Ramage's Diamond (26 page)

The cable was running freely so far, the friction causing a faint blue haze of smoke round the gun port: perhaps a hundred feet had gone but there were still two hundred to go. And the
Juno
must not be moving too fast when the entire weight of the
Surcouf
really came on the cable. That could be enough to pull the
Juno
's stern round and throw the sails a'back, and with so few men left in the
Juno
he knew that if that happened the frigate could be out of control for long enough for them to be blown ashore or dragged astern by the weight of the cable so that she hit the
Surcouf.

He dare look aft no longer: the water ahead was showing a light green, marking the beginning of the shoal off the end of Fort St Louis. It was time the
Juno
began to bear away to the westward to get out of the bay. He snatched up the speaking-trumpet and began bellowing orders. The wheel was put over as the yards were trimmed and he knew the frigate was still only towing the cable through the water: luckily the
Surcouf
's weight had not yet come on it. For a moment he pictured getting into water so shallow that the long curving bight of cable sagging down between the two ships snagged on a great rock on the bottom or caught on a shoal of coral, but every passing moment lessened that risk because the
Juno
's forward movement was slowly straightening it out.

“A hundred and fifty feet o' cable to run, sir,” Southwick called.

Ramage turned to the quartermaster. “Watch for the last of the cable. The moment the strain comes on there'll be an almighty kick on the wheel.” The quartermaster nodded and Ramage noticed that there were already four men at the spokes and the quartermaster was positioning himself to give a hand if necessary.

“A hundred feet to go, sir, and it's running well,” Southwick reported.

The
Juno
was slowly turning to starboard now and would clear the shoal by a hundred feet, and once the strain came on the cable she would be able to run out to the west.

“Fifty feet, twenty-five, ten … there it goes!” Southwick shouted jubilantly.

There was no sudden shock but the
Juno
slowed perceptibly and Ramage looked aft to see the five men fighting the wheel. Astern the
Surcouf
was slowly gathering way as the cable tautened and Ramage saw the hint of a bow wave. Then, in a direct line from the
Juno
's stern-chase port to the French frigate's bow, the cable suddenly straightened and shot out of the water, and then splashed back, like a whip. The
Surcouf
began yawing, her bow swinging to starboard and then back to larboard. Each yaw increased the dead weight on the end of the cable so that the
Juno
was like a dog with a heavy weight tied to its tail. The five men fought the wheel, cursing and grunting, but then managed to keep the ship under control.

“Give Jackson a few minutes to get used to handling the Frenchman,” Ramage called encouragingly.

Gradually the
Surcouf
's yawing eased, like a dog settling down on a leash, and in the clear water Ramage could see the shallow curve of the cable. Beyond the
Surcouf
Aitken's schooner was tacking back and forth:
La Créole
's task now was to cover the two frigates against any schooners that might come out of the Salée River.

He looked round for
La Mutine
and saw her just off the town, coming head to wind with sails flapping and an enormous white flag flying from the peak of her main gaff.

Suddenly Ramage realized that in the excitement he had forgotten all about Fort St Louis. There were no tell-tale puffs of smoke. Surely the
Juno
's sudden attack on the
Surcouf
had not taken them completely by surprise? But he had no idea whether five minutes or an hour had passed since he had waved to Jackson to drop the Tricolour, so perhaps they had had too little time to do anything.

Their progress was painfully slow, but at least the men were not having to fight the wheel now. He walked aft to join Southwick and crouched down to look through the stern-chase port. The cable was making a perfect catenary curve and the
Surcouf
's yawing had almost stopped.

“I think we can carry more canvas now,” he commented.

“I wish those damned Frenchmen had finished fitting out the ship,” Southwick grumbled. “It'd have been a sight easier to sail her out!”

“We'd have had a couple of hundred Frenchmen to argue with though, instead of just a handful,” Ramage pointed out.

Southwick shrugged his shoulders. “If you'd be good enough to keep an eye on the cable, sir, I'll try the forecourse.”

The end of the shoal was on the
Juno
's quarter now, so there was deep water right out of the bay.
La Mutine
was riding at anchor and he saw her boat heading for the shore, looking like a tiny water beetle from this distance. It would probably be nightfall before he knew whether the French had honoured the flag of truce: Baker was due to rejoin them by midnight.

He looked forward and saw the
Juno
's great forecourse tumbling down from the yard, creased and shapeless like an enormous white curtain until the men began sheeting it home and the wind gave it shape, swelling it into a billowing curve. He watched the cable tauten slightly, saw that the quartermaster was now standing back from the wheel, quite confident the four men could handle it.

Ramage took out the telescope to inspect the
Surcouf.
There were a dozen men on the fo'c's'le. His orders had included a party with axes ready to cut the cable in an emergency. He thought he could make out Wagstaffe on the quarterdeck and he was standing still, not rushing about, so he must be confident.

Southwick came aft and Ramage gestured astern at the
Juno
's wake. “We've picked up a knot or more and she seems to like it. We'll try the topsail as well.”

Fifteen minutes later the
Juno,
with the
Surcouf
in tow and
La Créole
tacking across their wake, passed half a mile south of Pointe des Nègres, at last clear of Fort Royal Bay. A large Red Ensign streamed in the wind from the
Surcouf,
and when Ramage saw it being hoisted he grinned to himself: one of the boarders from the
Juno
must have taken it with him.

He was hot, he was tired, he had not slept for some thirty hours but he was cheerful. He only wanted to hear that the French had honoured
La Mutine
's flag of truce, taken off their wounded and the prisoners, and released the schooner and he would know that his gamble had succeeded completely.

There had been casualties, but in the confusion on board the
Surcouf
he had not noticed any Junos lying on the deck. There must have been a few, but so far they had paid a small price for the capture of a frigate and two schooners. He looked down at the compass and then across at Cap Salomon, which was just opening up to the south as the two frigates continued westward.

“Mr Southwick, I think we can now alter course for the Diamond,” he said.

R
AMAGE'S
steward brought in a pot of hot tea on a tray, put it on the side of the desk and said: “When will you be ready for your shaving water, sir? I've laid out fresh clothes.”

Ramage looked up weary and unshaven and put down his pen. His eyes felt full of sand and his head ached. “Another half an hour,” he said. “Pass the word for Mr Southwick and bring another cup and saucer for him.” He heard the distant bleating of several goats and the mewing of gulls. Occasionally there was the heavy splash of a pelican diving into the water nearby in the endless search for fish, but apart from that and the noise of men working on deck, there was only the sound of water lapping against the
Juno
's side as she swung to her anchorage early this Monday morning.

The anchorage, two cables north of Diamond Rock in five fathoms of water, was a comfortable one. The
Surcouf
was lying just to the south, riding to the cable that had towed her down from Fort Royal, and
La Mutine
was between the two frigates and the great rock. Out to the west
La Créole
was stretching seaward until she could see up the coast towards Cap Salomon and then back to round the Diamond. One of the
Juno
's lookouts aloft was watching the coast but so far he had nothing to report. There was no sign of activity along the two miles of sandy beach forming the Grande Anse du Diamant. No doubt the Governor would send cavalry patrols along the coast to see if the
Juno
and her prize were at anchor in one of the many bays or if both ships were on their way to Barbados. The naval commander would probably have told him that it was easy enough for the
Juno
to tow the
Surcouf
the hundred or so miles to windward; he might even speculate that the
Juno
's Captain would leave the two captured schooners to maintain the blockade, so that the expected convoy, which the French had no reason to think Ramage knew about, had nothing to fear. Ramage was reasonably sure (or, more correctly, trying to persuade himself that he could be) that the French would never dream he would try to finish refitting the
Surcouf.
He was quite sure Rear-Admiral Davis would never dream of it.

He stared down at the report that he had been writing: it was the third draft, and young Baker was waiting to leave for Barbados in
La Mutine
to deliver it to the Admiral. Describing the night attack on the
Juno
by the two schooners and their capture was no problem; using
La Mutine
as a flag of truce, and the
Juno
and the
Créole
to cut out the
Surcouf
was covered in four paragraphs. The warning that the French were expecting a convoy in a week took a couple of lines. He included the polite suggestion that the convoy could be a week early, in which case it could arrive any moment, or a week late. What was hard was trying to tell the Admiral he was getting the
Surcouf
ready for the voyage to Barbados without the wily old man guessing that he intended holding on to her until the last moment, so that he had two frigates to tackle the convoy. The Admiral could, and probably would, argue that Ramage should have used the
Juno
to tow her to Barbados, where many more men were available to get her ready, and that the two schooners could maintain a watch on Port Royal while the
Juno
was away, and that by the time the convoy was due the
Juno
would be back …

There were other reasons, too, and Ramage hoped that Southwick, who had just returned on board after spending most of the night surveying the
Surcouf,
would confirm them. He picked up the pen and scratched out a sentence. It was always easier to fight an action than to write the despatch about it.

He poured out a cup of tea and idly picked up the letter which was sealed with the arms of France and addressed to “The Admiral Commanding the English Forces at Barbados,” thought once more about opening it and decided for the fifth or sixth time to send it on to Admiral Davis for whom, Baker had told him, the Governor of Fort Royal had really intended it.

The French had finally honoured the flag of truce, though it had been necessary to send the French Lieutenant on shore first. Baker said it had been a close-run affair. As soon as the French wounded had been taken on shore and the prisoners freed, the French authorities had wanted to seize the schooner and take Baker and his men prisoner. At that point the French Lieutenant had unexpectedly intervened. He had described how Bowen had worked without sleep tending the French wounded; how Ramage had asked him to conduct the funeral service over the French dead; said that, as a French officer, he had agreed to the exchange and that he had come on shore in the first place on parole. If the authorities held the ship, he had said dramatically (and Baker had given a fair imitation of the gestures that went with it) he would regard himself as still a prisoner of the English. The French naval commander had finally come down to the beach and threatened to arrest the Lieutenant for treason and mutiny; the Lieutenant had said his honour and the honour of France was at stake, and that he would welcome being arrested because the news would eventually get back to the English. They would know then that he had not broken his word of honour and his parole but been forced into it by his own senior officers who should know better but apparently did not.

That, Baker said, had decided it. The Lieutenant was hustled off, but half an hour later another officer came out and handed over the letter from the Governor and, with ill grace, said that if
La Mutine
was not under way within fifteen minutes the guns of Fort St Louis would open fire. Baker had asked for an assurance that the terms of the exchange of prisoners would be observed but the officer had said he knew nothing about it; he was an aide to the Governor and had been told only to deliver the letter. With that Baker had weighed and
La Mutine
had caught up with the two frigates before they had reached the Diamond.

Ramage heard footsteps on the companion-way and a moment later Southwick knocked and bustled into the cabin, his eyes redrimmed, the flesh of his cheeks sagging with weariness, but in good spirits. He sat down in a chair with a groan, massaging his back, then when Ramage looked inquiringly he said hurriedly: “Don't mention it to Bowen, sir; he'll only want to slap on a mustard plaister, and they don't do a damned bit o' good.”

“Well, how many plaisters does the
Surcouf
need?”

“None at all, sir,” Southwick said with a triumphant grin. “She's ready to get under way the minute her sails are bent on.”

“Our spare suit—can we alter any of them to make them fit? Cut out some panels or sew on some more? Her yards look shorter than ours.”