Steering for the Lynx and slapping the Calypso alongside, though, seemed unnecessarily risky to Southwick for another reason: getting alongside with the privateer to windward or leeward and hooking on to her with grappling irons risked the Lynx cutting her cable so that both ships drifted as they fought, probably fouling the Heliotrope and ending up on shore.
Admittedly the captain must be worried about the chance of the Lynx escaping him: she might be able to cut her cable and set enough canvas to slip round between the Calypso and the shore - that was the main reason why the Calypso suddenly let fall her sails and cut her cable, to give the Lynx as little time as possible. But the privateer's fore and aft rig gave her an enormous advantage. The Calypso was like a bull trying to trap a calf in a corner of a field: not so much from the point of view of relative strength, but from size and clumsiness.
Still, the hinges of the Calypso's portlids squeaked as they swung up and Southwick felt more confident as he saw the men haul on the tackles that sent the guns rumbling out. The powder monkeys were already lined up along the centreline, each behind a pair of guns, and squatting on the wooden cylinder in which he carried the next flannel cartridge, the one needed for the second round.
The decks glistened wet in the sunshine; the sand sprinkled unevenly on the planking and soaking up the water made light patches and dark, and already the heat of the sun was drying it. Southwick felt the hilt of his sword. The captain always referred to it as his 'meat cleaver', and he hoped he would get a chance to use it in the next few minutes: they were fast approaching the Lynx.
Ramage found the sunshine dazzling. Normally it did not bother him, but he was still feeling dizzy from losing all that blood, and he had a headache. That was not surprising, but it did not help him concentrate.
The first few hundred yards had gone satisfactorily, anyway. The foretopsail let fall 'to air' had not aroused any interest in the Lynx: they would have seen the two survey boats landing at the beach as usual, and even now the boat doing the soundings was being rowed across the bay, seamen heaving their leads and the depths and course being written down.
He had been watching the Lynx as he gave the order to let the cable run and let fall the main and mizentopsails, sheet home all three sails and brace the yards sharp up. The sails were filling and the Calypso was already sliding through the water before he saw any response from the few figures moving about the Lynx's deck. Although in the glass they were only tiny, he could see first one and then another halt and then point: he could imagine the shouts, followed by Hart and Tomás hurrying up on deck and sizing up the situation. That was the moment the Calypso ran into the windless patch. He had seen it before they set any sails - a smooth area of water surrounded by tiny ripples - and knew the Calypso would carry her way through it.
Now she had picked up the wind again. It was infuriating having to sit here in an armchair, but he knew he had not the strength to stand. Wagstaffe was standing at the rail on the forward side of the quarterdeck, Southwick stood behind him, and Orsini was a couple of feet to one side of the chair, ready to run messages.
Glancing from one side to the other he saw that the Calypso was midway between the Amethyst to starboard and the Earl of Dodsworth to larboard. Was she watching? What was the significance of those two trunks full of uniforms and men's clothing? A man's clothing, he corrected himself: a man about his own build with slightly larger feet. Did she love him? Was he even alive?
Trinidade, a speck in the South Atlantic that few men knew about and even fewer visited, but here he had found a ship carrying out her own private war against everyone, and a woman he did not yet love in the deepest sense of the word (because he hardly knew her in the usual way) but who filled his thoughts to the exclusion of almost everything else.
The Lynx was dead ahead and he could see the men rushing around on deck. He could imagine the pandemonium - the magazine was locked and where the devil was the key? Perhaps Tomás and Hart were arguing with each other: should they cut and run or stay and fight - or did they have the choice anyway? The privateersmen would be shouting in various languages - English, French, Spanish and Dutch for sure, and there would be others.
That night in the Earl of Dodsworth before he swam to the Heliotrope: sitting on the breech of the gun in the darkness before she came up to him, he had seen himself - his life, rather - with an almost frightening clarity: he had felt guilty that Gianna was fading in his memory, that he did not think of her nearly as frequently or in the same sort of way as before. Then he had realized that without either of them understanding it at the time, each had discovered that there was no choice. Each was drawn by a force that love could not overcome - or perhaps love showed them there was no happiness waiting for them even if the force was overcome. He saw how they had never had a choice, even had Gianna not decided to go back to Volterra at that time. It had an inevitability about it; the same inevitability that was taking the Calypso up to the Lynx.
He turned his head. 'Mr Southwick . . .' As soon as the master was standing beside him he gave him his instructions and the old man grinned. A relieved grin? It seemed so to Ramage, as though Southwick had expected him to do something else. Anyway, the master took the speaking-trumpet from its rack on the forward side of the binnacle box and walked over to Wagstaffe, telling him to report to the captain.
The second lieutenant looked cheerfuclass="underline" his hat was at a rakish angle, his silk stockings were obviously new (and worn because Bowen had told Ramage, who made it a standing order, that silk, not woollen, stockings should be worn in action: wool dragged into a wound made the surgeon's work ten times more difficult).
Ramage told him the orders just given to Southwick. 'Now, we'll be firing our starboard broadside first, unless something unforeseen happens, so get the extra men over on that side. After that, a certain amount depends on what the Lynx does, but seconds are going to matter. This is what I want to do.'
The lieutenant listened, nodding a couple of times. 'Aye aye, sir,' he said, and walked back to his position at the foreward side of the quarterdeck. He borrowed the speaking-trumpet from Southwick and shouted orders to the guns' crews.
No ship in the Royal Navy ever had enough men to 'fight both sides'. Usually there were enough to load and fire all the guns on one side, with only one or two men for each gun on the other side. If both broadsides had to be fired, then one was fired first and several men from each gun ran across to the corresponding gun on the other side to fire that while the men left behind began to sponge and reload.
The Heliotrope was now on the starboard beam (no wonder that had seemed a long swim from the Earl of Dodsworth) and the Commerce to larboard. Ahead, only her transom visible and her two masts in line, the Lynx. Once again he raised the telescope. Her gunports were still closed and beyond her, on the beach, he could see the Calypsos and the two surveying parties running towards their boats. The artist Wilkins would have to be left behind if he wanted to sketch the action from the shore.
He eased the sling slightly: his arm was beginning to throb, but at last he was coming to life; the chill which had seemed reluctant to go since they dragged him from the sea on board the East Indiaman was now being replaced by a warm glow; the sky was deep blue again, the hills of Trinidade fresh green, the sand of the small beach almost white, and the sea in the bay a patchwork of dark blue, pale green and brownish-green, warning of the depths.
The dark, mangrove green of the Lynx's hull, the buff of her masts and white of her topmasts, the black of her rigging - they showed up in the telescope as though she was fifty yards away instead of five hundred.