Ramage's Signal

'Shut up!' hissed Jackson. 'What's that noise?'

It was not a single noise but a continuous one, starting off with an eerie creaking and groaning aloft which quickly merged into a crackling like the snapping of dried sticks and reached a climax with a bang like a gunshot. The three men looking aloft and aft, up at the foremast, saw the foreyard break into halves and come crashing down to the deck, leaving the topsail on the yard above ripped to pieces and beginning to flog in the wind.

Both Rossi and Stafford began to run aft but Jackson shouted to them to stop. In the few seconds it had taken to happen he had realized that as the two halves of the great yard - the second largest in the ship, seventy feet long and a foot and a half in diameter - hit the deck there had been no screams of pain, so it was unlikely that any injured men were trapped. And there was still more wreckage to fall - blocks the size of small church bells, perhaps the stunsail booms were still up there, caught in the rigging and yet to fall ... As he waited his fears were confirmed; heavy objectsthudded down on to the deck like falling roundshot, blocks slid off the ropes or ripped tackles, great sections of the torn foresail, which had been furled on the yard, fell like bales of straw, still bound by gaskets and tangled in clewlines and buntlines.

Then he saw men coming from aft with lanterns, advancing cautiously. 'Right lads, now we can go, but watch for anything else coming down.'

Aitken and Southwick had been standing with Ramage on the quarterdeck when the yard broke; both had begun to run forward, both had been halted by Ramage for the same reason Jackson had stopped the two seamen.

Once lanterns had been hurriedly lit, Ramage stayed at the quarterdeck rail as the first lieutenant and master went forward to begin with a search for injured men. Ramage knew only too well what had happened; all that mattered was first that no men had been hurt and second that the yard could be repaired. The carpenter was a good man and no doubt he and his mates could fish the two halves together again, because although the Calypso had spare topsail yards and topgallant yards stowed along the booms beside the boats, she did not have spare fore and main yards. He picked up the speaking trumpet and called for the bosun.

The man came running up the quarterdeck ladder as though answering a routine hail.

'Get the spare topsail sent up on deck from the sailroom, and a pair of slings. Leave the new foresail for the time being. I want that topsail hoisted up and bent on first. From the look of it there won't be much to save from the old one.'

'No, sir. Pity the sheets didn't part ...'

The topsail sheets passed through shoulder blocks at each end of the lower yardarm so that when the yard broke and fell its weight wrenched down on the sheets, which were secured one at each lower corner of the topsail, and tore it in half as one might rip a sheet of paper by pulling on the two lower corners.

Now was the time that Ramage detested being the captain: he would prefer to be forward there, going through thewreckage, making sure none of the men were trapped, seeing exactly what the damage was (apart from the broken yard, he would be lucky if two guns each side had not been dismounted and the carriages smashed), and assessing the best way of repairing it. Carpenters were skilled men but he found that sometimes they were narrow in their ideas.

He turned away deliberately and walked slowly aft, making sure he did not have his night vision affected by the reflection of one of the poop lanterns on a shiny section of the taffrail. With his nightglass he looked at the ships astern. No formation, not a set of masts in line to show they were on the same course. To work out which tack they were on he had to reverse in his mind what he saw with his eye, as well as visualize the ships the right way up. He shut the telescope with an impatient gesture: all the ships lacked was a drover and his dog, then they would look like ewes on their way to the market. However, he had to be fair; the three largest ships were reasonably close to the Calypso's wake and no doubt the rest would soon follow like children scared of the dark.

He called to the quartermaster and was told the ship was handling well under the maintopsail alone, despite the flogging remnants of the foretopsail, and even as the man replied, Ramage heard the noise lessen and, glancing up, saw that topmen were already out on the topsail yard, cutting the lacings securing the remains of the sail, which floated down like ghostly nightshirts.

Kenton came out of the darkness and saluted.

'The first lieutenant ordered me to report, sir. The foreyard broke in a split twelve feet long and Mr Aitken says it will be easy to fish. The foresail, as far as we can see because the gaskets still secure most of it to the pieces of the yard, can be repaired. Five guns - three to larboard and two to starboard - dismounted, but only one carriage smashed -'

'The injured', Ramage interrupted. 'How many?'

'Oh, none, sir', Kenton said, the surprise showing in his voice. 'The deck is badly scored, a section of the starboard bulwark is stove in, but not a man hurt.'

'Very well, what else?'

That's all for now, sir: the carpenter is inspecting it. He will be reporting to you in five or ten minutes, but I heard Southwick say he reckoned the heat of the Tropics had made the wood brittle, and that bad weather a few days ago ...'

'Twelve feet, you say?'

'At least, sir. A nice clean split. Glue, fish and woolding ...'

The carpenter was the next to report. He was a small, wizened man but because he refused to wear a hat his face and forehead always had a deep tan - a colour, Southwick always maintained, halfway between oiled teak and varnished mahogany, teasing the carpenter that he was carved from a wood unknown to man.

Lewis was a Man of Kent, not a Kentish Man. He was always careful to explain that it was a matter of which side of the Medway a man was born. He had been born, in fact, within a few miles of one of Ramage's uncles: while repairing a drawer of the captain's desk one day he had casually mentioned that as a boy he poached regularly over the uncle's estate, and even as a grown man before the war, whenever he had leave he enjoyed taking out a ferret of a night and netting a few burrows.

'Yer uncle never missed them rahbbets, sir', he said. 'Bein' as 'ow 'e'd have given me permission ter snare, net or shoot any rahbbets I wanted, though 'e'd have drawn a line at pheasints or partridge. But poachin' 'em was wot gave 'em the aroma, sir; catchin' 'em legal like would have taken the taste away, like bilin' 'em too long.'

Now Lewis was reporting to the landowner's nephew and, Ramage reflected wryly, everyone in the Calypso was taking part in a kind of poaching ...

'Larboard side, sir, startin' abowt ten feet outboard of the jeers; the yard just split like an 'ead o' fresh celery. The split be fourteen feet three inches long, clean as a whistle, none o' the wood lorst. Glue up a treat, it will; bolt every foot, then six or eight fishes 'bout eighteen feet long, and wooldin' overthe 'ole thing and the yard'll be stronger than afore it broke.'

'You deserve a brace of pheasants, Lewis, and I'll tell my uncle!'

'Ah, 'ave 'em 'anging in the barn a week an' they'll roast up a treat.'

'When can I expect to have that yard across again?'

Lewis scratched his head and then, holding his fists out in front of him, began sticking out one finger after another. Finally he had all the fingers and thumb of his right hand and the thumb and two fingers of his left.

'What be the time now, sir, then?'

Ramage looked at his watch by the light of the binnacle lamp. 'Just before midnight.'

'If I can have some men to help haul the two sections of the yard so I can true 'em up before gluing and bolting, and then help me and my mates turn it while we's driving the bolts and then fitting the fishes - well, ten or twelve hours, sir.'