"Pope, Dudley - Nicholas Ramage 17 - Ramage and the Saracens 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pope Dudley)

Two hours later, with the Calypso back on her original course, the two disabled ships were just tiny blobs far astern, their hulls slowly dipping below the horizon. In the frigate the men had stood down from general quarters; the guns had been unloaded, run in and secured. The deck had been washed down and the sand brushed out of the scuppers. The match tubs had been emptied and the slowmatches extinguished, rolled up in coils like light line and returned to the magazine along with all the flintlocks, prickers and cartridges.

Now the men were waiting to be piped to dinner; they were still gossiping excitedly among themselves about the collision and speculating on their fate if the French captain of the ship of the line had not lost his nerve at the last moment to avoid the Calypso. On the quarterdeck, Ramage was thinking of the report he had to write about the episode. It was a bizarre affair, and it was going to sound even more bizarre when reduced to the bare wording of a stylized letter to the Admiralty, beginning with the usual: "Sir, be pleased to inform their Lordships ..."

The report had to go to the Admiralty because he was sailing under Admiralty orders; otherwise it would be to a commander-in-chief, and he would probably be seeing the admiral personally at the time he handed in the letter containing the report.

The watch changed and the third lieutenant, George Hill, took over the deck from Kenton. Hill was an unusual man: debonair, tall and thin, he was bilingual, thanks to a French mother who had married his father, a banker, and then found herself almost completely unable to learn English.

He had a dry sense of humour which Ramage found amusing; he was a very competent officer, and the men liked him. Almost more important, he could make Southwick laugh.

"Have you ever heard of a collision like that one, sir?" he asked Ramage.

"No, never. But they were unusual circumstances."

"Perhaps we were lucky in coming across a Frenchman so sensitive about his jibboom and bowsprit."

Ramage laughed and then said: "If I'd been him I'd have been just as sensitive. If you're a Frenchman this is no place to lose a foremast."

"You'd already worked that out, sir?"

Ramage shook his head. "No," he said frankly, "at the time it seemed the only way of escaping from at least one of the Frenchmen. Not escaping really, of course, since we'd have been pinned by him, maybe even holed. But that would have been better than being trapped between them and pounded to pieces: we'd have lost most of the ship's company."

"Well, we've learned a new trick!"

Ramage held up a cautionary finger. "It's not one we're likely to be able to use again."

Hill grinned and said: "No, sir, true enough; I'm thankful we were able to use it once!"

Both men glanced aloft as the lookout at the foremasthead hailed.

"Land ho! One point on the starboard bow!"




Chapter Three

Both Ramage and Hill picked up telescopes. Ramage could just make out a faint blur, a blue-grey hump with a dark cloud just above it. "It's probably the island of Capraia," he said shortly.

Was it a coincidence that the two French ships of the line had passed so close to the island? It was a barren sort of place, admittedly. It might be a good idea to pass close and have a good look: he would look a fool if the French had put a couple of battalions on shore there, though he could not think of a good reason why they should.

"We'll harden sheets so that we can lay the island, Mr Hill."

The third lieutenant gave an order to the men at the wheel and then picked up the speaking trumpet. The men on watch hauled on sheets and braces and the ship steered a couple of points to starboard, heading for an invisible place to windward of the island.

Capraia. From memory, there was just a small fishing port once protected by an old fortress called San Giorgio. And six years ago there was the tragedy of the Queen Charlotte. "Capraia, sir? Why does the name stick in my memory?" Hill asked.

"Pirates and the Queen Charlotte, I expect."