Ramage At Trafalgar Read online

  “If you paid more regard to sail trimming, we’d get along a lot faster,” Southwick said wrathfully. He pointed upwards. “Just look at those topsails…if the captain comes on deck…”

  Hill stepped out quickly to look up first at the foretopsail and then at the maintopsail, ducking to see them properly. He came back to Southwick, puzzled. “What’s wrong with the foretops’l?” he demanded. “It’s drawing well. The maintops’l, too.”

  “Oh, are they?” Southwick said innocently. “I didn’t say they weren’t.”

  Hill grinned, acknowledging that Southwick was entitled to mild revenge. “Tell me,” he said, “what’s it going to be like as part of the fleet? I’ve never served with a large fleet.”

  “Very hard on lieutenants,” Southwick said. “Signals, reports, station-keeping, sail-trimming…I’ve known lieutenants go mad with the strain and leap over the side, screaming.”

  Hill, realizing that Southwick could not miss such an opportunity to get his own back, and pretending to ignore it, said: “You’ve had a lot of fleet experience?”

  “Yes, and I’ll warn you right now, His Lordship’s problem off Cadiz is going to be keeping the fleet supplied with provisions and water. He won’t have enough transports, so we’ll probably be used to go through the Gut to Tetuan and pick up bullocks… Very smelly, bullocks are.”

  “You’re joking!” Hill exclaimed, but he sounded nervous.

  “Am I? Look at it from the admiral’s point of view. He’s short of transports and he needs several hundred bullocks a week to feed the fleet, so they don’t eat up their provisions, which they’ll need in the winter if it’s going to be a long blockade. He is trying to lure the Combined Fleet out of Cadiz to fight. Do you think he’s going to send away ships of the line to collect bullocks?”

  “Well, no, but a frigate can’t carry many live bullocks.”

  “Who said anything about live ones? Kill ’em and salt ’em down, my lad. So along with the stink there’s blood and salt everywhere. And flies: the sky’ll be black with flies. Arab flies,” he added darkly.

  “I don’t believe you,” Hill said in a voice which was intended to be a flat denial but sounded more like a hopeful plea. “What about water – the fleet’ll be just as short of water as meal.”

  “That’s no problem, with Gibraltar down there. If it’s not getting bullocks, it’s water. Casks everywhere. Ship laden down, the very devil to handle because there’s no way to trim her properly, and back and forth to Gibraltar. It’ll be a flip of a coin whether we get water or bullocks. And God help us if we get a Levanter…”

  “Ah, but who’s keeping an eye on the enemy? That’s where the admiral needs his frigates: his eyes, Southwick, his distant eyes, watching and instantly ready to signal over the horizon that the enemy is out. Using the new telegraphic code!”

  “Have you been hoarding your tot?” Southwick inquired. “You sound to me like a hopeful drunk.”

  “But His Lordship does need frigates!”

  “Oh yes,” Southwick agreed. “We know that Captain Blackwood is already at Cadiz, commanding a small squadron of frigates: he told Mr Ramage that.”

  “There you are!” Hill said triumphantly.

  “Ah,” Southwick took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair and jammed the hat back on his head. “Ah yes, and do you think that Captain Blackwood, having his own little squadron of frigates who now know the job inside out – apart from the captains being friends of his – is going to send his frigates off, to salt down bullocks or hoist casks of water on board?”

  Hill shrugged his shoulders. He admitted to himself that there seemed to be a lot of common sense in what Southwick was saying, and it did not bode well for lieutenants. He just had time to run his eye over all the sails as he saw the captain come up the companionway.

  Hill waited for the captain to glance round the horizon before standing close by at the quarterdeck rail. He took a deep breath and ventured: “Southwick was just telling me about the bullocks, sir.”

  Ramage’s eyebrows rose. “Was he, by Jove. And what are his views on bullocks?”

  “Very smelly, he says, and salting them down is miserable work. So many flies.”

  “I imagine it is,” Ramage said sympathetically. “Why, are you thinking of going into business as a supplier of salt tack to the Navy?”

  “Oh no, sir. Southwick and I were just talking about what sort of work the Calypso will be doing when she joins the fleet.”

  Ramage glanced at Southwick and then said: “Ah, salt tack and fresh water, eh?”

  “Yes, sir. Southwick explained the problem of supplying a blockading fleet, and said His Lordship would rely on bullocks from Tetuan and fresh water from Gibraltar.”

  Ramage looked at Southwick again and then said to Hill: “And you expect the Calypso will have to act as a transport – the fleet being very short of transports.”

  “Yes, that’s what Southwick reckons.”

  “Did Mr Southwick give any idea how many bullocks, live or salted, the Calypso could carry, compared with a transport?”

  “Well, no sir; he did make the point that His Lordship would not spare the line-of-battle ships to go down to water themselves.”

  Ramage gave a dry laugh. “Come, Mr Hill, in what sort of weather could the Calypso transfer casks of fresh water and salt beef (let alone live bullocks) to a ship of the line?”

  “Well, it’d need to be pretty calm,” Hill admitted.

  “So His Lordship is going to chance the supplying of his fleet on the vagaries of the weather?”

  Hill looked doubtfully at Southwick. “How else would he supply them, sir?”

  Ramage shrugged his shoulders “We’re only guessing that he’s short of transports, but he’s certainly desperately short of frigates. I can assure you, Hill, that there’ll be frigates close up to Cadiz even if there are only half a dozen ships of the line waiting in ambush over the horizon. The enemy can see the frigates but they can only guess how many ships of the line are waiting out of sight – but within signalling range of the frigates. With respect to our reverend master, Mr Southwick, I suspect Lord Nelson will detach ships of the line, a few at a time, to make the dash to Gibraltar and Tetuan. He always wants his men to have as much fresh food as possible: they can use the fresh and keep the salt beef and pork in the casks.”

  Hill turned accusingly to Southwick, who grinned and said: “That’ll teach you to question my navigation, laddy!”

  On the tenth day out from Spithead, Southwick reckoned that they had passed the great rocky promontory of Cape St Vincent (so steep and riddled with caves that the booming of breaking seas could be heard for miles). The Calypso steered east-south-east with a good south-westerly breeze and good visibility. Cadiz was not far off.

  “We have to keep a sharp lookout for three mountain ranges,” he said. “Well, Orsini?”

  The young midshipman looked blank and an irritated Ramage, standing within earshot, snapped: “I gave you a lesson about this coast the last time we were passing, on our way to the Mediterranean.”

  “I can remember about the Duke of Medina Sidonia, sir, who commanded the Spanish Armada and owned land nearby, but…”

  “Tell him, Southwick…”

  “You know the coast runs north and south, eh?” Southwick asked sarcastically.

  A chastened Orsini nodded.

  “Well, about forty-five miles north along the coast from Cadiz is a range of mountains called the Sierra de Ronda, with the Cabezo del Moro more than five thousand feet high. We should sight them first on this course, and the Cabezo is rounded.

  “Then comes Pico de Aljibe, three and a half thousand feet high and just over thirty miles along the coast from Cadiz. It doesn’t have a sign on it but its sides slope up gently.

  “The third one, twenty miles along the coast from Cadiz, is the one that belonged to your friend the late Duke of Medina Sidonia. You remember of course that it’s shaped like a sugar loaf, has a tower near the
top, and the village of Medina Sidonia looks like a white patch on the west side…”

  “Yes,” Orsini exclaimed triumphantly, “all the houses in the village are painted white. And I can remember Cadiz and Rota, too, and the river running into the Bay of Cadiz is the San Pedro.”

  “Splendid,” Southwick said and, turning to Ramage, commented: “You see, sir, midshipmen are better than performing bears: they can talk.”

  Ramage nodded and told Aitken: “Hail the lookouts, tell them what to look for, and give them bearings. Incidentally,” he added, “we’ll probably find the fleet some distance from Cadiz: the admiral won’t want to frighten the enemy into staying in port…”

  “Aye, and young Orsini, you’ll know the shoreline of Cadiz well enough soon,” Southwick said. “His Lordship will have a frigate or two close up to Rota and Cadiz – a mile or two off – and a line of repeating frigates to within sight of the fleet. Tack, tack, wear, wear…and where do you go if there’s a westerly gale, eh? Not up on the beach, I trust.”

  Orsini knew enough not to answer, and he watched as Aitken picked up the speaking trumpet and hailed the foremast and mainmast lookouts.

  It has been a long chase, Ramage thought, and we did not catch up with the Victory. Well, Lord Nelson was in a hurry but he could not have made Captain Hardy drive the big three-decker any harder than the Calypso had been sailed. But a bigger ship with a much longer waterline length would always be faster if there was any weight in the wind and it had been just the right wind for the Victory…

  Half an hour later the foremast lookout hailed that he could just see clouds that seemed to come off the lee of a mountain; fifteen minutes later he confirmed one mountain and reported more cloud to the south of it.

  Ramage looked at Orsini. “You know what to look for now, so take a bring-’em-near and aloft with you!”

  Orsini seized a telescope and made for the ratlines of the mainmast shrouds, climbing at the run.

  “I wasn’t fair to him,” Southwick commented. “He’s a good lad. And just look at him, he’s going up like a topman!”

  “So he should,” Ramage said drily. “When I was a midshipman his age, my captain expected midshipmen to go aloft faster than topmen.”

  The master chuckled. “Yes, but topmen don’t have to remember places with these outlandish foreign names.”

  “They’re not foreign to Orsini: remember, he speaks fluent Spanish. Cabezo del Moro means ‘The Moor’s Head’ to him – which I’m sure it doesn’t to you: and although he doesn’t know it, I expect he’s distantly related to the Medina Sidonia family anyway – these Spanish and Italian families were always marrying each other.”

  “Certainly these place names’d be easier to remember if I knew what they meant,” Southwick admitted. He took off his hat and scratched his head. “I’m surprised we haven’t come across other frigates or 74s joining the fleet.”

  “I think most of ’em are already out here,” Ramage said. “Those two 74s in Chatham won’t be ready for sea for another couple of months. We’re probably the last to join His Lordship – except perhaps for the two frigates we saw off the Isle of Wight.”

  By now Orsini, a tiny figure perched at the masthead, was shouting down to the quarterdeck with his hail being repeated by the lookout. Southwick held the mouthpiece of the speaking trumpet to his ear.

  He nodded to himself, gave a satisfied smile and then, turning the trumpet so he could talk into the mouthpiece, shouted back: “Very well, keep a sharp lookout for Medina Sidonia!”

  The master turned to Ramage. “He’s certain about ‘The Moor’ and Aljibe, and thinks he’s sighted a sail in line with where Cadiz should be.”

  He thought a moment and then asked Ramage: “What’s ‘Aljibe’ mean, then?”

  “‘Aljibe’ is a cistern or water catchment, and ‘Pico’ means ‘Peak’.”

  “Your Spanish must be good sir; I keep forgetting that. I remember that time you were in Cartagena, pretending to be a Spaniard.”

  “Yes, I can pass myself off as a Castilian, but some of the local accents are hard to understand. A fast-talking Galician from the north, or an excited yokel from Murcia – the province of Cartagena – can leave me baffled.”

  The two men talked for half an hour, reminiscing over past actions ranging from Italy to southern France and on to Spain before crossing the Atlantic to the West Indies and the coasts of the Spanish Main.

  “India,” Southwick said, “now there’s a country I’ve never been to. Can’t say I’ve any great wish in that direction,” he admitted.

  “My wife loved it – her father was Governor of Bengal, as you know. She says the variety is fantastic: plains wider than you could ever imagine; great mountains: the cool hill stations to which everyone retreats in the hot season… Imagine a country so large you could drop in England and lose it!”

  At that moment Orsini hailed again. Southwick listened with the makeshift ear trumpet and reported to Ramage: “He says it’s definitely Medina Sidonia fine on the starboard bow and he can make out land below it. We must be about fifteen miles off.”

  “Near enough to Cadiz to sight some of the fleet soon. Tell him to watch for any sail. What happened to that ship he sighted?”

  “He can’t see her any longer: reckons she must have been steering south.”

  “Very well, tell him to instruct the lookout and then come down. There are a score of ships of the line off Cadiz: just our luck not to sight one. Still, our frigates will be off Cadiz…”

  As the Calypso bore up for the fleet, pendant numbers flying, Ramage had the feeling he was walking into a forest. More than twenty ships of the line meant more than sixty great masts, and in the middle of them was the Victory. Then, with almost startling suddenness, he was tacking through the fleet – under the Revenge’s stern, across the Colossus’ bow, watch out for the Ajax because she’s fore-reaching on you… What the devil is the Orion doing, is no one keeping a lookout?… Why the devil does the Bellerophon have to choose this minute to tack – no wonder she’s always known as the “Billy Ruffian” – and now the blasted Polyphemus (“Polly Infamous” to the sailors) is heaving-to just as I was intending to go under her transom…now the damned Mars looks as though she is determined on a collision… Oh, the devil take it, who but a madman would prefer serving with a fleet to being independent?

  “Are you watching for flagship signals?” Ramage snapped at Orsini, and a moment later bellowed to Kenton to stand by to rig the staytackle ready to hoist out a boat.

  “Is the gunner standing by ready with the salute?” Ramage asked.

  This was not the time to hazard a guess, Southwick knew; ships were flashing by like the pictures on those new magic lanterns, and Aitken’s voice was already hoarse from shouting helm and sail orders.

  Jackson, acting quartermaster and with four men at the wheel so there should be no delay, had long since given up watching the ships as the Calypso weaved among them. He thought momentarily of the jinking snipe they had seen coming down the Medway, and then returned to watching the luffs of sails, making sure that the Calypso kept moving fast: all would be lost, he knew only too well, if she was caught in stays and dropped on board one of the 74s.

  Ramage was thinking the same thing: for a moment he imagined a snatch of gossip at the Green Room in Plymouth, with one post-captain asking another: “Hear how that fellow Ramage joined Lord Nelson off Cadiz? Why, drifted into the Victory and boarded her in the smoke, haw, haw!”

  And with nine 74s passed, one or two by the thickness of a coat of paint (or so it appeared from the Calypso: the ships were apparently unworried), the Victory still seemed to be as far away through the mass of hulls and masts.

  “Bear up,” he snapped at Aitken: “We can just scrape across the bow of the Belleisle without carrying away her jib-boom.”

  “If you say so, sir,” Aitken said doubtfully, bellowing into his speaking trumpet and snapping a helm order to Jackson.

  Topsail sheets and ya
rds braced sharp up, men hauled at the headsail sheets to flatten the curve of jibs and staysails; the Calypso seemed to stagger for a few moments and then pointed even higher into the wind: just enough, Aitken realized, to get clear: but beyond the jib-boom loomed yet another 74, black-hulled with white strakes – the Conqueror? Aitken was guessing, but there seemed no way the Calypso could turn to larboard or starboard, luff up or bear away to avoid ramming her amidships.

  Aitken glanced at the captain. He was startled to see that Ramage seemed to be enjoying himself: his teeth were bared in a wide grin; his hands were clasped behind his back. For a moment Aitken imagined a confident gambler watching the dice roll the way he wanted.

  “Back the maintopsail, Mr Aitken!”

  And stop the ship? Aitken shouted the orders which brought the men sweating and cursing at the braces, hauling the topsail yard round, and then the sheets were trimmed. The Calypso suddenly stopped, the pitching and rolling ceased; instead she just heeled slightly under the press of the backed sail.

  And an unbelieving Aitken watched the Conqueror draw ahead: instead of the Calypso’s jib-boom lancing the 74s foremast shrouds, Aitken saw the Conqueror slide to larboard until her mainshrouds were ahead, then her mizen and finally her transom slid across the frigate’s bow leaving – Aitken almost whooped with relief and joy – an empty space, then one three-decker beyond her, the centre of a spacious area, the Victory, her three yellow strakes glistening, with another three-decker, the Dreadnought, in her wake.

  Aitken glanced again at Ramage and saw the satisfied grin on his face – the captain had calculated that manoeuvre down to the last few feet – and the first lieutenant was ready with the speaking trumpet when Ramage said: “Very well, let it draw!”

  It took only moments to brace the yard and trim the sheets so that the maintopsail filled with wind and the Calypso began hissing through the water again with an easy pitch and roll like, Aitken thought, a young man strolling carefree through the park on a spring morning.