'And yourself, sir?' Jackson said, and Ramage realized he had neither sword nor pistols. 'I'll be back in a moment, sir,' the American said and ran below.
Orsini appeared again to report that the two schooners were in sight now, both in the same relative positions, according to the new lookouts. Ramage looked at the boy. 'Have you a pistol, Paolo?' he asked.
'Under my jacket, sir,' he said. 'To keep the powder dry in case there's another squall.'
Ramage thought of the boy's dirk, perhaps Paolo's proudest possession, but little use in the kind of fighting that would soon be sweeping over the Juno's decks. 'Find yourself a cutlass, boy; don't rely on that dirk. Get forward now, and keep me informed.'
He thought of the afternoon in London when Gianna had asked him to take her nephew to sea with him. He had refused at first, picturing the day when the ship would go into action and he would be torn between sending Paolo to some safe position or letting him do whatever task was appropriate to a midshipman even though he stood a good chance of being killed or maimed. Gianna had insisted that he should not be treated differently from any other midshipman and Ramage had allowed himself to be persuaded. Now with the ship about to go into action he had decided to do as Gianna wished. Paolo was going to have his first taste of battle. If he survived he would not only be proud of his role but he would make a better officer.
Jackson was standing there holding the sword and belt in one hand and the pair of pistols in the other. 'With the compliments of the Marchesa, sir,' he said cheerfully. 'I left the case down below. Don't reckon there'll be much time for reloading.'
Rossi helped him out of his coat and he slipped the sword belt over his shoulder, put on the coat again and took the pistols, reflecting that it was a long way from Bond Street and Mr Prater's shop in Charing Cross. In the meantime the two French schooners were sailing along as though the Juno was their flagship. In the blackness on either bow scores of eyes were watching at this very moment, looking for any change in the frigate's sails. That would be their first warning that she was altering course. They would be cheerful and confident of surprising the British, however, because the Juno had kept on the same course and there had been no drum-roll sending men to quarters and no shrilling of bos'n's calls. As far as the French were concerned she was jogging along under topsails only, with only half a dozen sleepy lookouts, the men at the wheel, a quartermaster and the officer of the deck on their feet and the rest of the watch probably snatching naps.
He looked over to windward, towards the dark mass of Martinique itself, and saw that the cloud was beginning to break up slightly. Since the schooners could now be seen clearly from the Juno, he could expect the attack at any moment. They would edge over slowly on converging courses, then slow down and crash alongside as the frigate came up between them, to slaughter the sleeping rosbifs. He looked over each bow with the night glass, spotted the schooners and decided there was time for him to walk round the ship, to see the men and give them a word of encouragement and a word of warning. An accidentally-fired pistol or musket now would ruin everything.
It was a quick inspection: every moment he expected a messenger from Southwick, who had the conn temporarily, warning him that the schooners were altering course . . .
The men were excited but they had learned their lesson. Those with pistols were anxious to show him that they had them at half cock; those with cutlasses wanted to assure him that the blades had been sharpened on the grindstone. One or two of them had strips of cloth tied round their foreheads - to stop the rain running into their eyes if there was another squall, he supposed.
Then he cursed himself: the problem facing them if any of the French managed to get on board would be identifying friend from foe. He turned to Aitken, who was walking beside him, and said urgently: 'Send Benson and half a dozen men down to the Surgeon. I want enough white cloth to make every man a headband. Bring up sheets, bandages - anything that's white and will tear into strips and see that every man wears one, the lieutenants as well. And tell the men they're free to kill anyone without a headband.'
Aitken hissed the order to Benson, who whispered to the nearest half dozen seamen and vanished below with them. Ramage said: 'Everything is a credit to you, Mr Aitken. If we can only be sure the men will stay silent until the last moment . . .' With that he went back to the quarterdeck and told Stafford to find Benson and collect enough white cloth to make headbands for everyone on the quarterdeck, the men at the wheel and the quartermaster included.
Five minutes later the cloud began clearing quickly from the eastward. The Juno's quarterdeck was apparently almost deserted; a night glass on one of the schooners would show only the officer of the deck and half a dozen other men, including those at the wheel. But crouched down below the bulwarks on both sides of the Juno were nearly two hundred men, each with a white headband tied securely round his forehead.
Southwick, crouching down and peering through the aftermost quarterdeck gunport, the white headband barely visible below his flowing white hair, said quietly: 'The one to starboard is beginning to close in.'
Jackson, also stretching over a gun and peering through a port on the larboard side, hissed: 'The one this side is doing the same, sir; bearing up on to a converging course.'
Ramage walked to the forward end of the quarterdeck with the night glass and looked at both ships. They were acting together, the windward one easing sheets and coming crabwise down to leeward, the one to larboard hardening sheets a trifle and bearing up. It was difficult to judge, since the sails were ill-defined in the darkness, but they would crash alongside in about three minutes.
There was no need for lookouts any more. He tapped Stafford on the shoulder: 'Go round the ship and tell the lookouts to go to their positions for repelling boarders; bring Mr Orsini back here.'
The French were patient and confident: they could have crashed alongside fifteen minutes ago, when it was really dark, but they had waited for the cloud to clear and give them the advantage of intermittent starlight. That needed courage. The two schooner captains must have been fighting their impatience and anxiety to attack before the rosbifs spotted them, but they had waited, believing that almost complete darkness would increase their own problems more than the risk of discovery. They needed a little light, even if it doubled the risk of the Juno's lookouts spotting them. These were cool fellows, and Ramage wondered if they were in fact privateersmen. From the way they had waited and were now manoeuvring, they were more likely to be manned by French naval officers and disciplined men from the two frigates, and probably carrying a few score French troops to carry out the actual boarding. He was up against trained men, not the usual cut-and-run privateersmen whose only concern was loot.
As the schooners converged so that they were now only fifty yards apart more banks of cloud came up from the east. They were taking an enormous risk that they would be sighted ... Not so enormous now, he corrected himself: both those schooner captains think that even if they are sighted at this very moment the Juno has only two minutes to send the ship's company to quarters. The French think they have only to deal with the watch on deck, with the watch below scrambling up sleepily, unarmed and bewildered ...