Nor was there any sign of officers on her quarterdeck. Surely there must be an officer of the deck, and the captain too, considering that a hostile frigate was overhauling her fast and indeed was now barely five hundred yards astern and so placed in the Jason's wake that she could sweep down to attack either side. Surely a captain would be on deck, trying to guess which side the Calypso would choose, since his crew could not man the guns on both sides at the same time. Were all the officers at their divisions of guns, crouching down and peering through the ports, like voyeurs?
He lifted his telescope as a thought struck him. That was strange - there was not a single lookout aloft. In fact for all one could see, the Jason was a ship being sailed by phantoms. That was a fanciful thought until one remembered that these phantoms fired guns (and presumably could reload and run them out again, too).
Which meant that the Jason had another neat trap for him. What was it? This one, if he did not spot it, might be a complete success. Like a headmaster reviewing an erring pupil's activities for the day (before administering a painful caning), let us go over the events, he told himself. First, Aitken was right: the Frenchmen in the Jason recognized the Calypso as being French-built and were being wary in case she had been captured by the British, and finding that she was they had tried to rake her. It was an attempt that deserved better luck - yet it was damned odd that all those gun captains aimed high. He shrugged his shoulders - yes, privateersmen might be used to smaller guns and shorter ranges, and might have called for more elevation (and thus range) than was needed with the 12-pounders. Yes, that was it! Why the devil had he or Aitken or Southwick not thought of that before? Anyway, after the raking by the Jason had failed to bring down any of the Calypso's masts she had carried on to leeward and, in effect, tried to lure the Calypso into following her - that could be the only explanation of why she was being so badly sailed. But what exactly was the trap they were trying to set?
The choices for the Frenchmen are limited, he thought. If there are two or three hundred of them on board the Jason (unlikely, unless she is now a French national ship, part of the French navy and not a privateer's prize) they would not want to get alongside the Calypso and try to carry her by boarding.
So she would want to keep the Calypso at a distance, fighting a battle of broadsides. But having seen the failure of his attempt to rake the Calypso, would the French captain rely on his gunners? No - unless the raking was just part of the trap, a deliberate attempt to make the Calypso think the French gunners were fumbling and inexperienced, so that she would get close alongside - to find the French guns firing with deadly accuracy.
Yes, the more he thought about it, the more likely that seemed. It meant that the French captain of the Jason thought fast and had a well-trained crew.
Very well, what now? Ramage turned yet again as he paced from one side of the deck to the other. From his own experience, captains planning ingenious ways of gaining that all-important advantage of surprise were also more likely themselves to be taken by surprise: they were much more prone to underestimate the enemy. He was himself a good example of that: having captured those two frigates, L'Espoir and La Robuste, by legitimate ruse de guerre, the very next time he met the enemy, which was now, he had fallen for the same trick.
It was important now to accept that the Jason was being commanded by a cunning enemy, and try to guess what he was trying to make the Calypso do. Once you start having to react to what the enemy does, Ramage told himself sternly, you have lost the battle: the whole art of combat, whether with swords, fists, armies or ships of war, is to make sure the enemy always has to respond to your move: always keep him off balance, wondering where or when the next blow will fall. Ramage almost laughed at the lecture he was giving himself: it was all quite correct, but hard to apply while chasing an enemy frigate across a bright tropical sea under a bright tropical sky with both ships heading into a gaudy tropical sunset which turned flying fish skimming the surface into pink darts.
Very well, he could not see any men on board the Jason. What did that mean? Was it intended to make him think the ship was short of men and lure him into boarding her? No, that was too crude a trick; a ploy intended to puzzle the Calypso, perhaps, but otherwise of no significance. And the slow progress? Probably nothing more than the Jason's wish to bring the Calypso into action before there was any chance of the other two frigates now escorting the convoy joining in the action.
There is only one decision to make, Ramage told himself sternly; all the rest is idle speculation. How are you going to attack the Jason? Are you going to get a hundred yards away on her starboard or larboard side, and pound her with broadsides. Or slap the Calypso alongside and try to take her by boarding?
He looked across at the Jason as she rolled her way to leeward, now almost directly under the sun and dazzling the eye. Five hundred yards away? The Calypso was overtaking her, all right, but the wind was dropping with the sun, and the swell waves, with the wind waves rippling over the top of them like muscles, were flattening.
The decision seemed to make itself, and he turned to Aitken.
"I want grapnels rigged from the starboard yardarms, and a dozen more ready on deck in the hands of men who can throw them accurately." Already, before Ramage had finished giving his orders, the Scotsman was grinning, his worry that the captain had at last run out of ideas, or not yet recovered from the trick just played on him, now dispelled. "All men except the afterguard to have pikes, half-pikes, pistols, cutlasses or tomahawks; whatever they choose. And pass the word for Rennick, there'll be work for his Marines."
Southwick was still standing close and he nodded approvingly as Aitken started giving a string of orders.
"Only thing is, sir," he said quietly, "do we want those Frenchies to see us rigging grapnels? It might give the game away."
Ramage nodded and called down to Aitken: "Tell the topmen to rig those lines as though they're working on the sails. Don't hoist a grapnel high enough for the Jason to see. It's to be a happy surprise for them," he added.
"Glad you're going to board, sir," Southwick commented, his voice low.
Ramage was curious why the old master had reached that conclusion - one that Southwick seemed to have had in mind for several minutes. "Why board? Their shooting was lamentable."
"By keeping the men hidden, seems to me, sir, that French captain is trying to make us think he wants us to board. But he's not such a fool as to think we'd fall for it, so I reckon he doesn't want us to board. He just wants us to think he wants us to, so that we'll do something else.
"That makes me think - what with his poor shooting just now, which was so poor it must have been deliberate - that what he really wants is to have us a hundred yards away on his beam where his guns can either smash our hull to matchwood or tear our sails to shreds. I reckon you're going to do just what he's scared of and what he's trying to lead us away from - like a lapwing running lame to lead you away from her nest."
"I hope you're right," Ramage said. "I don't fancy that frigate running around loose in the convoy, with us lying out here dismasted and those new captains on board L'Espoir and La Robuste -"
"- running around like moulting hens," Southwick finished the sentence. "You've just got time for a word to the men, sir - if you wanted to say anything."
Southwick knew quite well that Ramage hated these eve-of-a-fight harangues which many captains liked - those who made time for long speeches full of rounded phrases and stirring thoughts designed to make the men fight better. Ramage knew the Calypsos would fight well if no one spoke another word, but Southwick always disagreed, not because he thought the men would not fight so well, just that he reckoned they liked to hear a few words from their captain.