by Dudley Pope
Ramage walked aft again. It was a small thing, but the men obviously wanted Fort Royal to know that the frigate was the Juno. Perhaps that was what Bowen had meant, but pride in their ship was still a poor excuse for firing pistols all over the place.
He suddenly realized that the men and, damnation take it, the lieutenants too, were behaving as though they expected the Juno to stay on this tack and storm Fort Louis! He gestured to the First Lieutenant and Master to join him by the capstan, where they could talk out of earshot of the quartermaster and the men at the wheel.
'My intention,' he said heavily, 'is to beat into the bay until we get a sight of the Salée River anchorage and can see what vessels are there. After that we will bear away round the south end of the shoal to the east of the city, then bear up again towards the Carénage and Fort St Louis for a sight of the frigates. After that we'll bear away so we can run past the front of the city and out to Pointe des Nègres. By that time I hope to have a complete list of every ship and vessel in the bay that might interest us, with their positions.'
Aitken looked disappointed but the veteran Southwick was obviously puzzled, wondering why the Captain was mentioning anything so obvious.
'I want a good man in the chains with a lead, and another man ready to relieve him,' Ramage added, 'and Jackson aloft with a telescope. He's the best man on board for identifying ships. How much water have we over the southern end of the shoal they call Grande Sèche?'
Southwick shook his head. 'Only three or four fathoms at the most, sir; we can't risk it. But we should see it clearly and it'll be as good as a row of buoys once we bear away from looking into the Salée River.'
'Very well. By the way, Mr Aitken, you can tell the men what we shall be doing; they seem to be expecting me to tow Fort St Louis back to Barbados and then give them shore leave.'
Once clear of the mountains the wind freshened to a strong breeze. As the Juno entered the bay it began veering to the south-east so that the frigate, close hauled on the starboard tack, was able to clear all the small headlands and shoals on the south side, heading east-north-east to get far enough in so that Pointe de la Rose did not hide the vessels at anchor in the Salée River, which was a deep indentation at the east end of Fort Royal Bay.
The sun was hot and dazzling as it reflected off the sea, and Ramage wished he could have had the awning rigged. The deck was like the top of a stove and his feet throbbed inside his boots. His stock was damp with perspiration, though the fresher breeze was beginning to cool him. The men did not seem to mind - but they did not have to wear uniform.
"That's Pointe de Boute, sir,' Southwick said, 'and you can just see Rose Point beyond. Another mile or so on this tack and we'll be able to see right into the Salée.' He turned and pointed over the larboard bow. ‘That lighter patch, that's the Grande Sèche.'
Ramage nodded: that was one advantage of the clear waters of the West Indies. With a little experience you could judge the depth of water by its colour in the sunlight. It was a paler blue where Southwick had pointed, which meant only three fathoms or so, but closer to the land it would turn into a light green, which warned of two fathoms or less. The sun had to be reasonably high, however, otherwise the reflection spoiled the navigator's best insurance.
Ramage thought Fort Royal Bay one of the loveliest in the Caribbean. The ridges of the hills and mountains to the north and south made interesting shadows, so that valleys emphasized peaks, while the low land to the east gave it a scale. The city was well-placed, sheltered from the northers of the winter yet pleasantly open to the cooling Trade winds from the east.
A hail from the mainmasthead interrupted his daydreaming as Jackson reported that one frigate was anchored in front of the city with masts stepped and lower yards crossed, and a second frigate was right in the Carénage with yards and topmasts down. Southwick was jotting down notes when Jackson shouted down that he could just begin to see into the Salée anchorage as it came clear of Rose Point,
Ramage swung round to look over the starboard side. The Salée anchorage was backed by mangrove swamps with an island in the middle and a small cay beyond, and within a couple of minutes he could see a dozen or more vessels at anchor, most of them heading to the south-east but a few lying more to the east, showing a local wind eddy. He began counting. Five ... six ... nine . . . ten . . . eleven schooners, low and rakish, and which obviously could be used as privateers. Only the seven largest had sails bent on. Hard to distinguish, but they seemed to be pierced for four guns a side. Those seven could carry a hundred men for a short voyage. There were nine droghers, slab-sided with apple-cheek bows, unhandy but able to carry a lot of cargo, and that was all. He could now see all of the anchorage where there was enough water for anything larger than a small fishing boat to float. He glanced at Southwick, who nodded and tapped his notebook, repeating the same totals that Ramage had counted. The Master then glanced significantly over the larboard side and Ramage looked across to see that the Grande Sèche shoal was drawing uncomfortably far south.
'We'll bear away if you please, Mr Aitken.' Going to the binnacle and then looking over the bow again he added: 'West by north ought to keep us clear.'
Bos'n's calls twittered, men ran to sheets and braces, and the Juno wore round until the wind was on the larboard quarter with Fort Royal itself over on the starboard bow. Ramage swung the telescope slowly along the shore, from west to east, finally reaching the grey bulk of Fort St Louis, which now had a large Tricolour streaming from its flagstaff. There was the Carénage and the frigate Jackson had described, stripped except for her lower masts. Had they used her yards and topmasts to start commissioning the one anchored in front of the town? If so, why anchor her out there? Perhaps they reckoned her guns gave the western end of Fort Royal some protection, relying on Fort St Louis to cover the eastern end.
The Juno was sailing fast now in an almost flat sea and Ramage watched as the big shoal drew round on to the quarter, leaving deep water right up to the shoal that extended half a mile from the Fort. He wanted a closer look at the frigate, and then that would be enough for today. He looked down at the compass again. 'Mr Aitken, we'll wear round. North by west, if you please.'
Again the men braced up the yards and sheets as the frigate came round on to the new course, putting the wind three points on her starboard quarter and Fort St Louis almost dead ahead. Soon Ramage could distinguish details of the buildings right along the shore; then through the telescope he could see that the French frigate was crowded with men. Many were in the ratlines, but he was not sure whether they had been working aloft or had climbed up to get a better view of the Juno. Her ports were open but her guns were not run out.
Smoke was drifting away from the Fort and a few moments later he heard the rumble of guns. The range was more than a mile. He turned to Aitken: 'Hail Jackson and ask him if he saw the fall of shot.'
The First Lieutenant pointed over the larboard quarter. 'I saw five, sir, half a mile away, right in our wake. There! They're firing again!'
Five more shots landed in the position Aitken had pointed out, five pinnacles of water that leapt up as though whales were spouting and then vanished.
'They just reloaded and fired without correcting their aim: not used to firing at a moving target,' Southwick commented. 'Another week's work to be done on that frigate,' he added. 'They must have three hundred men on board - just look at 'em perched in the rigging, like a lot o' starlings. They could get some of their guns to bear, so as they aren't firing they must be a long way from commissioning.'
'Short of powder, perhaps,' Aitken ventured, but Ramage gestured to the Fort, which had fired yet again.
Jackson hailed from the masthead: 'The Surcouf - that's the frigate, sir: I just made out the name on her transom when she swung to that gust.'
Ramage looked at Southwick with raised eyebrows. 'Don't know of her, sir,' the Master said apologetically. Thirty-six guns and she looks fairly new.'
Ramage closed his telescope with a snap. 'Bea
r away again, Mr Aitken: steer west by north. We'll just see if they have any more batteries at this end of the Bay. Once we have Pointe des Nègres on our beam I think we'll have rattled the bars loudly enough for today. You've the Surcouf’sexact position on the chart I assume, Mr Southwick,'
CHAPTER NINE
Two nights later Ramage stood on the quarterdeck with Wagstaffe, who was the officer of the deck, as the Juno stretched northwards under topsails only. It was a dark night, large banks of cloud frequently covering three-quarters of the sky and blacking out the stars. The glass was steady but by midnight there could be either a clear sky or pouring rain. Ramage grumbled to himself about the unpredictability of tropical weather.
Once again Wagstaffe called to the lookouts on either bow, and again both answered that there was no sign of Diamond Rock. The young lieutenant was nervous and Ramage was trying to decide if he should tell him not to keep hailing the lookouts unnecessarily: they knew well enough what they were looking for and would hail the moment they sighted it. He now wished he had not taken the Juno so close to the Rock, but the cloud had thickened only in the last half an hour. Anyway he could bear away out to the westward at any moment and be sure of clearing it, but bearing away was just the sort of thing that allowed the damned droghers and schooners to sneak up the coast, pass through the Fours Channel between Diamond Rock and Diamond Hill and get into Fort Royal. They would be impossible to sight from seaward, hidden against the high land.
He would stay on this course. For the next few weeks they were going to be staying close in to Diamond at night and the sooner everyone got used to the idea the better. The cloud seemed to be getting lower and the wind was freshening: there was a sudden chill which gave warning that it was going to rain in a couple of minutes. He turned to Orsini and said: 'Go below and fetch oilskins - mine is on the hook outside the door. And fetch Mr Wagstaffe's and your own at the same time.'
Damn the rain: it would cut visibility to a hundred yards or less. As the Rock carried deep water right up to its side from the south, there was no point in having a man in the chains with a lead. He was still torn between bearing away and carrying on so that Wagstaffe should gain confidence. Then he decided that Wagstaffe's confidence was less important than the safety of the ship. As he turned towards the lieutenant there was a scurry of feet and a man loomed up out of the darkness: 'Rossi, sir, lookout on the starboard bow. There's a sail close under our starboard bow a cable off: I dare not shout!'
'Very well,' Ramage snapped, 'warn the man at the mainchains not to shout either. Get back forward and tell the other man to keep a sharp lookout to larboard.'
He turned to Wagstaffe: 'Send the men to quarters, but no shouting!'
He strained his eyes over to starboard but could see nothing. Now the rain was coming, and he groped in the binnacle box drawer for the night glass. He swung it from ahead to far round on the quarter, but nothing was visible in the darkness and he moved it slowly forward again, resting his arms on the top of the binnacle box. There was a hint of greyness out there, a patch not quite as black as the rest of the night, but he lost it as a squall of rain swept the deck. The shape was distinctive enough - the sails of a schooner on almost the same course as the Juno and perhaps two hundred yards ahead on the starboard bow.
He hurried over to the larboard side, almost knocking over Orsini, who held out oilskin coats. He balanced himself and looked over the bow, hoping the squall would not have reached out that far yet. What he saw was the similar grey shape of another schooner! There was no doubt about it; he had spent too many years allowing for the inverted image shown in a night glass.
He sensed rather than heard men hurrying to quarters. Aitken came up in the darkness, buckling on his sword, followed almost immediately by Southwick. He looked around for the Marine Lieutenant and called him over.
The three officers gathered round him and Wagstaffe edged over to hear as much as he could. There was no time to wait for the Third and Fourth Lieutenants.
'Two French schooners, one on either bow, on the same course,' Ramage said crisply. 'Probably privateers packed full of men. Perhaps even French troops. I think they are waiting for the rain to stop, then the moment the sky starts clearing and they can see they'll try to board us, one on each side.’
Southwick gave one of his famous sniffs. 'They must think we're all asleep.'
'When Rossi spotted the first one, it was more than a cable away. I wonder -'
Ramage broke off: it was not for the Captain of a ship to wonder aloud, but why were these schooners planning an attack on the Juno when they had left the Welcome brig and Captain Eames's frigate alone? Was a convoy expected or did they fear an attack on the frigate anchored off Fort Royal?
He turned to Orsini. 'Run forward, boy. Warn all lookouts not to shout. Tell the larboard lookout there's a second schooner on the larboard bow and stay there yourself, ready to bring back more reports. The lookouts will have lost sight of them in this squall.'
He left his officers standing by the binnacle and walked aft thinking hard. He pictured the two schooners sailing back into Fort Royal tomorrow morning with half their complement on board the Juno and a Tricolour flying above the British ensign. That was what the Governor of Fort Royal intended and what the men in the schooners hoped for. It would, he thought, be a great pity to disappoint any of them.
Yet the risk to the Juno would be enormous if he carried out the plan forming in his mind. If he failed, and was still alive, a court martial would find him guilty of anything Admiral Davis wanted to charge him with. No more risky, he argued, than taking the Juno into action against another frigate. And a convoy must be due . . . He swung round, rejoined the lieutenants and Southwick, and found that the two remaining lieutenants had arrived.
Orsini scurried up to report that Rossi had sighted the starboard schooner again in the same relative position but they had not managed to sight the one to larboard. 'Tell 'em to keep a sharp lookout,' Ramage snapped, 'the second one is there all right.'
He turned to the officers. 'There's not much time, so listen carefully. I want those two schooners to try to board us. I want them alongside, hooked on with grappling irons, because I want to capture them undamaged. The only way we can do it is by surprise. Let them think they are surprising us: they'll range alongside and start boarding on both sides. Then we surprise them: the whole ship's company will be crouching down behind the bulwarks, waiting for the word to repel boarders. That means we have a hundred men on each side to fight off perhaps a hundred in each scooner, but their freeboard is low, and they'll have to climb up our sides. We stand a good chance of succeeding. I want to capture those schooners undamaged,' he repeated.
Swiftly Ramage gave each of his lieutenants his orders, starting with the Marine officer. As each received his instructions he glided away into the darkness to gather his men, check their arms and make sure they had their instructions.
Finally there were only a dozen seamen and Southwick on the quarterdeck with Ramage, apart for the quartermaster and four men at the wheel. Ramage had doubled the number of men usually at the wheel in case of casualties. The dozen seamen were the former Tritons.
While Aitken and the other lieutenants made sure the rest of the ship's company (including those in the sick bay, since all of them could handle pistols) were equipped with muskets or pistols, boarding pikes, cutlasses or tomahawks, Ramage gave his orders to the dozen men and Southwick. The old Master was almost chuckling with excitement at the prospect of action. He had an enormous sword slung from a belt over his shoulder - a sword Ramage always called 'The Cleaver' - and a brace of pistols tucked in his belt. The dozen former Tritons carried a variety of weapons - apart from a pair of pistols, Ramage had let them choose what other weapons they wanted. Jackson and Stafford had cutlasses, Rossi a pike with a tomahawk tucked blade uppermost into his belt.
Ramage's instructions were brief: the former Tritons and the master would remain on the quarterdeck and were not to move until Ramage
gave the word: they were to act as a reserve and would only join the fight at a point round the bulwarks where it looked as though the French might break through. 'But,' Ramage had warned them grimly, 'remember that as soon as you can you must get back to the quarterdeck: there might be some other place that needs reinforcement. The moment you get back here remember to reload those barkers: if there are soldiers on board these schooners, they'll know how to use swords ...'
'And yourself, sir?' Jackson said, and Ramage realized he had neither sword nor pistols. 'I'll be back in a moment, sir,' the American said and ran below.
Orsini appeared again to report that the two schooners were in sight now, both in the same relative positions, according to the new lookouts. Ramage looked at the boy. 'Have you a pistol, Paolo?' he asked.
'Under my jacket, sir,' he said. 'To keep the powder dry in case there's another squall.'
Ramage thought of the boy's dirk, perhaps Paolo's proudest possession, but little use in the kind of fighting that would soon be sweeping over the Juno's decks. 'Find yourself a cutlass, boy; don't rely on that dirk. Get forward now, and keep me informed.'
He thought of the afternoon in London when Gianna had asked him to take her nephew to sea with him. He had refused at first, picturing the day when the ship would go into action and he would be torn between sending Paolo to some safe position or letting him do whatever task was appropriate to a midshipman even though he stood a good chance of being killed or maimed. Gianna had insisted that he should not be treated differently from any other midshipman and Ramage had allowed himself to be persuaded. Now with the ship about to go into action he had decided to do as Gianna wished. Paolo was going to have his first taste of battle. If he survived he would not only be proud of his role but he would make a better officer.