He looked astern and could just make out the darker blobs of the five boats following the launch. He listened carefully but could not hear any noise except the faint hiss of the water being sliced away by the stem of the first pinnace. The oars were well muffled: even here in the launch there was little more than a faint groan as they rode against the rowlocks, a noise caused by movement and not the friction of wood against wood.
He opened the nightglass and looked ahead over the heads of the oarsmen. There was nothing, except blackness. Well, perhaps just a hint of land, but nothing he could be sure of. He could imagine the people in the boats astern straining their eyes to keep a watch on the launch - they were following at four-yard intervals, and as soon as the launch stopped - which she would do as soon as she sighted the frigate - the boats, forewarned, would form up in pairs for the final approach. Then, in the last fifty yards, they would split up to board from opposite sides.
Were there guard boats, and if so how far were they from the frigate? Half a mile? Two hundred yards? Or were there no boats? Did the French dismiss the brig as of no consequence? Oh, don't start that train of thought again, he told himself; he had already been over it once and come to no conclusion, and now was not the time to fret: just keep a sharp lookout.
This really was the worst part of a cutting out expedition, the long row to the target. It left a man alone with his thoughts and fears for too long: there was just the slopping of oar blades dipping in the water and the creak of the thwarts as the seated men strained at the looms of the oars. Time seemed to stand still; the darkness left one's imagination open to the wildest thoughts.
What would Admiral Cameron think about this cutting out expedition - would he approve or dismiss it as a wild venture? If it was successful he would welcome an extra frigate - but success always brought approval; it was failure that brought condemnation.
Now Jackson was drawing a cloth over most of the binnacle to hide the light.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There was no mistaking it: that blacker shape was the frigate, lying head to wind and slightly to starboard. Ramage whispered to Jackson, who hissed an order to the men to lie on their oars. Out of the darkness a pinnace came and took its place to starboard and, looking aft over Jackson's head, Ramage could see the other boats forming up in pairs.
Jackson gave another order and the men resumed rowing, and the pinnace kept station. If there was a guard boat out, Ramage had halved the chance of them being sighted by halving the length of the tail of boats. Anyway, the next three or four minutes were the dangerous ones: they could be sighted first by a guard boat and then by an alert lookout on board the frigate herself.
But would lookouts be alert, after weeks - probably months - of just peering into blackness? It was unlikely. Most sailors could doze off while still standing up, and there was no reason to expect that the men in the frigate were any different. Ramage knew his best allies were dozy lookouts. How many would there be, anyway? Well, since they could see the frigate now, alert lookouts could presumably see the boats.
Jackson stood up, as though he could see better. Jackson knew the responsibility for the boat now rested on him: Jackson would have to put the boat alongside the frigate's larboard quarter. Each boat had been allocated its own position - with the proviso that, in case of confusion, a boat should put its men on board wherever the opportunity presented itself.
Still no shouted challenges. If there was a guard boat, it must be on the far side of the frigate. And by now the boats were well inside the field of vision of alert lookouts - and yet there was no shouted challenge. Ramage felt the tension mounting. He hitched at the pistols, which he realized had made his ribs sore. And he was wearing the sword presented to him at Lloyd's. The presentation seemed a long time ago - another lifetime almost.
It was hard to judge distances in the darkness but they were now close enough that Ramage could see the frigate's rigging obscuring stars. They were down to under three hundred yards. The pinnace to larboard was turning slightly, increasing the distance between them: that pinnace was due to attack from the starboard side. Ramage glanced astern and saw two more boats were hauling out to starboard. Good - that meant that so far the plan was working. But now was the really dangerous time - when the men became excited. Then they were likely to start rowing faster, increasing the chances of catching a crab and making a splashing noise with an oar. Or start shouting when they boarded - although every man had been warned to keep quiet, so that the French would not know the extent of the attack.
Now he could clearly distinguish the rigging and knew they must be within a hundred yards of the frigate. There was no need to give orders since the boarders, crouching in the boat, could see as well as he could that they were approaching their target.
Now they were in the wind shadow cast by the frigate: the sea was calmer and there was practically no wind. Fifty yards. No shout from a lookout: no sign of a guard boat. Now the ship's transom was looming up high overhead. He could not quite make out the name. Yes he could - the Alerte, the letters just distinguishable in the starlight.
Twenty-five yards - and Jackson was leaning on the tiller, and a minute or two later was hissing orders to the men on the starboard side: he knew the risk of them clattering their oars against the frigate's side.
Suddenly there was a cry in French from the deck above: a hasty, almost uncertain challenge. Immediately Ramage called in French that they had come from the town - not a convincing answer but sufficiently unexpected, he hoped, to baffle the sentry for a valuable couple of minutes.
'From the town?'
'Yes, from the town, with urgent despatches.'
'At this time of night?'
'Yes, you fool, the Republic's business cannot wait.'
By then Ramage and several of the boarders had leapt up, clawing for the projecting edges of gunports, or anything that gave a handhold. The sentry was still hesitating, then apparently he looked over the side and decided that the nocturnal visitors were boarding in a strange way, and started shouting. But his uncertainty robbed his voice of its strength.
Ramage found a foothold and levered himself upwards, hauling with his fingertips and pushing with his feet as soon as he found a foothold. He was conscious of a writhing mass of men close to him as the other boarders scrambled up the side of the Alerte. With a final heave he managed to grasp the lower edge of the hammock nettings and quickly climbed up them and on to the bulwark. By now the lookout had made up his mind and was shouting at the top of his voice only three or four yards from where Ramage landed on the deck, unsheathing his sword at the same time. He lunged at the shadowy figure and the shouting stopped as the man pitched forward and fell gurgling to the deck.
By now more boarders were jumping down from the nettings. Following their orders, they went after Ramage as he headed for the gunroom. Half a dozen Marines headed for the captain's cabin, and Ramage almost breathed a sigh of relief: the Alerte was just like the Calypso, even to the siting of the binnacle.