for someone else. Why should we want to rake one of the King's ships?"
"That's the point of my questions," Ramage said, adding heavily: "It is rather an unusual situation."