Ramage's Diamond (25 page)

He walked back to the binnacle: the
Juno
was steering north-north-east on this tack; she should make good south-south-east on the other. He glanced astern at the
Surcouf
and took a rough bearing—south by east. The time had come to roll the dice.

Now fear was creeping in again like evening fog forming in a valley: the sun seemed more glaring, the colours brighter. Cold water seemed to be swilling in his stomach, time was slowing down, and the hiss of the
Juno
's bow wave seemed louder. The excitement was there; this must be how a gambler feels when, having staked everything, he awaits the rolling dice's stop …

Southwick had the speaking-trumpet and from now on he would relay Ramage's orders. Yes,
La Créole
had tacked yet again and was steering to the south-east; another couple of short tacks and she would be in position.

Southwick was looking at him anxiously and he realized that the leadsman was calling four fathoms, but the men were already standing by at sheets and braces. Ramage signalled and the Master began shouting orders. The quartermaster spoke urgently to the men at the wheel and sprang to the binnacle. The wheel spun and the frigate began turning quickly to starboard, the whole of the Fort Royal shoreline moving swiftly across her bow. The top-sail flapped for a few moments as the
Juno
turned through the eye of the wind and continued swinging until the wind could fill the sails again on the other tack.

“Meet her!” Ramage snapped at the quartermaster, anxious that her bow should not pay off too much. He glanced down at the compass. “Steer south-south-east.”

Jackson was handing him his pistols and he was jamming the clips into his belt after hitching round his sword. Now the American was offering his hat, discarded earlier in case the French spotted it, and he was putting it on top of the binnacle.

“Stand by the halyard of that damned Tricolour,” Ramage told Jackson. “When I give the word it had better come down at the run!” Having the Tricolour and British ensign on separate halyards saved a lot of time.

It was a legitimate
ruse de guerre
to use the enemy's flag to get into position to attack, but one was honour-bound to hoist one's own flag before opening fire. Thanks to
Juno
's temporary role as a French prize, dropping the Tricolour and leaving up the Red Ensign would do the trick and, Ramage thought inconsequentially, Southwick can recover his precious red baize.

He glanced over the starboard quarter and saw that
La Créole
had tacked again and was in the right position; a quick look over the bow, and there was the
Surcouf
at anchor, head to wind, her deck and rigging lined with waving men. A couple of dozen Junos were standing on the hammock nettings waving back—just the number of men the
Surcouf
would expect to see. The rest were crouching down along the starboard side.

“A point to larboard,” Ramage called to Southwick and men trimmed the yards as the wheel turned. Now the
Surcouf
was fine on the starboard bow and a hundred yards ahead.

The
Juno
was making five or six knots. In a hundred yards she had to be nearly stopped abreast the
Surcouf
which should be only a few feet away, giving Ramage time to fire a broadside into her and brace the yards round so they did not lock the two ships together.

Ramage gestured to Jackson to haul down the Tricolour and shouted to the Master: “Mr Southwick—back the fore-topsail!”

He grabbed his hat from the binnacle top and jammed it on his head, looked quickly over the quarter and saw
La Créole
approaching rapidly on the
Surcouf
's other side. She had three hundred yards to go, the
Juno
seventy-five, and the distance was rapidly decreasing.

The big fore-topsail yard was being hauled round agonizingly slowly, it seemed to Ramage, so that the
Juno
was likely to overshoot the
Surcouf.
Finally it was far enough round for the wind to fill the sail from the forward side, pinning the yard to the mast and trying to blow the ship's bow to starboard. A quick order to the quartermaster had the wheel spinning to counteract that. The
Juno
was slowing down rapidly now and there was a chance she would not overshoot.

There was nothing more for Ramage to do standing by the binnacle and he ran to join Southwick at the quarterdeck rail. Then he saw why Southwick was staring forward, a man transfixed: the
Surcouf
was swinging slightly at her anchor, caught by a fluky gust of wind. Her stern swung until she was dead ahead and Ramage was sure it was all over; that fluke of wind meant that the
Juno,
rapidly losing way and therefore manoeuvrability, would ram her from astern instead of coming alongside, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. The
Juno
's jib-boom and bowsprit would be torn away, the foremast would come crashing down … Southwick was cursing steadily in a low voice when slowly, agonizingly slowly, the
Surcouf
began to swing back; swing enough for Ramage to see clear along her larboard side, then swing a little more until, in a minute the gap between them would be exactly as he had wanted it.

He leaned over the rail and shouted down to the main-deck: “Gun captains—forty yards to go! Fire as we get alongside, sweep the decks!”

Now only the gun captains were at the guns: the rest of the men had rushed to the ship's side to grab a cutlass, pistol, or boarding-pike. The men who had been waving from the nettings had dropped down to the deck and armed themselves.

The
Juno
's stern was now level with the
Surcouf
's transom but she still had a little way on. Slowly, slowly, she crept on; now the stem was abreast the French frigate's mainmast, now the fore-mast, and the Frenchmen who had been lining the bulwarks were scattering across the deck. Several officers were shouting and gesticulating; one had drawn his sword and was waving it: not at the
Juno
but at his own men. The
Juno
's yards were braced sharp up at Southwick's command.

Five guns forward fired in quick succession along the
Juno
's fo'c's'le and main-deck and the rest followed one after the other. Ramage looked over the quarter again for a sight of
La Créole:
Aitken had timed it perfectly. She would be ranging alongside the
Surcouf
's other side in two minutes' time, when there was no risk of any of the
Juno
's case shot sweeping clear across the
Surcouf
's deck and damaging her.

Now the Junos were swarming up into the hammock nettings or waiting at the gun ports poised with pistols, cutlasses and pikes. The
Juno
had stopped; now the backed fore-topsail was drifting her slowly alongside the
Surcouf
and Ramage watched the gap narrowing: fifteen feet, ten, five, then the men, led by Wagstaffe, were leaping on board, and the gun captains were heaving grapnels at the
Surcouf
to hold the ships together. Southwick bellowed the order to clew up the fore-topsail; in a few moments the
Juno
was lying head to the wind, alongside the
Surcouf.

Ramage ran down the main-deck, snatching out his pistols as he reached the entry port at the gangway. Southwick was shouting after him but he neither heard nor cared what the Master said. He paused for a moment at the gangway, saw the water swirling between the two ships, and leapt on board the
Surcouf.

Thirty or more Frenchmen had snatched up pikes and cutlasses and were aft, fighting desperately as Junos tried to drive them back. Suddenly a group of Frenchmen poured up the main companion-way, pistols in their right hands, cutlasses in their left. A burst of fire cut down several Junos and the

Frenchmen ran through the gap, making for the fo'c's'le.

Ramage aimed at the leading man and fired, saw him fall and aimed left-handed at the next. He fired and missed, and suddenly the whole group turned and ran towards him and Ramage was alone: most of the Junos had their backs to him, busy driving the rest of the Frenchmen aft. Ramage wrenched at his sword and backed a few feet to the mainmast. The first Frenchman, four or five yards ahead of the rest, and the man he had missed with his second pistol, slashed at him with his cutlass; a downward slice which Ramage parried, deflecting the man's blade so that the impetus behind the blow made the man trip. A quick flick of the wrist and Ramage caught him across the throat with the tip of his blade and turned immediately to face another man who was lunging at him with a pike. Ramage jumped to one side and the man, his face half-crazed with fear, drove on, his pike sticking into the mast. A swift blow disposed of him and Ramage turned to face the third man, but suddenly there was a roaring and a bellowing which made the man turn and bolt. Jackson and a half a dozen former Tritons were running to his rescue, and at that moment the
Surcouf
lurched as
La Créole
crashed alongside, her boarding party swarming up her side, yelling and shouting.

Ramage was thankful the fighting was now centred round the quarterdeck: that was what he had intended, so that the fo'c's'le would be left clear for the men boarding from
La Créole.
Several of them carried heavy axes and they ran forward, followed by others armed with cutlasses. While the axemen went to one side of the fo'c's'le, the cutlass men went to the other and began shouting over to the group of men waiting on the
Juno
's fo'c's'le.

A heaving line snaked across from the
Juno
and landed on the
Surcouf
's fo'c's'le. The men began hauling on it and when a heavier line followed they ran to the bow with it, passing it through the large fairlead. Then they began hauling, but it was hard work and finally they began marching across the deck as though dragging a cart. Finally the end of the
Juno
's anchor cable appeared through the fairlead and the men kept hauling.

By now the axemen were chopping at the
Surcouf
's own anchor cable, and Ramage hoped they remembered his strict instructions to leave one strand of the rope until they could see that the cable from the
Juno
had been secured to the bitts.

More men arrived on the fo'c's'le from
La Créole
and seized the heavy cable and dragged it to the bitts. One turn round the bitts and then another; a third and then a fourth. The cable was stiff and heavy; it took two or three men to bend each turn.

The fighting aft was dying down now, and Aitken and Wagstaffe were securing the prisoners. Ramage ran to the fo'c's'le, checked that the cable was made fast and gestured to the men with cutlasses to return on board
La Créole.
After shouting to the men on the
Juno
's fo'c's'le to cut the lashings holding the cable along the ship's side, he ran back to find Southwick standing at the
Juno
's gangway, anxiously looking across at the
Surcouf.

“All secure here,” Ramage shouted. “Only one strand of their cable left to cut.”

“For Heaven's sake come on board, sir,” Southwick bawled. “The ships will drift apart at any moment. We're just about to cut the grapnels!”

Ramage paused long enough to shout at Wagstaffe, who signalled that the prisoners were under control, and then bellowed at the axemen on the
Surcouf
's fo'c's'le to cut the last strand of the French frigate's anchor cable. With that he leapt on board the
Juno.

One danger remained, that the
Surcouf
's yards would lock with the
Juno
's rigging, but already Aitken was obeying his orders and hardening in the sheets of
La Créole
's mainsail and foresail and backing his headsails. This would haul the
Surcouf
to starboard, to leeward and away from the
Juno.

“Our grapnels, Southwick?” Ramage asked hurriedly. “Already cut adrift, sir.”

Ramage glanced up and saw that the
Surcouf
's yards, bare of sail, were gradually drawing clear as
La Créole
pulled her away. He jumped up into the hammock nettings and looked along the
Juno
's side. The cable was now hanging from the
Surcouf
's bow in a big bight that went down into the water and reappeared by the
Juno
's stern, snaking round and up through the stern-chase port.

Everything was going as planned. Southwick looked questioningly and when Ramage nodded the Master lifted the speaking-trumpet to his lips, bellowed a string of orders, and the
Juno
's fore-topsail yard began to swing round, the sail falling and then flapping wildly before the wind filled it. Slowly the
Juno
began to move, her bow paying off to begin with, until she gathered enough way for the rudder to get a bite on the water.

The
Surcouf
was dropping away to starboard as
La Créole
hauled her bow round and drawing astern as the
Juno
began to forge ahead. Ramage looked across at the French frigate's quarterdeck and saw Wagstaffe standing by the binnacle while Jackson acted as quartermaster. Two Junos were at the wheel and the French seamen, their hands above their heads, were being marched below.

Southwick was now facing aft on the quarterdeck, his eyes glued to the heavy cable. The
Juno
's transom was abreast the
Surcouf
's jib-boom end and already the cable was beginning to move where it led out through the
Juno
's stern-chase port: several feet slid out, like an enormous snake leaving a hole, and as the frigate's speed increased more followed.

Ramage was torn between watching ahead to make sure the
Juno
cleared the shoal running south-west from the Fort and looking aft over the quarterdeck in case the cable twisted into a large kink that might jam in the port.