Free Ramage And The Drum Beat by Dudley Pope Page A

filled with a bang as the cutter’s bow swung to larboard and brought them out from under the sheltering lee of the mainsail. The sudden weight of wind in both sails tried to push her bow off to starboard and the quartermaster ran to help the two men hold the heavy tiller.
    ‘One minute to go,’ bawled Jackson, dodging round the busy men as he tried to stay within earshot of Ramage and yet still keep an eye on the watch.
    He’d overshot by – oh God! As the Kathleen’s turn brought the frigate’s great squat transom flashing down the starboard side, Ramage found himself looking up at a row of faces, some half-hidden by muskets, and just had time to notice several of the men were wriggling and jabbing with their elbows to get enough room to aim as they were jostled by some officers trying to peer down at the cutter.
    Little flashes of flame, puffs of smoke and that ridiculous popping. More shouts of pain on the Kathleen’s deck and he was conscious of falling men. A glance back showed that by some miracle the jolly boat seemed to be in roughly the right position. Musket balls whined close in ricochet. Every musket seemed to be aimed at him. The frigate swung round to the quarter as the Kathleen continued turning; then she was astern.
    ‘Mr Southwick! Back the jib and let fly the foresail sheets! Keep the helm hard down!’
    Swiftly the men hauled the jib to windward so it tried to push the cutter’s bow to starboard but was balanced by the mainsail and rudder trying to force the bow round to larboard, like two children of equal weight at either end of a seesaw. The Kathleen began to slow down. As she stopped she began to roll, the noise of rushing water ceased, and the popping of muskets was much louder.
    Jackson shouted ‘Thirty seconds!’ just as Ramage looked for the jolly boat.
    The wind was drifting it swiftly, the drag of the grass warp turning it broadside on to lie parallel with the frigate and perhaps fifty yards away. Ramage wasn’t sure how it happened, but the boat was in exactly the right position, the warp linking it to the Kathleen making an almost perfect crescent superimposed on the smooth water of her wake.
    ‘Time!’ bawled Jackson, and nothing happened.
    For several moments hope clouded judgement in Ramage’s mind; after all that, he thought wearily, surely at least one of the portfires must be still alight, but he felt too sick with disappointment to look again with the telescope for a wisp of smoke. Fifteen minutes was the maximum burning time for a portfire, and fifteen minutes, sixteen by now, had elapsed.
    Southwick was steadily cursing in a low monotone; Edwards, white-faced, watched the jolly boat as if stunned; Gianna stood unconcerned, looking astern at the frigate curiously; and Ramage, conscious of yet another fusillade of musketry, was deciding he’d better get the Kathleen under way again before the sharpshooters picked them all off.
    It was only then he registered that Gianna was standing near him amid the thudding and whining of musket balls and instinctively gave her a violent shove that sent her flat on her face, hard up against the taffrail. At the same moment Edwards clutched his arm, obviously hit by a shot and Ramage heard a curious clang beside his leg.
    Suddenly a blinding flash from the direction of the jolly boat was followed by a deep, muffled explosion, and a blast of air. The flash turned into a billowing mushroom of smoke, and jagged pieces of wood – the remains of the boat – curved up slowly through the air in precise parabolas before spattering down on to a sea across which concentric waves rolled outwards from where the boat had been, like the ripples from a rock flung into a pond.
    ‘Half that amount of powder would do the job for you, sir,’ Edwards said quietly.
    ‘Yes. And I hope our friends over there haven’t missed the point.’
    ‘The bang was a bit late though, wasn’t it, sir?’ Jackson said with a grin.
    ‘Aye,’ said Edwards, ‘but if