'Don't tell the Marchesa,' Ramage murmured, 'she'd kill the poor lad!'
'I'd gladly do it for her at the moment,' Southwick said sourly. 'All wrapped up with coloured bunting like a bumboat laundry woman.'
Ramage turned forward so that Aitken and the midshipmen should not see him laughing. The best-laid plans of mice and post captains brought to nought by Gianna's nervous nephew. He wondered how many times in the past when, as a lieutenant, he had been ordered on board a ship and had had an ill-tempered reception from her captain, some similar episode had taken place a few minutes earlier. For that matter, he remembered, the Invincible'scaptain had been unduly taciturn when he went on board to report to Admiral Davis. Had the Admiral just squared his yard for not reporting the Juno's arrival earlier? Had the watchtower along the coast not spotted them, or not passed the word, or had the word been passed but not reached the flagship? He suddenly realized that he was getting a new insight into command, or rather command where you were the senior officer.
The commanding officer of the Welcome was handling her welclass="underline" Ramage watched with a critical eye and guessed that the lieutenant was hurriedly deciding whether he should heave-to the brig to windward or leeward of the frigate, and the bos'n would be preparing to hoist out a boat.
An hour later Ramage watched the Welcome's boat being hoisted in and stowed on the booms; then the foretopsail yard was braced round and as the sails began to draw the brig slowly gathered way, headed round towards the Diamond. Two hours later her hull was hidden by the curve of the earth. The young lieutenant commanding her had been jubilant when Ramage had handed him the various packets from Admiral Davis: after a brief call at Antigua he would be bound for England.
Ramage also guessed that the lieutenant was thankful to be going to Antigua direct, and not by way of Barbados because his three-week patrol off Fort Royal had met with little success. He had sighted a small island schooner leaving Fort Royal at dusk and chased her northwards, losing her in the darkness. In daylight a week later he had sighted a drogher in the Passe du Fours between the Diamond and the mainland but before he could reach her she had run up on the beach and the crew had fled ashore, leaving the drogher in flames. From the way she burned the lieutenant thought she had been carrying spirits, and was probably a smuggler bringing in rum from one of the southern islands.
He had looked blank when Ramage asked about boat operations at night in Fort Royal Bay. Captain Eames had responded in the same way to the same question. Most of the time the Welcome had found the current north-going, except at the southern end of the island, where it was usually west-going. Only once, after three days of light breezes and with the moon in the first quarter had he failed to find any current. No, he had never tried to anchor off the Diamond; yes, there were several French batteries along the coast between Pointe des Salines and Cap Salomon, but he had not landed seamen and marines at night to attack them and did not have their exact positions. The guns had never bothered him, he said, and as far as he knew Captain Eames had left them alone for the same reason.
He had been down to St Lucia once for water: half the casks filled in Barbados had been undrinkable. To Ramage's most important question his answer had been vague: as far as he knew there were two French frigates in Fort Royal, both stripped of their yards, and five merchantmen, none of them ready for sea. Half a dozen local schooners, perhaps more, were reported to be anchored inside the Bay, in the mouth of the Salée River, but he had not been far enough into the Bay to see them for himself. They could be privateers but he did not know for sure. A dozen droghers were also reported to be in the Salée River, but none of them ever went to sea, or if they did he had seen none, apart from the one that beached herself, and she was heading for Fort Royal. Captain Eames had only caught one vessel, which he had used as a tender.
Obviously the lieutenant lacked 'interest" with Admiral Davis and was anxious to get back to England with a whole skin and an undamaged ship after a year in the Caribbean. His heart had not been in his terrier-at-the-rabbit-hole task, and Ramage found it hard to blame him. Captain Eames's inactivity was another kettle of fish: it was up to Eames to interpret the Admiral's orders, but it was galling that a man who had spent three months off Martinique tacking back and forth without doing anything to discomfort the French had been chosen by the Admiral to carry out the special operation ordered by the First Lord . . . Eames must be one of the Admiral's favourites.
Ramage walked aft, hands clasped behind his back, and stared over the taffrail at the Juno's wake. What the devil was that special operation? The only enemy-held islands within Admiral Davis's command were Martinique and Guadeloupe. Obviously it did not concern Martinique, and the other island was of little importance: the First Lord would not concern himself with French privateers based there. That left the coast of South America. The eastern end of the north coast was Admiral Davis's responsibility - the Spanish Main was divided, so that the western part came under the Commander-in-Chief at Jamaica. Trinidad and Tobago and the Spanish province of Caracas . . . what was happening along there - apart from cruising to intercept Spanish ships, which was routine anyway - what could suddenly have aroused the interest of the First Lord? Some operation that could be carried out by a frigate? Ramage turned away, admitting that he was jealous of Eames and angry with himself for being childish enough to think that just because he brought out the orders he ought to be allowed to carry them out.
By now the Juno, jogging along under topsails, was approaching the Diamond Rock, and Ramage searched the coast from the headland at the foot of Diamond Hill round to the eastward, to half-way along the instep. He was irritated that the Welcome's commanding officer had not been able to tell him the precise position of the shore batteries, and he knew that at this very moment Frenchmen would be watching the Juno with telescopes, noting and reporting to Fort Royal that the brig had gone off to the north and a frigate had taken her place.
Having criticized Captain Eames and the poor fellow commanding the Welcome, who had obviously been thankful to have lasted a year in the West Indies without dying of yellow fever or running the Welcome on a coral reef, Ramage had to decide what they should have done, and do it himself. The Admiral's orders were simple enough: blockade Fort Royal. The French Army is desperate for supplies, and so is the Navy. Paris probably knows about it and various ministers may be trying to do something to help.
He put his telescope away in the binnacle box drawer and resumed walking the deck oblivious to the fact that the officers had noted his furrowed brow and were alarmed at the way he was glaring at a spot a few feet ahead. Paris must be well aware of the position, but what would the ministers do? They could dispatch a single merchantman, hoping that they could sneak past the British blockade. In that way supplies could be sent out as soon as they became available. He knew well enough that the dockyards and arsenals of France were short of almost every item needed to keep a ship at sea and an army on its feet. The alternative was to send out a convoy escorted by two or three frigates or even a ship of the line. A convoy with three frigates might well be able to find its way through the blockade - especially if Paris knew that there was usually only a single British frigate on patrol. That was the one thing about which Paris could never be sure: Admiral Davis had said that he appeared occasionally with the Invincible and two or three frigates off Fort Royal Bay...
A convoy seemed more likely than single ships. If the convoy had an escort of two frigates, then the Juno had a chance of picking off a merchantman or two and of surviving. If there was a ship of the line he had the choice of making a fight of it or bolting for Barbados to warn the Admiral. Unless the convoy was spotted far out in the Atlantic and a warning passed to Barbados, the first he would know of it would be when he saw it rounding Pointe des Salines and bearing up for Diamond Rock.