by Dudley Pope
Southwick was watching him anxiously. ‘Leadsman reports five fathoms, sir!’
‘We’ll hold on a little longer, Mr Southwick.’
It was a devilish choice having to risk running ashore or miss getting into the middle of that convoy! He would look a damn fool with the Juno hard aground, bows into the beach, while the Surcouf and La Créole tried to finish off the convoy before the remaining two French frigates beat them off.
‘He’s reporting four fathoms, sir!’
‘I can hear him, Mr Southwick.’
And I can see the sand too, he thought grimly, and almost distinguish the individual palm fronds as well! He looked back over the quarter at the convoy, tried to estimate if there were twelve points between the Juno’s jibboom and the merchantmen, and gestured to Southwick: ‘You may tack, Mr Southwick. This is the bishop’s move!’
He almost giggled at the ‘may’ and he knew he was getting far too excited.
The wheel spun, the men looking as if they were trying to climb up the spokes; the blocks screeched and the Juno’s bow swung along the beach so that palm trees, a few small thatched huts and the mountains in the distance swept across his vision as though he was looking from the window of a runaway coach.
Still no thump under the deck, still no gentle slowing down. The Juno had not hit a rock, a coral reef or run on to a sand bar – yet. Then there was a sea horizon ahead – a horizon on which the merchant ships were bunched. He ran forward to the quarterdeck rail. The larboard-side guns had long ago been reloaded and run out again, and all the men on both sides were watching him, rags round their brows and most of them naked to the waist.
He lifted the speaking trumpet to his mouth. ‘Stand by, my lads! This tack will take us right into the convoy. I hope you’re more awake than the gunners in that first French frigate!’ There was a chorus of shouts and jeers and before giving them a cheery wave he said: ‘Pick your targets: every shot must count!’ He turned back for a good look at the convoy, knowing he must choose the course through it that gave the gunners the best chance of firing into all seven ships. Orsini was once again jumping up and down, trying to attract his attention. The boy was so excited he was incoherent. Ramage shook him and told him to report in Italian. ‘The Diamond batteries, sir! They are firing at the French frigates – not the ones that collided, but the others. The shot are falling all round them!’
‘Excellent,’ Ramage said calmly. ‘Now you continue to watch the Surcouf for signals. Look at her!’ he exclaimed. The British frigate was within half a mile of the nearest merchant ships and heeling gracefully in the wind as her topgallants were furled. Aitken obviously wanted to make a leisurely job of the merchantmen, but Ramage hoped he would not forget the two remaining frigates.
A glance over the starboard beam reassured him that they were still down to leeward and then he looked back at the convoy. The nearest three ships, which had been on the landward side, were now four hundred yards ahead. As he concentrated on them he saw that their sails were not just badly trimmed, they were flapping, with sheets and braces slack, if not cut. Boats were being lowered round them – the ships were dead in the water and their crews were abandoning them! He looked at the others and saw that they were all being abandoned.
Southwick was also staring at the convoy, disappointment showing on his face like a child whose toys had been snatched away. Ramage, equally dumbfounded, noticed that most of the boats were now fairly leaping through the water as the men in them rowed frantically for the beach. They were obviously scared out of their wits at the sight of the Juno beating down on them from the north and the Surcouf stretching up from the south.
‘Surprise, sir, that’s what did it,’ Southwick said cryptically.
Ramage grimaced as he said: ‘I don’t know who was most surprised.’
Seven merchantmen abandoned and drifting out to sea through the Fours Channel and two French frigates neatly tied together in a parcel. He needed the Surcouf to help the Juno capture the two remaining frigates, which were under fire from the Diamond, but first he must secure the merchant ships: they were the main target.
‘Bear away towards the frigates, Mr Southwick,’ he said. Aitken and Wagstaffe needed orders. He looked round for Orsini and found him proffering the signal book.
He opened the index, looked under ‘Prizes’ and hurriedly turned to the page listed. Ah, there it was.
‘Hoist La Créole’s pendant and number 242.’ He then read the first part of the signal, for Southwick’s benefit. ‘Stay by prizes…’ He could rely on Wagstaffe knowing that he was to make sure none of the French crews returned to their ships.
Now he was having second thoughts about the two remaining frigates. Dare he leave the one nearest to the Diamond to the batteries while he tackled the other? She seemed to be hove-to, lying with her foretopsail backed. Waiting for her consort to join her perhaps. He looked round for the frigate that had been leading the convoy when it came in sight. She too was lying hove-to.
Ramage took his own telescope from the binnacle box drawer and looked at the frigate nearest the Diamond. Hove-to! Her foretopsail yard was slewed round, the maintopsail in shreds and even as he watched he saw a cloud of dust rising up amidships, the sign of a plunging roundshot hitting her decks. He looked at the ship more closely and there were ominous gaps in the main and foreshrouds. Even as he watched the foretopsail yard canted down as one of the lifts parted, and a moment later the whole yard crashed to the deck. A spurt of water almost beside the mainchains showed a near miss from either the Juno or the Ramage battery. That particular frigate could certainly be left to the gunners on the Diamond. Their first prize was a 36-gun frigate, and they had not a drop of rum on the Rock to celebrate it.
The next decision was not hard to make; one frigate only was left and the Juno and Surcouf perfectly placed to windward. He examined the frigate carefully through the telescope in case she too had been damaged by the batteries, but she seemed genuinely hove-to, with her captain no doubt wondering how he could report to the Governor at Fort Royal or St Pierre that he had lost the whole convoy and three frigates, and that Diamond Rock was suddenly erupting as Mont Pelée occasionally did, only spouting roundshot instead of hot rocks and lava. Any moment the frigate captain would wake up, get under way and make a bolt for Fort Royal.
He tucked the telescope under his arm and opened the signal book to check a number. Number twenty-eight would tell Aitken all that he needed to know. The ships are to take suitable stations for their mutual support, and engage the enemy as soon as they get up with them. It was not quite the way an admiral would use the signal, but Aitken needed no more than a hint. As he turned to call the boy, he saw the French ship sheet home her topsail and get under way.
‘Orsini, hoist the Surcouf’s pendant and number twenty-eight.’
Southwick had just bustled back to the binnacle after getting the Juno’s sails trimmed to perfection, but he was scowling. ‘Did you see that, sir?’ he demanded. ‘She hasn’t the guts to stand and fight, and she has a mile lead of us and a mile and a half on the Surcouf!’
‘I can’t blame him,’ Ramage said mildly. ‘The world has tumbled round his ears in the last hour!’
The Master gave a monumental sniff. ‘It hasn’t finished yet,’ he announced.
Ramage wagged a warning finger. ‘There are three hundred men on board that ship. We have sixty-three, and the Surcouf the same. Don’t forget that. We haven’t captured a frigate ourselves yet: the Diamond knocked out one, and two of them locked themselves together!’
‘But they don’t know we’re short of men,’ Southwick said with a broad grin. ‘With the Juno ranging up on one side of her and the Surcouf on the other, ‘twouldn’t surprise me if she–’
He broke off as Jackson, a look of horror on his face, pointed ahead. A moment later there was a sound like a clap of thunder whioh rolled and echoed back from the mountains, and where the escaping French frigate had been there was now only a swirling mass of yello
w and black smoke spurting and boiling upwards and then curling and billowing. Round the base of the smoke was a mass of ripples surrounded by dozens of splashes as pieces of the ship, flung high into the air by the explosion, finally landed. There was complete silence in the Juno apart from the gurgling of the sea as the ship drove on towards the pall of smoke, which was now beginning to drift to leeward. Ramage felt sick but braced himself as he remembered that, dreadful as the sight had been – and still was, for the smoke seemed reluctant to disperse – it had saved the lives of many of his own men, those in the Juno and the Surcouf. Only then did he realize that the French ship must have blown up as a result of plunging fire from the Diamond batteries.
With the remaining frigate disabled there was no need for the Diamond batteries to go on firing at her; she would surrender to the Surcouf and the Juno.
‘Orsini, hoist the Diamond’s pendant and number thirty-nine.’
The Master nodded in agreement. ‘Discontinue the engagement. Yes, we might as well tow her back to Bridgetown as a prize. We’re assembling a bigger squadron out here than the Admiral has!’
Ramage flicked through the signal book once more and found what he wanted. Get to leeward of the chase. That would tell Aitken that he wanted to take possession of the disabled frigate before attempting to sort out the two that were locked together.
He turned to Southwick as the signal was hoisted and pointed to the frigate, which was slowly drifting westward through the Fours Channel, turning slowly like a feather in a stream as the wind caught her torn maintopsail aback and swung her round so far that she tacked and the sail filled. ‘Aitken will be getting to leeward of her in a few minutes, and I want the Juno tacking back and forth about eight hundred yards to windward.’
‘She hasn’t hauled down her colours yet,’ Southwick commented as he put the speaking trumpet to his lips.
Ramage was less concerned with what was little more than a formality than with the problem of physically taking possession of this frigate and the two that were locked together. There would be nine hundred Frenchmen altogether. One mistake on his part, one hint to any of the three ships that the Juno and the Surcouf had less than seventy men on board, might result in some enterprising French captain boarding them, capturing both ships, getting the merchantmen manned again, and sailing the convoy into Fort Royal. There he would report the loss of one frigate blown up, two damaged but repairable, and two more captured: a net gain of one frigate for the French.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Now the Juno was running down with a quartering wind towards the disabled frigate, which was beginning to turn again, presenting her transom. Ramage snatched the telescope and read the name, La Comète, painted in flowing gold script on a background of red. Like the Surcouf she was a well designed ship with the same flowing sheer, but two white strakes along her hull instead of one gave the appearance of lower freeboard – an example Ramage noted, of how a pot of paint can improve the sheer of one ship and spoil that of another.
He looked again, remembering the cloud of dust he had seen rising from one of the Diamond batteries’ roundshot, then some of his elation vanished. The two white strakes certainly gave La Comète the appearance of a lower freeboard than usual, but the streams of water running through her scuppers told him that there was more to it than appearance: she was settling in the water. She had a bad leak – perhaps more than one – and the Frenchmen were pumping desperately. They had the head pumps rigged, and the steady stream of water pouring over the side amidships was from the chain pump. That explained why the French were not rushing about trying to rig preventer stays and get the ship under way. If three hundred Frenchmen could not stop her sinking what hope had a handful of men from the Juno and Surcouf? He realized that in the past fantastic fifteen minutes he had been counting on having three French frigates as prizes…
He waved to Southwick, who came running up to take the proffered telescope. The Master examined La Comète for a full minute, then gave the glass back to Ramage. ‘Seems a pity to let her slip through our fingers…’
Ramage walked forward and leaned his elbows on the quarterdeck rail. He never allowed any men to do that, and he had never previously done it himself, but now his head felt heavy. Scattered round him were ten prizes. If Admiral Davis had caught the convoy with the Invincible and three frigates, he would have been delighted with himself for having destroyed one ship and captured the rest. Ramage realized bitterly that that was the difference: ten helpless ships were not ten prizes. Nothing was a prize until she was under his control and now his lack of men was likely to prove disastrous.
One frigate was sinking, two more were locked together, seven merchantmen were slowly drifting out to sea, and the further they got to the west the more the current would catch them. Finally they would come clear of the wind shadow cast by the island of Martinique and probably end up drifting across the Caribbean to Jamaica.
Southwick was still standing beside him, and looking ahead they could both see La Comète. She was less than a mile away now, with the Surcouf racing down to get to leeward of her.
‘It’s a good thing we can leave the merchantmen for a while longer, sir,’ Southwick said quietly. ‘Wagstaffe is tacking back and forth between them and the beach making sure those beggars don’t row out again. Leaves us a few hours of daylight to tackle the frigates one at a time…’
Ramage stared at the two frigates locked together before answering. All their sails had been furled, but the jibboom and bowsprit of one was still locked into the other. Through the glass it seemed as if her bow had ridden up the side and then dropped down in a chopping movement, perhaps smashing a hole in the planking above the waterline. They would not get free for many hours.
‘One at a time, Mr Southwick,’ Ramage agreed, and the Master’s cheery and confident manner helped the plan forming in his mind. ‘First we force La Comète to surrender…’
‘Then I’ll go over and inspect the damage, sir,’ Southwick interrupted eagerly.
‘No, you remain on board here. I’ll go over and take the carpenter and some of his mates with me.’
‘But, sir,’ Southwick protested, ‘’tis not a job for a captain!’
‘You don’t speak French, and there’s more to it than hammering in leak plugs. We need bluff more than planks and nails.’
He cut short Southwick’s protests by ordering Jackson to tell a cutter’s crew to stand by and hand over to someone else as quartermaster.
La Comète’s Tricolour was still streaming in the wind. Would the French go through the ritual, by which they set so much store, firing a broadside before hauling down the Colours? She was still turning slowly and by the time the Juno reached her she would be lying with her bow to the south.
‘We’ll pass along her larboard side about five hundred yards off,’ he told Southwick. ‘Warn the starboard side guns not to open fire until I give the order. That is most important.’
Now the Surcouf was passing a few hundred yards to leeward of La Comète, and Ramage watched her bow swing as she began to tack back again.
Southwick brought the Juno round so that she was heading south, with La Comète broad on her starboard bow. He shouted orders down to the starboard side guns, and then turned to face Ramage, waiting for the next move.
Ramage had the telescope to his eye, watching the French frigate’s quarterdeck. A group of officers was standing by the binnacle and men were running to the guns. They had left it very late and there were not many men. A score or more on the other side were still at the head pumps – and the wheel had gone! At that moment there were spurts of flame and smoke as four or five of La Comète’s guns fired into the sea: the Juno was too far astern of her for the guns to be trained that far aft. Then, suddenly, the Tricolour came down at the run.
Southwick began a bellow of laughter but broke it off to shout through his speaking trumpet that the starboard guns were not to fire. Then he strode over to Ramage, giving another of his contemptuous sniffs.
‘You guessed they’d do that, sir,’ he said almost accusingly. ‘What do they call it?’
‘Firing a few guns “pour l’honneur de pavilion”.’
‘Just another way of covering yourself against being accused of surrendering without firing a shot,’ Southwick growled, watching closely as the Juno passed the frigate.
‘It seems to be necessary in the French service,’ Ramage murmured, his eyes taking in the damage to La Comète’s yards and rigging. ‘And they’re always careful to fire the shots where they’ll do no harm. Now,’ he added briskly, ‘if you’ll heave-to the Juno to windward, and pace the quarterdeck like an irascible captain, I’ll go over and deal with these Frenchmen.’
‘Irascible captain!’ Southwick snorted.
‘Oh yes,’ Ramage said. ‘As far as the French are concerned, I’m merely the first lieutenant. You’ve given me harsh orders which I’ve no choice but to carry out. You’ll listen to no argument…’
Southwick grinned as he began bellowing orders to back the Juno’s foretopsail. ‘By the way, sir, I’ll furl the t’gallants if I may.’
Fifteen minutes later Ramage climbed up the side of La Comète, thankful that the French had thoughtfully rigged well-scrubbed manropes. He was followed by half a dozen men armed to the teeth and who, he had noticed as the cutter was being rowed over, were all former Tritons.
As he reached the deck and acknowledged the salutes of the group of French officers he saw out of the corner of his eye that not only was the wheel missing but a gaping hole had been torn in the deck where it had stood. A plunging shot from one of the guns of the Diamond batteries had done terrible damage.
One of the officers stepped forward, proffering his sword, which he was holding horizontally in both hands. Ramage noticed that his uniform was identical with the other officers, but covered in fine dust. The man’s face was white and he was gripping the sword like an alcoholic clutching a glass.
