Once inside the bay, the schooner moved fast: her captain had to harden in sheets to get up towards the jetty, and then for a reason neither Ramage nor Yorke could subsequently explain, he bore away and then suddenly luffed up head to wind, dropping his foresail, mainsail and headsails. But she was carrying too much way: as the seamen hurriedly tried to furl the sails, the captain ran from side to side of the quarterdeck, screeching at the two men at the massive tiller. At the last moment they heaved it to larboard as the schooner came directly towards the jetty and the houses.
"Try prayer," Yorke advised.
"Miracles," Ramage said. "He - we - need lots of miracles."
A minute or two before the schooner was due to hit the jetty her bow gradually began to come round to starboard. Ramage shouted to Jackson to clear his men out of the way - security was not necessary now. Jackson could have been conducting a band playing "Heart of Oak" without being noticed. Ramage began running down the slope from the house, followed by Southwick and Yorke.
At that moment the schooner passed clear of the end of the jetty and her bow slid up on the sandy beach at the water's edge.
Ramage, Southwick and Yorke all stopped, looking up at the masts now towering above them. "Bolt!" Southwick shouted and they spread out in all directions to avoid being crushed if the masts fell over the bow, broken like twigs by the force of the impact. But there was no splintering wood and snapping rope rigging. The screeching of the Spanish captain, who appeared to have gone berserk, was the only sound to be heard.
Ramage turned back and began running for the beach, again shouting for Jackson who had vanished with his seamen. He had no idea how to regain control of the situation. His splendid plans took no account of the potentially lethal effect of bad seamanship.
The only way of getting on board the schooner now was by wading and clambering up over the bow. He waved to Southwick and pointed to the gun positions.
"One round to one side to scare 'em!"
He and Yorke stood at the water's edge looking up at the schooner's bowsprit and jibboom jutting out above them.
"I could strangle him," he said thickly. "The damned incompetent idiot!"
"Saves anchoring or wearing out ropes," Yorke said, "but of course, you get your feet wet going on shore!"
Ramage was trembling with rage. Where the hell was that damned American with his men?
"Jackson!" he bellowed. "Jackson, blast you!"
"Here, sir!" the American called. Ramage and Yorke looked round and saw nothing.
"Up here, sir!" said Jackson, peering down from the schooner's bow.
"What are you doing up there?" Ramage asked weakly.
"You said to board and -"
A tremendous explosion behind them sent Ramage and Yorke flat on their faces in the sand; then, as the noise echoed and re-echoed across the bay and among the hills, sending up flocks of squawking white egrets, Ramage realized what it was.
"Your bloody brass ordnance," he said to Yorke, standing up, and brushing sand from his breeches. "God, what a mess!"
"I don't know," Yorke said coolly. "Prize captured without a shot fired until after it was secured!"
The schooner was La Perla, built at Rota seven years earlier of Spanish oak and larch. Yorke commented to Ramage that one advantage of having the ship run aground was that inspecting her lines was so much easier.
The ship's company had put up no fight and Jackson's description of how they captured her was one that Ramage could dine out on for years. They had realized La Perla would miss the jetty and run up on the beach, so that they were there to meet her, waiting on her starboard side and had been hidden from Ramage and Yorke.
As soon as she came to rest they had splashed out, slung their muskets over their shoulders and climbed up over the bow, using the bobstay and anchors to get a foothold. The Spanish sailors had been very courteous, assuming they were Colon and his men.
"They helped every one of us over the bulwark," Jackson said. "One of the fattest men I've ever seen gave me his hand as I jumped on deck. As long as no one spoke there seemed no hurry so I began strutting up and down as though I was disgusted with the Captain and impatient with my soldiers.
"The lads were busy getting their muskets unslung, and without me saying anything, Staff and Rosey stood side by side, and the rest of the lads took the hint and formed up in one rank. So there we were, sir, my dozen lads standing to attention and me marching up and down in front of them.
"The Spanish sailors weren't taking much notice, of course, and the Captain was still screaming at the helmsman. I couldn't help thinking that if I didn't do something we'd be there for hours. So I stood to attention and just as I was going to say 'Tritons, take possession of the ship', both Staff and Rosey started laughing - seems I was puffing out my chest like a Spanish customs agent.
"With that we took the ship and then I heard you calling me, sir."
La Perla's regular task was delivering provisions to Spanish garrisons, the majority of them in Puerto Rico itself. There were no troops on the island of Vieques, Ramage was surprised to learn. The skipper of La Perla was indignant that Snake Island, or Culebra as he called it, had a garrison since it gave him another forty miles to beat to windward. Otherwise he left San Juan and went round to Ponce on the south coast and then on to Mayaguez at the western end of the island.
Refloating La Perla took four hours. At first Ramage thought they would have to use her small boat, take out an anchor astern and haul her off. Fortunately, just before he gave the order the wind freshened. As usual, it was easterly and the schooner's bow, at right angles to the beach, headed east.
The Tritons went on board, clambering up over the bow, while the Topazes guarded La Perla's former crew. Soon Southwick and Ramage were standing on her quarterdeck looking over each side.
Ramage nodded his head to the southward, where some seamen were taking soundings from La Perla's only boat.
"Looks clear. We've got plenty of room. Then wear round and come alongside."
If La Perla had run up on mud, it would have gripped her hull with all the suction of an octopus. The thicker the mud, the harder the schooner would be held. Luckily it seemed to be a sandy bottom.
Ramage walked the length of the schooner, noting her general shape, the point of maximum beam and, without realizing it, working out her probable underwater shape and the exact point the hull would pivot under the pressure of various combinations of sail.
The seamen reported the depths they had found to Southwick.
"Straightforward, sir," he said. "I reckon we're only short of six inches of water forward..."
Which meant, Ramage noted thankfully, that with the angle La Perla made to the beach, and the direction of the wind, hoisting the headsails and sheeting them aback would give the schooner's bow a hearty shove to starboard, pivoting her so she was pushed off the beach. Then the big foresail and mainsail - already hoisted and just flapping - would be sheeted in and La Perla would be under way again.
It was a straightforward operation, though not a routine one, and the schooner refloated at the first attempt. He sailed her across the bay and back to get the feeling of how she handled, and then brought her alongside the jetty without any fuss.
The men worked in shifts for the rest of the day unloading surplus provisions and making room for the large number of people La Perla would now be carrying to Jamaica.
Most of the provisions were familiar to the British seamen, but there was much more rice than they expected, and many sacks of a kind of bean they had never seen before. One of the men was incautious enough to take a bit from one of a string of onions and let out a yell as he began gasping for breath, his eyes watering.