"I want five hundred shot brought up on deck from the shot locker," he told Southwick abruptly. "See to it immediately."
The master promptly passed the order to the bosun's mates, and at once dozens of men left the guns and streamed below.
It might work, Ramage thought. He could, of course, start twenty or thirty tons of water from the casks and pump it over the side, so that the ship, lightened by that much weight, might be able to gain a few yards. If he still lost the race, however, he would run out of water weeks before the period his orders lasted, and he would have to go back to Gibraltar with his tail between his legs, defeated by thirst, not the enemy. He could equally well hoist a few guns over the side - each of the 12-pounders weighed a ton - but for every ton he gained he was weakened by a gun, and it still might not do the trick if the Frenchman copied him. There were dozens of other ways of lightening a ship; the trouble was that every one of them also weakened her fighting ability.
Now the men were coming up from below, each clutching four or five 12-pounder roundshot in their arms.
"It might work," Southwick admitted. "It did for the bomb ketches on the way down to Argentario. But - forgive me asking, sir," he added warily, "what makes you think we're not properly trimmed now?"
The question was a fair one because the ship's trim was the master's responsibility and as provisions and water were consumed he had to make sure that the casks, sacks and barrels were taken from parts of the ship that ensured she remained floating level, to the marks set down by her designer.
"We may well be properly trimmed," Ramage said, "but from the day we captured the ship we've never had anything official to go on, only the references in the French logs noting her draught forward and aft whenever the French master could be bothered to have a look and note it down."
"But she always seems to sail well enough," Southwick protested, feeling that his professional skill was being criticized.
"Yes, she always seems to sail well enough against another British frigate of roughly the same size, but this is the first time we've sailed her against an identical French frigate."
"We don't seem to be doing too badly either," Southwick grumbled. "She hasn't gained a yard on us . . ."
"And we haven't gained a yard on her, either," Ramage said grimly.
"No, sir, but we've spent a season in the Tropics; we've a lot more barnacles than she has, I'm sure."
"I'm not," Ramage said shortly. "The French dockyards are overworked and have next to no materials."
"But what are you going to do now, sir?" Southwick asked anxiously, gesturing at the crowd of seamen now gathering round the mainmast with their arms full of roundshot.
Ramage pointed to a telescope. "Look at the Furet. She's griping. They're having to use the rudder every few moments to keep her on course. You can see the white feathers of water it pulls up, like a hen scratching in the dust."
"But so are we, sir," Southwick said defensively. "A ship always yaws when running like this, and the stunsails are out to starboard. 'Taint as though we're running dead before the wind so we have stunsails set both sides."
"Go on, look," Ramage said firmly. "She's not yawing, she's griping. She's down by the bow. Every time her rudder goes over it stirs up the water like an egg whisk."
He waited until Southwick had the telescope to his eye, and then added: "Now you can see . . . Aft she's floating a foot or more too high; the blade of the rudder isn't deep enough. Instead of turning the ship, it's slowing her up, like a paddle held out sideways. Not much, but it must add up to half a knot. And we're doing the same - I guessed as much and that's why I had a look."
Southwick, still staring through the telescope, muttered in near-disbelief: "There . . . there . . . there . . . and there . . . and there . . ."
At the same time Ramage watched the men at the Calypso's wheel. They turned the wheel a few spokes and let it run back as though they were working in unison with the men at the Furet's wheel.
"We're just the same," Ramage said as Southwick turned away and put down the telescope. "You never get the best out of a ship unless you have a trial of sailing against a sister ship."
"I know," Southwick said miserably, "but I'd have sworn this ship couldn't be sailed any faster than we've sailed her up to now. Thousands of miles . . ."
By now there were a hundred men gathered round the mainmast, each cradling roundshot. A hundred men each weighing an average of, say, eleven stone and holding sixty pounds of shot . . . Ramage struggled with the mathematics. That meant each man totalled 214 pounds, and a hundred of them totalled 21,400 pounds, which divided by 2,240 gave the answer in tons. Nine tons, in fact.
"Distance!" he said curtly to Southwick who, immediately grasping what Ramage had in mind, hurriedly snatched up the quadrant and then noted the angle and the time on the slate.
Ramage picked up the speaking trumpet, which had been left beside the binnacle. "You men holding shot - move over to the lee side."
He waited until the group was close against the bulwarks on the larboard side.
"When I give the word, I want you to walk aft in pairs, up the quarterdeck ladder here on the lee side and go as far aft as possible. You can sit against the taffrail with your shot. Don't drop 'em; I don't want them rolling around the quarterdeck like a children's marble alley. Right, start coming aft!"
He called across to the men at the wheel and the quartermaster, who had overheard the conversation with Southwick and understood the purpose of the experiment: "Once all these men are aft, you might find the ship handles slightly differently. You, quartermaster, watch for it; and you men at the wheel, I want you to feel it through the spokes - or not, as the case may be."
Two by two the barefooted seamen came tramping up the wide treads of the ladder, all of them grinning broadly, and most of them beginning to perspire with the weight of the shot.
They passed Ramage, passed the carronades, and as the first pair reached the taffrail subsided on to the deck with groans. The rest of the men followed and within two or three minutes they had occupied one side of the deck and taken up most of the room round the two aftermost carronades.
Ramage waited a couple of minutes and then walked over to the men at the wheel. "Do you feel any difference?"
Both men nodded their heads eagerly. "Yes, sir, she's a lot lighter to the touch. She always seemed to be wanting to gripe before but now - well, she's almost sailing 'erself."
"S'fact, sir," the quartermaster said. "She ain't yawing now, either." He looked at the wheel and whispered to the two men. "Yes sir, she takes just a quarter of a turn on account of the stunsails up to weather, and then she's as good as steering 'erself."
In a minute or two, Ramage guessed, Southwick would report that the Calypso was beginning to catch up on the Furet ... In the meantime he had most of the guns' crews squatting up here holding roundshot which, the moment they let go of them, would roll back and forth, cracking ankles and spoiling the whole trim once again.
He snatched up the speaking trumpet and bellowed to the men left in the waist of the ship. "Quickly, you men: each grab a hammock and get up here!" He stood there impatiently and suddenly blared: "Don't worry about the blasted hammock cloth - we're expecting an action, not an admiral's inspection."
It was not fair, and anyway the men were quite right because the long hammock cloth - a strip of canvas covering intended to keep the lashed-up hammocks dry - would get in the way of the guns, but the guns' crews could get that clear when they were back at their posts.