The quarter was where the danger was: all of Southwick's efforts with the helmsmen were devoted to making sure the Triton drove off dead to leeward, so every wave arrived squarely at the transom. A heavy wave catching her on one quarter, instead of rushing beneath the ship and lifting her squarely, would push the stern with it, forcing the bow round the opposite way. In a second the ship would broach, to lie broadside and vulnerable to the seas.
These seas were big enough, much more than big enough, to lift her up and throw her flat, so that with her heavy masts and lower yards lying in the water and acting as a weight on one end of a seesaw, she would not come up without the masts being cut away. Come up that is, providing the pathetically small shell of a hull did not fill with water...
A moment's inattention on the part of the officer of the watch or quartermaster; a momentary mistake by the men at the wheel or one of them slipping on the streaming, sloping deck and hindering his mates as they spun the spokes one way or the other and the Triton would broach. Or the wheel ropes would part, so that the thick tiller would slam across and splinter as the waves shoved the rudder hard over.
A shroud parting and a mast going by the board ... The rudder itself being smashed ... Springing the butt end of a plank below the waterline, letting tons of water pour in, or even springing one above the waterline, with these seas ... A carronade breaking adrift from its lashings and crashing from one side of the deck to the other, smashing bulwarks and killing men ... Each possibility flashed through Ramage's mind as fast as a fencer's lunge and riposte.
Suddenly he realized that in facing aft like this he was staring not at the sea but at fear. Nothing was to be gained by it, except perhaps, after thirty seconds or so, an additional warning about broaching. Making the seamen look aft for five minutes before a spell at the wheel would not encourage them to be more careful; they'd be so damned scared they'd probably make mistakes.
Jackson was tapping his arm to attract his attention above all the noise: that in itself was significant. Few seamen in few ships would risk doing that, however great the emergency, because they had been taught from their first day in their first ship that an unscrupulous lieutenant could turn it into "striking an officer...", an offence carrying the death penalty.
"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.