More of the French guns winked and smoked; behind him and to one side Ramage heard the crack-crack-crack of the Marines' muskets as they tried to shoot down the officers and the men at the wheel on the Furet's afterdeck.
He noted that the Furet's stunsail booms had all carried away, snapped by the long strips of sail blowing forward and wrapping round the braces, which would jam in the blocks when they tried to trim the yards.
The Calypso's fourth 12-pounder on the larboard side suddenly spun off its carriage, and a moment later Ramage heard a loud clang and a shriek of pain: a French roundshot had hit and dismounted it.
By now all the rest of the guns had been reloaded. Steadily each fired its second round at the Furet and Ramage, with nothing to do but await the outcome of the pounding, examined the French ship.
They were taking their time getting the sails trimmed; so much so that the Calypso was slowly drawing ahead. The Furet seemed to be heeled to larboard - but naturally, she was on the starboard tack. But - now she seemed to be heeled to starboard; in fact she was rolling, and rolling heavily enough to overcome the press of sails to leeward. They were rapidly clewing up the courses - but why reduce speed at a time like this? Now the topgallants were being furled. And the topsails.
Her gunports seemed to be nearer the water than one would expect, too. Then Ramage turned open-mouthed to Southwick, who was now standing beside him, and both men exclaimed simultaneously: "She's sinking!"
"Aye, we must have had a lucky shot," Aitken cried jubilantly but Ramage said: "No, they've had the chain pump going for the past ten minutes, but I didn't realize what was happening."
The Calypso had fired another broadside before Ramage noticed that several seconds had passed since the last French gun had been fired. He told Aitken to pass the order to cease fire.
"Watch her colours," he told Southwick, and then snapped at Aitken: "Stand by to heave-to and be ready to hoist out boats. Renwick, stand by with your men. I'll be calling away boarding parties in a few minutes."
He turned to Aitken. "Clew up the courses - use men from the guns if you need 'em because the topgallants will be next."
There was nothing more dangerous and unnecessary than fighting with too much sail set; topsails were quite enough, giving complete control of the ship, and keeping the canvas high enough above the guns so that the muzzle flash would not start fires. For the first time in his life, he realized, he had been forced to fight under all plain sail. At least, he had stunsails and all plain sail set to the topgallants when he had to fight, because the Furet suddenly bore up ... Now the men were busy cutting away the torn stunsails and halyards and clearing the booms.
The French frigate was sinking all right: she had that slow, ponderous and ominous roll of a ship with many tons of water slopping around inside her, sluicing first to one side and then to the other. In a few minutes it would be too risky to put the Calypso alongside her in case she rolled so much that their yards locked together. Indeed, the way she was going, the whole ship might well capsize.
"They're trying to heave-to," Southwick said, "but I think the foretopsail braces have been cut. Ah, down they come! She's struck her colours, sir!"
Ramage was almost numbed by the speed of events. What had started off as a regular battle was turning into a scrap-bag of different experiences. And Southwick was right, the Furet had been trying to heave-to - what in God's name was going on now? He swung his telescope along her deck. Men were slashing at ropes with axes - several of them chopping with tomahawks as though frantically trying to drive home nails with hammers.
Suddenly the main yard slewed round drunkenly and the foretopsail yard, its halyard obviously let go at the run, the lifts parting, came crashing down across the foredeck. The rest of the sails and yards began to drop, swing, cant or flog as the men on deck slashed through sheets and braces, bowlines and tacks, halyards and lifts.
"We'll heave-to on the larboard tack, if you please, Mr Aitken," Ramage said, "and I want boats hoisted out." He looked at the Furet again. "Make sure the ship's company have pistols or muskets; we're going to have more than two hundred prisoners on board in an hour or so - less, probably. If she sinks, we'll need to sling over hammocks for the survivors to hold on to until we can fish them out. Not a good day for hammocks," he added, gesturing to those used as bags to hold the roundshot. At that moment one of the masthead lookouts hailed that a xebec which he thought he had earlier seen leaving from the direction of Porto Ercole was now catching up fast and seemed to be flying a flag or pendant from the upper end of the yard.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Exactly fifteen minutes later Ramage leapt from the stern sheets of the Calypso's red cutter to seize a rope trailing over the larboard quarter of the Furet and scramble up, while the bowman tried to hook on and the rest of the boarding party grabbed at other ropes and began climbing the sinking frigate's side.
Ramage was unarmed; knowing that he would probably have to climb a rope he had taken off his cutlass belt and then, as an afterthought, remembering their presence when he bent over slightly, had taken the two pistols from the band of his breeches and put them down on deck.
The rope, hanging from the mizentopsail yard, was thick enough for climbing but worn smooth with use. Finally he reached the bulwark and swung himself inboard to land on the quarterdeck, where two officers were waiting for him, two rigid figures among a swirling crowd of men who were shouting with excitement and fear and obviously not far from panic.
"Which of you is the captain?" he demanded in French.
An officer with a bloodstained left leg unbuckled his sword and offered it with a bow. "I am . . ." but in the chatter and yelling Ramage did not catch the name, hearing only the end of the sentence, ". . . and surrender the ship to your captain."
"I am the captain," Ramage said and asked abruptly as his boarding party came swarming over the bulwark: "You've scuttled the ship, eh?"
The officer looked startled. He was a grey-haired man of perhaps fifty years of age: his mouth was that of a man given to worrying. He wore trousers and a plain shirt, but he was freshly shaven, which was unusual, Ramage thought sourly. He seemed to be bleeding badly from the leg wound.
"No, not scuttled! It was you!" he said accusingly.
"Nonsense," Ramage said angrily. "You were sinking before I opened fire! I warn you, if you've scuttled her I shall leave you all on board."
"That damnable mortar shell that burst in our wake as we left Porto Ercole," the man protested bitterly. "It seemed not to do any harm at the time, but suddenly - you saw our pump starting - we began leaking. It was just as you suddenly increased speed - how you did it we could not understand - and we knew you'd eventually overtake us. I think the explosion must have strained our planking. Anyway, the butts of several planks began to spring and our speed through the water was just opening them up more and more, beating the pumps.
"We tried to stop the leaks but the more we jammed in hammocks to caulk them the more the planking opened. Finally we had to bear up, but slowing the ship did not slow the leaks: we were obviously doomed. You opened fire, we fired back . . ." He held his hands out, palms upwards. "The rest you can see."
Ramage saw Renwick scrambling over the rail and signalled to him to take charge of the two officers who, hatless, white-faced and frequently pushed aside by hurrying seamen, reminded Ramage of children lost in a country market among the bleating of sheep, the mooing of cows and the shouts of buyers and sellers.