On deck once again the sun's glare was harsh and it took him a moment or two to adjust his eyes. Curacao seemed startlingly near but automatically he checked: he could see the beach clearly so it was less than three miles; he could see a shrub the height of a man growing at the back of the beach but not quite distinguish the colours of the flowers growing on it - so it was between two miles (colours indistinguishable) and one (colours distinguishable). Call it a mile and a half. On this course, making an angle to the coast, La Creole had two miles to sail before she ran up on the beach, followed by the Calypso nearly one hundred fathoms, or two hundred yards, astern. La Perle was still hove - to and he could make out her main rigging, so she was a mile away: the Calypso and La Creole by tacking, were in effect sailing along the tangent of a circle of which La Perle was the centre.
As he walked to the quarterdeck Ramage began rubbing the scar over his eyebrow. He knew he had gone below to see the men because the tension of remaining on deck was getting too much: he hated the split - second timing on which the next part of his plan depended, the split - second timing which depended not on the hands of a watch but on his own judgement And through making that speech - the mouthings of bravado - he bad probably wrecked everything by starting the second part of the plan two or three minutes late. But stay calm, he told himself: if you try to rush people they just make silly mistakes.
'Orsini - hoist La Perle's pendant number!'
His voice was so calm that he surprised himself, but he could afford it because earlier he had made the boy check the flags. Now the midshipman and his two seamen hoisted them smartly.
number fifty - six of the French code."
'Aye aye, sir.' As the boy and the seamen hoisted Paolo repeated: '"Ship indicated shall take disabled vessel in tow, the course to be steered to be made known in the next signal."' 'Very well,' Ramage said. 'Let me know when she acknowledges.'
But even before he finished speaking three telescopes were trained on La Perle: Aitken was standing with his back to the quarterdeck rail, balancing himself on the balls of his feet against the Calypso's gentle roll, Southwick was watching with the complacency of a prosperous farmer inspecting a ripe field of corn, half of which had already fallen before the reapers' scythes and with the weather set fair, and Paolo had snatched up a telescope with the speed of a conjurer producing an out - of - season apple from the rector's hat.
Even Ramage could see without a telescope as La Perle answered. They had the flag already bent,' Southwick commented.
'Now, Orsini, hoist the signal for north - east, and make sure it is acknowledged.'
Aitken and Southwick walked over to join Ramage, who had remained by the binnacle, which for the moment was shaded by the furled mizentopsail.
'I'm glad I'm not that French first lieutenant,' Aitken said to no one in particular.
'Why not?' Ramage was surprised at the Scotsman's gloomy tone.
'Well, sir, he's been ordered to take us in tow, but how is he to get the cable from La Creole! By the time he gets up here the schooner will be nearly on this coral reef running parallel with the beach. There'll be hardly any room for him to manoeuvre. If he stays too far off he could hit the reef; if he gets too close to the Calypso he runs the risk of hitting La Creole. But somehow he has to get that cable secured on board!'
'You've forgotten two other things.'
'What, sir?' Now Aitken was surprised.
'First, he thinks his own captain is watching every move from this quarterdeck, with another senior officer beside him. Second, he's sure his whole future depends on what he does.'
'Aye,' Southwick said with a prodigious sniff, 'and he knows how easily he could get all three ships caught up in such a mass of tangled yards that we all end up on that reef like three battered tankards in an alehouse brawl.'
Two and a half pints,' Ramage said dryly. 'Yes, I'm glad I'm not that Frenchman. In fact I can't see how he can do it.'
Aitken and Southwick both swung round to stare at him. The skin of Aitken's face had suddenly gone taut, and South - wick ran a hand through his flowing white hair, and licked his lips uneasily. 'But you - you've just given him the order, sir,' Southwick said nervously.
'Yes, though I'd sooner give it than receive it.'
'I ... well, sir, should I get an anchor cleared away for letting go, sir?'
'Won't help much, Mr Southwick. It's deep right up to the reef, so by the time the anchor's beginning to get a bite we'd be on the coral. Staghorn, isn't it? Dreadful stuff. . .'
'Could we hoist out the boats ready to tow if necessary, sir?' Aitken ventured, still watching Ramage closely.
'No,' Ramage said lugubriously, 'we shouldn't envy that poor French first lieutenant.' He turned to Jackson, who was holding up a cutlass: 'Ah yes, slide it in.' He settled the leather belt more comfortably across his shoulder. 'And the pistols, thank you.' He took the pair from the American and clipped them on to the waistbelt of his trousers.
Orsini called excitedly: 'La Perle's acknowledged the signal giving the course, sir. She took long enough.'
'Hoping we'd made a mistake, no doubt, and would annul it,' Aitken commented as he turned to look at the frigate. 'But she's slipping along now. But that fellow hasn't made up his mind whether to approach us on the windward or leeward side.' He looked at Ramage, who nodded as though the subject of La Perle no longer interested him.
'I wonder what the devil all that smoke and musketry was yesterday,' Ramage said. 'And the captain of La Perle was so anxious to get to Amsterdam.'
'Was he, sir?' Aitken said in surprise.
'Oh yes, no bridegroom was more anxious to get to the church on time than Captain Duroc.'
Ramage felt hot and he felt a fraud. Standing under this scorching sun, which was now directly overhead so that you had to lean forward slightly to see your own shadow, the deck was so hot that the wood could be a stove top curling the leather of the soles of your shoes. Nor was the wind doing very much to cool anything: the Calypso was making only two knots and the wind barely had the energy to lift itself over the rolls of hammocks piled in the bulwark nettings to blow across the deck. The glare from the sea, from the sails, and from the near - white sand of the beach, gave the impression of heat, even though its only real effect was to make you screw up your eyes so that you peered out on this tropical oven through slits, like a short - sighted Oriental.
And the fraud: that was a different thing altogether. Aitken and Southwick had suddenly looked at each other and then they had laughed: the captain, they thought, was playing a neat joke on them, pretending he did not know what would happen when La Perle arrived to carry out her orders. They were sure the captain had a trick hidden away, a trick which would solve everything and leave them with La Perle as a prize.