by Dudley Pope
They started right close in to the cliffs, so close that the men occasionally had to fend off with the blades of their oars as a swell wave pushed the boat against the rock face. Ramage soon stopped glancing upwards because it made him dizzy: the cliff soared up vertically; from the boat it might have been five thousand feet high, rather than five hundred. Just as it soared up vertically into the sky, so it plunged vertically to the sea bed. The depths right up against the foot of the cliff were staggering, and he was glad he had told Lacey to bring the deep sea lead, as well as the hand lead. They were finding forty fathoms close into the cliff, and fifty fathoms only thirty yards out.
As the boat reached the end of the fifteenth run and turned to begin the next, and the leadsman, with water streaming down him, hurriedly coiling up the line, Ramage leaned across the thwart to look at Lacey's rough chart. The picture of the sea bed slowly taking shape on the paper from the depths and the bearing was far from reassuring. Lacey looked up anxiously, knowing how much depended on the result of the survey, and Ramage commented with as much nonchalance as he could muster: 'We won't risk running aground, anyway.'
Bad as it was, it could have been worse. There was a lot of coral down there, staghorn coral as far as could be judged from the pieces that came up with the lead. The trouble was that the scooped-out depression in the bottom of the lead, which was filled with tallow, was only intended to have sand or mud adhere to it; the tiny bits of coral that the lead knocked off as it hit the bottom were hardly enough for a proper identification. Any sort of coral was bad, though: it was jagged and sharp and quickly chafed anchor cables, and the Juno, Ramage reflected grimly, would be laying out four anchors . , . Perhaps only three, if the present calm weather held.
As he watched the birds wheeling round the cliff - he saw a white tropic bird with its long forked tail streaming out like two ribbons - he was thankful that.there were no back eddies of wind to drive the Juno against the cliff. None, he corrected himself, with the wind in this direction. No back eddies and very little swell. He looked up again at the top of the cliff, which was gaunt, grey and cold even in the sunlight, and so sheer that only a few bushes managed to grow in cracks and crevices, and for the hundredth time he wondered whether he could do it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The sky to the eastward was gradually turning pink beyond the mountains of Martinique early next morning as the Juno's capstan slowly revolved with Bevins, the fiddler, standing on top and scratching out a tune to encourage the men straining at the capstan bars.
Ramage stood at the quarterdeck rail, affecting a nonchalant stance to disguise the tension gripping him. The Juno was about to set out on her shortest voyage, less than half a mile, and he was as nervous as a kitten hearing its first dog bark. The ten-inch cable used to tow the Surcouf was now amidships, the first hundred fathoms of it flaked down and ready to run, only this time it would be running upwards.
The launch was towing astern with an anchor slung ready beneath it; another cable was flaked out on the quarterdeck ready to bend on to it. The two cutters were also astern, ready to tow the frigate to its final position, and the topmen were waiting ready for the order to go aloft. The jolly boat would be at the cove by now, and Aitken and his men should have started their long climb to the top of the Rock. The young Scot had been confident that he had found a route merely by examining the Rock through the telescope. Ramage, although doubtful, had not argued with him and he went off cheerfully before dawn, his men carrying rope ladders, axes, heavy mauls borrowed from the carpenter, sharpened stakes, speaking trumpet, and several coils of rope.
The Surcouf was lying head to wind, all her sails neatly furled on her yards, and only a dozen men on board. The First Lieutenant had worked well into the night to have the ship ready, returning to the Juno to report to Ramage at midnight, so exhausted that he was swaying as he spoke. Ramage had sent him off to snatch some sleep, telling him that it would take the Juno two or three hours to get into position so that he could sleep on, but Aitken had left orders that he was to be called at dawn.
Wagstaffe had tacked in towards the Rock with the Créole and was now stretching north again, and Ramage thought for a moment of La Mutine. She should have arrived in Barbados yesterday, and with luck she was now on her way back. By tonight or at the latest tomorrow morning he could expect Admiral Davis to arrive in the Invincible. There was barely time to get half the job done.
Slowly the frigate weighed as the sequence of reports and orders passed to and fro between the fo'c'sle and quarterdeck. The yards were already braced sharp up and the jibs were being hoisted but left to flap in the wind.
'Short stay!' came a shout from the fo'c'sle, warning Ramage that the anchor cable was making the same angle as the forestay. He put the speaking trumpet to his lips.
'Away aloft!'
The topmen swarmed up the rigging and his orders followed in quick succession. While men sheeted home the headsails he shouted aloft to the topmen: 'Trice up and lay out!' As soon as the men were out on the yards with the studding sail booms triced up out of the way he ordered the men on deck: 'Man the topsail sheets!' A moment later the topmen were being told to 'Let fall!' and as the sails tumbled down he gave a fresh order to the men on deck: 'Sheet home!'
By now the anchor was off the bottom and the Juno was gathering way. It would be two or three minutes before the anchor broke surface and only a few minutes more before the frigate would be anchoring again. He glanced up at the wind vane at the maintruck and then to the eastward, where the sun was just lifting over the mountains. So far, so good; at least the French convoy had not chosen this moment to round Pointe des Salines.
Fifteen minutes later the Juno had rounded up off the south side of the Rock and dropped anchor again, gathering sternway under a backed foretopsail, so that the cable thundered out through the starboard hawse, smoking with the friction.
As soon as Southwick signalled from the fo'c'sle how much cable had been veered, Ramage gave another series of orders which braced round the yards so that the Juno gathered way again and sailed a short distance before the foretopsail was backed once more and the larboard anchor let go as the Juno went astern in yet another sternboard. Within minutes the topmen were furling all the sails and the frigate was riding to her two anchors, the cables making an angle of forty-five degrees.
The Juno was now lying not quite parallel with the face of the cliff fifty yards away. The two cutters were going to have to pull her stern round towards the cliff while the launch was rowed astern to lay out the spare anchor that would hold her there in position. It was the lightest anchor in the ship and one which, in an emergency could be slipped and left behind.
Southwick came striding aft to join Ramage on the quarterdeck, and he wore the contented grin that Ramage knew from long experience meant that he approved of the way his Captain had handled the ship. 'Now to get those cutters towing,' he said gleefully, rubbing his hands. He looked up and commented: 'Y'know, sir, that's a damned tall cliff!'
‘I wish you'd mentioned that before,' Ramage said sarcastically. ‘It had almost escaped my attention.'
'Can't see Aitken up there yet.'
'Remember Pythagoras,' Ramags said. 'You're looking up the perpendicular side of what that poor beggar is scrambling up the hypotenuse!'
'They're used to it, these Scotsmen,' Southwick said, blithely ignoring Ramage's bad temper. 'All mountains in Scotland - goats and sheep and haggises, climbing all the time, they are. Especially the haggises,' he added before Ramage could correct him, 'very nimble they are, Aitken tells me.'
Ramage shook his head despairingly. 'Neither the Good Lord nor the First Lord has seen fit to spare me from a Master who is so damnably cheerful first thing in the morning. However, Mr Southwick, oblige me by putting those cutters to work: I have to lay this ship alongside that cliff before I can settle down to a leisurely breakfast.'
As soon as the men in the two cutters began rowing with the oars double-banked, Ramage ordered th
e quartermaster to put the wheel over; there might be enough current to give the ship a sheer larboard, which would help the oarsmen. Sure enough the frigate slowly swung in towards the cliff face, and the coxswains of both boats hurried their men to take up the slack.
Now it was the turn of the men in the waiting launch. The anchor was slung beneath the boat and the cable on the quarterdeck led down to it through the sternchase port. The oars were double-banked and the coxswain waited ready. Ramage gave the signal and the launch began to move away, heading almost directly astern of the Juno. Men on the quarterdeck slowly fed the cable through the port, careful to let out enough to help the launch, but not so much that the heavy rope hung down in too large a curve.
Southwick now had men bracing the yards round so they were as nearly fore and aft as possible. The Juno was going to end up so close to the cliff that the larboard ends of the yards - the mainyard overhung the ship's side by twenty-three feet - might otherwise foul the Rock.
Having done that the Master began supervising the rigging out of the lower studding sail booms on the larboard side. There were three of them, one abreast each mast, and they were shipped and then swung out at right angles from the ship's side at deck level, the outer ends held by topping lifts, with guys holding them fore and aft. Normally used to hold out the foot of the lower studding sails, they would now, Ramage hoped, act against the cliff face when they began hoisting the jackstay.
The launch was almost in position astern and Ramage waited with the speaking trumpet in his hand. If only he could see right down into the water he would know whether the anchor fell so that the cable led over a bank of sharp coral. If he waited another two or three minutes the launch might have moved slightly crabwise so that the cable would miss it. He shrugged his shoulders and hailed through the trumpet. He saw men slashing the strop holding the anchor and a few moments later the boat began bobbing about, floating higher as if it was suddenly freed of the weight of the anchor and the pull of cable, more of which snaked out through the port.
Southwick was already shouting to the two cutters to return to the ship, his voice echoing back from the cliff face. With the Juno now moored fore and aft parallel with the cliff and forty yards from it, there was little more to do until Aitken arrived at the top of the Rock - the top of the cliff, rather, Ramage corrected himself, remembering the double slope back from the cliff top to the peak of the Rock.
The Master was bustling round amidships, checking the cable that was going to be the jackstay, glaring at the voyol block as though it was an unruly dog, kicking at the five-inch rope that would eventually be rove through the two single blocks to make a gun tackle. Watching him, Ramage knew that he was worried about his next job. It took a lot to ruffle Southwick - many French broadsides, boarding enemy ships, and a full hurricane had so far failed, to Ramage's certain knowledge. No, Southwick was worried now because he was faced with a tricky task that was far beyond the scope of ordinary seamanship: he and his Captain were planning by guess rather than knowledge, and Southwick's only fear was that the whole jackstay system might not work; that they would fail to get the guns to the top of the Rock. Well, Ramage thought, the old man must know that his Captain is keeping him company; in fact they should be holding hands and comforting each other.
For the next half an hour he and Southwick had the men adjusting the three cables, veering a little on the starboard anchor cable and taking in a little on the larboard, so the Juno edged over a little more towards the cliff, and then taking up on the stern anchor so that she came away again. When they were ready, veering the stern cable would give the final adjustment.
They had just finished that when they heard a hail from high above and saw Aitken's tiny figure waving a speaking trumpet. A few moments later he was joined by other men, and Southwick shouted for a crew to man the jolly boat, which had returned to the ship an hour earlier.
Ramage watched Aitken and his men through a telescope. They were holding a small object and securing a line to it. A rock, no doubt, to make sure the line they were going to lower as a messenger would not blow in the wind and snag on a bush or a jutting piece of rock.
He saw Aitken suddenly bend back and then jerk forward, and a moment later a black speck began falling through the air, down towards the Juno's deck, trailing behind it what seemed from this distance to be a black thread. It fell into the sea half-way between the ship and the cliff and the jolly boat leapt forward to grab it before it swung back through the water against the foot of the cliff, and brought it back to the Juno.
The jackstay was very heavy, so much so that the Juno's capstan would be needed to hoist it up the cliff. The only way to do that, Ramage had calculated, was to use the tackle that would eventually haul the gun up the jackstay. But to begin with, until the tackle was completely rigged, Aitken's men were going to have to pull the first block and rope up to the top of the cliff.
Southwick supervised the men securing the block and rope to the line thrown down from the cliff, and then took the speaking trumpet and gave a stentorian bellow to Aitken. The line tautened and seamen eased the block and the heavier rope over the side and slowly, agonizingly slowly it seemed to Ramage, it began to rise as Aitken's men hauled away. Their task aloft was made harder by the need to keep some tension on the heavier rope to make sure that it did not swing into the cliff, where the block might jam in one of the fissures.
Finally the block and the heavier rope reached the top and Ramage watched through the telescope as men reached out to grab it. Quickly they took off the light line and made the block fast round a protruding rock, the three parts of the rope forming the upper end of the purchase leading back down in a gentle curve to the Juno's deck.
Southwick came up, rubbing his hands. 'Well, so much for the tackle, sir. The block is made up to the cable, and we can start hoisting whenever you give the word.'
Ramage looked forward to see that the hauling part, or fall, of the tackle was now led through a snatch block and then round the capstan and that men were waiting at the bars. The moment he gave the word they would start turning and the tackle would slowly hoist the heavy cable for the jackstay up towards Aitken.
'It's going to be easy getting the cable up,' Ramage said doubtfully, 'but I'm wondering how we are going to get the block at our end down again. They'll secure a heavy rock to it, I know, but if it starts twisting or jams against something on the cliff face -'
He did not complete the sentence because Southwick knew the risk. It was gun tackle pure and simple, and excellent so long as there was a strain on the block at either end. But once the strain was released the parts of the rope tended to twist, and in doing so spun any block that was not secure, in this case the lower one that had to be brought down to the Juno's deck again once the cable had been hoisted to the top.
'Leave it to Aitken, sir,' Southwick said. 'If he can get himself and his men up there, I'm sure he'll get that block down!'
Ramage nodded ruefully: it was not hard to make a decision because there was no choice, and for once he was thankful. 'Very well, let's see those men stepping out round the capstan!'
The capstan combined with the mechanical advantage of the gun tackle made the men's task easier, but before they finished they would have hoisted the best part of a ton up the cliff, since a hundred fathoms of ten-inch cable-laid rope weighed nineteen hundredweight. But a tackle was one of the best examples that Ramage knew of the old adage that 'You never get anything for nothing'. The three parts of the purchase reduced the amount of effort required to lift the cable, but it also meant that the lower block moved upwards much more slowly. The cable crawled and before it was a quarter of the way up the cliff face Ramage would have sworn it was not moving if he had not seen the seamen amidships hauling the rope clear as it came off the capstan and coiling it down.
'You must be hungry, sir,' Southwick said tactfully. 'It'll be an hour before there's much sign of progress here: more than time for you to have some breakfast'
Ramage
's stomach was so knotted from the strain he had been under since dawn that it would be hard to force down any food, but he remembered the contempt he had felt, as a very young lieutenant, when he saw nervous captains fussing round on deck unnecessarily. Well, he had to admit that Nicolas Ramage was giving a very good imitation of a nervous captain, and Southwick's reminder that he had not eaten for many hours gave him a good excuse to go below.
A sharp rapping on the door woke him and Southwick came into the cabin. When he saw Ramage sprawled on the settee and rubbing his eyes he said apologetically: 'Sorry, sir, I didn't know you were asleep.'
'Just dozed off,' Ramage said blearily. 'I sat down for a moment and -' he took out his watch. 'Why, that was an hour ago!'
'You've had less sleep than any of us,' Southwick commented sympathetically. 'Anyway, sir, the jackstay is rigged! Aitken has his end of the cable secure round a rock and our end is led to the capstan ready. We're just waiting for Aitken to send down the block of the gun tackle.'
With that the Master left the cabin and Ramage went through to the bed place to wash his face. The cabin was hot and stuffy since there was little or no wind and the sun was getting high with some strength in it. He paused for a moment as he dried his face. They had taken two hours up to now, and judging by the time needed to get the jackstay up the cliff it would require three or four hours to sway up the first gun. If they finished by nightfall there would be tomorrow morning to get up the second gun and both carriages. After that, with the Juno safely back at her original anchorage, they were going to have to get another gun to the ledge half-way up the Rock on the other side. Could it be done before the French convoy arrived? If the French arrived too soon, all this work would be in vain. He shrugged his shoulders and finished drying his face. Admiral Davis might also arrive too soon and, if he disapproved, bring everything to a stop...