"Four ships!" Jackson shouted.
Ramage ducked down below the taffrail, motioning the American down beside him, where they were slightly sheltered from the howling wind.
"Are you sure?"
Jackson wiped his eyes with his knuckles; he too was tired, his face pinched with weariness and cold. Cold, in the Tropics...
"Certain, sir. One fine on the larboard bow, one on the starboard beam - I think it's the Greyhound - and, two on the starboard quarter. The one on the larboard bow is close - the Topaz, sir, bare poles, and seemingly all right. Rest are maybe a mile off. Reckon there are several more ships around, but a mile's as far as I can see with this light and the rain and the spray."
So Yorke was all right, and Maxine...
"No sign of the Lion?"
It was an unnecessary question, since the American would have reported if he'd seen her, but Jackson shook his head. He had been with Ramage too long, and knew too much about the responsibility that rested on the young lieutenant's shoulders, to be impatient.
Looking at Ramage's haggard face in the half light, the American was thankful, in a curious way, for his own limitations. Leaving aside his country of birth, which legally prevented it ever happening, he knew he did not have the capacity for command. It took a type of man that he understood but was not. The man who, presented with a terrible decision to make and limited time, went off to a quiet corner - and came back inside the required time with the decision made, much as another man might go below and change his shirt. No doubts, no asking other people's opinions, no delays, no second thoughts ... and of all the leaders he'd met, Mr Ramage was the coolest of them all. Jackson knew he sometimes had second thoughts, not about the rightness of a decision, but more often because men - his own men - might get killed or wounded as a result of it. A youth who was a father to sixty or more men, all but a couple of whom were a good deal older than him.
That was where Mr Southwick was so good, Jackson realized: the old Master understood very well this humane aspect of Mr Ramage's personality, and the American had noticed he was usually around at the right moment - and with the right remark - whenever the situation arose. Ironical, Jackson thought to himself, that a young captain needed an older man to help him be ruthless when necessary. In Jackson's previous experience of young officers, the older men were usually trying to persuade them to be less ruthless; to be more careful of their men's lives.
Telling Mr Ramage it was the Topaz over on the larboard bow certainly cheered him up: Jackson was pleased with the way he'd done it - and pleased he was the one to pass the word. He still wasn't sure what it was all about, but the Captain obviously thought a lot of the ship - the people in her, anyway. Must have been a bad half an hour for him when the blasted Peacock...
When Ramage lurched over to the binnacle to discuss Jackson's report with Southwick, the American worked his way a few feet forward to the spot between the mainmast and the coaming round the wardroom companionway. There was precious little shelter anywhere on deck in this weather, he thought gloomily. Just that somehow the thickness of the mainmast, and the yard overhead, gave the impression of sheltering under a tree.
"Move over," Jackson shouted at the crouching figure of Stafford.
"Oh, it's you. Wotcher see up there?"
"The Topaz on the larboard bow, the Greyhound frigate on starboard beam and a couple of mules astern."
"The flagship?" Rossi asked. "Is sunk?"
"Not in sight, anyway."
"We can 'ope," Stafford said. "Well - 'ere, wotch it!"
He leapt up and a moment later a mass of water a foot deep swept forward along the deck.
Jackson and Rossi scrambled up, cursing, and Stafford, clinging to the mast, roared with laughter as water poured out of the bottoms of their trousers.
Jackson watched a seaman scrambling aft, working his way hand over hand along the lifeline.
"That's Luckhurst, one of the lookouts!"
With that he followed the man the last few feet to where Ramage stood with Southwick.
"Lookout, larboard bow, sir - reckon that merchantman over the larboard bow's in trouble, sir."
Jackson saw Ramage stiffen; at once, he noticed, the hand went instinctively to rub the scar over the brow, forgetting the sou'wester.
"What trouble, man?"
"Only glimpsed her, sir, just as we was on a crest: looks as though her main yard's come adrift."
Ramage nodded and signalled to Jackson, pointing aloft. - "Up, quick look at the Topaz and down again to report!"
It seemed to Ramage he had hardly had time to think of the problem, let alone work out the answer, before Jackson was standing in front of him again.
"Her fore yard's already down, sir, and the main yard's swinging on the jears: lifts and braces gone. Bowsprit end also gone. Men working everywhere."
"Does she look under control?"
"Four men at the wheel. I think she's under control - as much as anyone."
"Very well," Ramage said.
"Shall I go back aloft, sir?"
Ramage paused, looking up the mast. The wind was so strong it was a miracle Jackson could climb up. It was unbelievable he was volunteering again. "Yes, take a couple of men with you as messengers."
Jackson worked his way to the foot of the mainmast, stirred Stafford and Rossi with his foot and jerked his thumb upwards.
Cursing, the two men followed him, and a couple of minutes later the trio were trying to make themselves comfortable in the maintop with the mast gyrating wildly as the ship pitched and rolled.
As soon as he'd wriggled himself into position, Stafford looked round at the horizon, and, overwhelmed at what he saw, could only mutter, "Cor!"
By now it was quite light but the horizon was hidden by the rain and spray which reduced visibility to a few hundred yards. The sea was like nothing Stafford had ever seen before. It had no regular shape, nor did it seem to have regular substance: instead it twisted and curled like molten marble boiling in a huge cauldron.
Each man had to hold on with both hands and the wind was now so strong that it was impossible to breathe facing into it: they had to turn their faces to leeward, breathe and then look again. The noise in their ears was a combination of a high-pitched scream and a deep roar; a noise they'd never heard before and would never forget.
Their eyes soon became raw because the spray was so fine at this height that their eyelids did not close instinctively and there was no way of sheltering. Forced by the pressure of the wind to breathe through their mouths, their saliva began to taste salty.
Jackson carefully passed the telescope to Stafford and pointed to the Topaz, gesturing to Rossi to help hold onto the Cockney so he could have both hands free for the telescope.
As soon as Stafford finished his examination, Jackson looked slowly round the whole horizon, making sure Stafford also saw everything he'd spotted, particularly another mule astern - making three - and two more on the larboard quarter. Then he signalled Stafford to go down and report to the Captain.
Six mules, including the Topaz, and the Greyhound. Jackson thought of the rest as he looked round again. Forty-four mules, a line-of-battle ship, two frigates and a lugger out of sight. He did not know much about navigation, but they couldn't have dispersed much in the few hours that had passed since the whole convoy was lying becalmed ... Were these seven ships, and the Triton, the only ones to survive this bloody awful night?
By the time Stafford reached the deck his brain was numb from the noise and buffeting of the wind. He clutched one of the shrouds and looked around him, saw the Captain clinging to the binnacle, and gradually realized that Mr Ramage was waving to him; making sweeping movements with his arm.