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.
‘Iam Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Thurot, sir, and to you I surrender the French national frigate La Comète.'
Ramage took the sword and then saw that the man's hands were trembling violently. He answered in French: 'I accept the surrender, but your Captain ...?'
Thurot swallowed and, turning slightly, gestured towards the hole in the quarterdeck. 'He was standing there talking to me . . . There was a terrible crash ... I was hurled three metres against the taffrail . . . All we found of him was . . .' He pointed at one of the officers, who held out a bent sword and a torn tricorne.
‘My sympathies,' Ramage said formally. ‘You were the First Lieutenant?'
'Yes, so I succeeded to the command. But before I could warn La Prudente, she blew up. Those guns on le Diamant - mon Dieu!’
Ramage passed the surrendered sword to Jackson and immediately another French lieutenant stepped forward to proffer his. Ramage took them one after another until Jackson had four tucked under his arm.
Ramage told Thurot to take him on an inspection of the damage. It took ten minutes, and at the end of it Ramage felt more hopeful, La Comète had two holes in her. The shot which had killed the Captain and smashed the wheel had come in at a steep angle over the starboard quarter as she tacked back to the convoy. After ploughing through the wheel and deck it had gone on through the half deck and buried itself in the ship's side in the Second Lieutenant's cabin, springing two planks and forcing them outwards but not actually making a hole. A second shot had gone down the main hatch and smashed through the hull planking well below the waterline.
The French carpenter's mates had managed to nail canvas and tallow-smeared boards over the first leak, but little had been done about the second because the carpenter had by then lost both his nerve and his head. Now he was running around in a panic, screaming at his mates, picking up a maul one moment and tossing it down the next. The officers could do nothing with him, nor would he let them set seamen to work. When Ramage approached with Thurot the carpenter caught sight of the British uniform, uttered an enraged bellow and rushed at Ramage, to find himself staring at a hard-eyed Jackson who had dropped the surrendered swords with a clatter and had the point of his cutlass an inch from the man's corpulent stomach.
Ramage wasted no time: he ordered Jackson and Rossi to secure the man while Thurot was sent to get irons and Stafford told to fetch the Juno's carpenter and his mates, who were still waiting in the cutter.
The carpenter took one look and told Ramage what wood he needed and that he and his mates had their tools with them. He would have the leak under control in two hours. Ramage found that one of the French lieutenants spoke English and ordered him to stay with the carpenter to act as translator and make sure he received whatever he needed.
Then he took Thurot to the dead Captain's cabin, intending to give him instructions. As they walked into the cabin Ramage saw that, apart from the battle damage, nothing had been touched. The desk drawers were still closed and presumably locked, and beside the desk was a small wooden box with a roped lid and holes drilled into the sides.
As Ramage stopped and stared, Thurot noticed the box and gasped. He moved towards it but Ramage waved him away and made him sit down. Pulling the lid back, Ramage took out the handful of papers and glanced through them. The French challenges and replies for several more months, a copy of the signal book (there must have been two on board, because presumably one had been on deck) as well as the Captain's orders and letter book.
Ramage sat at the desk with the box between his feet. Thurot was now verging on collapse. Obviously badly shaken when the shot blasted a hole in the deck, he now realized that he had failed to throw the weighted box containing the ship's secret papers over the side. In the Royal Navy that was, next to cowardice, one of the most serious offences a commanding officer could commit. In the France of Bonaparte Ramage guessed that it might well lead to Thurot's execution if it was ever discovered. He looked at the box and then at Thurot. The man's eyes dropped, his skin seemed to turn green and perspiration beaded his face.
'The Widow?' Ramage asked in a conversational tone.
Thurot nodded. The guillotine, nicknamed The Widow, did indeed await an officer who allowed the enemy to capture such papers. Being 'married to the widow' was the slang expression for an execution.
'My Captain,' Ramage began, as though the affair of the secret papers was of no further consequence to him, 'could send you all to England as prisoners. There you'd rot in the hulks, as well you know.'
Again Thurot nodded, as though fear and misery had made him speechless.
'How many in your ship's company?'
'Two hundred and seventy-three petty officers and men, five warrant officers and four officers, and the Captain.'
'You suffered no casualties?'
'Casualties? Oh yes, I forgot. Eleven dead and seventeen wounded, but only four of them seriously.'
Ramage breathed deeply and noisily, as though considering something. 'My Captain is a stern man. He could send you all to England, even though there is a more - how shall we say it, a more civilized way...'
Thurot was obviously trying to pull himself together, and he wiped his face with the back of his hand. 'What way, m'sieur?’
Ramage gestured towards Martinique. 'It would be more civilized to let your men row ashore. A long row, admittedly, but then it is a long voyage to England. The officers would give me their parole, and you would agree that the men do not serve again until formally exchanged ...'
Thurot glanced down at the box. Ramage kicked it back with his heal, so that it slid under his chair. 'If you agree to those terms, I will take the box away in a kitbag, padded with old clothes, so no one will know ...'
Thurot gulped, as though his Adam's apple was trying to leap out of his mouth, nodded his head vigorously and then, to Ramage's horror, burst into tears.
An hour later Ramage stood with Southwick on the Juno's quarterdeck watching as the Surcouf tacked up towards the Grande Anse du Diamant beach, towing ten boats astern of her. Southwick commented that she looked like a dog running out of a butcher's shop with a string of sausages.
The boats were packed with men. The first four were the Surcouf’sown boats, then came the Juno's launch and jolly boat, and finally La Comète's boats. Only twenty Frenchmen remained on board La Comète to handle the chain pump, and by the time the Surcouf had cast off the boats as near to the beach as possible and waited for the French to scramble up the beach and the boats to return, the Juno's carpenter would have stopped La Comète's leak, ready for the Surcouf to take her in tow.
The heavily-laden merchant ships were the next problem. He had tossed up between them and the two frigates, which were now drifting past the southern end of the Diamond still firmly locked together. Finally he decided that an enterprising French officer, as soon as he landed on the beach, would try to find some native boats (if the merchantmen's own boats had been smashed up by La Créole) and, in breach of paroles and exchange agreements, set about getting aboard the merchantmen as soon as night fell.
Fifteen heavily armed Junos led by Rossi were now guarding the twenty Frenchmen working La Comète's pumps. The moment the Surcouf returned with the boats, those twenty Frenchmen would be allowed to row to the shore, providing the carpenter and his mates had stopped the leak satisfactorily.
Now, as the Juno beat up towards the cluster of drifting merchantmen, La Créole finished a sweep close to the shore and bore away towards her.
Orsini, signal book in hand, was standing waiting. 'The Créole's pendant,' Ramage said, 'and the signal to pass within hail. Number eighty-four, I believe.'
He was teasing the boy but Paolo was still taking his work very seriously. 'Number eighty-four, it is, sir!'
The wind eased as the Juno closed with the coast and as she approached the wallowing merchantmen the Surcouf turned to run back to La Comète, her long tail of boats towing astern. Ramage swept his telescope along the beach and could see a long column of men walking towards the western end. He steadied the telescope and saw that a much smaller group of men was waiting there for them, probably the masters and men from the merchantmen. He swung the telescope back along the beach and saw piles of wood gathered every twenty yards or so along the water's edge. Much of the wood was shaped into curves so he realized that they were a dozen or more smashed-up boats from the merchant ships. Wagstaffe must have taken La Créole in close and given his men some target practice, or sent a party on shore with axes. Anyway, there was no risk of the French getting back on board again from this beach unless they wanted to swim . . .
Southwick finished grumbling at the quartermaster for letting the maintopsail luff flutter and then came over to Ramage.
‘I don't think many of them waited long enough to cut the sheets and braces, sir,' he said, pointing towards the merchantmen. 'I think they just let 'em run. The ropes may have flogged themselves into rare old tangles, but ten men apiece should be enough to get them under way. I'm a bit doubtful about them anchoring in the right places, though . . .'
'As long as they get an anchor down on the five-fathom ledge by the Diamond,' Rarnage said, ‘I’ll be content. They'll have La Comète for company, but the rest of us will be under way all night'
'And the two frigates, sir?'
'I want to go down and look at them as soon as we have these merchantmen safely anchored. I've been watching them, and there's no risk of them cutting themselves adrift. Seems to me the one hit amidships is settling.'
Southwick took the proffered telescope. 'You're right, sir! Well, we'll soon see. I can't wait to hear from Aitken how it all happened.'
The Juno now had fewer than forty-five men on board. Apart from the carpenter and his mates, there were fifteen seamen on board La Comète guarding the French pumpers. Twenty-five men could keep the Juno under way under topsails.
'Pick twenty men,' Ramage said. 'They can handle two merchantmen. Who do I put in charge of each party . . .?' He paused, trying to think of men.
'Jackson and Stafford, sir?' Southwick suggested. 'They're your best men.'
Ramage laughed and agreed. The idea of an American seaman belonging to a British ship of war going off in command of a crew to bring a French prize to anchor had a truly cosmopolitan ring about it. 'That takes care of two ships. Wagstaffe will have to spare ten men, so three ships can come down at the same time,' he said, 'and then he can take the twenty Junos back and with his ten collect three more. His ten men can bring the last one in. That will save time, because the Créole gets up to windward better than we do.'
The schooner came down the Juno's larboard side, swept under her stern and, hardening in sheets, came close under the frigate's quarter. Ramage shouted across Wagstaffe's orders and the schooner bore up towards the convoy, men running aft to the falls of the quarter boat, ready to lower it. Southwick already had his twenty men mustered and was giving instructions to Jackson and Stafford. Both told their men to collect arms, and Ramage noticed they all chose pistols and cutlasses.
A quarter of an hour later the Juno was lying hove-to to windward of the merchantmen and her two cutters were pulling for the two nearest while La Créole's small boat was already alongside another.
Ramage looked across at La Comète and saw that she now had all the Surcouf’s boats astern of her. Aitken obviously wanted them out of the way of the cable, and it was a quick way of transferring more men to work on the French frigate's fo'c'sle. Then he saw a single boat leave La Comète and pull towards the headland. The Juno's carpenter had been better than his word and the Freach seamen had already been freed after their long spell at the pump. Ramage did not envy them their long row: their backs would already be aching ... That would leave one boat on the Grande Anse beach. The French were unlikely to make use of it, but if there was time La Créole could go over and destroy it.
'Jackson's done it!' Southwick shouted gleefully. 'Just look at him,' he added, eye glued to his telescope, 'standing there with a cutlass slung over his shoulder and a couple of pistols in his belt! Looks more like a pirate than the Captain's coxswain!'
The ship's yards were being braced round and the sails filled as the men sheeted them home. Slowly she gathered way, slab-sided and bulky, and Ramage saw her Tricolour being hauled down. A minute or two later it was hoisted again, with a Red Ensign above it.
'And there goes Stafford,' Southwick called. Ramage saw another Tricolour come down and the Master commented: 'Jackson's beaten him there - though where he found that ensign I don't know!'
It took nearly two hours to get the seven merchant ships anchored off the Diamond, and by the time the last two arrived the Surcouf had towed La Comète into position, anchored her, and retrieved the seamen, leaving fifteen Junos on board under Rossi's command.
On an impulse, Ramage had sent word to Aitken to keep two of La Comète's boats in tow, as well as her own, and had taken the third in tow of the Juno, giving instructions to Wagstaffe to return to the beach with La Créole and destroy La Comète's fourth boat, which the French seamen had tried to haul up.
Then the Juno led the way round the south side of the Diamond Rock to the remaining two frigates, which were out of sight behind it. The sun was beginning to dip down now and it would be dark within two hours. The men of the Juno and the Surcouf were at quarters as they rounded the Rock, Ramage cursing to himself yet again because he was so short of men, but a sudden hail from Southwick on the fo'c'sle warned him that the French ships were in sight. One glance told him that all fighting was over for the day.
The decks of one frigate were almost awash and, as far as he could make out, she was being kept afloat only by the bows of the second, which was now heeled over by her weight and likely to capsize at any moment. The men had cut her masts away, presumably trying to right her, but three boats were rowing round the two ships. As he looked through the telescope he saw black specks in the water round the two ships. There were also white blobs with black specks on them: men holding on to hammocks to keep afloat.
As he watched he felt a chill which had nothing to do with the fact that the heat was going out of the sun and they were getting a stronger breeze as the Juno came clear of the land. It was the realization that the three boats circling the two ships probably represented all that could be launched. The rest had presumably been smashed by falling masts and yards.
There must be five or six hundred Frenchmen out there, some swimming, some clinging to hammocks, others to bits of wreckage. Many were still on board one or other of the ships: men who could not swim or who feared the sharks. Five or six hundred Frenchmen to be rescued by the Juno and the Surcouf. Once again there was the risk of rescued becoming captors ...
Southwick came hurrying up the quarterdeck ladder, a look of alarm on his face. ‘It'd be suicide, sir,' he exclaimed, obviously not caring that the men at the wheel and the quartermaster heard him. 'Let those devils on board and they'll seize both ships! Aye, and recapture the merchantmen and La Comète too!'
'Quite right,' Ramage murmured, 'and take us into Fort Royal in triumph, and probably put the pair of us in the public pillory for a couple of days to cool our heels while they sharpen the guillotine.'
'Well, sir, I know how . . .' he broke off, but Ramage could guess that the rest of the sentence would have been, 'soft hearted you are.'
'You don't want to leave them to drown though, do you?' Ramage asked in a mild voice.
'They have three boats, sir.'
'Among about six hundred men?'
'I'd sooner leave 'em to drown than hand the two ships over to them,' Southwick said firmly. 'Why, if it was t'other way about, they'd probably sink the boats to make sure we'd drown!'
Ramage jerked his head and walked aft to the taffrail, where the Master joined him with a questioning look. Ramage looked astern at the Juno's four boats and one from La Comète towing astern. Then he pointed to the Surcouf, following two hundred yards in the Juno's wake. 'She has six more. With the three already there, we have fourteen boats in which to tow them to the Grande Anse beach, keeping them at painter's length all the while.'
‘I suppose so, sir,' Southwick said grudgingly, 'but no good ever came of trusting Frenchmen, an' you know that better than most.'
The rescue was easier than Ramage had expected. He hove-to the Juno fifty yards to the north of the sinking ships, the boats swinging round like a dog curling its tail. Immediately men began swimming to them, and Ramage hailed one of the boats, which approached warily. A lieutenant was in command of it, and Ramage ordered him to row round the survivors and tell them to start by getting into the Juno's boats. As soon as they were full the other frigate would come down and pick up the rest. They would be towed to the beach, Ramage told them, warning the lieutenant not to let the boats get so crowded that they capsized or sank. 'You are fortunate that we are here,' he shouted harshly. ‘You will all remain in the boats.'
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 onto 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 dispatch 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 dispatch 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 dispatch 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.