He turned to Orsini. 'Run forward, boy. Warn all lookouts not to shout. Tell the larboard lookout there's a second schooner on the larboard bow and stay there yourself, ready to bring back more reports. The lookouts will have lost sight of them in this squall.'
He left his officers standing by the binnacle and walked aft thinking hard. He pictured the two schooners sailing back into Fort Royal tomorrow morning with half their complement on board the Juno and a Tricolour flying above the British ensign. That was what the Governor of Fort Royal intended and what the men in the schooners hoped for. It would, he thought, be a great pity to disappoint any of them.
Yet the risk to the Juno would be enormous if he carried out the plan forming in his mind. If he failed, and was still alive, a court martial would find him guilty of anything Admiral Davis wanted to charge him with. No more risky, he argued, than taking the Juno into action against another frigate. And a convoy must be due . . . He swung round, rejoined the lieutenants and Southwick, and found that the two remaining lieutenants had arrived.
Orsini scurried up to report that Rossi had sighted the starboard schooner again in the same relative position but they had not managed to sight the one to larboard. 'Tell 'em to keep a sharp lookout,' Ramage snapped, 'the second one is there all right.'
He turned to the officers. 'There's not much time, so listen carefully. I want those two schooners to try to board us. I want them alongside, hooked on with grappling irons, because I want to capture them undamaged. The only way we can do it is by surprise. Let them think they are surprising us: they'll range alongside and start boarding on both sides. Then we surprise them: the whole ship's company will be crouching down behind the bulwarks, waiting for the word to repel boarders. That means we have a hundred men on each side to fight off perhaps a hundred in each scooner, but their freeboard is low, and they'll have to climb up our sides. We stand a good chance of succeeding. I want to capture those schooners undamaged,' he repeated.
Swiftly Ramage gave each of his lieutenants his orders, starting with the Marine officer. As each received his instructions he glided away into the darkness to gather his men, check their arms and make sure they had their instructions.
Finally there were only a dozen seamen and Southwick on the quarterdeck with Ramage, apart for the quartermaster and four men at the wheel. Ramage had doubled the number of men usually at the wheel in case of casualties. The dozen seamen were the former Tritons.
While Aitken and the other lieutenants made sure the rest of the ship's company (including those in the sick bay, since all of them could handle pistols) were equipped with muskets or pistols, boarding pikes, cutlasses or tomahawks, Ramage gave his orders to the dozen men and Southwick. The old Master was almost chuckling with excitement at the prospect of action. He had an enormous sword slung from a belt over his shoulder - a sword Ramage always called 'The Cleaver' - and a brace of pistols tucked in his belt. The dozen former Tritons carried a variety of weapons - apart from a pair of pistols, Ramage had let them choose what other weapons they wanted. Jackson and Stafford had cutlasses, Rossi a pike with a tomahawk tucked blade uppermost into his belt.
Ramage's instructions were brief: the former Tritons and the master would remain on the quarterdeck and were not to move until Ramage gave the word: they were to act as a reserve and would only join the fight at a point round the bulwarks where it looked as though the French might break through. 'But,' Ramage had warned them grimly, 'remember that as soon as you can you must get back to the quarterdeck: there might be some other place that needs reinforcement. The moment you get back here remember to reload those barkers: if there are soldiers on board these schooners, they'll know how to use swords ...'
'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.