Ramage & the Saracens Read Online Free PDF

awe-struck “Will ye no look at that!”
    Then the ship crashed into her consort: jib-boom and bowsprit smashed through the main shrouds and brought the mainmast toppling down, the topmast and topgallant tumbling as though hinged. The foremast of the first ship tumbled forward as though the effort of staying upright was too much for it and crashed down on to the deck of the second ship.
    The impact brought the two ships alongside each other and their remaining yards locked. For a moment or two the first ship’s mainmast swayed and then, with no stays supporting it forward and with her consort’s yards tugging on the larboard side, it toppled slowly and gracefully, leaving the ship, now bereft of two masts, looking strangely naked.
    Ramage, hardly able to believe what he had seen, fought down an urge to giggle; expecting any moment to be killed and then seeing the anticipated killer suddenly reduced to helplessness was a new experience which left him weak with relief.
    â€œI’ll trouble you to bear away a point, Mr Aitken,” he said in a voice which sounded oddly strangled.
    â€œAye aye, sir,” Aitken said, his Scots accent thicker than Ramage had ever heard it before. He watched the first lieutenant bring the speaking-trumpet to his lips after snapping an order to the men at the wheel.
    At that moment Southwick turned to Ramage, gave a prodigious sniff and commented: “They’re a lubberly lot, these Frogs.”
    â€œAnd we should be suitably thankful,” Ramage said.
    â€œLook!” Orsini said excitedly, “there goes the other ship’s foremast!”
    They all watched as the mast fell forward, moving very slowly at first, and then crashing in a welter of wood splinters and dust, spreading the sails like a shroud over the fo’c’sle.
    â€œWell, that evens ‘em up; two masts each,” Southwick grunted.
    â€œWe’ll tack across their sterns, Mr Aitken: we need to get their names,” Ramage said, thinking of the report he had to write. Describing the way that two French ships of the line had been dismasted and left wallowing helplessly alongside each other was going to be difficult enough, and it was straining credulity not to have their names.
    The
Calypso
’s sails slatted and banged as she tacked; sheets and braces were hauled home and she settled down on her new course which would take her diagonally across the sterns of the two crippled ships.
    Ramage looked round the horizon. It was empty. What he needed now was a British ship of the line to heave in sight. Preferably two. Then they could take possession of the French ships and tow them into port, with the
Calypso
hovering round like a distracted moth … But the horizon was empty; the two ships were going to have to be left.
    â€œPity we can’t take possession,” Southwick growled.
    â€œThey might be dismasted but they still have their broadsides,” Ramage said shortly. “One broadside could leave us like them!”
    â€œTrue enough,” Southwick agreed. “It’s just that having two ships of the line lying there like that …”
    Ramage nodded but said: “I thought it would have been us.”
    He picked up his telescope as the two transoms came into sight. Slowly he spelled out the first name and Orsini wrote
Artois
on the slate. Then he saw the second name and spelled it out,
L’Aigle.
Neither ship—as far as he could remember—had been at Trafalgar. Which meant that almost certainly they were on their way back to Toulon after a visit to Egypt. Ramage shrugged his shoulders: it mattered little where they were coming from or going to: both had a lot of work to do before they could do anything but drift with wind and current.
    Stafford, standing to one side of the breech of the gun and with a better view through the gun port, had seen the collision and had given an excited commentary. Until he had time to dash to the ship’s