Having the ships advancing in a broad box-shaped formation meant that escorts could patrol ahead and astern, whence attacks were most likely to come, and since the box had narrower sides there was less room for a stray privateer to sneak in. But the real advantage, from Ramage's point of view, was that the mules had less chance to dally and drop astern.
With the convoy now formed up and heading northwards along the west coast of Barbados, the sun dipping low on the larboard beam. Ramage was weary but satisfied: getting under way could have been a lot worse. Even the abominable Beatrice was in position after Paolo had taken over half a dozen men to help the fools to weigh their anchor. Because of some tedious dispute about pay owing to some of her men, four of her six seamen had deserted last night in Barbados, swearing they would kill the master rather than sail with him again (and Paolo reported that he would not blame them). Four men short meant they could not turn the windlass to weigh the anchor, hence the wheft at the foretopmasthead.
As every drill sergeant knew, the most important man on a parade was the "right marker", the man against whom all the other files positioned themselves. Ramage realized how lucky he was in having Yorke and the Emerald as his right marker. But by giving Yorke the position of leading ship in the starboard column (and thus the pivot on which most convoy movements would be made) he had put the Emerald in the most vulnerable position of all if the French attacked with a squadron. However, in war there was always risk, and Yorke would be the last to complain. Yet he was not thinking of Sidney Yorke: if he was honest with himself. Ramage was worrying about Sarah, who had been caught up in the war by accident: she had gone off on a peacetime honeymoon with her new husband and the war had started again to wrench her away. To what, he dare not think.
At least the two former prize frigates were turning out well. John Mead, the young lieutenant just made post and given command of L'Espoir, seemed a good shiphandler and had imagination. The sail handling was taking too long, but obviously during the next few days Mead would have his men working against a watch. Sail handling was second nature with most captains; but less popular was gunnery exercise. Guns firing meant scorched paint. There was always a spurt of flame upwards from the touchhole and there was the muzzle blast, a mixture of smoke, unburnt powder and powdered rust from the shot. No matter how carefully shot was hammered and given a coat of blacking, there were always rust scales, and gunnery exercises (or a bout of action) always left the first lieutenant's scrubbed and holystoned decks stained and greasy - and badly marked by the wooden trucks of the carriages. There was no way that four wheels supporting a gun weighing a ton and a half being flung back in recoil were going to avoid scarring the deck planking, even if it was already grooved from previous years. Carpenters could plane and seamen scrub with holystones, but the marks were there, like cart tracks on a country lane, and a couple of hours' shooting worked the soot and rust powder well into the grain so that it looked like a chimney sweep's neck. Anyway, that was the problem for L'Espoir's new captain: Ramage's only concern was that he carried out gunnery exercises.
Summers, commanding La Robuste, was a completely different man: where Mead was lively and talkative, full of ideas which Ramage noticed he sometimes expressed without sufficient thought, Summers was dour; he gave the impression of never speaking a word (expelling it, almost) without chewing it ten or twenty times. It was not the hesitation preceding deep thought, of that Ramage was sure; the dourness came from a brain which turned over slowly, like a roasting pig revolving on a spit. Would Summers be as slow in reacting to an emergency - when a privateer rushed out of the darkness to cut off one of the convoy? Why had the admiral put Summers in command of La Robuste? If he had been an unsatisfactory first lieutenant in one of Tewtin's ships, it was of course a convenient way of getting rid of him. It wasted an opportunity to promote a favourite, but there must be times for flag officers when the need to get rid of a really incompetent (or irritating) subordinate overcame the demands of favouritism.
Summers, then, was the question mark; the convoy was sufficiently large and the escort of three frigates (one, L'Espoir, armed en flûte, so that virtually she carried no guns) was pathetically smalclass="underline" it averaged out at twenty-four merchant ships for each frigate. The escort was just large enough for Tewtin to avoid criticism from the Admiralty - unless it was heavily attacked and suffered disastrous losses. In that case Tewtin would probably be agile enough to make sure all the blame rested on the shoulders of the convoy commander . . . after all, admirals could not be everywhere, and had to rely on subordinates . . .
Still, it was a beautiful evening and Barbados was drawing astern on the starboard quarter, or rather the Calypso and the convoy appeared to be stationary on the sea, like small ornaments on a polished table, while the island itself seemed to be moving slowly away, distance softening the low outlines and turning the pale greys into misty and distant blues that would challenge a water-colourist.
What was Sidney Yorke (and his sister Alexis, for that matter) thinking about as they passed this northwestern coast of Barbados? It was out here, in the time of Cromwell, that one of Yorke's Royalist forebears had to escape from the island just a few yards ahead of the Roundheads and, according to Sidney, taking with him a French mistress, wife of some besotted Roundhead planter. He must ask Yorke to tell the story of that particular forebear, because he ended up in Jamaica as the leader of the Buccaneers, and the estates he then acquired now belonged to the Yorkes, though Ramage was far from sure that it was Sidney Yorke's branch of the family. It must be strange, though, looking across at an island and knowing that one and a half centuries ago, or whenever it was, all that parcel of land belonged to your family and, but for Cromwell's antics, would now belong to you.
Ramage realized that Southwick was standing nearby, obviously anxious to say something but unwilling to interrupt. Southwick always knew when he was away in another country and often another century.
"Ah, Southwick, this is probably the last time we'll ever see these mules in such good order!"
Southwick laughed and dismissed them with a-wave of his hand. "I was watching those masters at the conference: that question you put Mr Yorke up to asking had an effect! You looked so fierce that every one of them could see the Calypso towing them under. Worth five dozen warning shots, that bit o' play-acting."
"I hope no one got the wrong idea," Ramage said. "I'll tow when needed, but I'll also leave 'em behind if they keep dropping astern at night."
"I heard you threaten that, sir, but you wouldn't really, would you?" Southwick's doubt was quite clear.
"They'll get a couple of warnings, maybe three, but after that I'm not keeping the convoy jilling around until after noon. Otherwise it means we get only six hours or so's sailing out of twenty-four. We have to heave-to at daylight, say five thirty am, and the mule finally gets into position by noon. By six or seven o'clock at night he's reefing or furling again and snugging down for the night - and we've had the pleasure of his company for six or seven hours, making perhaps five knots. So in the twenty-four hours the convoy's covered thirty-five or forty miles, plus a bit for current if we're lucky. Remember, Southwick, we've got to sail 3,500 miles before we reach the Chops of the Channel. Does a hundred-day passage appeal to you? I'm damned if any of these mules are going to make me wait a hundred days for news of my wife."