by Dudley Pope
'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.