Ramage was thinking the same thing: for a moment he imagined a snatch of gossip at the Green Room in Plymouth, with one post-captain asking another: "Hear how that fellow Ramage joined Lord Nelson off Cadiz? Why, drifted into the Victory and boarded her in the smoke, haw, haw!"
And with nine 74s passed, one or two by the thickness of a coat of paint (or so it appeared from the Calypso: the ships were apparently unworried), the Victory still seemed to be as far away through the mass of hulls and masts.
"Bear up," he snapped at Aitken: "We can just scrape across the bow of the Belleisle without carrying away her jibboom."
"If you say so, sir," Aitken said doubtfully, bellowing into his speaking trumpet and snapping a helm order to Jackson.
Topsail sheets and yards braced sharp up, men hauled at the headsail sheets to flatten the curve of jibs and staysails; the Calypso seemed to stagger for a few moments and then pointed even higher into the wind: just enough, Aitken realized, to get clear: but beyond the jibboom loomed yet another 74, black-hulled with white strakes - the Conqueror?Aitken was guessing, but there seemed no way the Calypso could turn to larboard or starboard, luff up or bear away to avoid ramming her amidships.
Aitken glanced at the captain. He was startled to see that Ramage seemed to be enjoying himself: his teeth were bared in a wide grin; his hands were clasped behind his back. For a moment Aitken imagined a confident gambler watching the dice roll the way he wanted.
"Back the maintopsail, Mr Aitken!"
And stop the ship? Aitken shouted the orders which brought the men sweating and cursing at the braces, hauling the topsail yard round, and then the sheets were trimmed. The Calypso suddenly stopped, the pitching and rolling ceased; instead she just heeled slightly under the press of the backed sail.
And an unbelieving Aitken watched the Conqueror draw ahead: instead of the Calypso's jibboom lancing the 74's foremast shrouds, Aitken saw the Conqueror slide to larboard until her mainshrouds were ahead, then her mizen and finally her transom slid across the frigate's bow leaving - Aitken almost whooped with relief and joy - an empty space, then one three-decker beyond her, the centre of a spacious area, the Victory, her three yellow strakes glistening, with another three-decker, the Dreadnought, in her wake.
Aitken glanced again at Ramage and saw the satisfied grin on his face - the captain had calculated that manoeuvre down to the last few feet - and the first lieutenant was ready with the speaking trumpet when Ramage said: "Very well, let it draw!"
It took only moments to brace the yard and trim the sheets so that the maintopsail filled with wind and the Calypso began hissing through the water again with an easy pitch and roll - like, Aitken thought, a young man strolling carefree through the park on a spring morning.
Still no signal from the Victory. But the three-decker ahead was Admiral Collingwood's temporary flagship, the Dreadnought (the Royal Sovereign had yet to arrive from England), and admirals did not like frigates bolting across their bow.
"Bear away and pass under the Dreadnought's stern," Ramage said, "and then bear up on the Victory's larboard side."
It was a long way from Clarges Street, Ramage thought, and Lord Nelson was probably missing Lady Hamilton as much as he was missing Sarah. Supposing one was bound for India, two years from home and probably more than that: did the pain lessen? It could not get worse; he was damned sure of that.
Now they were past the Dreadnought and running up on the Victory's quarter. She was towing a single cutter. Quickly Ramage lifted his telescope and swept the Dreadnought's deck. Yes, her cutter was missing. Lord Nelson's second-in-command was on board the Victory.
What was Admiral Collingwood really like? Ramage had never met him but had heard many stories. For a start, Collingwood was rarely separated from his dog Bunce. He was a Northumberland man who loved the country and was so worried about the rate at which England was using up her oak trees to build ships of war that when he was out walking in the country he had a pocketful of acorns, which he planted in likely places, to ensure that in a hundred years' time, in 1905, England would not lack for oaks. What else about him? He was a strict but very fair disciplinarian who hated flogging - he was reputed to have said that flogging made a good man bad, and a bad man worse. A quiet and reserved man, the complete opposite of Lord Nelson, who by contrast was like a bowl of quicksilver. But apparently both men knew each other well, and worked together.
"Start the salute," Ramage told Aitken.
A minute later number one gun on the larboard side gave a snuffling thud, and Ramage pictured the gunner timing the five-second firing intervals with the time-honoured phrase, "If I wasn't a gunner I wouldn't be here, number two gun fire ... If I wasn't a gunner I wouldn't be here, number three gun fire . . ." He found himself repeating it, and the gunner seemed to be timing it correctly. A captain joining the fleet, to his commander-in-chief, seventeen guns. If the gunner had any sense he had seventeen musket or pistol balls in a pocket, transferring one to another pocket every time a gun fired, until the first pocket was empty: that was the only safe way of not firing sixteen or eighteen.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen: that was the end of the salute. And a flutter of flags from the Victory. Ramage read the Calypso's three pendant numbers, followed by numbers 103.
"Signal from the flagship, sir," Orsini called excitedly. "Our pendant and then 103, 'Keep in the Admiral's wake'."
Which, given the limitations of the four hundred orders in the signal book, was the only way to order the Calypso to take up a position astern of the Victory. (There was no signal which could order the Calypso to take up a position ahead or on either beam . . .)
"See to it, Mr Aitken," Ramage said, knowing the first lieutenant had heard Orsini's report. "One cable astern of the Dreadnought."
A simple enough manoeuvre, but this time executed within yards of Admiral Collingwood's flagship, and several telescopes would be scanning the new arrival, eager to spot poor or dilatory seamanship. Thus, Ramage reflected ruefully, could a captain's reputation be sported away, no matter how many successful actions he had fought. Flag lieutenants and all the rest of the people serving an admiral (from clerks to a chaplain and a host of midshipmen) were like a medieval king's courtiers: they had little else to do but scratch each other's backs and gossip . . .
Ramage made a point of standing four-square on the quarterdeck, obviously leaving the handling of the ship to his first lieutenant - not to avoid responsibility but to show any prying eyes that the Calypso's captain had complete faith in his officers. Obviously Lord Nelson (and almost certainly Admiral Collingwood) were above all the gossip, but the other ships in the fleet liked to hear it, especially if about a well-known captain making a fool of himself. And, Ramage reflected, he was just well enough known by now to be a target . . .
An hour later Martin, as officer of the deck, reported to Ramage that the Victory and the Dreadnought had backed their maintopsails.
"If we don't do something, we'll be aboard the Dreadnought," Ramage said. "Admiral Collingwood may well be put out if Lieutenant Martin puts the Calypso's jibboom through the sternlights of his great cabin ..."
Martin grinned because the lieutenants enjoyed being teased by the captain. He lifted the speaking trumpet, which he had picked up the moment he saw the Victory's maintopsail start to shiver, and bellowed the orders for the Calypso to follow suit.
Southwick lumbered on deck, saw what was happening and asked Ramage: "What's His Lordship doing?"