by Dudley Pope
Suddenly there was a hail from the foremast-head: ‘Sail ho!’
‘Where away?’ Aitken bellowed through the speaking trumpet.
‘On the starboard beam close under the land, just coming clear of the headland, sir.’
Ramage snatched up his telescope. The heel of the island, where a stirrup would fit, formed a deep, narrow bay; the headland was Pointe Dunkerque and the bay went inland for a couple of miles. He could see a sail – no, two sails, square sails, but the rest of the ship was hidden below the curvature of the earth.
‘What do you make of her?’ Aitken shouted.
‘Too far off, sir. Two masts, steering south-east, but that’s all.’
Ramage looked round for Jackson, handed him the telescope and gestured aloft. The American ran to the mainchains and a moment later was going up the ratlines like a monkey.
The first lieutenant looked questioningly and Ramage nodded. ‘Beat to quarters, Mr Aitken. Pendant numbers ready, and I’ll let you know the challenge and reply in a moment. And bear up for the Point; don’t lose anything to leeward.’
With that he went down to his cabin and unlocked a drawer in the desk, taking out a heavy canvas bag. It contained the ship’s secret papers, and he pulled the lines that kept it closed through the brass grommets. He took out the lead weight that would make sure the bag sank quickly if it had to be thrown over the side to avoid capture, and removed the papers. On top was a white card on which three tables were drawn. These were the challenge and reply, which changed daily for the next three months. He ran his finger down one column, noted the challenge for the day of the month, then moved his finger sideways and read off the reply. Two three-figure numbers. He never trusted his own memory and scribbled them down on a sheet of paper before restowing the documents and the weight and returning the bag to the drawer.
As he went up the companionway he heard the bustle of men going to general quarters: the gunner would be down in the magazine, gun captains would be collecting the locks and prickers for each gun, already the decks would be wetted and men sprinkling sand. The boys would be waiting at the magazine scuttle with their wooden cartridge boxes, and the Marine lieutenant would be stationing his men round the bulwarks.
He reached the top of the companionway and glanced aloft. The Juno was now stretching northwards, rolling with the beam sea. He looked forward to see a strong west-going current setting the Juno crabwise away from the headland. Why didn’t Aitken brace the yards sharp up? They would end up well to leeward of the brig at this rate.
Southwick hurried up and, guessing what Ramage was about to say, explained apologetically: ‘There are reefs up to a mile off the Point, sir, and Jackson says she’s a brig, and from the cut of her topsails she’s British.’
‘He should know,’ Ramage said, and the Master grinned. The Triton, in which all three of them had served for nearly two years, had been a brig, built at the same yard as the Welcome.
Ramage watched the brig for a couple of minutes and then ordered: ‘Rig side-ropes and have a boat-rope ready in the forechains. We’ll be heaving-to on the starboard tack and her captain will come on board, Mr Aitken.’
He looked round for the midshipmen. ‘Mr Benson, prepare the signal for the captain of the Welcome to come on board. Make sure you look in the right section of the signal book.’
The boy thumbed through the pages as he was joined by Orsini. ‘Signals from private ships,’ he muttered, half to himself. ‘Ah – here we are, For the captain of a particular ship to come on board. Union Flag at the mizen topmasthead.’
Ramage remembered that entry in the signal book. ‘Benson!’ he growled, ‘what particular ship are you signalling to?’
The boy hurriedly looked back at the page and Ramage could visualize his grubby finger running across to the columns. ‘Sorry, sir, Union at the mizen topmasthead, and ship’s signal.’
‘Well,’ Ramage said sternly, ‘make sure you get her numbers right. Now, get the signal bent on, and I’ll masthead the pair of you if the halyards are twisted!’
As the two midshipmen scurried aft to the flag locker Ramage handed the piece of paper he was holding to the First Lieutenant. ‘The challenge and reply. Hoist the challenge as soon as she’s close enough to read it, and the moment she replies I want to see that signal’ – he gestured to the boys – ‘run up like a rocket!’
There was a hail from aloft, and Jackson reported that the strange sail was definitely a British brig.
‘I wonder if she’s gone to general quarters,’ Southwick muttered to himself.
‘I doubt it,’ Ramage said. ‘She’s expecting a frigate to relieve her and she sees one…’
‘No ship’s a friend until she’s made or answered the challenge correctly,’ Southwick said stubbornly. ‘There was none o’ that slackness in the Triton!’
‘Steady on,’ Ramage said mildly, ‘we don’t know she hasn’t gone to quarters yet!’
‘Ah, but I know how slack these youngsters get in the West Indies.’
‘The only brig in which you served in the West Indies was the Triton,’ Ramage said sarcastically.
‘Sorry, sir,’ Southwick said apologetically, ‘’fraid my liver hasn’t recovered from Bridgetown. Those planters do spice their food so. And all those foreign kickshaws they serve.’
By now Pointe des Salines was drawing abaft the beam, with Pointe Dunkerque broad on the starboard bow and two miles off. The brig was still partly in the lee of the hills and Ramage said to the first lieutenant: ‘Mr Aitken, we’ll let her come down to us; there’s no point in us getting in on the lee over there. Back the foretopsail.’
There are distinct advantages in being the senior officer, Ramage thought to himself, and resumed walking up and down the starboard side of the quarterdeck as orders were shouted and bos’n’s pipes twittered, and men ran up to brace round the yard as the helm was put up. The Juno came up into the wind a few degrees until the wind was blowing on the forward side of the topsail, pressing it back against the mast and trying to push the frigate’s bow round to leeward, a push which was counteracted by the rudder and the after sails, which were trying to push her bow up into the wind. Careful sail trimming balanced both forces until the Juno was lying almost stopped in the water.
Ramage watched the Welcome approaching, slowly at first, almost wallowing in the wind shadow thrown by the high ridge of land running down to Pointe Dunkerque but then heeling slightly as the first few puffs caught her coming out of the lee. Through the glass Ramage saw her yards being trimmed, then she heeled more and the sails billowed and the canvas tautened as she caught a fresh breeze and came alive.
‘Make the challenge, Mr Aitken,’ he said. ‘Stand by with your glass, Mr Benson!’
The three flags soared upwards. Ramage counted to himself – ten seconds, twenty, forty, a minute, two minutes… Then three flags were hoisted aboard the brig, and even before an excited Benson called them out Ramage read the numbers: the correct reply. And the Welcome’s pendant numbers.
Hearing a hurried curse from the first lieutenant, Ramage turned to see Orsini standing helpless, flags flapping round his legs.
‘Jump, boy!’ Aitken shouted angrily, ‘but don’t let go of that halyard! Here, quartermaster, give him a hand. Benson, put that telescope down and bear a hand. It’s a mastheading for the pair of you!’
Orsini, near to tears with embarrassment, jumped up but caught a foot in the cloth of the Union Flag and fell flat on his face. The burly coxswain lifted him up, shook him until his foot was clear and pushed him unceremoniously to one side, taking the halyard from his hands. He hauled as Benson cleared the flags and they rose upwards.
‘The first time, too,’ Ramage heard Southwick mutter at Ramage’s elbow, and he knew the same thought was in the Master’s mind: Ramage’s first signal, his first order as a captain to the commanding officer of another ship.
‘Don’t tell the Marchesa,’ Ramage murmured, ‘she’d kill the poor lad!’
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��I’d gladly do it for her at the moment,’ Southwick said sourly. ‘All wrapped up with coloured bunting like a bumboat laundry woman.’
Ramage turned forward so that Aitken and the midshipmen should not see him laughing. The best-laid plans of mice and post captains brought to nought by Gianna’s nervous nephew. He wondered how many times in the past when, as a lieutenant, he had been ordered on board a ship and had had an ill-tempered reception from her captain, some similar episode had taken place a few minutes earlier. For that matter, he remembered, the Invincible’s captain had been unduly taciturn when he went on board to report to Admiral Davis. Had the Admiral just squared his yard for not reporting the Juno’s arrival earlier? Had the watchtower along the coast not spotted them, or not passed the word, or had the word been passed but not reached the flagship? He suddenly realized that he was getting a new insight into command, or rather command where you were the senior officer.
The commanding officer of the Welcome was handling her well: Ramage watched with a critical eye and guessed that the lieutenant was hurriedly deciding whether he should heave-to the brig to windward or leeward of the frigate, and the bos’n would be preparing to hoist out a boat.
An hour later Ramage watched the Welcome’s boat being hoisted in and stowed on the booms; then the foretopsail yard was braced round and as the sails began to draw the brig slowly gathered way, headed round towards the Diamond. Two hours later her hull was hidden by the curve of the earth. The young lieutenant commanding her had been jubilant when Ramage had handed him the various packets from Admiral Davis: after a brief call at Antigua he would be bound for England.
Ramage also guessed that the lieutenant was thankful to be going to Antigua direct, and not by way of Barbados because his three-week patrol off Fort Royal had met with little success. He had sighted a small island schooner leaving Fort Royal at dusk and chased her northwards, losing her in the darkness. In daylight a week later he had sighted a drogher in the Passe du Fours between the Diamond and the mainland but before he could reach her she had run up on the beach and the crew had fled ashore, leaving the drogher in flames. From the way she burned the lieutenant thought she had been carrying spirits, and was probably a smuggler bringing in rum from one of the southern islands.
He had looked blank when Ramage asked about boat operations at night in Fort Royal Bay. Captain Eames had responded in the same way to the same question. Most of the time the Welcome had found the current north-going, except at the southern end of the island, where it was usually west-going. Only once, after three days of light breezes and with the moon in the first quarter had he failed to find any current. No, he had never tried to anchor off the Diamond; yes, there were several French batteries along the coast between Pointe des Salines and Cap Salomon, but he had not landed seamen and marines at night to attack them and did not have their exact positions. The guns had never bothered him, he said, and as far as he knew Captain Eames had left them alone for the same reason.
He had been down to St Lucia once for water: half the casks filled in Barbados had been undrinkable. To Ramage’s most important question his answer had been vague: as far as he knew there were two French frigates in Fort Royal, both stripped of their yards, and five merchantmen, none of them ready for sea. Half a dozen local schooners, perhaps more, were reported to be anchored inside the bay, in the mouth of the Salée River, but he had not been far enough into the Bay to see them for himself. They could be privateers but he did not know for sure. A dozen droghers were also reported to be in the Salée River, but none of them ever went to sea, or if they did he had seen none, apart from the one that beached herself, and she was heading for Fort Royal. Captain Eames had only caught one vessel, which he had used as a tender.
Obviously the lieutenant lacked ‘interest’ with Admiral Davis and was anxious to get back to England with a whole skin and an undamaged ship after a year in the Caribbean. His heart had not been in his terrier-at-the-rabbit-hole task, and Ramage found it hard to blame him. Captain Barnes’ inactivity was another kettle of fish: it was up to Eames to interpret the Admiral’s orders, but it was galling that a man who had spent three months off Martinique tacking back and forth without doing anything to discomfort the French had been chosen by the Admiral to carry out the special operation ordered by the First Lord… Eames must be one of the Admiral’s favourites.
Ramage walked aft, hands clasped behind his back, and stared over the taffrail at the Juno’s wake. What the devil was that special operation? The only enemy-held islands within Admiral Davis’ command were Martinique and Guadeloupe. Obviously it did not concern Martinique, and the other island was of little importance: the First Lord would not concern himself with French privateers based there. That left the coast of South America. The eastern end of the north coast was Admiral Davis’ responsibility – the Spanish Main was divided, so that the western part came under the Commander-in-Chief at Jamaica. Trinidad and Tobago and the Spanish province of Caracas…what was happening along there – apart from cruising to intercept Spanish ships, which was routine anyway – what could suddenly have aroused the interest of the First Lord? Some operation that could be carried out by a frigate? Ramage turned away, admitting that he was jealous of Eames and angry with himself for being childish enough to think that just because he brought out the orders he ought to be allowed to carry them out
By now the Juno, jogging along under topsails, was approaching the Diamond Rock, and Ramage searched the coast from the headland at the foot of Diamond Hill round to the eastward, to half-way along the instep. He was irritated that the Welcome’s commanding officer had not been able to tell him the precise position of the shore batteries, and he knew that at this very moment Frenchmen would be watching the Juno with telescopes, noting and reporting to Fort Royal that the brig had gone off to the north and a frigate had taken her place.
Having criticized Captain Eames and the poor fellow commanding the Welcome, who had obviously been thankful to have lasted a year in the West Indies without dying of yellow fever or running the Welcome on a coral reef, Ramage had to decide what they should have done, and do it himself. The Admiral’s orders were simple enough: blockade Fort Royal. The French Army is desperate for supplies, and so is the Navy. Paris probably knows about it and various ministers may be trying to do something to help.
He put his telescope away in the binnacle box drawer and resumed walking the deck oblivious to the fact that the officers had noted his furrowed brow and were alarmed at the way he was glaring at a spot a few feet ahead. Paris must be well aware of the position, but what would the ministers do? They could dispatch a single merchantman, hoping that they could sneak past the British blockade. In that way supplies could be sent out as soon as they became available. He knew well enough that the dockyards and arsenals of France were short of almost every item needed to keep a ship at sea and an army on its feet. The alternative was to send out a convoy escorted by two or three frigates or even a ship of the line. A convoy with three frigates might well be able to find its way through the blockade – especially if Paris knew that there was usually only a single British frigate on patrol. That was the one thing about which Paris could never be sure: Admiral Davis had said that he appeared occasionally with the Invincible and two or three frigates off Fort Royal Bay…
A convoy seemed more likely than single ships. If the convoy had an escort of two frigates, then the Juno had a chance of picking off a merchantman or two and of surviving. If there was a ship of the line he had the choice of making a fight of it or bolting for Barbados to warn the Admiral. Unless the convoy was spotted far out in the Atlantic and a warning passed to Barbados, the first he would know of it would be when he saw it rounding Pointe des Salines and bearing up for Diamond Rock.
That raised another problem: he could not be in two places at once. If he was watching off Fort Royal Bay, then the whole French fleet, let alone a small convoy, could round the Pointe and get half-way up to Cap Salomon without him seeing it until it had only f
ifteen miles to sail to get right under the guns of Fort Royal itself.
All that was obvious enough, he told himself crossly, and until the convoy appeared it was useless making any plans: what he did depended on the size of the convoy and escort, whether it was sighted by day or night, and its position. And the wind’s strength and direction. And – a dozen things.
Very well, that deferred the problem of a convoy until the Juno’s lookouts sighted it, which could be tomorrow or in two months’ time. What could he do in the meantime to rattle the bars and annoy the French? The only bars worth rattling were those at Fort Royal. What about those two frigates that the Welcome reported in the bay? They were stripped of their yards, but that could be of no significance.
Damn, the sun was bright. He pulled his hat down to shield his eyes. What was the possibility of one of those frigates crossing her yards, bending on sails and suddenly appearing off Cap Salomon or the Diamond, loaded with troops and with half a dozen privateers in company? He rubbed the scars over his brow: the more he thought about it, the more the possibility became a probability. It was a good twenty miles from Fort Royal Bay down to Pointe des Salines. From the time she looked into Fort Royal, went south to look round Pointe des Salines and returned to Fort Royal, the Juno would have to cover forty miles. In a light breeze that could take eight hours.
Eight hours – yards up, sails bent on, and the ship under way: yes, it would need careful preparation but the French could do it. But in fact unless he looked into Fort Royal at dawn every day the French could have the whole night as well, with special lookouts along the coast warning them as the Juno made her way back north again…
Those two frigates which had caused both Eames and the Welcome’s lieutenant so little concern could break the blockade. If they knew when a convoy was due they could sail out and either capture the Juno or drive her off, and then help escort the convoy in. It was all very well for Admiral Davis to shrug off the little harbours of La Trinité and Robert on the Atlantic coast of Martinique. Certainly they were too small for landing supplies which would then have to be carried right over the mountain ridges to Fort Royal; but either harbour was ideally placed for a small French ship to sail in from the Atlantic and warn of a convoy’s approach. Suddenly the blockade of Fort Royal took on a different appearance. Captain Eames and the Welcome brig had been lucky…
