"No. We pass as close as we can. It has no harbours or bays we can use. We want another one north of it. Thirty miles beyond."
By nightfall St Croix was several miles to the east of them and with the night glass Ramage could just make out the high land behind Frederiksted, at the western end of the island. During the late afternoon they'd found the current sweeping athwart their course not only pushing them inexorably to the westward but increasing in strength the closer they got to St Croix. It was presumably the sea pouring into the Caribbean from the Atlantic through the Anegada Passage - there was a reference to it in the sailing directions. And it meant their progress was crabwise; a diagonal resulting from the south wind pushing them north and the current pushing them west.
Ramage was woken at four o'clock next morning: a wind change, the quartermaster reported. As he struggled into his clothes he reflected that any change could only be for the worse: the best wind for them was the one they'd had, from the south.
The deck was a vast and empty expanse in the darkness with a small group of men aft, by the tiller, and three or four men - the lookouts - up forward.
"It's backing, sir," Southwick said gloomily. "Dropped a bit and backed to south-east-by-south. The way it did it, I reckon it'll go round more."
Ramage pictured the chart in his mind. By now, the northwestern corner of St Croix should be on the starboard quarter, St Thomas dead ahead, and the small island of Vieques, with Puerto Rico massive behind it, on the larboard beam.
Between St Thomas and Vieques, away to the north-west, was an island marked on the chart as "Snake or Passage Island", one end of a long line of coral cays reaching westward to Puerto Rico. But from St Thomas to Puerto Rico the sea was a mass of reefs, islands and rocks. In daylight, properly rigged, it was no great problem; at night a safe passage through there would be virtually impossible, whether one had masts or not...
If the wind went any more to the east they'd have no choice anyway. Without the means of steering, apart from making slight changes either side of the direction that the wind carried them, if they had to go through that passage they were done for. Avoiding the long and often unexpected reefs - for the charts were rudimentary - would mean tacking or wearing round, and probably beating to windward, and these were manoeuvres which were part of the past for both the Triton and the Topaz.
"We can only do our best," Ramage said to Southwick. "Same as before - keep up to the east as best you can."
He looked astern for the Topaz. That was one of the advantages of the Tropics - unless there was rain, it was very rarely completely dark. Almost always there was enough light to give a hint of land, or some other ship, at a useful distance.
The Topaz was on the same bearing and finding the same wind shift. So be it. Since he could do nothing about it, whether the wind backed, veered or went flat, he was going to get some sleep; he had been reminded of the dangers of the lack of it a few days ago.
He was woken again shortly before dawn when the ship's company went to quarters, and found it oddly comforting that he had not given the order to get rid of the guns after the ship broached: the Triton might not have masts, but no privateer would come alongside with impunity.
As daylight rolled back the horizons, Ramage was relieved to see that they had managed to stay up enough to the east to have St Thomas ahead, but frightened by the bewildering number of islands almost all round them, all with outlying coral reefs and shoals of rocks.
"Hopeless trying to identify them," he said to Southwick. "We need to spread out the chart and then mark 'em off!"
He sent Jackson down to the cabin to fetch it and stared at St Thomas again with the telescope.
"Like Tuscany," Ramage commented to Southwick, gesturing towards St Thomas.
"Dull," Southwick said. "Not a patch on Grenada."
Grenada and Martinique were Southwick's favourite Caribbean islands. He hated St Lucia because it was a wet island with an oppressive, sullen atmosphere and Antigua because it was arid and mosquito-ridden. On balance, Ramage agreed with his assessment.
Jackson arrived with the chart and at a gesture from Ramage spread it out on the deck, holding it down to prevent it rolling up again.
"Right," Ramage said. "St Thomas is dead ahead," jabbing a finger down on the chart. "Hmm - Puerto Rico looks a big lump!"
Over on the larboard beam they could see a large cone-shaped mountain which was the centre of a range at the east end of the island.
Ramage traced it on the chart. "Ah yes - El Yunque, 'The Anvil'. It looks tall enough!"
Southwick pointed to a nearer island almost in line with it. "Is that Vieques?"
"Yes, long on the chart, but looks deceptively short from this angle," Ramage said.
He slowly turned to the right. "That'll be Snake Island with all these little islands and cays round it - north of Vieques. You can just see it. Now look at the chart - see all these reefs - how they stretch on to Puerto Rico in a long line?"
Southwick measured, using two fingers as dividers. "Why, there's fifteen miles of them! The Cordilleras Reefs. And look at the rocks at the end. What does 'Las Cucarachas' mean?"
"The cockroaches."
"Damned odd name." He looked round the horizon. "Ah, that's Sail Rock!" He pointed to a curiously shaped island sticking starkly up from the sea and, white in the sunlight, looking in the distance like a ship under sail.
Ramage took the slate and said brusquely: "Let's have some bearings noted down, please."
"Sorry, sir," Southwick said. "I got carried away!"
Even if the wind did not back any more, Ramage thought they would not reach St Thomas because of this west-going current sweeping towards the reefs round Snake Island. Maybe they'd only miss St Thomas by a mere couple of miles and take their chance among Savana Island, Kalkfin Cay, Dutchcap Cay, Cockroach Cay and Cricket Cay.
The upper edge of the sun's disc was just poking over the eastern horizon when his steward came up to announce that breakfast was ready. Jackson rolled up the chart and Ramage took it below.
They had left Barbados only a few days ago, though it seemed like weeks, and he still had fresh eggs to eat. The milk had lasted only twelve hours or so out of Carlisle Bay - something about the motion of a ship curdled the milk even faster than it curdled in a house on shore. His steward still had not got used to having a captain who demanded fresh fruit for breakfast when it was available, but although he did not approve, he served it. The other great advantage of being in the Caribbean was that the coffee was really coffee, not breadcrumbs roasted and boiled to make mud-coloured water.
As he cracked the shell of the first egg, Ramage had the curious feeling that he was being rushed like a twig in a flooded mountain stream, with events controlling him. He tried to think of the options open to him at this minute, but no more ideas came. The fact was that the Triton and Topaz were two ships without masts, and without masts they could move only in the direction the wind drove them. There was no point in trying to think of landfalls until he knew what wind and current were going to do. To plan was simply an exercise in futility and was spoiling his breakfast.
By nine o'clock in the morning, as the sun's warmth began to be felt, Southwick watched the seamen reeling in the log line and stowing the minute glass. He noted the Triton's speed on the slate and turned to Ramage, shaking his head.
"It won't serve, sir."
"You're a late convert! I've already cancelled my rooms at whichever is the best hotel these Danskers have to offer."
"I was hoping we'd pick up an eddy current. We're only ten miles from St Thomas now."
Ever since dawn the west-going current had made the whole island appear to be sliding to the eastward, while the islands to the west - Vieques, Snake Island and, beyond them Puerto Rico - were creeping up on the larboard side from the westward, even though the Triton and Topaz were still steering directly for St Thomas.