by Dudley Pope
The Juno’s jibboom was now level with the transom of both schooners, and because of the frigate’s forward movement the two French vessels seemed to be moving astern. He would wait until their transoms were abreast the foremast, then imitate a lookout’s warning. They were abreast now!
‘Sail close to larboard!’ he yelled in an alarmed voice and took a firm grip on the speaking trumpet.
A heavy thump to starboard, another to larboard, the scraping of wood against wood and metal against metal, the slatting of canvas and a rasping hiss as the schooner to windward let her main halyards go at a run, and then uproar: a fantastic medley of French cheers and curses, threats and orders.
Fear hit him like a blast of cold air as he kept glancing from side to side for the first sign of a French head over the bulwarks. Yes, to larboard! He jammed the speaking trumpet to his mouth. ‘Repel boarders! Come on, Junos, let every shot count!’
Suddenly the frigate’s bulwarks were swarming with men. Some seamen perched on the hammock nettings were firing into the schooners; others hung over the nettings slashing down with cutlasses. More were squeezing through the ports and jabbing with boarding pikes. Pistols and muskets were going off along both sides with the curious popping that never sounded dangerous. There was a rattle and a crash as the schooner to leeward lowered its mainsail and a moment later the foresail came crashing down. From the screams that followed Ramage guessed that the gaff had landed on men below.
‘We’re holding ’em,’ Southwick said excitedly.
‘They haven’t sorted themselves out yet,’ Ramage snapped.
He saw grapnels with ropes attached being thrown up on to the Juno’s decks: the French weren’t risking the ships drifting apart, and this should help him more than them.
Southwick suddenly pointed with his sword: ‘There, sir, by the starboard forechains!’
The Junos were being forced down to the deck and Frenchmen were swarming over the hammock nettings, screaming and yelling. The flash of pistol shots flickered across the deck. Ramage waited: his dozen former Tritons were the only reserve. Let the French get right down on the deck; it was easier for the Junos to get at them there.
The white headbands were effective and showed up well. Now the French were bursting over by the mainchains; a dozen or more had reached the deck and he saw a group of Junos dash into the middle of them. They were being held off along the larboard side, but more were pouring at the same two places on the starboard side.
‘More’n a hundred o’ them to starboard,’ Southwick growled.
Ramage still felt chilled although the fear was going. He began rubbing at the scar on his brow but found the white band in his way. How many Frenchmen were down there? The two masses of men moved like clumps of seaweed in a swirling current. There were few pistol and musket shots now; just the clang of cutlass against cutlass and the screams of men cut down. Slowly the two groups were melting into one. The Junos were holding their own the rest of the way aft along the starboard side and all along the larboard side, but the group of Frenchmen was growing as more men poured over the bulwark.
There was no chance of the Junos holding them there: the men covering that section must have been killed or wounded. Down in the schooner someone was directing the boarders, sending up more men wherever they would be most effective. They had found the weak spot along the Juno’s side and were quick to exploit it. If another twenty Frenchmen got on board the Juno she might be overwhelmed.
‘Southwick, take the conn,’ he yelled. ‘You Tritons, follow me!’
Before he could move, wrenching at his sword and holding a pistol in his left hand, there was a shout of protest from Southwick: ‘’Tis not for you to fight off boarders, sir! You handle the ship! Follow me, men!’
Before Ramage could stop him the old man, sword whirling over his head, ran to the quarterdeck ladder, bellowing: ‘Junos, come on, m’lads, cut ’em to pieces!’
Jackson and Stafford were close behind him, yelling their heads off, and the rest of the seamen followed. A startled and angry Ramage found himself on the quarterdeck with only the four men at the wheel and the quartermaster. He thrust the pistol back in his belt, thought better of it and sheathed his sword instead. He took out the second pistol, cocked them both and ran to the starboard side. The schooner’s taffrail was below and five yards forward, and he could just make out men grouped round the binnacle. In the flash of a musket shot fired from the schooner’s deck he saw that two of the men were wearing uniform. They were staring up at the Juno’s mainchains.
He aimed carefully at one of the men and fired. Though the flash blinded him momentarily he thought he saw the man fall. Hurriedly switching pistols, he saw the second uniformed man crouching over the first, who had fallen to the deck. Again he aimed carefully, cursing the excitement that made his hand tremble like a leaf in the breeze. He held his breath for a moment and fired again, and saw the second man collapse.
With luck they were the captain and first lieutenant, though whether their loss would make any difference now he did not know. He should have put Marine sharpshooters round the quarterdeck, but he had forgotten. He ran to the quarterdeck rail and looked forward. Along the larboard side there was fighting on the deck but the only Frenchmen who had managed to get on board were being dealt with. To starboard the group of Frenchmen on the Juno’s deck was being broken up: men without white headbands were running in all directions, bolting, trying to find somewhere to hide from flashing cutlasses and jabbing pikes.
He saw Southwick’s white hair in the midst of the mêlée; even above the din he could hear the old man yelling encouragement as he swept left and right with his great sword. Paolo’s small figure was beside him wielding a cutlass and screaming excitedly in high-pitched Italian. Ramage could distinguish a scream of blasphemy that would have made a hardened Neapolitan brigand blench.
He stood helpless at the quarterdeck rail, separated from the fighting and holding two empty pistols. Dare he leave the quartermaster to cover the quarterdeck? He looked back along the larboard side again and was surprised to see that there was now very little movement. Men with white headbands were back on the hammock nettings – damnation, not just on the nettings but going over the ship’s side, down into the schooner, with Aitken standing at the break of the gangway waving his sword and leading the men! There were bodies lying all round the guns but he was thankful to see that only a few of them wore the white headbands.
On the starboard side Southwick’s men were slowly breaking up the group of Frenchmen. He saw two French turn and bolt back to the bulwarks, obviously trying to jump back on board the schooner. A third man followed, and then three more.
Further aft, only a few yards away from him, Wagstaffe was standing up in the hammock nettings surrounded by Junos and a moment later he vanished from sight and the nettings cleared of men. Ramage ran to the side and looked down, watching Wagstaffe lead his men aft along the schooner’s deck. More Junos were dropping down and suddenly a group of French appeared, scrambling over the nettings from the frigate’s deck, some falling in their haste, and tumbling down to the schooner. A moment later Southwick was standing on the nettings above them, his sword waving. He leapt down on to the schooner’s deck, followed by a dozen or more men with white headbands.
Except for sprawled figures, the Juno’s decks were now clear. Ramage ran from one side to the other frantically trying to distinguish what was going on in the darkness. From the deck of the schooner to larboard he could hear Aitken’s voice, the Scots accent very strong, shouting orders, not yells of encouragement. The Marine lieutenant was bellowing at his men to form up aft. Well, he thought grimly, that schooner is secured. He ran back to the starboard side in time to see Southwick leading his men in a rush aft to a knot of Frenchmen who were standing with their backs to the taffrail. There was shouting, though he could not distinguish the words, but Southwick had paused. Now he could see Frenchmen throwing down their swords and pikes in surrender.
His
knees were shaky, his hands trembling, his stomach queasy. He wanted to giggle, and he wanted to talk to someone. He only just stopped himself from clapping the quartermaster on the back. Three minutes ago he had been afraid he had failed and that the Juno would be taken.
Benson, waving a cutlass, was trying to catch his attention. ‘Message from Mr Aitken, sir: he–’ the boy realized he was gabbling and made an effort to keep his voice even. ‘Mr Aitken’s respects, sir, and the schooner to larboard is secured.’
‘Very well, Benson,’ Ramage said. ‘My compliments to Mr Aitken, and ask him to report to me as soon as he finds it convenient.’
The boy ran off, and Ramage hoped he would remember the exact wording: Aitken would appreciate the ‘convenient’. Then Jackson was standing in front of him, white band askew, the blade of his cutlass dark. ‘Mr Wagstaffe has the schooner to starboard under command, sir, but he said to tell you it’ll be half an hour before he’s ready to get under way.’
Ramage laughed, a laugh which nearly got out of control. ‘Very well, Jackson, my compliments to Mr Wagstaffe and tell him to let me know how many prisoners he has.’
‘The French captain and the first lieutenant are dead, sir; we found ’em lying together by the binnacle. She’s called La Mutine and was manned by French seamen with soldiers for boarders.’
As the American hurried forward again, Ramage realized he was still clutching his empty pistols and jammed them into the band of his breeches. They had proved accurate enough, although they were only as effective as the man that held them, and he had used them too late. If he had thought of picking off the two officers a few minutes earlier…if, if, if… Always, after an action, came the ifs, and before dawn he would have thought of plenty more. If he had done this he would have saved a dozen men’s lives at the starboard mainchains; if he had done that he would have saved a dozen more to larboard. Mistakes he had made – no Marine sharp-shooters for example – and probably some which would become apparent within the next few hours. Mistakes that only he might know about, but which had killed men unnecessarily…
The Juno was still under way, dragging the schooners along with her, each being held by the grapnels thrown on board the frigate by the confident Frenchmen. Aitken was standing in front of him, his left hand jammed into his jacket, which was buttoned, and a dark stain on his left shoulder. ‘Baker and the Marine lieutenant have everything under command down there, sir. About three dozen prisoners, with the Marines guarding them. Twenty or thirty Frenchmen dead and as many more wounded.’
‘Our own casualties?’ Ramage asked quietly.
‘About a dozen dead and wounded to larboard, I should think, sir. I have parties going round attending to the wounded, and Mr Bowen has half a dozen men helping him.’
‘Very well,’ Ramage said soberly, ‘we were very lucky.’
‘Lucky?’ Aitken was too startled to say ‘sir’, and added: ‘It all worked perfectly!’
Ramage turned back to the quarterdeck rail. Perhaps it had worked out perfectly so far, but none of them realized that up to now they had carried out barely a third of his plan: the hardest part was yet to come.
Two hours before dawn Ramage was weary but still excited. He had questioned the captain of the larboard schooner for half an hour and by playing alternately on the Frenchman’s pride and his fear of what was going to happen now he was a prisoner, had managed to discover what the French had intended.
The two schooners, La Mutine and La Créole, had been taken over by the French Navy the day before the Juno sailed into Fort Royal Bay, and the first lieutenants of the two frigates had been put in command. Each had forty men taken from the frigates and embarked seventy soldiers from the 53rd Regiment. Their mission, the French lieutenant had said, was to board the Juno simultaneously from each side and take her into Fort Royal. After that the Frenchman would say no more. Ramage guessed that the man had decided it was proper to discuss the operation, but the way he had then refused further information made Ramage suspect him of hiding a great deal more than he revealed.
He had just signalled to the two Marines to take the Frenchman away when Aitken came into the cabin, obviously excited. The moment the Marines and their prisoner had left he said: ‘Orsini and Rossi, sir: they’ve found an Italian among the prisoners who wants to quit the French and serve with us! He’s a quartermaster and seems an intelligent fellow.’
‘Fetch him in – but I’ll talk to Orsini first.’
The midshipman was almost giggling with excitement. He and several seamen, including Rossi, were guarding prisoners, he told Ramage, when Rossi had made some comment in Italian. One of the prisoners immediately spoke – ’in the accent of Genoa,’ Orsini said, with all the contempt of one who spoke with the clear accent of Tuscany.
‘Go on, boy,’ Ramage said impatiently. ‘What did he want?’
‘We took him away from the other prisoners – in case any more of them spoke Italian – to see what he wanted. It seems he comes from a village twenty miles from Genoa. When Bonaparte invaded Genoa and renamed it the Ligurian Republic, many able-bodied men were forced to serve in the Army and Navy. They had no choice, this man says.’
Ramage nodded: he could not imagine the French giving able-bodied men any choice. Rossi had been fortunate in quitting the Republic before the French arrived (indeed, Ramage suspected the police were after him). So this prisoner might well have been serving the French against his will and, like Rossi, might prefer to serve in the Royal Navy. Well, he thought grimly, that depends on how much he knows and how much he tells.
‘Anyway, sir,’ the boy continued eagerly, ‘this man – his name is Zolesi – told us that the Governor will be very angry that the schooners failed to capture the Juno: apparently a convoy is due very soon, and he wants us out of the way.’
Ramage stared at the boy. ‘“Very soon” – he said that?’
When Orsini repeated the Italian phrase, mimicking the Genoese accent, Ramage said impatiently, ‘Fetch the man. And bring Rossi.’
Zolesi was a stocky man with fair hair and blue eyes, and Ramage guessed that his forebears were mountain folk. He saluted smartly but Rossi, holding a pistol, watched him warily. He began by speaking to Rossi, expecting he would translate, but the seaman said: ‘The captain speaks Italian.’
Ramage, impatient to question Zolesi about the convoy, had first to listen to the man’s request to be allowed to serve in the Royal Navy. His story sounded plausible and Ramage noticed Rossi nodding as he described how the French sent naval press-gangs and army squads through the streets, rounding up all able-bodied men.
Finally Ramage interrupted him. There were a few questions, based on what the French lieutenant had said, which would check the man’s reliability.
‘You were serving in La Mutine?’
‘For this operation, sir.’
‘Before that?’
‘In La Désirée. Forty of us were sent to the schooner. And seventy soldiers.’
‘What regiment?’
The man’s brow wrinkled. ‘The 53rd Regiment, sir.’
‘Who commanded La Mutine?’
‘The first lieutenant of La Désirée. He was killed, sir.’
Ramage nodded. ‘Is the Surcouf ready for sea?’
‘Not yet, sir, but they are working hard.’
‘And La Désirée?’
‘Accidente!’ Zolesi exclaimed. ‘They are short off everything: yards, rope, canvas, wood for repairs, blocks, hammocks – everything!’
‘Yet the French expect to commission her?’
‘Oh yes, once the convoy arrives.’
‘But that has been delayed.’ Ramage said, deciding that Zolesi was not likely to lie in this type of conversation, and the Italian’s reply was just what he wanted.
‘Delayed, sir? But it’s expected within a week! A week from today, in fact. Have the British captured it?’
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know, but it’s not a large convoy anyway.’
&n
bsp; ‘I don’t know how big it is, sir, but the French are terrified of something happening to it. That’s why the two schooners were sent out to capture this ship.’
‘Will they send out more?’
Zolesi shook his head expressively. ‘No! There was a good deal of trouble over these two. They were privateers and the owners refused to let the Navy use them.’ Seeing Ramage’s puzzled expression, he added: ‘The Governor took them over by decree.’
‘But why no more attempts?’
‘I heard the privateer owners sent a deputation to the Governor, swearing that if he tried to take over any more the owners would sink them first.’
‘What did the Governor say?’ Ramage asked curiously.
‘I heard he was very worried: the owners of the privateers are powerful men in Martinique. Now you have captured these two…’ Zolesi stood with his arms spread out in front of him, palms upturned.
Ramage nodded to Rossi and said in English, ‘Take him away and keep him separated from the others.’
‘Can he…’ He broke off, obviously worried that Ramage would think him impertinent.
‘Keep him apart and see what else he knows about the convoy and the French defences in Fort Royal. And anything more about the other frigate. You can hint that he’ll be allowed to enlist – and get the bounty, too!’
By now all the unwounded from the two schooners were being guarded by the Juno’s Marines. The bos’n and his mates were busy sewing the dead men into hammocks ready for funerals at daybreak, with the gunner cursing that it was going to be a waste of roundshot until Ramage pointed out that there was plenty in the schooners, and it was more appropriate that Frenchmen should be buried at sea with French roundshot sewn into the foot of their hammocks.
Ramage sent for Aitken and Southwick and when they arrived he told them to sit down. The first lieutenant was holding himself a little stiffly, the result of a bandage Bowen had put on the shoulder to cover a gash from a French pike. Ramage asked if they wanted hot drinks – the galley fire had been lit earlier to give the men a hot breakfast and provide Bowen with the hot water he demanded for the treatment of some of the badly wounded men. When both men refused, Ramage handed Aitken the sick list that Bowen had scribbled out and sent up to him. Nine Junos had been killed, seven seriously wounded and eighteen more had wounds that needed treatment but which allowed them, in an emergency, to go to general quarters.