Southwick walked up through the smoke, handkerchief over his mouth and nose, eyes redder than usual, and coughing.
'We must look a fantastic sight, sir! I bet the Dons wonder what the devil's gone wrong with us! I heard a couple of shots go overhead but that's all.'
'They haven't fired again.'
Southwick looked ahead. 'She's a big bitch.'
Ramage grunted.
Southwick pointed over the larboard quarter.
The Captain, every inch of canvas drawing, was well over half-way between the British line and the Santisima Trinidad. As they watched, a hoist of flags broke out and fluttered from the Captain's signal halyards.
'Jackson - signal book!' Ramage shouted, training the telescope. 'Quickly - our pendant, numeral twenty-three! Mr. Southwick, have it acknowledged. Well, Jackson? Hurry, man!'
'Twenty-three, sir: 'To take possession of the enemy's ships captured"!'
Ramage laughed: the Commodore was a cool fellow to have time for jokes. Cool enough, he suddenly realized, to know the signal would be a tonic for the Kathleens.
'Mr. Southwick - pass the Commodore's signal to the ship's company!'
There was no time to comb the book for a witty reply; in fact both the book and the other papers in the weighted bag ought to have been sunk by now.
'Jackson - put the book into the bag and heave it over the side!'
'Now hear this!' Southwick bellowed through the speaking trumpet (so loud, Ramage thought wryly, they'll hear in the San Nicolas), 'now hear this - an order from the Commodore to the Kathleen. We've got to take possession of all the enemy ships we capture! So no skulking off to the spirit room and getting beastly drunk just because you capture a two-decker: leave a couple of men in command, then use her boats to go over and take a three-decker! Leave the Santisima Trinidad for me personally!'
Few of the men could see Southwick but through the smoke came a volley of cheers mixed with happy roars of 'Kathleen, Nick! Kathleen, Nick!'
Southwick grinned at Ramage, who merely nodded. He'd been watching the San Nicolas as the men cheered. No condemned man cheered the hangman when he recognized him. Fortunately the Kathleens didn't recognize him, and they cheered.
Yet the Spaniards too had been overconfident: the San Nicolas's anchor cables were already led out through the hawse and bent to the anchors - a thing usually done when the harbour was in sight because at sea the ends of the cables were stowed below. The carving of the St. Nicolas figurehead was beautifully done, rich with gilt and flesh tones, even if the rest of the ship was shabby.
The last five hundred yards.
'Jackson - are you all ready there?'
'Aye aye, sir!'
'Stand by the sheets and halyards, Mr. Southwick!'
'Aye aye, sir.'
Now for it. Time was slowing down. Keep calm. Speak slowly.
'Quartermaster, half a point to port,' he drawled.
'Half a point to port it is, sir.'
The slight alteration of course brought the San Nicolas round to fine on the cutter's starboard bow, ready for the last-minute turn, and Ramage had to run forward to see her because of the smoke pouring from the braziers. Both ships were on almost opposite courses and as far as the Spaniards knew apparently going to pass each other to starboard and fifty yards apart.
And the smoke streaming up from the braziers along the Kathleen's entire length was drifting off to leeward in a huge, ever-advancing bank into which the Spanish ship was heading. From the San Nicolas she must seem to be on fire from stem to stern.
Four hundred yards. less, perhaps. With one foot on the forward carronade slide Ramage watched the two-decker ploughing on, enormous, relentless, implacable - and seemingly invulnerable. The sea curving up and over in thin feathers of water at her bow was pale green. Groups of men on her fo'c'sle were looking down at him. Both bow chasers flashed red and spurted smoke. Somewhere overhead he heard wood splintering.
This was a fish's view of a fat angler on a river bank, the bowsprit and jibboom jutting out like the rod in his hand. So much gilt and red and blue paint on the headrails. Popping of champagne corks - yes: Spanish soldiers kneeling and resting their muskets on the rail as they fired. She was pitching slightly in the swell waves - just enough to make aiming difficult. And they could see little to shoot at anyway because of the smoke. Only him, he suddenly realized: everyone else was farther aft. The foredeck felt lonely.
Three hundred yards. The San Nicolas's standing and running rigging a complicated cobweb against her sails and the sky. St. Nicolas's features discernible, and he did not seem very saintly: a lot of pink paint on his cheeks - he looked as if he drank too much wine. Grape for the Saint, grapeshot for Nicholas.
Again the double flash of the bow-chasers: a dragon winking bloodshot eyes. So close the shot passing sounded like tearing calico. He could make out the seams in her hull planking. Greyish patches on the black paint where salt had dried. They must usually keep a canvas cover over the figurehead - or paint it once a week.
Two hundred yards. Plenty of popping now but he didn't hear the ricochet of musket balls. The double crack of the bow-chasers - they can't depress them enough now to hit the hull, but pray to God they don't hit the mast.
A Spanish officer waving his sword like a madman - twice over his head, then pointing at the Kathleen. Over his head again - curious fellow: maybe he's trying to inspire his men. The great bulging sails so badly patched - seams stitched too tight and uneven so the material crinkled.
One hundred yards. He'd never smash that great jibboom: it was like the trunk of a great pine tree sticking out over a precipice.
Perhaps the jibboom but certainly not the bowsprit.
Waiting for the executioner's axe to fall after you've put your head on the block must be like this. For God's sake do something. Wait. Seventy-five yards. Wait, wait, wait! All right - turn round...
'Mr. Southwick! Ready at the halyards and sheets?'
Acknowledged. Then he remembered he'd already asked that. Ten seconds to go. Memory pictures sped through his head: Gianna, mother, father; the tower of Buranaccio in the moonlight when he rescued Gianna; Southwick's excited bloodshot eyes; Jackson's grin and Stafford's imitation of the Commodore.
Turn again. Calmly. Loud enough for the man to hear.
'Quartermaster! Helm hard a'port!'
The Kathleen's bowsprit began swinging to starboard towards the San Nicolas. Slowly, oh so slowly. Too slowly! No, perhaps not. Anyway, too late to worry ...
No - he'd timed it perfectly! The Kathleen's foretopmast stay would hit the outer end of the San Nicolas's bowsprit.
'Mr. Southwick! Let fly halyards and sheets!'
Beside him the banging of a blacksmith's hammer on the anviclass="underline" musket balls hitting the barrel of the carronade. Musket balls aimed at him. Poor shooting.
Without looking up at the San Nicolas he turned and ran through the smoke to join the boarding party at the main shrouds. Several of the men, including Jackson, were already waiting half-way up the ratlines, looking ahead as the Kathleen's sharp turn began to bring the San Nicolas into view, poised for the desperate leap to board her. He prayed no one would jump too soon and fall into the sea between the two ships. Splashing water - the San Nicolas's bow wave!