Ramage and the Dido by Dudley Pope

ready for swabbing out the barrels of the guns. Rammers, mops and wormers were put ready beside the guns.
    And below, Ramage knew, the gunner had unlocked the magazine and even now was beginning to issue flintlocks, prickers and powder horns to the gun captains, while the powder monkeys were beginning to form up ready to carry cartridges up to the guns.
    In his cabin men would be shifting his furniture below to the hold to leave room to handle the guns and reduce the chance of splinters. Bulkheads were being hinged up to the deckhead or taken down, again to avoid splinters from shot smashing through the hull. It was this sort of preparation – mercifully absent when the Calypso used to go into action – that used up the quarter of an hour it took to prepare the Dido for general quarters.
    The bustle of war: to the untrained eye it seemed as though many men were running about aimlessly: to an eye trained in the ways of a ship of war, every man was moving fast to do his duty.
    Southwick came up and said: ‘An odd position to find someone steering north, sir.’
    ‘That’s what I was thinking.’
    Southwick gave one of his expressive sniffs. ‘All the gunnery exercise might come in useful sooner than we expected.’
    ‘We’ll soon know. I wish Orsini would hurry up and give us a hail – is this sail a privateer or a ship of the line?’
    Southwick shrugged his shoulders. ‘In this position it could be either. Of course, it could be someone who had been heading south, spotted us first, and hauled their wind to come north to investigate us.’
    ‘If that’s the case, I shall want to know why our lookouts were asleep.’
    ‘No,’ Southwick said, ‘on second thoughts it doesn’t seem very likely. Damnation, Orsini’s taking his time!’
    A minute or two later Orsini hailed that the sail was a frigate steering on an opposite course with everything set to the royals. ‘There’s another sail astern of her, though I can’t make out if she’s following or chasing.’
    Two ships? Two ships in this position both steering north? ‘Furl the courses, Mr Aitken,’ Ramage said. If there was any fighting to be done, let it be under topsails. With the great courses furled, only the topgallants remained to be taken in.
    The bosun’s mates piped the order, and men ran up the shrouds to the yards while others stood by at buntlines and cluelines. Soon the billowing canvas was stifled, gaskets passed and the sails were rolled up on the yards, almost as neat as if they had been given a harbour stow.
    Then Orsini hailed again. ‘The second ship is also a frigate. I think I can make out the occasional flash of guns – the bowchasers of the second ship. She’s too far away to see any smoke.’
    ‘One frigate chasing another, eh?’ commented Southwick.
    And that meant the first frigate was probably British, steering for the Dido in the hope that she was British. A frigate running away from a frigate? Why did she not stand and fight? But a moment after Ramage puzzled over the question, Orsini hailed again.
    ‘There’s a third ship, her masts are just coming over the horizon.’
    So the first frigate could be chased by two other frigates. That would explain why she was not standing and fighting: no one expected a single frigate to fight two others of equal or greater size.
    ‘What do you make of it, sir?’ asked Aitken.
    ‘A British frigate being chased by a couple of French, and damned glad to see us ahead of her. They’re praying we’re British – they may have recognised us as British by the cut of our sails.’
    Orsini hailed again. ‘There’s a fourth ship, bigger than the others. I think she’s a ship of the line. She’s following the frigates.’
    One British frigate being chased by two French frigates and a ship of the line? The British ship was lucky to spot the Dido…
    The question was, would she reach the Dido before the frigate just astern of her ranged up alongside and began pouring in broadsides and a