Ramage's Diamond (44 page)

As Frenchmen scrambled over the gunwales, Ramage took a couple of dozen men from the guns and had them lining the quarterdeck and taffrail with muskets, not so much against the risk of the French swarming on board the
Juno
as to control them if they tried to overcrowd the boats. He soon saw there was little risk of that happening: as soon as one boat was full, the men on board drove off their former shipmates, screaming at them to go to the others.

Once all the
Juno
's boats were full Ramage hailed the lieutenant, telling him to have his other two boats secured astern of the rest but that he was to stay with his own boat and keep discipline while the second frigate picked up the remaining survivors.

“Three hundred and forty-one men, sir,” Southwick reported. More than half the survivors were in the
Juno
's boats, so there should be no problem for Aitken. He was just about to tell Southwick to get the
Juno
under way when there was a sudden violent hissing from the wrecks, followed by the rending and creaking of timber. The frigate that had been almost awash disappeared in a swirling mass of water and the second ship, which had been heeling, began to capsize. It happened slowly, almost effortlessly; there was majesty in the way she turned over into the tangle of masts and yards alongside, the painted black sides vanishing, the bottom emerging green with weed and barnacles, despite the copper sheathing. Air and water spurted and boiled and for a few moments the frigate's keel was horizontal and Ramage saw the rudder was swung hard over. Yards began floating to the surface, leaping up vertically like enormous lances before toppling over to float normally. Then the hull began to shudder as though great fish were nibbling at it and she seemed to float a little higher.

“Her guns just broke adrift,” Ramage commented, breaking the silence that had fallen on board the
Juno.

Still the hissing continued, and then it increased. Slowly the forward section began to dip and the remaining part sank lower. Great bubbles broke the surface as water forcing its way into enclosed spaces inside the hull drove out the air. Now the bow section was below the water, the line of the keel sloping steeply like the single rail of a slipway. Then, like a dolphin curving down into the water again after taking a breath, the whole forward section of the hull sank as the after section rose. For a full minute the ship seemed to hang almost vertically: the quarterdeck and taffrail reared up, and the watchers saw the name picked out in gilt on the transom. Then it all vanished, enormous bubbles spewing up floating wreckage and concentric rings of small waves spreading, unaffected by the wind and swell waves.

Ramage swallowed and said to the Master: “We'll get under way, Mr Southwick …”

The Master did not move, his eyes still riveted on the pale green circle in the water which for a few moments marked the frigate's grave. Ramage touched his arm gently and the old man gave a start. “A sad sight, sir,” he muttered. “Shall I get under way?”

By nightfall the survivors from the two French frigates had been landed at the beach and the
Juno
's and
Surcouf
's boats retrieved. The two frigates had then run down to the Diamond, where
La Comète
's boats were taken over to her. Ramage ordered Aitken on board the
Juno
for a quick conference. After hearing the story of how the two French frigates had collided, he outlined his plans for getting the merchant ships to Barbados and then sent the
Surcouf
off with orders to keep a patrol close in with the entrance of Fort Royal Bay for the rest of the night, watching particularly for any privateers that might try to sneak out to recapture the merchantmen.

The
Juno
's jolly-boat had been sent to the Marchesa battery with written orders for the men on the Rock: they were to rig the signal mast on top of the peak again and be ready to repeat signals they sighted any of Ramage's ships making, while the original instructions concerning the sighting of other ships still stood. Ramage ended his orders by expressing his satisfaction at their accurate fire, and telling them that their victim had been the 36-gun frigate
La Prudente,
while their other target, now anchored below them, was
La Comète
which had been hit by eleven shot, of which two had caused leaks below the waterline. One of the hits, he added, knowing the men were in awe of the peppery little old man, had given the
Juno
's carpenter a great deal of work before it was plugged satisfactorily.

While the jolly-boat was away at the Marchesa battery, the
Juno
's remaining boats were hoisted in again and Ramage had Wagstaffe come on board to receive his orders. They were simple enough—
La Créole
was to patrol the Fours Channel, covering the anchored merchant ships. As soon as the jolly-boat returned it was hoisted on board and the
Juno
got under way, to spend the rest of the night patrolling between Cap Salomon and the Diamond.

While the frigate was stretching north, making slow progress in a light offshore breeze, Ramage went below to his cabin and began drafting a report to the Admiral. He was so weary that he had difficulty keeping his eyes in focus, and his left cheek was twitching slightly with an irritating monotony. He felt no urgency in sending the report to the Admiral but knew that unless he managed to get the details written down he would forget them; two hours' sleep would leave his memory like a muddy pool.

He described the sighting of the convoy and his plan to attack it, giving credit to Wagstaffe's sense of timing. Aitken's tactics in causing two of the French frigates to collide took up several paragraphs, the problem being to translate Aitken's droll description into the more prosaic phraseology of an official report. The young Scot had been steering the
Surcouf
for the centre of the convoy when the French frigate on its quarter bore away to run down to attack him on the starboard bow. A few moments later the frigate abreast the leading ships of the convoy hauled her wind and came down to attack him on his larboard bow. To begin with, Aitken thought that each would pass down either side, firing a broadside as she went by. This would have been such a bad mistake by the French—it would have left nothing between Aitken and the convoy—that he then decided they were laying a trap for him, and that each at the last moment would cross his bow in succession and rake him. If one then tacked and the other wore, they would stay between Aitken and the convoy. As he held on, waiting to see what was going to happen next, Aitken noted that the wind had veered slightly, but told the quartermaster to steer the same course, realizing that he could steer straight for the frigate on his starboard bow.

That decided him. He told Ramage he remembered the previous night's warning that achieving surprise was half the way to victory, and he bided his time, watching the two frigates racing down towards him. Then he warned his guns' crews to stand by and, with the frigate to starboard a bare quarter of a mile away, hauled his wind and steered straight for her, as though intending to ram her, bow to bow.

The French Captain panicked: of that Aitken was sure, because he turned to starboard; bearing up suddenly without firing a shot. Aitken's gunners fired a well-aimed broadside and while the smoke was clearing Aitken saw her continue turning as though intending to wear right round and follow the
Surcouf,
but in the excitement she had forgotten her consort which, still steering a course which would have taken her across the
Surcouf
's bow if she had not altered course slightly, then rammed her. It had been “awfu' gude value,” Aitken had said, two frigates for the price of one broadside.

Ramage then went on to describe the accurate fire opened by the Juno and Ramage batteries—how
La Comète
had been disabled and the gunners, under the command of a petty officer, had promptly shifted target to
La Prudente
and caused her to blow up.

The rest of the report took up only a few lines. The abandoned merchant ships had been collected and anchored off the Diamond, joining
La Comète,
whose main leak had been plugged by the
Juno
's carpenter. The remaining two French frigates soon sank after the
Juno
and
Surcouf
reached them and their survivors were taken to the beach and released because there were insufficient men to guard them.

He read it through again and saw that he had not given credit to Southwick and Lacey. He wrote in two sentences and then remembered the name of the petty officer in command on the Diamond and inserted that as well. In the left-hand margin, opposite the description of anchoring the merchant ships, he copied their names from the list given him by Wagstaffe.

Writing the report had cleared his mind a little—and he put the draft in a drawer to be read through again at first light before the clerk made a fair copy. As he shut the drawer he sat back in the chair. The fighting is over, he told himself, and you've been lucky. Lucky, and well served by Aitken and Wagstaffe and the men on the Diamond. But there are still a French frigate and seven merchant ships to be disposed of without much more delay. By dawn, as the
Juno
returned to the Diamond after her night's patrol, everyone would be waiting for orders …

He wondered for a moment about the fate of Baker and
La Mutine.
When she left for Barbados he remembered thinking that Baker and his men would probably be the only Junos left alive if the convoy arrived before Admiral Davis.
La Mutine
must have sunk. Had she been captured her captor would probably have brought her into Fort Royal. In time he would have to write to Baker's parents. It was the kind of letter he hated writing, but he could praise him without feeling a hypocrite, and tell them that their son died performing a valuable service. He seemed to remember that his father was a deacon.

He was putting off the moment when he had to decide what to do with the prizes. Picking up the pen, he began writing out the alternatives. He could take ten men from each of the two frigates, put them in two merchant ships, and send them off to Barbados with
La Créole
as an escort. The schooner could then bring them back, probably with more provided by Admiral Davis …

The thought hit him like a cold shower that the Admiral must have sailed from Barbados, perhaps up to Antigua. He might have left a single frigate behind in Bridgetown which would account for … but no, it would not account for Baker, because
La Mutine
would have returned at once, even if for some reason the frigate captain was unable to leave Bridgetown.

Anyway, like that he could start two merchant ships on their way to Barbados. The second choice was to send the
Surcouf
with two merchant ships. It seemed the obvious thing to do, but he knew the Service too well. He would never see the Junos now on board the
Surcouf
again. The Admiral would want to commission the
Surcouf
at once, and taking twenty or so men from each frigate commanded by his favourites would not weaken them. Ramage off Fort Royal was managing with the men he had in the
Juno,
and he had
La Créole
as well. If he found himself undermanned he could always take the men off the Diamond. This would be the Admiral's argument.

It was difficult in a despatch to persuade the Admiral of the importance of the batteries on the Diamond: unless he saw them in action, or at least firing at targets in the Fours Channel and westward from the Rock, he would never appreciate them. He would read in the despatch that they sank
La Prudente
and disabled
La Comète,
but he would call it luck.

Ten men from the
Juno
in one merchantman, ten from the
Surcouf
in another: that settled it. The
Juno
's gunner could command one—he was sufficiently useless for it not to matter if the Admiral held on to him—and the bos'n the other. Wagstaffe would escort them with
La Créole
and would have written orders to bring the prize crews back as soon as the merchant ships were safely anchored and he had reported to the Admiral.

Then he remembered that there were now an extra nine hundred French naval officers and seamen, plus the crews of the seven merchantmen in Fort Royal. He took out his draft despatch to the Admiral and added a paragraph pointing out that parole and exchange agreements aside, there were a dozen schooners in Fort Royal which could be manned by the former frigate crews. This, he added as the thought struck him, was why he was retaining the
Surcouf
for the present. He read the paragraph again. It sounded convincing; indeed it was the obvious and wisest thing to do.

He put the papers away and picked up his hat to go up on deck to relieve Southwick. It was a warm, starlit night, with the cliffs black to the eastward and the mountains beyond a vague blur. The
Juno
was making three knots, the water gurgling away lazily from her cutwater, the rudder post rumbling occasionally as the wheel was turned a spoke or two. Her wake was a bright phosphorescent path and occasionally a large fish leapt out of the water and landed in a splash of light.

Southwick went below, and his lack of protest at being relieved by the Captain showed that the old man was utterly exhausted. Jackson was the quartermaster, and although he could not see them Ramage knew that the six lookouts posted all round the ship were keeping a careful watch. On almost any other night there might be a chance of one man dozing on his feet for a minute or two, but never the night after a brisk action.

As he began pacing the starboard side of the quarterdeck he noticed a small figure walking up and down on the larboard side. It was Paolo, whose watch ended when Southwick went below. He was about to call to the boy to get some sleep when he realized that he was probably too excited and enjoying every moment of it anyway.