Martin waved back and walked to the centreline to leave room for his boarding party, who were following him. As soon as the bosun's mate who was his second-in-command arrived beside him, Martin said casually: 'Everyone except the captain is forward. Secure them - watch the man in a red shirt, he's the mate.'
With that Martin strolled aft in what he felt was a casual manner, hoping the captain would watch him and not the boarding party going forward.
The Frenchman looked puzzled and called something to Martin, who grinned and waved reassuringly, increasing his pace. A few moments later there was a yell from forward and Martin guessed it was the red-shirted mate.
Three quick strides brought him up to the master with a pistol in his right hand. He stopped and pulled the hammer back with his thumb, the click seeming to sound like a small hammer on an anvil.
He then repeated, parrot-fashion, the French phrase that Mr Ramage had made him learn, which told the master that his ship was now a British prize and any attempt to raise an alarm would mean death. To emphasize 'mort' Martin jammed the pistol in the man's stomach, and as he bent forward in an instinctive reaction, Martin could not resist the schoolboy gesture of pulling the floppy beret down so that it covered the man's eyes, the band jamming across his nose.
With the captain momentarily blinded, Martin spun round to look forward in time to see the French mate collapsing into the arms of one of his own men, having just been punched in the stomach by the Calypso's burliest boarder. The rest of the French promptly raised their arms in surrender and were told by the bosun's mate, using sign language, to go down into the cutter.
Martin, wanting to keep him occupied until all the men were in the cutter, pushed the French captain so that he lost his balance and fell over. At that moment one of the Calypsos, who had climbed up on to the bulwarks, called out: 'The gig's coming, sir, with the captain!'
Martin waved an acknowledgement: it was part of the plan that the gig or red cutter would help convoy the boats taking crews to the beach. As soon as Martin saw the red-shirted man helped down into the cutter, he jerked the captain's beret upwards - and saw why the man wore it: he was completely bald. The Frenchman blinked in the sudden light, looked round for his men and saw Martin pointing to the entry port. He walked over to it, watched by the wary bosun's mate with a cocked pistol, and Martin jumped up on to the bulwarks.
Ramage saw him almost immediately, waved as if congratulating him, and then pointed aloft. For a moment Martin was puzzled. Then he remembered.
'Bosun's mate, hoist the signal.'
He now had his command. Yes, he had commanded the Passe Partout for a few hours but, much as he enjoyed having Orsini with him, it was not quite the same. Now he commanded a brig of three hundred tons, worth hundreds of pounds in prize money.
Rennick was still circling with the pinnace, waiting for the Matilda to anchor while the bosun with the jolly boat edged over towards the Rosette schooner, which had anchored and whose crew would, in a few minutes, be busy furling the sails and unlikely to take much notice of a frigate's boat coming alongside.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
By six o'clock in the evening fifteen ships and the Calypso frigate were at anchor in the Golfo di Palmas, and unknown to eight of them, the masters, mates and ships' companies of the other seven, with the Foix garrison, were tramping over the Sardinian hills in the dry, dusty heat, looking in vain for a town or village which could understand their French and Spanish, give them drink, food and shelter, and help them raise the alarm. Instead, the people assumed they were bandits and opened fire with fowling pieces, unleashed their dogs and bawled threats in Italian.
The Sarazine, the largest of the merchant ships, was providing comfortable quarters for Aitken: her master's cabin was bigger than the coach on board the Calypso - the captain's day cabin, bed place and dining cabin - and the Scotsman, whose own quarters in the frigate comprised a box eight feet long and seven wide, felt almost guilty at the luxuriousness of it.
Kenton was counting himself equally lucky in the Golondrina, except for the smell of garlic. He refused to believe that the heavy smell was simply the residue over the years of masters eating garlic-treated food and breathing out garlic-laden breath: he was convinced that somewhere, having rolled under something, must be a clove which had been trodden on and squashed. He had a seaman search the cabin but without success, although the man at the end of an hour's crouching, peering and sniffing, did comment to an exasperated Kenton that: 'I'm partial to a bit of garlic meself, sir, an' Watkins, what's going to be the cook, has found a great string of 'em. If you like, sir, I can get you a fresh clove.'
In the Bergère, Martin was inspecting sails and rigging with the bosun's mate, making his topmen let fall one sail and check it for tears or chafe, before furling it and letting fall the next. As soon as that was finished he went to the wheel and had the bosun's mate turn it slowly while he made sure there was no wear where the ropes to the tiller went round the drum. Then together they inspected the rudderhead, tiller, wheel ropes and the relieving tackle. When they climbed back on deck the bosun's mate, Maxwell, gave a contented sigh. 'Everything seems to be all right, sir, an' that's just as well, because whatever Mr Ramage has got in mind, this old brig is going to have to sail faster than she's done for years!'
Martin looked at his watch. An hour to go. He could now tell the men exactly what Mr Ramage intended.
'Muster the men aft, Maxwell', he said, 'then you'll all know what Mr Ramage has in mind.'
While he waited, he saw the gig go alongside the Passe Partout, take off three or four men, and then row towards the other brig in the gulf, the Caroline, smaller than the Bergère but French built.
Jackson took the gig alongside the Passe Partout and, while the bowman held on, scrambled up the side of the tartane to hand over sealed, written orders to Orsini.
For a few moments the midshipman thought they must mean he had lost command of the tartane, and rather than let Jackson, Rossi and Stafford and the rest of the men see his disappointment - he knew he was not far from tears - he went aft to his cabin with the unopened orders stuck carelessly in a pocket.
The moment he was in the cabin he shut the door, pulled out the folded paper, broke the seal and began reading. The orders comprised only a few lines - were similar in fact to those for the Passe Partout - but he read them again carefully, and then a third time. Then he sat down, angry that his hands were trembling. There was no disguising the trembling, and he knew two things were causing it. Three rather. First, the shock because he thought he was losing the tartane because the captain was dissatisfied with him; second, excitement at his new command; and third, fear, or to call it by a less harsh name, apprehension.
Who, he wondered, would not feel apprehension in his position when ordered to take possession and then command of the Caroline brig? She must be all of three hundred tons. She bore the same relationship to the tartane as a ship of the line to a frigate ...
He folded the orders and put them in his pocket, slipped the cutlass belt over his shoulder and hooked two pistols into his belt. Then he held out his right hand, palm downwards, and examined it. It was no longer trembling, and he went out on deck to find Jackson talking to Rossi and Stafford.
Jackson stepped forward and handed him another letter. 'The captain said to give you this, sir, after you'd read the other one.'