"It will recommend to the Secretary of State that Lieutenant Lord Ramage be given 'signal recognition of his valour and alertness' - I am quoting the exact phrase in the letter - and asking Lord Grenville that the King should be informed. Our own King, I mean, of course."
Goddard glanced sourly at Ramage. "I am very flattered that this should happen to one of my young officers," he said heavily. "Naturally such recognition reflects on all the King's ships. May I be the first to congratulate you, Ramage? We are all very proud."
As Ramage clattered down the companionway to his cabin on board the Triton, acknowledged the Marine sentry's salute and ducked his head to avoid the low deck beams, he felt almost hysterically cheerful. He flung his hat on to the swinging cot and unbuckled his sword. Southwick followed him into the cabin and was waved to a chair as Ramage loosened his stock, sat at the desk and turned to the Master.
"Unbelievable, quite unbelievable."
Southwick grinned. "I thought as much, sir; I hadn't expected to see you quite as cheerful."
Ramage gave him an edited account of what had happened in the Admiral's cabin.
"Saw the Topaz go down to the flagship," Southwick said. "Must admit I thought the same as you: that Mr Yorke might try to lodge a complaint."
"Apart from us, the only one that comes out fairly well is the Raisonnable. The Admiral gave us the details of how she captured the second ship. I think what happened was that months ago the French heard the Lion would be carrying some very important passengers - people the Directory would like to get their hands on and silence forever. Unexpectedly, the passengers transferred to the Topaz - much more vulnerable than the Lion - before the convoy left Cork, and the French managed to send the Peacock to catch up with the convoy in Barbados, and join it.
"She had a couple of hundred extra men on board. Being in ballast she could carry plenty of water and provisions and they reckoned two hundred men would be enough to board the Topaz in the darkness, murder the passengers and escape again.
"In Barbados they found that joining the convoy was easy. The Peacock's skipper is a renegade Englishman, by the way, and he called on the Admiral with false papers. Later he decided to improve on his orders and capture the Topaz as well, taking the prisoners into Guadeloupe alive as hostages. He'd have been richer by a good prize and seems to be a greedy man. He decided to change his tactics with the new plan. The night before last he ranged up alongside the next ahead in the convoy and put a hundred men aboard her - that's when we saw the two ships alongside each other. There weren't six men on deck so he captured her without a shout, let alone a shot.
"Now he had half his men in this ship - the Harold and Marjorie - and half in the Peacock, ready to take the Topaz. He reckoned he'd come up the outside of the column with the Harold and Marjorie on the inside, so he could board the Topaz from both sides."
"How the devil did he expect to get away with it?"
"Come, come!" Ramage chided. "He nearly did, and if you'd been him you'd have expected to get away with it too. He probably decided he had to do it last night or tonight because Guadeloupe is so near. And I suspect he was worrying about this swell. So out of the column they come, and in a very short time they're alongside. Or should have been.
"I think he reckoned the only real risk was the Greyhound. He didn't think we'd spot him against the masts and sails of the rest of the convoy, and even if we did he knew he could board us. Don't forget, he was counting on a hundred men and surprise: if we did go down to investigate, his men could suddenly leap up from behind the bulwarks and swarm on board - as indeed they did."
"But the Greyhound..."
"Say the Greyhound spotted him as soon as he let fall his courses and hauled his wind out of the column, he could claim to have seen a French privateer astern. A ship out of position in a convoy is irritating - but not usually a cause for suspicion ... Once he knew the Greyhound hadn't spotted him, the Harold and Marjorie also left the convoy."
Southwick slapped his knee and said cheerfully: "But the Peacock didn't reckon on us pulling his tail feathers."
"The rest of the Peacock story is as we guessed it. The Greyhound seems to have been keeping station on us, instead of watching the convoy, so she wasn't too far away when we suddenly went down to the Peacock. The firing woke her up and she came down to help."
"What about the Harold and Marjorie?”
"The Raisonnable on the larboard quarter of the convoy saw the firing over this side and immediately cut diagonally across the convoy to get to it. Against the lighter northern sky she saw the Harold and Marjorie turning away southwards and obviously up to no good. The Raisonnable herself was against the dark cloud to the south - you remember how hard it was to see the convoy against it? Anyway, the Harold and Marjorie didn't see her until it was too late to dodge, and didn't realize she was a frigate. She opened fire - and that was all the Raisonnable wanted to know: no need for any more questions. She raked her a couple of times and the Frenchman had had enough."
"What about the renegade Englishman?"
"They can't find him on board the Peacock. He may have committed suicide - he must have known if he was captured he'd hang. But the French mate wanted someone to blame for the fiasco, so he has talked."
"D'you think the Admiral is going to leave us in peace now, sir?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows..."
Southwick stood up. "I'd best be getting on deck. This swell is increasing quickly now..."
"I'll come with you. I want to time it. The trip in the gig gave me a chance to measure the height."
"Doesn't look too good," Southwick said gloomily as he led the way out of the cabin. "This high, wispy cloud to the east, and no Trade wind clouds. If it falls calm this afternoon ..."
Ramage took out his watch and looked astern. The wind was light and made little more than wavelets; but beneath them, like large muscles rippling under the skin, were the swell waves. The crests were widely spaced and still fairly low; but they weren't as low as they had been yesterday. Whatever caused them was moving closer. Closer, but not necessarily towards them. It could move still closer without being a threat, just as one might pass a man on a road without bumping into him.
He looked down over the taffrail and the sun scorched through his clothes. The rudder post creaked gently as the man at the wheel kept the brig on course; the water was dark-blue and as he stared down at it, he had a feeling that it was bottomless: that it went down and down for scores of thousands of fathoms. Within a minute or two he had the rhythm of the swell waves, and he started to time the interval between each of a series of crests.
He shut the lid of the case and slipped the watch back into his pocket.
Southwick caught his eye and said quietly: "For what we are about to receive?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Keep your money in your pocket until you see if the wind drops later."
He went over to the binnacle box and picked up the biggest telescope, adjusted the eyepiece to a particular scratchmark that showed the correct focus for his eyes, and looked around the horizon.
Over on the starboard side, to the eastward, what were low dark smudges to the naked eye showed as high land with a few clouds. Guadeloupe and, on the quarter, Dominica. The small northern islands were still out of sight over the starboard bow -indication enough of the convoy's slow progress.