Ramage's Diamond

by Dudley Pope

  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.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ramage’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 dispatch 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 companionway and a moment later Southwick knocked and bustled into the cabin, his eyes red-rimmed, 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.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Southwick said gleefully, slapping his knee, ‘all her sails are on board! Sails, clewlines, buntlines, blocks – everything! I reckon they were just about to get them up from the sail room when the best of her men and the first lieutenant were taken off and sent to the schooners.’

  Ramage gave a sigh of relief. ‘What about provisions, powder and water?’

  Southwick dug into his pocket and pulled out a grimy sheet of paper, which he carefully smoothed out. ‘I don’t know what they intended to do with her, sir, but we know they stripped the other frigate to fit her out, and she’s provisioned for three months at our establishment. I know the French usually have a ship’s company half as large again as us, but…’

  ‘Perhaps they were going to send her back to France.’

  ‘Could be, sir. Anyway the water’s fresh, and from what the cooper says the casks were well scoured before they were filled. The powder is very good quality – the gunner says it’s as good as ours. Salt pork and salt beef, a lot o’ rice, fresh bread – I swear it didn�
��t leave the bakery more than a week ago. Not a weevil in it.’

  ‘Have you made an official inventory yet?’ Ramage inquired cautiously.

  ‘Me, sir?’ Southwick asked innocently. ‘Oh, no, it’d take a week. No, I only had time to have a quick stroll through the ship with the purser, gunner, bos’n, carpenter and cooper. You didn’t mention an official inventory. Proper inventories and survey, sir,’ he said with an archness that would have done credit to a bishop’s wife, ‘take time: two or three days at least.’

  ‘In the meantime,’ Ramage said, as though talking to himself, ‘any rogues could go on board and plunder the ship: they could take off provisions, water, powder…’

  ‘And rolls of canvas, firewood, new holystones – she has a score or more unused in the bos’n’s store – new leather buckets, a complete set of surgical instruments, a dozen live sheep: oh dear me, sir, there’s no telling what they could take if the prize crew weren’t keeping a sharp lookout.’

  It was a great temptation; the Juno could stay at sea for many extra weeks without provisioning; with several tons more fresh water, for instance, she would not have to go down to St Lucia or across to Barbados to fill her casks; the sailmaker would welcome the extra bolts of canvas… But it was risky: the problem would be to account for the extra stores in the Juno’s books. If she was desperately short of water or powder or provisions, he would be justified in taking what he needed, but Rear-Admiral Davis knew the Juno was well-provisioned, so it became a matter of prize money. Everything on board the Surcouf would be valued, including the ship herself, and the Juno and her captain would eventually get their share of the prize money, as would Rear-Admiral Davis. It would be a considerable amount, and by a bit of good fortune once the Admiral’s eighth was deducted the rest would go to the Junos. Every British ship in sight at the time of the capture had a right to a share, but the only other British ships were the two captured schooners manned by Junos.

  He would risk it if he could take all the blame, but it would mean involving too many others who would also be brought to trial if the Admiral wanted to make an issue of it. The Master, the bos’n, purser, gunner, at least two of the lieutenants… An idea that had come to him when he saw the Diamond Rock for the first time – and which he had dismissed as absurd almost as soon as it appeared – was gnawing at him again.

  ‘Cheeses, too!’ Southwick said as the memory struck him. ‘Never seen so much cheese in all my days, sir, and tubs of butter. Seems a pity to let all those provisions go to Barbados when all we have to look forward to for a change of diet is goat’s meat from the Diamond…’

  Ramage jumped up, put a paperweight on the letter he had been drafting, grabbed his hat and said to Southwick: ‘Come on, we’re going for a short cruise in the cutter.’

  An hour later the cutter had completed a circuit of Diamond Rock and the men were resting at the oars with the boat drifting twenty yards from a flat, rocky ledge behind which was an enormous cave, its entrance yawning black-mouthed and, as Southwick commented, looking as if a great dragon would emerge at any moment, breathing fire and smoke. There was very little swell as it was too early for the Trade wind to have set in.

  ‘This is the only possible landing place,’ Ramage said. ‘We’ll chance it and inspect the big cave – and the others, if we have time.’

  Ramage pointed to the ledge. ‘Put us on shore there,’ he told Jackson. ‘Go in stern first and hold the boat there just long enough for Mr Southwick and me to jump on to the rock, then stand off.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ Jackson said. ‘Rossi and I can give you a hand and Stafford can take the boat out until–’

  ‘Mr Southwick and I can take care of ourselves,’ Ramage snapped. ‘You stay in the boat, and while you’re standing off make sure you note any odd rocks: you might be coming back here a few times.’

  The men bent to the oars while Ramage and Southwick scrambled across to the stern. ‘Looks slippery, sir,’ Southwick warned. ‘That green weed…’

  A few moments later Ramage jumped, landed safely and turned to give Southwick a hand. ‘Welcome to the Diamond,’ he said, and stood watching for a moment as the oarsmen rowed steadily to get clear.

  The Rock towered above them almost vertically. Apart from the wide ledge on which they stood and a flat section beyond, it was a home for goats and precious little else. But the cave was enormous, with several more smaller ones nearby and ones higher up the rock face. Ramage eyed the ledge, which formed a projecting point and gave a little shelter to the cove. A gun mounted here would protect it very well, and the surface of the rock was flat enough to allow for the recoil.

  He turned towards the cave and saw Southwick about to enter it, the sheer size of the gaping hole dwarfing him. A moment later the Master vanished. Ramage heard him shouting and began running, thinking he had fallen in the darkness and hurt himself. As he heard the echoes, he realized that Southwick was using his voice to get some idea how far back the cave ran into the Rock. It was like entering an enormous cathedral and as his eyes became used to the darkness he saw the long stalactites pointing down from the roof. Yet the air was dry and it was dry underfoot: he had been expecting it to be dank, the sides running with water and green with moss.

  Southwick loomed up beside him. ‘Big enough to stow a complete frigate,’ he said, and there was no mistaking his meaning.

  ‘If anyone could sway a couple of 12-pounders up to the top of the Rock, they’d need a magazine, and this cave is dry enough,’ Ramage murmured, obviously doing little more than thinking aloud. ‘They’d need a place to store provisions and water. The guns’ crews would stand a couple of days’ watch aloft while the others were down here; then they’d change over. I don’t know how they’d get to the top – rig a jackstay, most probably… It would be easier to work that out from the Juno, using a telescope: you can’t see a damned thing just staring up from the ledge.’

  ‘There’s another ledge on the north side, two thirds of the way up,’ Southwick said. ‘It looks as though something took a big bite out of the rock. I think there’s a cave at the back of it. It’d make another fine battery to cover the Fours Channel. A 12-pounder could probably reach the Grande Anse du Diamant. No ship could sneak through the channel without a gun there giving it a hot time. With a pair of guns right at the top – goodness me, nearly six hundred feet high: just think of the extra range – and plunging fire!’ Even in the darkness Ramage sensed the old man’s increasing excitement as he went on: ‘That would give us three guns to cover the channel, and two of those, the pair at the top, can probably fire all round – north, west, south and east. And the lookouts could see all the way down to the southern tip of Martinique! Rig up a mast and they could hoist flag signals which the Juno would see while she was up to the north-west. Have to keep out to the west so the Diamond is clear of the land, but just think, a frigate off Fort Royal Bay would know what’s going on right down at Pointe des Salines, twenty miles away! Why–’

  ‘Easy now,’ Ramage said mildly, ‘you don’t have to convince me: I’ve had something like this in mind ever since we first sailed past the place. But don’t get too carried away; swaying a pair of 12-pounders nearly six hundred feet up to the top of this Rock will be more than a morning’s work, if it can be done at all.’

  They walked out of the cave and stood blinking in the bright sunlight, and then walked along looking into the smaller caves. Southwick kicked at the broad-bladed grass. ‘The men will like this for making sennet hats.’ He pointed to the caves. ‘The whole place looks like that cheese with holes in it.’

  ‘Gruyère,’ Ramage said. ‘And the big cave is where a mouse had a feast.’

  ‘More likely a rat,’ Southwick said. ‘It’s the biggest cave I’ve ever seen, let alone walked into. Those spiky things hanging down from the roof make it look like a portcullis. I hope none of them drop off!’

  They looked into the cave and Ramage turned to seaward and waved to the boat. ‘Come on, these caves remind me o
f witches’ cauldrons and bats and vampires…’

  Back on board the Juno Ramage silenced all Southwick’s attempts to discuss the Diamond Rock; instead he took him down to his cabin, tossed his hat on to the settee and sat down at the desk. Taking out the pen and ink, he added a single paragraph to the draft of his letter to Admiral Davis.

  After calling to the sentry to pass the word for his clerk, he began a letter addressed to ‘The Agent for Transport and Prisoners of War’. The clerk arrived and was told to take the draft of the letter to Admiral Davis and make a fair copy, and bring it back when it was ready. ‘Don’t waste time copying it into the Captain’s Letter Book,’ Ramage told him. ‘Make the entry afterwards from my draft.’

  Ramage then finished a brief letter to the Agent, describing how he had landed the prisoners because he was unable to guard them, and saying that he was enclosing a list of their names and the signature of the surviving French commanding officer agreeing that the men should not serve against the British again until the exchange had been regularized. Ramage knew there would be a fuss, but he had covered the point in his letter to the Admiral. The letter to the Agent was a formality to cover the list he was sending.

  As he wrote at the desk, Southwick sat back in a chair with ill-concealed impatience. The clerk returned with the fair copy of the dispatch and took the draft of the letter to the Agent.

  Ramage turned to Southwick. ‘You remind me of an impatient bridegroom. Baker is probably in his cabin packing his sea chest. Find him and bring him here. Once he’s on his way to Barbados we can start making plans.’