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 ...
Through the night glass he saw the big sails begin to broaden: they were easing sheets, slowing down to let the Juno sail between them. Southwick was beside him now, crouched down and peering over the quarterdeck rail. 'They know what they're up to, those fellows,' he whispered.
‘They certainly do,' Ramage muttered grimly. 'I'm wondering if they'll get suspicious if we don't give some indication soon that we've sighted them.'
'Leave it until the last moment, sir,' Southwick advised. 'There's not much they can do now except get alongside, even if they do get suspicious. If one of our men gives a shout when they're almost alongside it'd be enough.'
Stafford was back with Orsini now, and Ramage told the boy to hurry round and tell the lieutenants that a minute or less before the schooners came alongside there would be a shout from the quarterdeck. 'But,' Ramage emphasized, 'tell them they are to stay out of sight and do nothing until they hear me shout, "Repel boarders!" '
Orsini repeated the instructions and disappeared into the darkness.
The schooners were barely the length of the Juno ahead and edging in. It was excellent seamanship, and he pictured the scores of Frenchmen crouching down on the schooners' decks, pistols, pikes and cutlasses ready, waiting to leap up the Juno's sides.
'Steer small, blast it!' he hissed at the men at the wheel as the Juno yawed. It would be ironical if she rammed one of the schooners accidentally. Ironical and dangerous because it would probably smash the frigate's jibboom, if not the bowsprit as well.
Now he could see each schooner's transom clearly, and started worrying about whether the schooner to windward had made allowances for her main and foresail booms, which were now protruding several feet over the lee side and likely to hit the Juno. More irony, but he was anxious to capture both vessels undamaged. If one of them escaped his whole plan would have failed.
The Juno's jibboom was now level with the transom of both schooners, and because of the frigate's forward movement the two French vessels seemed to be moving astern. He would wait until their transoms were abreast the foremast, then imitate a lookout's warning. They were abreast now!
'Sail close to larboard!' he yelled in an alarmed voice and took a firm grip on the speaking trumpet.
A heavy thump to starboard, another to larboard, the scraping of wood against wood and metal against metal, the slatting of canvas and a rasping hiss as the schooner to windward let her main halyards go at a run, and then uproar: a fantastic medley of French cheers and curses, threats and orders.
Fear hit him like a blast of cold air as he kept glancing from side to side for the first sign of a French head over the bulwarks. Yes, to larboard! He jammed the speaking trumpet to his mouth. 'Repel boarders! Come on, Junos, let every shot count!'
Suddenly the frigate's bulwarks were swarming with men. Some seamen perched on the hammock nettings were firing into the schooners; others hung over the nettings slashing down with cutlasses. More were squeezing through the ports and jabbing with boarding pikes. Pistols and muskets were going off along both sides with the curious popping that never sounded dangerous. There was a rattle and a crash as the schooner to leeward lowered its mainsail and a moment later the foresail came crashing down. From the screams that followed Ramage guessed that the gaff had landed on men below.
'We're holding 'em,' Southwick said excitedly.
'They haven't sorted themselves out yet,' Ramage snapped.
He saw grapnels with ropes attached being thrown up on to the Juno's decks: the French weren't risking the ships drifting apart, and this should help him more than them.
Southwick suddenly pointed with his sword: 'There, sir, by the starboard forechains!'
The Junos were being forced down to the deck and Frenchmen were swarming over the hammock nettings, screaming and yelling. The flash of pistol shots flickered across the deck. Ramage waited: his dozen former Tritons were the only reserve. Let the French get right down on the deck; it was easier for the Junos to get at them there.