Ramage

And, thought Ramage, the deeper the holes the more the pressure of water...

'Can't you plug them?'

 'Most of 'em are too big, sir - all jagged. We could fother a sail over 'em if we got the way off the ship...'

"When did you last sound?'

'Not above quarter of an hour all told, sir.'

 One foot of water in fifteen minutes. If it took about seven tons to put her down an inch, how many for a foot? Twelve inches times seven tons - eighty-four: that meant in fifteen minutes at most eighty-four tons had flooded in. How much more could she take before she sank or capsized? God knows - nothing about that in seamanship manuals. Nor would the Carpenter's Mate know. Nor the constructors, even if they were within hail. Right, let's have some action Lieutenant Ramage.

 'Carpenter's Mate — sound the well every five minutes and report to me each time. Get some more men to help plug shot holes - any within a couple of feet of the present water leveclass="underline" stuff in hammocks - anything to slow up the leaks.'

 Ramage walked to the rail at the forward end of the quarterdeck from force of habit, since it was there he had spent much of his seagoing life while on watch.

 Now, he thought: what do we know? The Barras can do what she likes: she's the cat, we are the mouse. We can't manoeuvre, but she's just come round to a slightly converging course. How many degrees? Perhaps twenty. When would the two ships meet?

 More bloody sums, Ramage thought crossly. The Barras was 800 yards away when she altered course. So - take the 800 yards as the base of the triangle, the Barras's course as the hypotenuse, and the Sibella's course the opposite side. Question: the length of the opposite side ... He could not think of a formula and ended up guessing that the Barras - providing she did not alter her present course again - would finally converge and collide with the Sibella at a point a mile ahead. The frigate was making a little over three knots. Three into sixty minutes ... they'd meet in twenty minutes: by then it would be almost dark.

 Again red flashes rippling along the Barras's side; again the thunder. The French are firing raggedly - or, more likely, each gun is being carefully aimed by an officer, since they have no opposition to fear. But none of the shots hit the hulclass="underline" crashes and the noise of tearing canvas warned him the French were aiming at the masts and spars.

 If he was the Barras's captain, what would he do? Well, make sure the Sibella is crippled - which is why he's now firing at the rigging - then run alongside in the last few minutes before darkness, board - and tow the Sibella back to Toulon in triumph. And that, he thought, is just what he is going to do: her captain is timing it beautifully, and he knows that for the last few hundred yards before he gets alongside, we'll be so close he can call on us to surrender. He'll know we can't repel boarders...

 Ramage realized his own position was almost ludicrous: he was in command of a ship which, ghost-like, was sailing herself without a man at the wheel - without a wheel for that matter; but it didn't matter a damn anyway, because within half an hour he'd have to surrender. Unable to fight, and with the ship full of wounded, he had no alternative.

And you, Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, he told himself bitterly, since you're the son of the discredited tenth Earl of Blazey, Admiral of the White, can expect little mercy from the Admiralty if you surrender one of the King's ships, no matter the reason. The sins - alleged sins, rather - of the father shall be visited on the sons, yea even unto the something or other generation, according to the Bible.

 But looking around the Sibella's deck, it's hard to believe in God: that severed trunk with the legs encased in bloody silk stockings and the feet still shod in shoes fitted with elegant silver buckles, is the frigate's former Captain, and next to it presumably the First Lieutenant, whose days of toadying are finished. Ironic that a man with an ingratiating smile permanently on his face should lose his head. What a shambles: a seaman, naked except for trousers, sprawled over the wreckage of a carronade slide as if in a loving embrace, his hair still bound up in a long queue, a strip of cloth round his forehead to stop perspiration running into his eyes - and his stomach ripped open. Beside him another man who seems unmarked until you realize his arm is cut off at the shoulder—

'Orders, sir?'

 It was the Bosun. Orders - he'd been daydreaming while all these men left alive in the Sibella waited, confident he would perform some miracle and save their lives: save them from ending their days rotting in a French prison. The devil take it: he felt shaky. Ramage made a great effort to think, and at that moment saw the foremast swaying. Presumably it had been swaying for some time, since the Bosun had already wondered why it had not gone by the board. Gone by the board...

 Yes! Why the devil hadn't he thought of that before: he wanted to cheer: Lieutenant Ramage has woken up: stand by, men: stand by Barras ... He felt a sudden elation, as though he was half drunk, and rubbed a scar on his forehead.

 The Bosun looked startled and Ramage realized he must be grinning.

 'Right, Bosun,' he said briskly, 'let's get to work. I want every wounded man brought up on deck. It doesn't matter how bad he is: get him up here on the quarter-deck.'

'But sir—'

'You have five minutes...'

 The Bosun was every day of sixty years old: his hair - what was left of it - was white. And the man knew that bringing the wounded on deck risked them being slaughtered by a broadside from the Barras. Only he hasn't realized yet, Ramage thought to himself, that now the Barras is firing only at the rigging; she's stopped sweeping the decks with full broadsides of grapeshot because she knows she's killed enough men. If she fires into the hull again the wounded below are just as likely to be hit by the ghastly great jagged wood splinters which the shot rip up - he'd seen several pieces more than five feet long.

 Wounded on deck. Now for the boats. Ramage ran aft to the taffrail and peered over: some boats were still towing astern in the Sibella's wake, having been put over the side out of harm's way as the ship cleared for action. Two were missing, but the remaining four would serve his purpose. The wounded, the boats - next, food and water.

By now the Bosun was back.

 We'll soon be abandoning ship,' Ramage told him. We must leave thewounded on board. We have four boats. Pick four reliable hands, one to be responsible for each boat. Tell them to take a couple of men - more if they wish — and get sacks of bread and water breakers ready at theaftermost gun ports on the starboard side. A compass for each boat, and a lantern. Make sure each lantern is lit and the boats have oars. Join me here in three minutes. I am going down to the cabin.'

The Bosun gave him a questioning look before turning away. The 'cabin' in a frigate could mean only the Captain's cabin, and Ramage knew that to mention going below to a man accustomed to seeing armed Marine sentries at every gangway and ladder when in action, to stop people bolting to safety - oh, the devil take him; there isn't time to explain. How much will the fellow remember when he gives evidence at the court martial that always followed the loss of one of the King's ships? If they live to face one...

In the cabin it was dark, and Ramage ducked his head to avoid hitting the beams overhead. He found the Captain's desk, and was thankful there had been no time to stow the furniture below when the ship cleared for action. Now, he said, deliberately talking aloud to himself to make sure he forgot nothing: first, the Admiral's orders: second, the Captain's letter book and order book; third, the Fighting Instructions; lastly - damn, the signal book would be in the hands of one of the midshipmen, and all the midshipmen were dead. Yet above all else the signal book with its secret codes mustn't fall into French hands.