Ramage's Diamond

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Time was slowing down now, and Ramage felt calm; he could understand Bowen's fascination with chess because here were eleven French pieces under attack from three British. And every moment that passed made him certain he could outmanoeuvre the leading French frigate because her captain was at this very moment making a very elementary mistake. He had started off correctly: the moment the Juno tacked across the convoy's course the Frenchman had realized that she might get between the shore and the convoy and had made the proper response, bearing up to cover the gap.

Then he had seen that he might be able to rake the Juno in the process. At some point in the last three or four minutes the Frenchman had forgotten that his prime task was to cover the gap, he had become obsessed with the idea of raking the Juno and to increase his chances of doing that he was now widening the gap he had been trying to close.

In the meantime the convoy was still lumbering through the Fours Channel. Ramage estimated that all seven merchant ships were just inside the circle he had pencilled on the chart as representing the effective range of the Juno and Ramage batteries but he decided to wait a few more minutes.

The French frigate was fine on the Juno's starboard bow and in a couple of minutes would be in a perfect position to rake her, but a quick glance at the compass showed Ramage that the centre of the convoy was bearing south-east by south. The second frigate was in position leading the convoy and keeping on a steady course through the Channel.

The first frigate was now almost dead ahead; her captain would have to wait another two minutes to be in a perfect position, firing a whole broadside into the bow of a ship which could not fire back. Now for the surprise Ramage thought to himself; it might save a few lives.

'Mr Southwick, we'll tack now, if you please, and tell the men at the starboard guns to get under cover and the larboard side to stand fast! Jackson, steady her on a course of south-east!'

The Master bellowed to the men at the braces and sheets, then shouted to the rest of the men to duck down beside the guns, the safest place when a raking broadside smashed roundshot through the bow and swept the decks.

The French frigate was still not quite dead ahead as the Juno's wheel was put over. Ramage could see every one of her larboard guns and pictured each French gun captain crouching, trigger line in his hand, waiting just one more moment before the Juno's bow came in sight.

Then the Juno began to swing fast as she tacked; swinging towards the French frigate's stern as she turned. Instead of an unprotected bow, the French gunners peering through the gunports would see the Juno's broadside guns.

Ramage took up his speaking trumpet. 'Larboard guns, stand by. Fire as your guns bear!'

The gun captains would only have a fleeting glimpse of the French frigate as the Juno continued her swing towards the convoy, but if a few shot landed it would help. There was distant thudding over on the larboard bow and he saw the French ship firing wildly, her gunners obviously taken by surprise, but the Juno was still swinging round on to the other tack, with ropes squealing through blocks aloft, Jackson cursing the men at the wheel, and Orsini hurling a shrill stream of Italian blasphemy at the French frigate as she passed across the bow. Then a couple of the Juno's forward guns fired and thundered back in recoil, followed in sequence by the rest. Smoke drifted aft and he remembered to breathe shallowly to avoid coughing.

Now the Juno's sails had filled on the other tack and she was sailing fast to the south-east on an opposite course from her erstwhile attacker, heading straight for the head of the convoy.

The captain of the new leading French frigate waited, perhaps in indecision. The Juno's sudden tack directly towards the head of the convoy would show him that he too had made a disastrous mistake - he was much too far ahead of the merchant ships. He could haul round immediately to the north and try to cut off the Juno before she reached the merchantmen or he could simply tack and try to get back to the head of the convoy. Give me three minutes, Ramage prayed; please hesitate a little longer! A glance astern showed him that the first frigate had already tacked and was chasing along in the Juno's wake. She hoisted a string of signal flags and almost immediately the second frigate hauled her wind, turning north towards the Juno. Ramage watched the Frenchmen bracing the yards sharp up, desperately trying to point higher. The luffs fluttered and she paid off a fraction. That was the best she could do - and he saw it was not going to be enough: the Juno would just scrape past ahead, giving her a raking broadside on the way.

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 twenty-two!!

'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 jibboom 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 mainchains 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 jibboom and the merchantmen, 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're 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 that 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 foretopsail 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 foretopsail 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 foretopsail 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 mainchains 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 twenty-eight 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’spendant and number twenty-eight.'

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 sixty-three, 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 thirty-nine.'

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.

He turned to Southwick as the signal was hoisted and pointed to the frigate, which was slowly drifting westward through the Fours Channel, turning slowly like a feather in a stream as the wind caught her torn maintopsail aback and swung her round so far that she tacked and the sail filled. ‘Aitken will be getting to leeward of her in a few minutes, and I want the Juno tacking back and forth about eight hundred yards to windward.'

'She hasn't hauled down her colours yet,' Southwick commented as he put the speaking trumpet to his lips.

Ramage was less concerned with what was little more than a formality than with the problem of physically taking possession of this frigate and the two that were locked together. There would be nine hundred Frenchmen altogether. One mistake on his part, one hint to any of the three ships that the Juno and the Surcouf had less than seventy men on board, might result in some enterprising French captain boarding them, capturing both ships, getting the merchantmen manned again, and sailing the convoy into Fort Royal. There he would report the loss of one frigate blown up, two damaged but repairable, and two more captured: a net gain of one frigate for the French,