He dare look aft no longer: the water ahead was showing a light green, marking the beginning of the shoal off the end of Fort St Louis. It was time the Juno began to bear away to the westward to get out of the bay. He snatched up the speaking trumpet and began bellowing orders. The wheel was put over as the yards were trimmed and he knew the frigate was still only towing the cable through the water: luckily the Surcouf’s weight had not yet come on it. For a moment he pictured getting into water so shallow that the long curving bight of cable sagging down between the two ships snagged on a great rock on the bottom or caught on a shoal of coral, but every passing moment lessened that risk because the Juno's forward movement was slowly straightening it out.
'A hundred and fifty feet o' cable to run, sir,' Southwick called.
Ramage turned to the quartermaster. 'Watch for the last of the cable. The moment the strain comes on there'll be an almighty kick on the wheel.' The quartermaster nodded and Ramage noticed that there were already four men at the spokes and the quartermaster was positioning himself to give a hand if necessary.
'A hundred feet to go, sir, and it's running well,' Southwick reported.
The Juno was slowly turning to starboard now and would clear the shoal by a hundred feet, and once the strain came on the cable she would be able to run out to the west.
'Fifty feet, twenty-five, ten . . . there it goes!' Southwick shouted jubilantly.
There was no sudden shock but the Juno slowed perceptibly and Ramage looked aft to see the five men fighting the wheel. Astern the Surcouf was slowly gathering way as the cable tautened and Ramage saw the hint of a bow wave. Then, in a direct line from the Juno's stern chase port to the French frigate's bow, the cable suddenly straightened and shot out of the water, and then splashed back, like a whip. The Surcouf began yawing, her bow swinging to starboard and then back to larboard. Each yaw increased the dead weight on the end of the cable so that the Juno was like a dog with a heavy weight tied to its tail. The five men fought the wheel, cursing and grunting, but then managed to keep the ship under control.
‘Give Jackson a few minutes to get used to handling the Frenchman,' Ramage called encouragingly.
Gradually the Surcouf’s yawing eased, like a dog settling down on a leash, and in the clear water Ramage could see the shallow curve of the cable. Beyond the Surcouf Aitken's schooner was tacking back and forth: La Créole's task now was to cover the two frigates against any schooners that might come out of the Salée River.
He looked round for La Mutine and saw her just off the town, coming head to wind with sails flapping and an enormous white flag flying from the peak of her main gaff. Suddenly Ramage realized that in the excitement he had forgotten all about Fort St Louis. There were no tell-tale puffs of smoke. Surely the Juno's sudden attack on the Surcouf had not taken them completely by surprise? But he had no idea whether five minutes or an hour had passed since he had waved to Jackson to drop the Tricolour so perhaps they had had too little time to do anything.
Their progress was painfully slow, but at least the men were not having to fight the wheel now. He walked aft to join Southwick and crouched down to look through the sternchase port. The cable was making a perfect catenary curve and the Surcouf's yawing had almost stopped. 'I think we can carry more canvas now,' he commented. 'I wish those damned Frenchmen had finished fitting out the ship,' Southwick grumbled. 'It'd have been a sight easier to sail her out!'
'We'd have had a couple of hundred Frenchmen to argue with though, instead of just a handful,' Ramage pointed out.
Southwick shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you'd be good enough to keep an eye on the cable, sir, I'll try the forecourse.'
The end of the shoal was on the Juno's quarter now, so there was deep water right out of the bay. La Mutine was riding at anchor and he saw her boat heading for the shore, looking like a tiny water beetle from this distance. It would probably be nightfall before he knew whether the French had honoured the flag of truce: Baker was due to rejoin them by midnight.
He looked forward and saw the Juno's, great forecourse tumbling down from the yard, creased and shapeless like an enormous white curtain until the men began sheeting it home and the wind gave it shape, swelling it into a billowing curve. He watched the cable tauten slightly, saw that the quartermaster was now standing back from the wheel, quite confident the four men could handle it.
Ramage took out the telescope to inspect the Surcouf. There were a dozen men on the fo'c'sle. His orders had included a party with axes ready to cut the cable in an emergency. He thought he could make out Wagstaffe on the quarterdeck and he was standing still, not rushing about, so he must be confident.
Southwick came aft and Ramage gestured astern at the Juno's wake. 'We've picked up a knot or more and she seems to like it. We'll try the topsail as well.'
Fifteen minutes later the Juno, with the Surcouf in tow and La Créole tacking across their wake, passed half a mile south of Pointe des Nègres, at last clear of Fort Royal Bay. A large Red Ensign streamed in the wind from the Surcouf, and when Ramage saw it being hoisted he grinned to himself: one of the boarders from the Juno must have taken it with him.
He was hot, he was tired, he had not slept for some thirty hours but he was cheerful. He only wanted to hear that the French had honoured La Mutine's flag of truce, taken off their wounded and the prisoners, and released the schooner, and he would know that his gamble had succeeded completely.
There had been casualties, but in the confusion on board the Surcouf he had not noticed any Junos lying on the deck. There must have been a few, but so far they had paid a small price for the capture of a frigate and two schooners. He looked down at the compass and then across at Cap Salomon, which was just opening up to the south as the two frigates continued westward.
'Mr Southwick, I think we can now alter course for the Diamond,' he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ramage's steward brought in a pot of hot tea on a tray, put it on the side of the desk and said: 'When will you be ready for your shaving water, sir? I've laid out fresh clothes.'
Ramage looked up weary and unshaven and put down his pen. His eyes felt full of sand and his head ached. 'Another half an hour,' he said. 'Pass the word for Mr Southwick and bring another cup and saucer for him.' He heard the distant bleating of several goats and the mewing of gulls. Occasionally there was the heavy splash of a pelican diving into the water nearby in the endless search for fish, but apart from that and the noise of men working on deck, there was only the sound of water lapping against the Juno's side as she swung to her anchorage early this Monday morning.
The anchorage, two cables north of Diamond Rock in five fathoms of water, was a comfortable one. The Surcouf was lying just to the south, riding to the cable that had towed her down from Fort Royal, and La Mutine was between the two frigates and the great rock. Out to the west La Créole was stretching seaward until she could see up the coast towards Cap Salomon and then back to round the Diamond. One of the Juno's lookouts aloft was watching the coast but so far he had nothing to report. There was no sign of activity along the two miles of sandy beach forming the Grande Anse du Diamant. No doubt the Governor would send cavalry patrols along the coast to see if the Juno and her prize were at anchor in one of the many bays or if both ships were on their way to Barbados. The naval commander would probably have told him that it was easy enough for the Juno to tow the Surcouf the hundred or so miles to windward; he might even speculate that the Juno's captain would leave the two captured schooners to maintain the blockade, so that the expected convoy, which the French had no reason to think Ramage knew about, had nothing to fear. Ramage was reasonably sure (or, more correctly, trying to persuade himself that he could be) that the French would never dream he would try to finish refitting the Surcouf. He was quite sure Rear-Admiral Davis would never dream of it.