Ramage's Diamond (41 page)

He had taken a chance going into action with topgallants set instead of fighting under topsails alone, but so far in this weasel-in-a-hen-run type of action it had paid off. The French were under topsails alone and it was costing them a couple of knots.

More signals came from the first frigate. Suddenly and almost unbelievably the second frigate tacked and came round on the same course as the
Juno,
but nearly half a mile to leeward, leaving the British frigate between her and the convoy.

Southwick, watching open-mouthed, turned to Ramage, and said: “I must be dreaming. Why the devil has he done that?”

There was only one explanation Ramage could think of. “They reckon we're going down to join the
Surcouf!
”

He looked over towards her and felt quite sick: Aitken had two frigates bearing down on him. But there was nothing he could do. The time had nearly come for the
Juno
to start the bishop's move.

“Orsini,” he called. “The Diamond's pendant and number 22!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the boy yelled, running towards the halyards.
“Engage the convoy!”

“Mr Southwick, we'll tack again. Jackson, keep her as close to the wind as you can!”

The
Juno
turned north again, heading straight for the shore and leaving the convoy on her starboard side.

“That'll fool them!” Southwick exclaimed gleefully. “Both the frigates are tacking again. They
did
think we were going down to the
Surcouf.
Not that she couldn't do with a hand,” he added soberly. A moment later he was berating the men at the wheel and glowering at Jackson as a luff fluttered.

With the
Juno
heading for the shore Ramage kept glancing at the convoy over the top of the compass. It looked as though the frigate would run up the beach before the middle of the convoy bore south-east, so he could fetch it on the next tack.

As he watched Orsini arrived in front of him, almost squeaking with excitement and pointing at the far side of the convoy, towards the
Surcouf.
Ramage stared, frowned and then snatched Orsini's telescope, cursing as he had to adjust the focus.

One French frigate had rammed the other! Her jib-boom and bowsprit were stuck in the second ship's side and her foremast had come crashing down, locking into the other frigate's mainmast. Even as he watched, her mainmast began to topple, slowly at first and then gathering speed, until it fell over the side, its yards giving it a cartwheeling effect. The
Surcouf,
which he had last seen between the two frigates, wreathed in smoke and obviously trapped, was between the wrecked ships and the convoy, sailing fast. And
La Créole
had hoisted her own flag and was firing into the last ship of the centre column.

Ramage thrust the telescope back to Orsini. “Watch the
Surcouf
for signals!”

There was no time to tell Southwick: all that mattered now was that the
Juno
stayed close-hauled until she was almost on the beach and then tacked south-east again into the middle of the convoy.

The two frigates the
Juno
had dodged were still tacking, trying to catch up with her. The first one had her topgallants set but Ramage knew there was precious little the Frenchman could do now to save the convoy, unless, of course, the
Juno
ran aground. This was becoming a distinct possibility.

Damn all this tacking! There were seven fat merchantmen almost at his mercy once he got to windward. He glanced up at the luffs, but Jackson and Southwick were watching like hawks. The beach was approaching with alarming speed and already the water had changed to green and close ahead it was an even lighter green. Ramage heard a chanting from the main chains and saw the leadsman at work, water from the line streaming down his body.

He glanced back at the merchantmen. He needed another fifty yards before he tacked; otherwise he would not lay the middle of the convoy, which was helping him by continuing to steer the same course.

Southwick was watching him anxiously. “Leadsman reports five fathoms, sir!”

“We'll hold on a little longer, Mr Southwick.”

It was a devilish choice having to risk running ashore or miss getting into the middle of that convoy! He would look a damn fool with the
Juno
hard aground, bows into the beach, while the
Surcouf
and
La Créole
tried to finish off the convoy before the remaining two French frigates beat them off.

“He's reporting four fathoms, sir!”

“I can hear him, Mr Southwick.”

And I can see the sand too, he thought grimly, and almost distinguish the individual palm fronds as well! He looked back over the quarter at the convoy, tried to estimate if there were twelve points between the
Juno
's jib-boom and the merchant-men, and gestured to Southwick: “You may tack, Mr Southwick. This is the bishop's move!”

He almost giggled at the “may” and he knew he was getting far too excited.

The wheel spun, the men looking as if they were trying to climb up the spokes; the blocks screeched and the
Juno
's bow swung along the beach so that palm trees, a few small thatched huts and the mountains in the distance swept across his vision as though he was looking from the window of a runaway coach.

Still no thump under the deck, still no gentle slowing down. The
Juno
had not hit a rock, a coral reef or run on to a sand bar—yet. Then there was a sea horizon ahead—a horizon on which the merchant ships were bunched. He ran forward to the quarterdeck rail. The larboard-side guns had long ago been reloaded and run out again, and all the men on both sides were watching him, rags round their brows and most of them naked to the waist.

He lifted the speaking-trumpet to his mouth. “Stand by, my lads! This tack will take us right into the convoy. I hope you are more awake than the gunners in that first French frigate!” There was a chorus of shouts and jeers and before giving them a cheery wave he said: “Pick your targets: every shot must count!” He turned back for a good look at the convoy, knowing he must choose the course through it that gave the gunners the best chance of firing into all seven ships. Orsini was once again jumping up and down, trying to attract his attention. The boy was so excited he was incoherent. Ramage shook him and told him to report in Italian. “The Diamond batteries, sir! They are firing at the French frigates—not the ones that collided, but the others. The shot are falling all round them!”

“Excellent,” Ramage said calmly. “Now you continue to watch the
Surcouf
for signals. Look at her!” he exclaimed. The British frigate was within half a mile of the nearest merchant ships and heeling gracefully in the wind as her topgallants were furled. Aitken obviously wanted to make a leisurely job of the merchantmen, but Ramage hoped he would not forget the two remaining frigates.

A glance over the starboard beam reassured him they were still down to leeward and then he looked back at the convoy. The nearest three ships, which had been on the landward side, were now four hundred yards ahead. As he concentrated on them he saw that their sails were not just badly trimmed, they were flapping, with sheets and braces slack, if not cut. Boats were being lowered round them—the ships were dead in the water and their crews were abandoning them! He looked at the others and saw that they were all being abandoned.

Southwick was also staring at the convoy, disappointment showing on his face like a child whose toys had been snatched away. Ramage, equally dumbfounded, noticed that most of the boats were now fairly leaping through the water as the men in them rowed frantically for the beach. They were obviously scared out of their wits at the sight of the
Juno
beating down on them from the north and the
Surcouf
stretching up from the south.

“Surprise, sir, that's what did it,” Southwick said cryptically. Ramage grimaced as he said: “I don't know who was most surprised.”

Seven merchantmen abandoned and drifting out to sea through the Fours Channel and two French frigates neatly tied together in a parcel. He needed the
Surcouf
to help the
Juno
capture the two remaining frigates, which were under fire from the Diamond, but first he must secure the merchant ships: they were the main target.

“Bear away towards the frigates, Mr Southwick,” he said. Aitken and Wagstaffe needed orders. He looked round for Orsini and found him proffering the signal book.

He opened the index, looked under “Prizes” and hurriedly turned to the page listed. Ah, there it was.

“Hoist
La Créole
's pendant and number 242.” He then read the first part of the signal, for Southwick's benefit. “
Stay by prizes
…” He could rely on Wagstaffe knowing that he was to make sure none of the French crews returned to their ships.

Now he was having second thoughts about the two remaining frigates. Dare he leave the one nearest to the Diamond to the batteries while he tackled the other? She seemed to be hove-to, lying with her fore-topsail backed. Waiting for her consort to join her perhaps. He looked round for the frigate that had been leading the convoy when it came in sight. She too was lying hove-to.

Ramage took his own telescope from the binnacle box drawer and looked at the frigate nearest the Diamond. Hove-to! Her fore-topsail yard was slewed round, the maintopsail in shreds and even as he watched he saw a cloud of dust rising up amidships, the sign of a plunging roundshot hitting her decks. He looked at the ship more closely and there were ominous gaps in the main and foreshrouds. Even as he watched the fore-topsail yard canted down as one of the lifts parted, and a moment later the whole yard crashed to the deck. A spurt of water almost beside the main chains showed a near miss from either the Juno or the Ramage battery. That particular frigate could certainly be left to the gunners on the Diamond. Their first prize was a 36-gun frigate, and they had not a drop of rum on the Rock to celebrate it.

The next decision was not hard to make; one frigate only was left and the
Juno
and
Surcouf
perfectly placed to windward. He examined the frigate carefully through the telescope in case she too had been damaged by the batteries, but she seemed genuinely hove-to, with her Captain no doubt wondering how he could report to the Governor at Fort Royal or St Pierre that he had lost the whole convoy and three frigates, and that Diamond Rock was suddenly erupting as Mont Pelée occasionally did, only sprouting roundshot instead of hot rocks and lava. Any moment the frigate Captain would wake up, get under way and make a bolt for Fort Royal.

He tucked the telescope under his arm and opened the signal book to check a number. Number 28 would tell Aitken all that he needed to know.
The ships are to take suitable stations for their mutual support, and engage the enemy as soon as they get up with them.
It was not quite the way an admiral would use the signal, but Aitken needed no more than a hint. As he turned to call the boy, he saw the French ship sheet home her topsail and get under way.

“Orsini, hoist the
Surcouf
's pendant and number 28.” Southwick had just bustled back to the binnacle after getting the
Juno
's sails trimmed to perfection, but he was scowling. “Did you see that, sir?” he demanded. “She hasn't the guts to stand and fight, and she has a mile lead of us and a mile and a half on the
Surcouf!
”

“I can't blame him,” Ramage said mildly. “The world has tumbled round his ears in the last hour!”

The Master gave a monumental sniff. “It hasn't finished yet,” he announced.

Ramage wagged a warning finger. “There are three hundred men on board that ship. We have 63, and the
Surcouf
the same. Don't forget that. We haven't captured a frigate ourselves yet: the Diamond knocked out one, and two of them locked themselves together!”

“But they don't know we're short of men,” Southwick said with a broad grin. “With the
Juno
ranging up on one side of her and the
Surcouf
on the other, 'twouldn't surprise me if she—”

He broke off as Jackson, a look of horror on his face, pointed ahead. A moment later there was a sound like a clap of thunder which rolled and echoed back from the mountains, and where the escaping French frigate had been there was now only a swirling mass of yellow and black smoke spurting and boiling upwards and then curling and billowing. Round the base of the smoke was a mass of ripples surrounded by dozens of splashes as pieces of the ship, flung high into the air by the explosion, finally landed. There was complete silence in the
Juno
apart from the gurgling of the sea as the ship drove on towards the pall of smoke, which was now beginning to drift to leeward. Ramage felt sick but braced himself as he remembered that, dreadful as the sight had been—and still was, for the smoke seemed reluctant to disperse—it had saved the lives of many of his own men, those in the
Juno
and the
Surcouf.
Only then did he realize that the French ship must have blown up as a result of plunging fire from the Diamond batteries.

With the remaining frigate disabled there was no need for the Diamond batteries to go on firing at her; she would surrender to the
Surcouf
and the
Juno.

“Orsini, hoist the Diamond's pendant and number 39.”

The Master nodded in agreement. “
Discontinue the engagement.
Yes, we might as well tow her back to Bridgetown as a prize. We're assembling a bigger squadron out here than the Admiral has!”

Ramage flicked through the signal book once more and found what he wanted.
Get to leeward of the chase.
That would tell Aitken that he wanted to take possession of the disabled frigate before attempting to sort out the two that were locked together.