Ramage's Diamond

by Dudley Pope

  Now fear was creeping in again like evening fog forming in a valley: the sun seemed more glaring, the colours brighter. Cold water seemed to be swilling in his stomach, time was slowing down, and the hiss of the Juno’s bow wave seemed louder. The excitement was there; this must be how a gambler felt when, having staked everything, he waited for the dice to stop rolling…

  Southwick had the speaking trumpet and from now on he would relay Ramage’s orders. Yes, La Créole had tacked yet again and was steering to the south-east; another couple of short tacks and she would be in position.

  Southwick was looking at him anxiously and he realized that the leadsman was calling four fathoms, but the men were already standing by at sheets and braces. Ramage signalled and the Master began shouting orders. The quartermaster spoke urgently to the men at the wheel and sprang to the binnacle. The wheel spun and the frigate began turning quickly to starboard, the whole of the Fort Royal shoreline moving swiftly across her bow. The topsail flapped for a few moments as the Juno turned through the eye of the wind and continued swinging until the wind could fill the sails again on the other tack.

  ‘Meet her!’ Ramage snapped at the quartermaster, anxious that her bow should not pay off too much. He glanced down at the compass. ‘Steer south-south-east.’

  Jackson was handing him his pistols and he was jamming the clips into his belt after hitching round his sword. Now the American was offering his hat, discarded earlier in case the French spotted it, and he was putting it on top of the binnacle.

  ‘Stand by the halyard of that damned Tricolour,’ Ramage told Jackson. ‘When I give the word it had better come down at the run!’ Having the Tricolour and British ensign on separate halyards saved a lot of time.

  It was a legitimate ruse de guerre to use the enemy’s flag to get into position to attack, but one was honour-bound to hoist one’s own flag before opening fire. Thanks to Juno’s temporary role as a French prize, dropping the Tricolour and leaving up the Red Ensign would do the trick and, Ramage thought inconsequentially, Southwick can recover his precious red baize.

  He glanced over the starboard quarter and saw that La Créole had tacked again and was in the right position; a quick look over the bow, and there was the Surcouf at anchor, head to wind, her deck and rigging lined with waving men. A couple of dozen Junos were standing on the hammock nettings waving back – just the number of men the Surcouf would expect to see. The rest were crouching down along the starboard side.

  ‘A point to larboard,’ Ramage called to Southwick and men trimmed the yards as the wheel turned. Now the Surcouf was fine on the starboard bow and a hundred yards ahead.

  The Juno was making five or six knots. In a hundred yards she had to be nearly stopped abreast the Surcouf which should be only a few feet away, giving Ramage time to fire a broadside into her and brace the yards round so they did not lock the two ships together.

  Ramage gestured to Jackson to haul down the Tricolour and shouted to the Master: ‘Mr Southwick – back the foretopsail!’

  He grabbed his hat from the binnacle top and jammed it on his head, looked quickly over the quarter and saw La Créole approaching rapidly on the Sourcouf’s other side. She had three hundred yards to go, the Juno seventy-five and the distance was rapidly decreasing.

  The big foretopsail yard was being hauled round agonizingly slowly, it seemed to Ramage, so that the Juno was likely to overshoot the Surcouf. Finally it was far enough round for the wind to fill the sail from the forward side, pinning the yard to the mast and trying to blow the ship’s bow to starboard. A quick order to the quartermaster had the wheel spinning to counteract that. The Juno was slowing down rapidly now and there was a chance she would not overshoot.

  There was nothing more for Ramage to do standing by the binnacle and he ran to join Southwick at the quarterdeck rail. Then he saw why Southwick was staring forward, a man transfixed: the Surcouf was swinging slightly at her anchor, caught by a fluky gust of wind. Her stern swung until she was dead ahead and Ramage was sure it was all over; that fluke of wind meant that the Juno, rapidly losing way and therefore manoeuvrability, would ram her from astern instead of coming alongside, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. The Juno’s jibboom and bowsprit would be torn away, the foremast would come crashing down… Southwick was cursing steadily in a low voice when slowly, agonizingly slowly, the Surcouf began to swing back; swing enough for Ramage to see clear along her larboard side, then swing a little more until, in a minute the gap between them would be exactly as he had wanted it.

  He leaned over the rail and shouted down to the maindeck: ‘Gun captains – forty yards to go! Fire as we get alongside; sweep the decks!’

  Now only the gun captains were at the guns: the rest of the men had rushed to the ship’s side to grab a cutlass, pistol, or boarding pike. The men who had been waving from the nettings had dropped down to the deck and armed themselves.

  The Juno’s stern was now level with the Surcouf’s transom but she still had a little way on. Slowly, slowly, she crept on; now the stem was abreast the French frigate’s mainmast, now the foremast, and the Frenchmen who had been lining the bulwarks were scattering across the deck. Several officers were shouting and gesticulating; one had drawn his sword and was waving it: not at the Juno but at his own men. The Juno’s yards were braced sharp up at Southwick’s command.

  Five guns forward fired in quick succession along the Juno’s fo’c’sle and maindeck and the rest followed one after the other. Ramage looked over the quarter again for a sight of La Créole: Aitken had timed it perfectly. She would be ranging alongside the Surcouf’s other side in two minutes’ time, when there was no risk of any of the Juno’s case shot sweeping clear across the Surcouf’s deck and damaging her.

  Now the Junos were swarming up into the hammock nettings or waiting at the gun ports poised with pistols, cutlasses and pikes. The Juno had stopped; now the backed foretopsail was drifting her slowly alongside the Surcouf and Ramage watched the gap narrowing: fifteen feet, ten, five, then the men, led by Wagstaffe, were leaping on board, and the gun captains were heaving grapnels at the Surcouf to hold the ships together. Southwick bellowed the order to clew up the foretopsail; in a few moments the Juno was lying head to the wind, alongside the Surcouf.

  Ramage ran down the maindeck, snatching out his pistols as he reached the entry port at the gangway. Southwick was shouting after him but he neither heard nor cared what the Master said. He paused for a moment at the gangway, saw the water swirling between the two ships, and leapt on board the Surcouf.

  Thirty or more Frenchmen had snatched up pikes and cutlasses and were aft, fighting desperately as Junos tried to drive them back. Suddenly a group of Frenchmen poured up the main companionway, pistols in their right hands, cutlasses in their left. A burst of fire cut down several Junos and the Frenchmen ran through the gap, making for the fo’c’sle.

  Ramage aimed at the leading man and fired, saw him fall and aimed left-handed at the next. He fired and missed, and suddenly the whole group turned and ran towards him and Ramage was alone: most of the Junos had their backs to him, busy driving the rest of the Frenchmen aft. Ramage wrenched at his sword and backed a few feet to the mainmast. The first Frenchman, four or five yards ahead of the rest, and the man he had missed with his second pistol, slashed at him with his cutlass; a downward slice which Ramage parried, deflecting the man’s blade so that the impetus behind the blow made the man trip. A quick flick of the wrist and Ramage caught him across the throat with the tip of his blade and turned immediately to face another man who was lunging at him with a pike. Ramage jumped to one side and the man, his face half-crazed with fear, drove on, his pike sticking into the mast. A swift blow disposed of him and Ramage turned to face the third man, but suddenly there was a roaring and a bellowing which made the man turn and bolt. Jackson and a half a dozen former Tritons were running to his rescue, and at that moment the Surcouf lurched as La Créole crashed alongside, her boarding party swarming up her side, yelli
ng and shouting.

  Ramage was thankful the fighting was now centred round the quarterdeck: that was what he had intended, so that the fo’c’sle would be left clear for the men boarding from La Créole. Several of them carried heavy axes and they ran forward, followed by others armed with cutlasses. While the axemen went to one side of the fo’c’sle, the cutlass men went to the other and began shouting over to the group of men waiting on the Juno’s fo’c’sle.

  A heaving line snaked across from the Juno and landed on the Surcouf’s fo’c’sle. The men began hauling on it and when a heavier line followed they ran to the bow with it, passing it through the large fairlead. Then they began hauling, but it was hard work and finally they began marching across the deck as though dragging a cart. Finally the end of the Juno’s anchor cable appeared through the fairlead and the men kept hauling.

  By now the axemen were chopping at the Surcouf’s own anchor cable, and Ramage hoped they remembered his strict instructions to leave one strand of the rope until they could see that the cable from the Juno had been secured to the bitts.

  More men arrived on the fo’c’sle from La Créole and seized the heavy cable and dragged it to the bitts. One turn round the bitts and then another; a third and then a fourth. The cable was stiff and heavy; it took two or three men to bend each turn.

  The fighting aft was dying down now, and Aitken and Wagstaffe were securing the prisoners. Ramage ran to the fo’c’sle, checked that the cable was made fast and gestured to the men with cutlasses to return on board La Créole. After shouting to the men on the Juno’s fo’c’sle to cut the lashings holding the cable along the ship’s side, he ran back to find Southwick standing at the Juno’s gangway, anxiously looking across at the Surcouf.

  ‘All secure here,’ Ramage shouted. ‘Only one strand of their cable left to cut.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake come on board, sir,’ Southwick bawled. ‘The ships will drift apart at any moment. We’re just about to cut the grapnels!’

  Ramage paused long enough to shout at Wagstaffe, who signalled that the prisoners were under control, and then bellowed at the axemen on the Surcouf’s fo’c’sle to cut the last strand of the French frigate’s anchor cable. With that he leapt on board the Juno.

  One danger remained, that the Surcouf’s yards would lock with the Juno’s rigging, but already Aitken was obeying his orders and hardening in the sheets of La Créole’s mainsail and foresail and backing his headsails. This would haul the Surcouf to starboard, to leeward and away from the Juno.

  ‘Our grapnels, Southwick?’ Ramage asked hurriedly.

  ‘Already cut adrift, sir.’

  Ramage glanced up and saw that the Surcouf’s yards, bare of sail, were gradually drawing clear as La Créole pulled her away. He jumped up into the hammock nettings and looked along the Juno’s side. The cable was now hanging from the Surcouf’s bow in a big bight that went down into the water and reappeared by the Juno’s stern, snaking round and up through the sternchase port.

  Everything was going as planned. Southwick looked questioningly and when Ramage nodded the Master lifted the speaking trumpet to his lips, bellowed a string of orders, and the Juno’s foretopsail yard began to swing round, the sail falling and then flapping wildly before the wind filled it. Slowly the Juno began to move, her bow paying off to begin with, until she gathered enough way for the rudder to get a bite on the water.

  The Surcouf was dropping away to starboard as La Créole hauled her bow round and drawing astern as the Juno began to forge ahead. Ramage looked across at the French frigate’s quarterdeck and saw Wagstaffe standing by the binnacle while Jackson acted as quartermaster. Two Junos were at the wheel and the French seamen, their hands above their heads, were being marched below.

  Southwick was now facing aft on the quarterdeck, his eyes glued to the heavy cable. The Juno’s transom was abreast the Surcouf’s jibboom end and already the cable was beginning to move where it led out through the Juno’s sternchase port: several feet slid out, like an enormous snake leaving a hole, and as the frigate’s speed increased more followed.

  Ramage was torn between watching ahead to make sure the Juno cleared the shoal running south-west from the Fort and looking aft over the quarterdeck in case the cable twisted into a large kink that might jam in the port.

  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 t
o look through the sternchase 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. ‘lt’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’sle. 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.