by Dudley Pope
'More likely put a hole in the hull,' Jackson said.
'Don't worry. Just go down in the hold and sit down with one ankle held by the irons, and I can tell you that inside ten minutes the muzzle of that 12-pounder will seem to measure two feet in diameter and be winking at you like death himself.'
Jackson's laugh was mirthless. He had fought the French for too long to have much sympathy for them. 'What about Gilbert?'
Ferris puffed out his lips and then opened his mouth as if blowing out a plum stone. 'Don't make a mistake about that fellow! He may be small and he may be a Frog - it's easy to forget that because he speaks such good English - but you should see him when he gets worked up!
'Before we took half the prisoners over to the Calypso he talked to all of them below decks (this was while you was ferrying across our seamen) and gave 'em a warning. All French to me, of course, but I understood everything he said just by watching the faces of the prisoners! I think a lot of it was religion - Diable, that means the Devil, doesn't it? Well he went on a lot about him, and they shuffled about a lot, as though they were scared of the Devil. There was another chap they were scared of, too, someone called More. What with him threatening 'em with the Devil and More, and us Marines, too, we had them French twittering like frightened starlings.'
'Until the two started fighting.'
'Yus, but I think they are so scared that they very easily get on each other's nerves. Anyway, a day or two in irons won't hurt 'em. Given half a chance, Gilbert and his chaps would have beaten the two of them. Yet they're French too - why do they hate the fellows in this ship so much, Jacko?'
'It's not just this ship: they hate all Frenchmen who support Bonaparte. I don't know much about it myself but of course Gilbert and Louis worked for the Count of Rennes, who Bonaparte is shipping to Cayenne in the frigate we're trying to catch.'
'Cayenne? That's a sort of pepper, isn't it?'
'Yes, it comes from French Guiana, which is near Brazil. It's a deadly sort of place - makes islands of the West Indies like Antigua seem as healthy as Bath. Die like flies there, according to the captain.'
Ferris nodded and flapped the front of his tunic back and forth like a fan. 'I can believe it. But what does the captain want with this frigate, La Robuste? Halves our strength in men, even if it doubles the number of ships. But doubling the number of guns and halving the number of men to fire them,' his voice assumed the monotonous drone of a drill sergeant, 'is militarily unsound, Jacko.'
'Tell the captain,' the American said. 'He may not have considered that. Or,' he added sarcastically, 'he might be considering it only from a naval point of view, not a military one.'
Sergeant Ferris patted his stomach. 'Yes, that could be so,' he agreed judicially, completely missing the tone of Jackson's voice. 'Yes, I agree, he might have some particular naval plan in mind.'
Wagstaffe looked at his makeshift journal. There was something very satisfying about the book, which had been made up by young Orsini stitching together the left-hand side of a dozen sheets of paper. How satisfying to write boldly across the top (normally it was only a matter of fitting names in the blank spaces of a printed form) 'Journal of the Proceedings of –', he paused a moment: this was an unusual situatio... He then continued, '- the former French national frigate La Robuste, presently prize to one of his Majesty's ships, Lieutenant Wagstaffe, commander.' He had added the date and then carefully ruled in nine columns, and today, as he glanced down them, the ship's progress was becoming more obvious.
The date occupied the first two columns, the third recorded the winds (which had stayed between southeast and northeast the whole time), then came the courses (which were unchanged) and the miles covered from noon to noon, which were usually around 175. The latitude and longitude occupied the next two columns and showed to a navigator's eye the progress they were making to the southwest.
The next column, bearing and distances at noon, had been left blank, and there was only one entry under 'Remarkable Observations and Accidents', which recorded putting all the prisoners in irons for twenty-four hours after two of them had started fighting.
Across in the Calypso, Ramage had just worked out the noon sight and compared his position with those of Aitken and Southwick. They tallied within three or four miles, and with the ship rolling and pitching with following wind and sea, so that taking a sight was like trying to shoot a hare from the back of a runaway horse, that was close enough.
He opened his journal and under the 'Latitude' column wrote 6 degrees, 45 minutes North; next to it was recorded the longitude, 52 degrees, 14 minutes West. The Îles du Salut, according to the French pilot book, were 5 degrees, 17 minutes North and 52 degrees, 36 minutes West, so... they were... yes, ninety miles on a course of south by west a quarter west. Which meant no change in the course, but because they were making eight knots and he wanted to bring the mountains in sight soon after dawn, both the Calypso and La Robuste were going to have to reduce canvas: a little under five knots would bring the mountains in sight at daybreak so that the ships' companies would be breakfasted by the time the three islands were sighted. Providing of course the visibility was reasonable. Often there was a haze along a lee shore, presumably caused by the sea air meeting the land air, and the mistiness thrown up by the waves breaking on rocks and sandy beaches.
He wiped the pen, put the top on the ink bottle, and replaced everything in the drawer. He found Southwick and Aitken on deck.
'If the chronometer is not playing games, and if there's not a radical change in the speed of the current as we close the coast...' Ramage said.
'Ninety miles, I make it,' Southwick said.
'Which means we might run up on the beach in the night,' Ramage commented. 'Mr Aitken, we'll try her under topsails, and then a cast of the log, if you please. Five knots will be quite enough, so we can furl the courses and get in the t'gallants and royals.'
Aitken picked up the speaking trumpet while Ramage went aft to the taffrail and looked astern at the Calypso's wake. Despite the speed she was making and the wild rolling, the wake was no more than the first wrinkles on a beautiful woman's face: the French designer had produced a fast and sea-kindly hull which slipped through the water without fuss.
La Robuste was a fine sight. He could imagine how often over the past days Wagstaffe, Kenton and Martin had been measuring the angle to the Calypso's mainmasthead, to maintain that magic distance of a cable. He smiled to himself because although Wagstaffe might not realize it, the next few minutes were something of a test. Wagstaffe was a fine seaman and steady, a good navigator and popular with the men. He had shown himself, in other words, to be an excellent lieutenant. He could and did carry out orders with precision. And, as Bowen had pointed out to Admiral Clinton, this is what Bullivant could do. Bullivant had only failed when he made the enormous jump from taking orders as a lieutenant to making decisions and giving orders as a captain.
How about Wagstaffe?
The Calypso's bosun's mates finished the shrill notes of their calls and bellowed orders: now came the thud of bare feet as the men ran to their stations. Sails would not be furled as fast as usual, since half the Calypso's men were now over in La Robuste, but - he took out his watch - with similar ships and similar sails set it would be interesting to compare times.
The squeal of ropes rendering through blocks, the shouts of bosun's mates, the grunts of men straining as they heaved on ropes ... And the great rectangle of the maincourse, which for days had been billowing in a graceful curve, suddenly crumpled and distorted as the wind spilled when the lower corner of each side began to be pulled diagonally towards the middle.
And damnation, La Robuste was beginning to clew up her maincourse, too! Wagstaffe had plotted his noon position against the latitude and longitude of the Îles du Salut: he must have realized that the two ships would have to slow down to avoid arriving in the night, and he had his men waiting out of sight, waiting for the first wrinkles to appear in the Calypso's maincourse ... Yes, Wagstaffe passed the te
st...
Looking forward again and upward Ramage could see the men on the Calypso's mainyard furling the sail neatly and securing it with gaskets, the long strips of canvas keeping it in place. He glanced at his watch and then looked at La Robuste and waited for the last gasket to be passed. The Calypso won by under half a minute, and that victory could no doubt be explained by defects in La Robuste's running rigging and the poor state of her gaskets - he had seen two tear in half, weakened by the heat and damp of a year in Far Eastern waters.
Forecourses were clewed up and then furled and La Robuste's time was better, allowing for the fact that Wagstaffe had to wait for the Calypso to make the first move because his orders were to conform with the Calypso. In topgallants ... the same. Obviously the Calypsos in La Robuste were enjoying themselves.
It was going to be a busy afternoon - preparations for making a landfall were, in this case, the same as for entering harbour, and as soon as the last sail was furled and the last topman down on deck again, Ramage nodded to Southwick, who was responsible for the fo'c'sle and all that went on there. The heavy anchor cable would have to be roused out while the blind bucklers closing the two hawsepipes would have to be taken off. That was always a difficult job under way with a following sea, since the bucklers were fixed securely to prevent seas coming in through the hawseholes.
One end of the first cable would then be led out through the starboard hawse and back on board again and secured to the ring of one of the two anchors on the starboard side. Then the end of a second cable would be led out of the larboard hawse and back to the ring of one of the two larboard anchors. People were often surprised that a ship the size of a frigate in fact carried six anchors and eight cables (seven of them each eighteen and a half inches in circumference and 720 feet long). But such people had never seen a ship at anchor in a high and a heavy sea.
The covers needed taking off the boats and a couple of quarterdeck guns should be loaded with blank charges in case it was necessary to make an urgent signal to LaRobuste. And ... well, Ramage admitted, that was about all. All that was needed next morning was the sight of the three mountains close to the mouth of the River Kourou, Pointe Charlotte and the Îles du Salut. Still, he'd be quite satisfied if they sighted the 'very remarkable conical hill' called Mont Diable in the pilot book but presumably Montagne du Diable, and which should warn in good time that he was a little too far south. Diable, diable ... it had started off with Bullivant in his delirium seeing Satan; now English devils in the imagination were going to be replaced by French diables in fact.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There they were, three flat-topped islands still grey in the distance and overlapping so that there appeared to be only two. That would be Île du Diable just coming clear on the left while Île Royale and Île St Joseph merged to the south. As his body swayed with the rolling of the Calypso, making it difficult to hold the telescope steady, they moved from side to side in the circular lens as though being viewed through the bottom of a drinking glass.
He turned aft to train the glass on La Robuste's quarterdeck. Yes, they too had sighted the islands; there was Wagstaffe hunched with the telescope to his eye and Kenton, Martin and Orsini standing in a row beside him at the quarterdeck rail like inquisitive starlings.
It had been disappointing at dawn when the first light seemed to spread outward from the ship and nothing had been in sight. The traditional cry of 'See a grey goose at a mile' had brought in the six lookouts stationed on deck round the ship and sent two aloft, and they had reported a clear horizon.
Then suddenly, as though a bank of fog had drifted away to reveal them (though the fog familiar in higher latitudes was of course unknown in the Tropics), they were ahead. Obviously there had been a haze hiding the coast until the sun lifted over the horizon and burned it up.
Ramage sighed, a natural reaction but one which led Southwick to ask: 'You expect trouble, sir?'
Trouble? They were too far off for him to be sure. If a frigate's masts showed up behind Île Royale, revealing that L'Espoir had arrived (and had time to send her prisoners over to Île du Diable), then yes, they had trouble. The idea, plan, gamble - he was not sure what to call it - that had come to him several days ago like a wind shadow, and the outline of which had since sharpened, as though someone had used a quill to run an inked line round it, would have been a waste of thought if L'Espoir had beaten them in.
More important, Southwick's question merely emphasized that the idea was just a gamble. You could put other fancy names to it, he told himself sourly, but it was still a gamble: he was like some pallid player putting a small fortune on the turn of a dice in the final desperate throw that could lose or save a home which had been in the family for generations and was a son's rightful inheritance. So if there were masts, he had lost; if there were no masts, he had won.
Won? That was nonsense. If there were no masts, then he had not yet lost, which was a far cry from winning. No, what Southwick's innocent and well-meant question emphasized, Ramage admitted to himself with bitterness, was that by pinning everything on beating L'Espoir to the Îles du Salut, he had not fully considered the consequences of losing the race.
If L'Espoir had not arrived, then the prisoners were still on board the frigate, and frigates were not invulnerable. But if L'Espoir had arrived, then the prisoners by now would be imprisoned on the Île du Diable in what the French pilot book called a 'fortified enclosure', and the whole purpose of these fortifications was to keep people (rescuers, in this case) out.
Southwick was still awaiting an answer.
'If L'Espoir is here, yes,' Ramage said.
'Because she'll have put her prisoners on shore?'
'Yes. There must be hundreds of prisoners on the island - perhaps more than one island. We can't be sure they still keep all the criminals on one island and the political prisoners on another.'
'I wonder if Bonaparte sees any difference in the two sorts,' Southwick commented. 'He's just as likely to put 'em all together.'
'That would mean our fifty would be among perhaps five thousand others; and five thousand prisoners means how many guards?'
Southwick gave one of his famous sniffs. They came of a standard strength, but he could give each one a particular meaning. This one indicated that the whole thing was absurd and not for the serious consideration of grown men.
'Even at one guard for every twenty prisoners, plus all the camp followers and cooks and administration people, we'd never stand a chance,' the master said. 'To find out if L 'Espoir's there we've got to get in sight of that fort on Île Royale, so they'll sight us and we lose surprise.'
'Yes,' Ramage said, and changed the subject, which was thoroughly depressing him. 'Now, we'd better start working out the positions of those reefs and shoals.'
'Aye, I have 'em noted from the pilot book,' Southwick said. 'The main bank is over there, between one and two miles nor'nor'west of Royale.' He pointed over the starboard bow.
At that moment Ramage saw Renwick down on the maindeck and called him up to the quarterdeck. The Marine captain's face was as usual burned a bright red from the sun and the skin of his nose was peeling, but he gave a smart salute.
'How are the prisoners?' Ramage asked.
'Very subdued, sir. They haven't forgotten that man Gilbert. I don't know what he said before they were brought over here, but it frightened them!'
Ramage nodded. 'Keep them subdued.'
Supposing there were no masts. Oh yes, he had this wonderful idea, but what about the pilot? The garrisons on the islands? He shook his head and left a puzzled Renwick standing on the quarterdeck as he clattered down the companionway to the great cabin, nodding to the sentry.
He sat down at his desk and looked at the sketch he had made of the three islands based on the information in the pilot book. Why was he looking at it? He knew the outlines and positions by heart. He pushed the sketch aside and took out the French pilot book and began reading the reference to the Îles du Salut. The words blu
rred into meaninglessness: he knew them by heart, so why was he reading it yet again? He put the book back in the drawer and stood up impatiently. What the devil was wrong with him? Impatience, he told himself, that's what's wrong. It needs patience to wait until we are closer to the islands so that we can be sure about the masts.
Islands! Even at this distance that was obviously an absurd word for three long lumps of rock lying like broken grindstones half a dozen miles off a flat coastline fringed with mangroves, marshy land and almost stagnant water and buzzing and whining with biting insects.
At least the islands do not suffer from a shortage of water: the rainfall must be so heavy that perpetual dampness and mildew, not drought, is the problem.
Up on the quarterdeck he said to Southwick: 'Hail the lookouts. No, better still, send a man aloft with a glass.'
'Yes, sir,' Southwick said, but added: 'You did say that Royale was 216 feet high, and Diable 131, didn't you, sir?'
Ramage glared at him. 'Yes, and the truck of a frigate's mainmast won't show clear from behind 'em.'
'Yes, sir, so I was thinking ...'
'Nevertheless send a man aloft with a glass.'
'Aye aye, sir.' Southwick knew the strain of waiting. They had left the Channel Fleet how long ago? Nearly three weeks. For twenty days they had looked for L'Espoir and the captain had shown no sign of strain. Now all the tensions and anticipations of three weeks, when everyone had wondered if they would catch L'Espoir or beat her to Cayenne, were being compressed into an hour.
The new lookout soon hailed the quarterdeck. With the bring-'em-near he could make out some buildings on the largest island. They were low down on the seaward side, he added.
Ramage nodded: that would be the fort on Royale, and by now the French lookouts would be reporting the approach of two frigates. Was there one préfet in command of the three islands? Or was he a soldier, a garrison commander? It did not matter a damn, really; Ramage knew he was just trying to keep his mind occupied. He turned and began to walk back and forth along the few feet of deck between the quarterdeck rail and the taffrail, occasionally looking astern at LaRobuste and allowing himself a glance at the islands only once every hundred times he completed the stretch.