Ramage turned to Aitken. "She doesn't look French, from her condition. Sails and sheathing look almost new."
"That's what I thought, sir; but ploughing down under all plain sail and not making the correct reply to the challenge ..."
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Well, we're at general quarters so there's nothing more we can do until she gets closer."
Aitken nodded. "That's one thing about her, sir; she's steering directly for us and not trying to dodge round to get at the convoy."
That had been the first thing that Ramage had considered: to him a natural reaction on first sighting a strange sail was, did she menace the convoy?
"I think we'll accept that the Jason - if that's who she is - doesn't have such efficient officers as the Calypso."
"Probably has a less tyrannical captain," Aitken said in one of his rare flashes of dry humour.
Certainly a more erratic one, Ramage thought: the Jason was leaving herself with less than a mile in which to clew up courses, furl royals, round up and then back the foretopsail ready for the Calypso's approach, and unless she had a full ship's company (which was unlikely: if she had 150 men out of an establishment of 210 she would be lucky) the next few minutes could provide an object lesson in how not to handle a ship. A lesson which would not be lost on Aitken, Wagstaffe, Kenton and Martin, he noted grimly.
He was always thankful when some other ship, friendly or enemy, made mistakes which provided lessons for them: he had taught them just about all he knew; they had reached the stage where they were eager and well prepared to work things out for themselves. In effect he had taught them to add. multiply and. subtract; now they had to tackle the various sums that sea life threw at them. So far, each one (and Orsini, too, of course) had come up with the right answers.
Suddenly his mind slipped back several years and he saw himself through Southwick's eyes, a green young lieutenant put in command of the Kathleen cutter, knowing how to sail the damned ship but with precious little idea how to command her. That was the hardest part of teaching leadership - making young men realize that being able to tack a frigate in a high wind through a crowded anchorage proved only that they could sail a frigate, not necessarily lead men into battle. Yet going into battle and winning was their ultimate task.
And all that, he told himself crossly, is how Captain Ramage spends valuable seconds daydreaming instead of displaying the leadership he is always talking about.
But that damned Jason was showing no sign of getting ready to heave-to; she was surging along like a runaway horse tearing down a lane dragging a laden haywain.
Ramage walked over to the compass and glanced at the quartermaster, Jackson. There was no need to ask the question.
"She's just steering straight for us, sir: her bearing hasn't changed from the time we went to quarters."
So the Jason was approaching with the wind on her starboard quarter. To pass the Calypso or to round up at the last moment without the risk of a collision, she would almost certainly turn to starboard and then back a topsail. By the same token the Calypso, beating up to her on the larboard tack, with the wind on the larboard bow, would have to come round only a point or two to larboard to back her foretopsail, or bear away to starboard if there was any risk of a collision.
Southwick came up to the quarterdeck, obviously expecting that there would have to be some smart sail handling in the next few minutes and knowing he would be needed.
"Hope the captain of this frigate isn't senior to you, sir," he muttered.
"That thought just crossed my mind, too," Ramage said. He was sufficiently young and his name was low enough on the Post List that the odds were that the captain of the Jason was senior to him, and therefore safe from anything Ramage could say about the way he handled his ship. But should he be junior . . . Ramage would take perhaps two minutes and never raise his voice, but the Jason's captain would not act so stupidly again.
"From her pendant numbers she's the Jason," Ramage said.
"Aye, one of those three Thames-built frigates launched just before they signed that peace."
Southwick's comment was followed by one of his famous contemptuous sniffs which were a language of their own. Ramage recognized this one as referring to the peace treaty: a comment.on the stupidity of Addington in falling for Bonaparte's carefully baited agreement which gave him breathing space to restock his empty armouries, granaries and shipyards. The peace had lasted eighteen months, and the politicians were congratulating themselves instead of being impeached. Ramage dare not think of the Navy's condition if the First Lord had snatched that brief period of peace to carry out the threatened reforms. They were laudable and long overdue, aimed at rooting out corruption in high places and low, but not something to start in the middle of a war. Except, of course, St Vincent and Addington had been too shortsighted to realize that Bonaparte's Treaty of Amiens was simply an eighteen-month pause between campaigns.
And still the Jason came on. He lifted his telescope again and examined her carefully. She was getting too close in view of her odd behaviour. Her guns were run out on both sides, tiny, jutting black fingers. Her ensign was British, but she had lowered her pendant numbers. Ah ... they were beginning to clew up the courses, but slowly, as though the ship was manned by cripples or the old and infirm. No, he was not being fair because the Calypso's ship's company had served together for years and as far as sail handling was concerned it mattered not at all whether it was blowing a gale or the ship was becalmed, whether tropical sun dazzled or it was a dark night.
"Took long enough," Southwick commented. "Perhaps half the ship's company's down with black vomit - could be," he added. Ramage wondered - sickness usually hit a newly arrived ship, and the Jason did not look as though she had been very long in the West Indies. A ship serving in the Tropics somehow acquired a bleached look; the sails would be faded, the paint on the hull would show it, even though recently applied . . . Somehow the frigate looked as though she was fresh from England. It was a feeling that Ramage could not have explained, and when he mentioned it to Southwick the master nodded. "Not a sheet of copper sheathing missing, as far as I can see. That alone rules out much service in the West Indies!"
Ramage looked astern at the convoy. The great mass of ships was now far enough away that they merged into a narrow band on the horizon, a band which now took on the colour of the sails like a faintly reddish blur of smoke. Yet the Jason's lookouts would have spotted it; her officers must have examined it with their telescopes. It must be obvious to the captain of the Jason that the Calypso was one of the convoy's escorts, so why all this prancing about?
Ramage lifted his telescope once more. Yes, the other frigates had obeyed his instructions: L'Espoir had moved out to starboard, up to windward of the convoy and able to cover the front by running down to leeward. La Robuste had moved across from the leeward side to take the Calypso's place astern and to windward. So the convoy was still covered: until they were all well away from the islands there was always a chance of French privateers attacking from Guadeloupe. That butterfly-shaped island had plenty of bays providing perfect bases for privateers. They could sail westward to intercept ships bound from Barbados to the more important islands to the northwest, like Tortola; or eastwards to intercept the Europe traffic. These privateers should be kept under control by the Royal Navy ships based in Antigua, but these days few people placed much reliance on English Harbour, which seemed to have an enervating effect on anyone based there.
Meanwhile what the devil was the Jason up to? Now half a mile away and steering an opposite course to the Calypso, she was perhaps five hundred yards over to larboard, which meant she would pass too far off to hail. She had no signals hoisted; nor would there be time to answer if she hoisted one now. And Ramage had no idea who commanded her. . . someone senior, or some young fool at the bottom of the Post List who wanted to cut a dash?