'We'll bear away if you please, Mr Aitken.' Going to the binnacle and then looking over the bow again he added: 'West by north ought to keep us clear.'
Bos'n's calls twittered, men ran to sheets and braces, and the Juno wore round until the wind was on the larboard quarter with Fort Royal itself over on the starboard bow. Ramage swung the telescope slowly along the shore, from west to east, finally reaching the grey bulk of Fort St Louis, which now had a large Tricolour streaming from its flagstaff. There was the Carénage and the frigate Jackson had described, stripped except for her lower masts. Had they used her yards and topmasts to start commissioning the one anchored in front of the town? If so, why anchor her out there? Perhaps they reckoned her guns gave the western end of Fort Royal some protection, relying on Fort St Louis to cover the eastern end.
The Juno was sailing fast now in an almost flat sea and Ramage watched as the big shoal drew round on to the quarter, leaving deep water right up to the shoal that extended half a mile from the Fort. He wanted a closer look at the frigate, and then that would be enough for today. He looked down at the compass again. 'Mr Aitken, we'll wear round. North by west, if you please.'
Again the men braced up the yards and sheets as the frigate came round on to the new course, putting the wind three points on her starboard quarter and Fort St Louis almost dead ahead. Soon Ramage could distinguish details of the buildings right along the shore; then through the telescope he could see that the French frigate was crowded with men. Many were in the ratlines, but he was not sure whether they had been working aloft or had climbed up to get a better view of the Juno. Her ports were open but her guns were not run out.
Smoke was drifting away from the Fort and a few moments later he heard the rumble of guns. The range was more than a mile. He turned to Aitken: 'Hail Jackson and ask him if he saw the fall of shot.'
The First Lieutenant pointed over the larboard quarter. 'I saw five, sir, half a mile away, right in our wake. There! They're firing again!'
Five more shots landed in the position Aitken had pointed out, five pinnacles of water that leapt up as though whales were spouting and then vanished.
'They just reloaded and fired without correcting their aim: not used to firing at a moving target,' Southwick commented. 'Another week's work to be done on that frigate,' he added. 'They must have three hundred men on board - just look at 'em perched in the rigging, like a lot o' starlings. They could get some of their guns to bear, so as they aren't firing they must be a long way from commissioning.'
'Short of powder, perhaps,' Aitken ventured, but Ramage gestured to the Fort, which had fired yet again.
Jackson hailed from the masthead: 'The Surcouf - that's the frigate, sir: I just made out the name on her transom when she swung to that gust.'
Ramage looked at Southwick with raised eyebrows. 'Don't know of her, sir,' the Master said apologetically. Thirty-six guns and she looks fairly new.'
Ramage closed his telescope with a snap. 'Bear away again, Mr Aitken: steer west by north. We'll just see if they have any more batteries at this end of the Bay. Once we have Pointe des Nègres on our beam I think we'll have rattled the bars loudly enough for today. You've the Surcouf’sexact position on the chart I assume, Mr Southwick,'
CHAPTER NINE
Two nights later Ramage stood on the quarterdeck with Wagstaffe, who was the officer of the deck, as the Juno stretched northwards under topsails only. It was a dark night, large banks of cloud frequently covering three-quarters of the sky and blacking out the stars. The glass was steady but by midnight there could be either a clear sky or pouring rain. Ramage grumbled to himself about the unpredictability of tropical weather.
Once again Wagstaffe called to the lookouts on either bow, and again both answered that there was no sign of Diamond Rock. The young lieutenant was nervous and Ramage was trying to decide if he should tell him not to keep hailing the lookouts unnecessarily: they knew well enough what they were looking for and would hail the moment they sighted it. He now wished he had not taken the Juno so close to the Rock, but the cloud had thickened only in the last half an hour. Anyway he could bear away out to the westward at any moment and be sure of clearing it, but bearing away was just the sort of thing that allowed the damned droghers and schooners to sneak up the coast, pass through the Fours Channel between Diamond Rock and Diamond Hill and get into Fort Royal. They would be impossible to sight from seaward, hidden against the high land.
He would stay on this course. For the next few weeks they were going to be staying close in to Diamond at night and the sooner everyone got used to the idea the better. The cloud seemed to be getting lower and the wind was freshening: there was a sudden chill which gave warning that it was going to rain in a couple of minutes. He turned to Orsini and said: 'Go below and fetch oilskins - mine is on the hook outside the door. And fetch Mr Wagstaffe's and your own at the same time.'
Damn the rain: it would cut visibility to a hundred yards or less. As the Rock carried deep water right up to its side from the south, there was no point in having a man in the chains with a lead. He was still torn between bearing away and carrying on so that Wagstaffe should gain confidence. Then he decided that Wagstaffe's confidence was less important than the safety of the ship. As he turned towards the lieutenant there was a scurry of feet and a man loomed up out of the darkness: 'Rossi, sir, lookout on the starboard bow. There's a sail close under our starboard bow a cable off: I dare not shout!'
'Very well,' Ramage snapped, 'warn the man at the mainchains not to shout either. Get back forward and tell the other man to keep a sharp lookout to larboard.'
He turned to Wagstaffe: 'Send the men to quarters, but no shouting!'
He strained his eyes over to starboard but could see nothing. Now the rain was coming, and he groped in the binnacle box drawer for the night glass. He swung it from ahead to far round on the quarter, but nothing was visible in the darkness and he moved it slowly forward again, resting his arms on the top of the binnacle box. There was a hint of greyness out there, a patch not quite as black as the rest of the night, but he lost it as a squall of rain swept the deck. The shape was distinctive enough - the sails of a schooner on almost the same course as the Juno and perhaps two hundred yards ahead on the starboard bow.
He hurried over to the larboard side, almost knocking over Orsini, who held out oilskin coats. He balanced himself and looked over the bow, hoping the squall would not have reached out that far yet. What he saw was the similar grey shape of another schooner! There was no doubt about it; he had spent too many years allowing for the inverted image shown in a night glass.
He sensed rather than heard men hurrying to quarters. Aitken came up in the darkness, buckling on his sword, followed almost immediately by Southwick. He looked around for the Marine Lieutenant and called him over.
The three officers gathered round him and Wagstaffe edged over to hear as much as he could. There was no time to wait for the Third and Fourth Lieutenants.
'Two French schooners, one on either bow, on the same course,' Ramage said crisply. 'Probably privateers packed full of men. Perhaps even French troops. I think they are waiting for the rain to stop, then the moment the sky starts clearing and they can see they'll try to board us, one on each side.’
Southwick gave one of his famous sniffs. 'They must think we're all asleep.'
'When Rossi spotted the first one, it was more than a cable away. I wonder -'
Ramage broke off: it was not for the Captain of a ship to wonder aloud, but why were these schooners planning an attack on the Juno when they had left the Welcome brig and Captain Eames's frigate alone? Was a convoy expected or did they fear an attack on the frigate anchored off Fort Royal?