Ramage and the Dido Read online

  ‘She’s foul all right,’ Southwick growled, ‘otherwise we’d never get to windward of her. I don’t know what’s wrong with our builders, but we can’t produce ships that go to windward like the French. Think of the Calypso. Her French builders knew a thing or two. The French can’t fight, but by God they can build weatherly ships.’

  Ramage put the telescope to his eye again. ‘The Heron is fighting it out with the Requin: they’re lying alongside each other, bow to stern. I hope the Sylphe doesn’t do enough repairs to hoist her flag again and escape us.’

  Southwick sniffed yet again. ‘I think they’ve got all their work cut out keeping her afloat. We fairly riddled her hull. And I doubt if she has many men left alive to man the pump as well as knot and splice rigging – she took a terrible pounding. If they’d had any sense they’d have hauled down their colours before we got alongside her.’

  Ramage nodded. ‘Yes, she could have fired a few guns pour l’honneur de pavillon and then hauled down her colours. No one expects a frigate to take on a ship of the line.’

  He looked across at Jackson and called: ‘Won’t she take a bit more? Can’t you luff in the puffs?’

  ‘The puffs don’t last long enough, sir. But we’re creeping up on her.’

  Southwick, meanwhile, was busy with his quadrant, measuring the angle subtended by the Junon’s main topgallant masthead. He made the last adjustment, balancing himself against the Dido’s slight pitching, read the figures off the vernier scale, and consulted his tables. ‘Four degrees twenty-one minutes,’ he said, running his index finger down the column of figures. He read off the number opposite. ‘She’s just 745 yards ahead of us,’ he said. ‘There’s no doubt, we’re gaining on her.’

  ‘Not fast enough,’ grumbled Ramage, lifting up his telescope once more. Although there was no doubting Southwick’s quadrant, the Junon did not seem any closer; she was ploughing her way to windward. She obviously intended to fight: she had her courses clewed up, like the Dido, so she was still under fighting canvas. If she was intent on bolting, Ramage thought, she would let fall her courses. Yet that was odd: she was bolting – she was abandoning the Requin, which was still fighting and which the Junon could rescue by swinging away to leeward and pouring a broadside or two into the Heron. Why? Why had she not let fall those courses? There must be a reason. Perhaps the captain had been killed and the second-in-command was still pulling himself together. Yet the obvious thing, if you were making a bolt for it, was to set every inch of canvas without wasting a moment.

  There must be a reason for it, but what was it? Ramage shrugged his shoulders: there was no point in making wild guesses – not that he could think of even a wild guess.

  ‘Five degrees six minutes,’ Southwick intoned, and once again consulted his tables. ‘Six hundred and thirty-nine yards, sir,’ he reported. ‘We seem to be overhauling her faster now. We must have a better slant o’wind. Give us another five knots o’breeze and we’ll be sheering up alongside her and boarding in the smoke!’

  Ramage still watched through his telescope, puzzled by the clewed up courses. Suddenly the outline of the Junon seemed to blur, then he saw the foremast lean, almost lazily, and topple back on to the mainmast before slewing round and falling over the side to leeward.

  ‘Look at that!’ bellowed Southwick. ‘By God, our raking broadside did do some damage after all!’

  And that explained why the courses had been clewed up: obviously the raking broadside had damaged the mast, cut the forestay or badly damaged the bowsprit, and the crew of the Junon had been so busy trying to make repairs that there was no question of setting the courses. Not that with the foremast in danger of going by the board, as it had just done, there was any question of setting the forecourse.

  Southwick was still busy with his quadrant: the Junon had slowed down appreciably, with one mast over the side and the sails and yards dragging in the water like a brake. She was still under way – Ramage could see she was still leaving a wake, and the rest of the sails were still drawing. He could imagine frantic men with axes slashing at the tangle of shrouds and halyards to cut the mast free. With the main and mizen still standing they could manoeuvre the ship, though it would call for all the seamanship that the captain possessed.

  ‘Six degrees five minutes!’ Southwick said delightedly, consulting his tables. ‘She’s only 533 yards now!’

  For a moment Ramage felt sorry for the French captain: he had lost his foremast because he had let himself be taken by surprise – he expected the Dido to sweep down his starboard side, and instead of that she had cut across his bow, raked him and come down his larboard side, where the guns were not ready. Now he was commanding a ship which he could barely manoeuvre and with a British seventy-four coming up astern, less than half a mile away. Admittedly a lucky French shot could send one of the Dido’s masts by the board, but the French would indeed need to be lucky, cutting a stay. It would take more than one roundshot to do much damage to the Dido’s mainmast, for instance, which was more than three feet in diameter.

  One thing was certain, Ramage decided, this action was not going to degenerate into a battle of broadsides, with the Dido lying alongside the Junon and pounding away: the Dido could still manoeuvre, even if the Junon was reduced to an almost inert mass in the water. The French would have to watch their mainmast now: with stays torn away and sheets and braces ripped out, the mast might well be tottering, waiting to follow the foremast.

  Ramage turned to Jackson. ‘Steer to pass fifty yards off along the starboard side.’

  Then to Aitken he said: ‘Pass the word to the guns that we’ll be engaging to larboard at fifty yards’ range. Fire as the guns bear.’

  Southwick was taking his last reading with his quadrant. ‘Seven degrees thirty-six minutes – ah, that’s more like it!’ He read from his tables, a note of triumph in his voice: ‘Four hundred and twenty-six yards, sir. We could stand off and tease her with the carronades!’

  Would the Junon haul down her colours and save what would otherwise be a senseless slaughter? Ramage was not sure. Losing a foremast in these circumstances was a good enough reason for surrendering. Good enough, but not an overwhelming reason. Ramage thought for a moment of a French court martial, trying the captain for the loss of his ship. A case could be made out for surrendering – and an equally good case could probably be made out for fighting on, relying on that lucky shot.

  He wished he did not keep thinking about the French captain’s plight, but the fact was he did not look forward to what he had to do: it had been bad enough pounding the Sylphe in an action which would bring him no credit – a 74-gun ship was expected to pound a frigate into submission. Admittedly it would be different with the Junon, because two equally powerful ships had started off on level terms, and the Dido had gained the advantage by using surprise. But he hated the idea that the French captain would fight on because of pride, and probably cause the death of fifty of his men and the wounding of double that number.

  Would a French captain be having these thoughts? He shook his head impatiently: no, he almost certainly would not. So it was his job to get fifty yards to windward of the Junon and pour in a full broadside to start the proceedings.

  This was the first time he had been able to compare the windward ability of the Dido against another ship, and he was quite impressed by her performance: she had pointed higher than the Junon, which at the time had been all that mattered. One learned about one’s ship at the oddest times.

  They were approaching the Junon fast now. The thunderclouds were clearing; blue patches of sky were hinting at a clearance. The wind was less gusty and perhaps a little stronger: there were hints of whitecaps on the water.

  And now the Dido was within a few minutes of firing her larboard broadside into the Junon, and it was important to remember that although the French ship had lost her foremast and some of the larboard guns were obscured by sails hanging over the side, her starboard broadside was unaffected: every one of those guns would
be loaded; at this very moment the French gunners would be waiting for the Dido to come into their sights.

  Ramage had one big advantage – he could manoeuvre the Dido. Use that advantage, he told himself; do not lie alongside the Junon and indulge in a slugging match. The way to fight this action was to keep on making darting attacks – raking the Frenchman across the bow and across the stern, keeping out of the way of her broadsides as much as possible while pouring a heavy fire into her unprotected ends. So after his first broadside the Dido would be raking her.

  He watched from the quarterdeck as the distance rapidly lessened: four hundred yards, three hundred, two hundred, and then the tight feeling of anticipation as the Junon seemed to come into fine focus: all the colours seemed intensified, from the sea to her copper sheathing (revealed as she rolled gently), from the scroll bearing her name (at this distance the red seemed gaudy) to the flax colour of her sails and the black of the muzzles of her guns poking out of her side.

  Ramage could see the Marines raising their muskets as Rennick and his lieutenants gave them orders. He imagined the second captains of guns cocking the locks and leaping back out of the way of the recoil, while the captains would be taking up the strain on the triggerlines, ready to give that tug that would fire the guns. And, of course, the French gunners would be going through the same drill.

  A hundred yards, fifty, a ship’s length…and then the deep cough and spurts of smoke and flame as the first of the Dido’s guns opened fire, punctuated by the sharper crash of the Junon’s opening broadside. Almost at once the smoke drifted aft and set them coughing, and as the broadsides continued Ramage heard the tearing calico sound of roundshot passing close. There was a crash and he saw one of the cutters disintegrate: a reminder that he had not paused earlier to hoist out the boats and lower them, to tow them astern out of harm’s way, and where they would not be smashed into showers of lethal splinters.

  He could feel the thuds as some of the French shot slammed into the Dido’s side, but so far no yards had been damaged. Were the French gunners not firing into the masts and spars as they usually did? Perhaps the Dido’s steady fire after raking her had shown the French how devastating was a broadside fired into the hull.

  The popping of the Marines’ muskets seemed laughable, too light to be lethal, but he reminded himself that every pop meant a musket ball, each one of which could kill a man. Now the 12-pounders on the quarterdeck were firing, and almost immediately Orsini’s carronades joined in. And by now the Junon’s quarterdeck was abreast that of the Dido and he could see a small group of French officers standing at the forward end, looking across at the Dido just as he was watching the Junon.

  He could see pockmarks, holes surrounded by rust, where the Dido’s roundshot had hit home, and smoke was streaming out of her gunports and there was the red winking as guns fired. The din was greater than he had ever experienced; twice as loud as anything he had heard in the Calypso. On top of the dreadful crash of the guns there was the rumbling of the trucks as they recoiled, the shouting of men giving orders, the screams of those cut down by shot or splinters, and the ominous thud of shot striking home.

  Then, as the Dido shot past the Junon’s bow, the noise stopped as neither ship’s guns would bear. Ramage felt as if he had been standing there with his eyes shut but realised everything had happened too quickly to be fully appreciated and absorbed. Now the gunners would be scurrying round reloading their guns, and he said to Aitken: ‘Bear away across his bow; we’ll rake him again.’

  Hurriedly sheets and braces were trimmed as the Dido turned to larboard to cross ahead of the Junon, out of reach of her guns but able to batter her with the larboard broadside. The Dido was crossing the Junon’s bow diagonally and as soon as the broadside was fired Ramage said: ‘Luff up, Mr Aitken; we’ll tack and give him our starboard broadside as we pass across his bow again.’

  The sails billowed and filled again with a bang as the Dido tacked. The two midshipmen were sent hurriedly below again to warn the lieutenants of divisions to be ready to fire the starboard broadside.

  Once again the Dido raked the Junon, each gun fired deliberately and the roundshot crashing home into the French ship’s unprotected bow.

  ‘Just look at that foremast,’ commented Southwick. ‘If they try to fire those forward guns on the larboard side they’ll set the sails on fire!’

  The canvas was hanging down over the muzzles of the forward-most guns like huge curtains, held out at strange angles by smashed yards. There was no sign of men cutting it clear: Ramage guessed that the Frenchmen were too busy at the guns to spare anyone to clear away wreckage.

  Well, he thought grimly, they will have plenty of opportunity now because, unless I make a bad mistake, those guns will not be firing for many minutes.

  He was beginning to feel more confident handling the Dido now: probably the first encounter with the Sylphe and now attacking a crippled enemy was showing him that a seventy-four was simply an overgrown frigate; the tactics remained the same. The noise was worse, the casualties would be higher, and the penalties for mistakes would be higher also: otherwise handling the Dido was like fighting the Calypso. With the increase in size of ship, of course, went an increase in the size of the enemy. A frigate was only expected to tackle a frigate or smaller.

  As the Dido bore away to start her third diagonal run across the Junon’s bow the French ship was broad on the larboard bow, still making headway. Although her foremast had gone by the board, almost miraculously the bowsprit and jib-boom were still standing, thrusting out like fishing rods. The Dido, now speeding down with the wind on the quarter, was hardly rolling: the gunners could not hope for a steadier gun platform.

  Ramage decided he would give the helm orders: he wanted to pass only a matter of a few yards ahead of the Junon, and since she was still making headway it needed fine judgement to avoid a collision. But a raking broadside at that range should do enormous damage to the Frenchman, the roundshot smashing through the beakhead bulkheads at the bow to travel the length of the ship, overturning guns, cutting down men and sending up a lethal shower of splinters.

  Aitken, speaking trumpet to his lips, bellowed orders which sent seamen rushing to the sheets, hauling on them to trim the sails more precisely. Ramage could hear the creaking of the yards above the whine of the wind and the hissing of the sea.

  Judging the forward motion of the Junon, he gave a brief order to Jackson, and the Dido turned slightly to starboard. The range was closing fast now and Ramage found he was still underestimating the Junon’s forward speed. He gave Jackson a second order, and the Dido turned a fraction more to starboard.

  The flintlocks on the guns along the larboard side would be cocked; the gun captains would be holding the lanyards taut, watching through the gunports for the Junon to come in sight. Ramage looked again at the Junon: yes, he had judged her speed just right: the Dido would, in a few moments, pass across her bow.

  He heard Orsini shouting orders up on the poop and noticed that both Southwick and Aitken were now watching the approaching Junon with all the fascination of a rabbit trapped by a stoat.

  Then, in a bewildering swift blur, in which colour seemed to vanish and give way to a grey smear, the Junon was passing. Guns thundered out, the noise advancing down the Dido’s side like a procession. The smoke billowed out of the ports and then drifted aft as the ship sailed through it. They were so close to the Junon that Ramage could see clouds of dust erupting where the roundshot smashed through the bulkhead. But, apart from the dust, the Junon seemed to be little damaged. However, Ramage knew what that dust indicated: it was a strange thing how roundshot smashing their way through woodwork sent up the dust: a lethal fog behind which was often hidden dreadful damage.

  And then the Dido was clear, the last crash of guns being from Orsini’s carronades on the poop, no doubt blasting the Frenchman’s quarterdeck where the targets ranged from the binnacle to the wheel.

  As the Dido sailed away at an angle from the Junon t
he French ship’s larboard side erupted smoke and red flashes as they poured a broadside into the Dido’s larboard quarter. Ramage could picture the Dido’s gunners hurriedly swabbing out the barrels of their guns and ramming home wads, cartridges and roundshot before running out the guns ready for the next broadside.

  The Junon’s broadside did no damage that Ramage could see: but there was no telling, from the quarterdeck, what had happened in the vitals of the ship. The carpenter at that moment came up on to the quarterdeck to report to Ramage that he had just sounded the well and there was nothing to report. In answer to Ramage’s question he said there were no shotholes yet ‘twixt wind and water that needed any shot plugs.

  Were the Frenchmen firing high, to dismantle the rigging? He had not heard many shots passing overhead and decided they must be still firing into the hull. Well, it might mean more casualties but he did not want masts to come tumbling down. There was one thing about it – the Junon could not fire a full broadside on the larboard side because of the sails still draped over the forward guns.

  He told the first lieutenant: ‘We’ll haul our wind as soon as we’re in position to cross his stern and rake him again. Warn the lieutenants that we’ll be firing to larboard again.’

  Ramage realised that the Dido was sailing in a huge figure of eight round the Junon and because of the direction she was going the larboard guns were doing most of the work. Not that it mattered to the gunners: there were only enough men on board to work the guns on one side at a time; no ship in the King’s service ever had a large enough complement to fight both sides at the same time, so the gunners had to dash from one side to the other as required.

  As the Dido, now out on the Junon’s larboard quarter, bore up and turned to larboard to begin her run across the French ship’s stern, Southwick said diffidently: ‘The smoke coming from those forward ports – it seems to be coming from under the sails. Surely they didn’t fire those guns?’