He turned away. Damnation, this was like the Mall with three horses bolting at once: to come round to larboard far enough for the Calypso's starboard-side guns to bear meant that he would have to shave under the Fructidor's stern the moment the guns had fired . . . Still, there was no choice!
The Frenchman was broad on the bow as the Calypso swung one way to bring her guns to bear and the Frenchman turned the other in a desperate last-moment attempt to dodge the broadside they now saw would hit them.
"Here they come!" Ramage found himself roaring into the speaking trumpet and it seemed from all round him there was the popping of muskets as Renwick's Marines fired at the Frenchman's quarterdeck. The 12-pounders thundered in a rippling fire one after the other down the starboard side, but Ramage hardly heard them because of the blood beating in his ears. He saw puffs as the guns fired, and then thick clouds of oily-yellow smoke as the puffs merged and began to stream out of the ports ... An enormous cough, another and then another as the carronades almost beside him fired, flinging the lemon-sized grapeshot into the French ship.
He glimpsed the Fructidor only a few yards away and almost dead ahead. "Hard a' starboard," he bellowed at the men at the wheel.
Smoke and noise - the heavy thudding of roundshot hitting solid wood, the whine of splinters being thrown up in swathes, the bell-like clanging of roundshot ricocheting from metal . . . the Frenchmen had let go their broadside at the Calypso, tit for tat. Now the men were scurrying around reloading and - hell-fire and damnation, any moment the Calypso will be so far round she would be taken a'back - no, the men were spinning the wheel, almost climbing up the spokes in their urgency - and Aitken was standing beside them, looking as calm as if he was just checking that the gillie's gralloching knife was sharp enough before they cleaned the deer he had just shot.
Where was everyone? The French frigate was squaring her yards to run off before the wind, smoke streaming from the larboard gunports as though she was on fire, and the Fructidor was sliding past on the quarter. Every man in the Calypso who was not busy loading the guns or steering the ship was standing at gunports or even perched on the hammock nettings cheering as the frigate swept by.
"I saw young Orsini," Southwick said gruffly. "And Kenton, and the rest of them. No damage to the ketch; I don't think they had any casualties. The Frenchman was more concerned with firing at us."
Ramage nodded and looked away because the old master seemed to want to have a good weep from sheer relief and Ramage felt like joining him. The French frigate was now five hundred yards ahead ... the turn to bring the Calypso's broadside guns to bear had cost her dearly in distance.
"Mr Aitken," he said, "let fall the topgallants, and set the stunsails. Not the courses; I'm not fighting under courses. That Frenchman's lucky they didn't catch fire. We'll cut the stunsails adrift when we get alongside him."
Southwick pointed at the Brutus, which was setting sail. "What's Wagstaffe up to, then?"
Ramage thought for a moment. "Going into Porto Ercole to see what he can find, I suspect, and Kenton will be close in his wake."
Southwick lifted up his quadrant and carefully measured the angle made by the Frenchman's mizentopmasthead. He then looked at his watch and, after putting the quadrant down carefully, noted the angle and the time on the slate. "It'll depend on which of us has the cleanest bottom," he said to no one in particular. "So if he's been growing barnacles in Toulon, we'll beat him providing the Toulon barnacles are bigger than the ones we brought over from the West Indies."
Ramage changed his mind, and to gain a knot or two gave the order to set the fore and main courses, the largest sails in the ship. While they were being let fall he reflected that a stern chase is a long chase ... That had been dinned into him from the days when he was a young midshipman. The frigate's name was Le Furet. The Ferret. He had forgotten to look until this moment, but it showed up well in the telescope. The letters were carefully painted in blue on a red background; indeed, the whole transom was carefully painted. Not at all like the usual French ship of war, especially of the size of a frigate. There was always a shortage of paint in any dockyard, but he knew that in French dockyards these days it was critical, and no French captain was going to spend his own money on the extra few tins of paint that brightened up a ship ... To spend money on gold leaf would be an anti-revolutionary act, he supposed. Anyway, the Furet looked a good deal smarter than most French frigates he had seen. Still, he had a feeling that by the time this day was over he was going to be heartily sick of the sight of the Furet's transom; her captain obviously knew how to get the last quarter of a knot out of his ship.
Southwick picked up his quadrant, twiddled the vernier and, after consulting his watch, noted his findings down on the slate. He pondered for a minute or two and then looked up at Ramage with a cheerful grin. "We've gained a few yards, and we haven't got the stunsails rigged out yet."
By now the courses had been trimmed, the studdingsails (in effect long strips of canvas to be hoisted up alongside each of the squaresails to make them wider, the tops held out by the stunsail booms, which slid out to form extensions of the yards) had been brought up on deck from the sail room and the special halyards were ready.
Aitken took the speaking trumpet while Southwick continued keeping a watch on the Furet.
"Starboard stunsails ready, there!"
The first lieutenant ran his eye over the three bundles now resting on the deck abreast each of the masts.
"Hands aloft rig out the booms!"
The topmen streamed up the rigging and along the yards, sliding out the pole-like booms which they normally had to lift up while they were working on the sails. These booms, now poking out like fishing rods, seemed too flimsy for the job they had to do.
"Haul taut the tacks, and belay!"
Ramage stopped listening to Aitken's sequence of orders as he tried to guess the Furet's destination. For the moment she was obviously intent on escaping, but where would she have gone with the other two frigates and the two bombs, had everything gone the way the French planned? To Crete, of course, but where after that?
What was the Furet's captain intending to do? If he managed to stay ahead of the Calypso until nightfall, he would need to have a lead of a couple of miles or more to stand a chance of dodging in the darkness - unless there was thick cloud. But a clear night with stars meant the Furet's sails would be easily seen by the Calypso's lookouts. Supposing he did escape completely though - which obviously he was trying to do, escape without fighting - where would he go? The next couple of hours might show - by then he would be clear of any possible wind shadow from Argentario, and the Furet would either turn to the west-south-west if he intended going back to Toulon, planning to pass through the Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia, or carry on to the south if he intended rounding Sicily and turning eastward towards Crete. Of course, he might make a bolt for Civita Vecchia, now only a few miles to the south along the Italian mainland, hoping to find safety there, but a wily fox never bolted for its lair when the hounds were in really close pursuit . . .
By now the stunsails were set and trimmed, and as the Calypso seemed almost to surge along Southwick said: "The wind's freshening, sir. A cast of the log?"
Ramage shook his head. "It won't make us go any faster. Our only concern is catching up with that blasted frigate - and the angle shown on your quadrant will tell us more exactly than the log."
"Well, we gained a little when you set the courses, but lost it when the Furet set her stunsails - she had them up and trimmed before we did. Now we might be gaining a little, I'm waiting a few minutes for our halyards to settle, and Mr Aitken's busy with the sheets and braces: a foot here and a foot there makes a difference ..."