As he wrote at the desk, Southwick sat back in a chair with ill-concealed impatience. The clerk returned with the fair copy of the dispatch and took the draft of the letter to the Agent.
Ramage turned to Southwick. 'You remind me of an impatient bridegroom. Baker is probably in his cabin packing his sea chest. Find him and bring him here. Once he's on his way to Barbados we can start making plans.'
The clerk arrived with the fair copy of the letter to the Agent, waited until Ramage had signed it and the dispatch, and then took away both letters and the list of prisoners to seal. After wiping the pen and screwing the cap on the ink bottle, Ramage sat back and stared down at the polished grain of the desk top. In the past two days he had not had a moment for real thought. He snatched at ideas as they raced through his mind, rejecting some and adopting others; decisions seemed to arrive already made but without proper consideration. He felt like a clucking hen startled to find it had laid an egg. So far his decisions had been the correct ones, but this was due to good luck rather than judgement. It was only a matter of time, he thought gloomily, before one of the eggs turned out to be bad.
Yes, the present difficulty is Admiral Davis, not the French. Should he have mentioned his plan in the dispatch? He sighed and tapped his fingers on the desk top. Should he, shouldn't he, should he ... and so it went on. Indecision, indecision . . . Well, not exactly indecision because he had already signed the dispatch without mentioning it, so at least he had decided that much. No, his bother was that, having made the decision, he was starting to question himself. It always happened, and he hated it.
Very well, what are you trying to do, Captain Ramage? You are carrying out Admiral Davis's orders which are simple enough: blockade Fort Royal, preventing any ships from entering or leaving. Splendid, my dear fellow; you have a firm grip on the situation. The new development is that by a stroke of good fortune you have discovered from that boastful French lieutenant that a convoy (he implied a large one) is due in Fort Royal within a week. A large convoy means a large escort, and 'a week' after an Atlantic crossing could mean today or two weeks' time; more, if the convoy met bad weather off Biscay followed by Trade winds.
Go on, Captain Ramage, he jeered at himself, so you had to make a decision: should you send the Surcouf to Barbados with a prize crew on board, with one of the schooners to bring the prize crew back, leaving yourself with only the Juno (minus the men needed to provide three prize crews) and a schooner to fight off the escorts and capture the convoy - or, at the very least, prevent it from entering Fort Royal Bay? That was the question, and it was a simple one.
The difficulty arises because there is more than one answer. You can hurriedly fit out the Surcouf, so that you have two frigates to tackle the convoy, keeping one schooner and sending the other to Barbados with the dispatch to raise the alarm, and hope Admiral Davis is still there with the Invincible and some frigates, so that he can get under way for Martinique immediately to help tackle the convoy. (Help, he thought to himself: the Invincible and a couple of frigates would be more than enough.)
That is one answer but it certainly is not the one that Admiral Davis will expect. It is the right answer, though - with due respect to you, Admiral - because it takes into account the time factor; that the convoy is just as likely to be early as late: one can be damned sure it will not be on time.
Another answer would be for the Juno to tow the Surcouf to Barbados, leaving the two schooners to maintain the blockade, That is the answer that the Admiral would expect: a bird in the hand (and so a share of the prize money in the pocket) was worth two in the bush. Admiral Davis would argue that only the Invincible and more frigates could deal with the convoy, and that the Juno's absence from Martinique for three or four days was an acceptable risk since the two schooners would be patrolling, and one could reach Barbados and raise the alarm.
If you were an admiral, Ramage asked himself, would you accept that the commanding officer of the Juno - ayoung man at the bottom of the post list - could in fact perform magic, doing something which is a compromise between the two answers? Instead of sending the Surcouf to Barbados, fit her out so that quite unexpectedly an extra frigate is available for the Martinique blockade, and send a schooner to Barbados with a warning of the convoy. In the meantime, he had a plan for the Diamond that no one had ever tried ...
He balanced the quill pen on a finger. Captain Ramage was not an admiral nor ever likely to be, so he ought to look at the situation through the protruberant and bloodshot eyes of the man who was, Henry Davis, Rear-Admiral of the Red and Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's ships and vessels ...
The Admiral would not believe it possible, with the Juno already stripped of men to provide the prize crews for the two schooners, for Ramage to get the Surcouf ready for action within a week. He would also say - and that was much more important - that even if the French frigate could be got ready, there was still the problem of manning her. Ramage would have to halve the number of men remaining in the Juno and send them on board the Surcouf. Instead of two fully-manned frigates ready for action he would have two frigates manned with skeleton crews.
Ramage tipped the feather end of the quill so that it dropped to the desk, He had to admit that the Admiral would (by his own standards) have grounds for complaint. The difference was that the two frigates would be manned by Junos, who had already achieved more in less than a week on the station than Captain Eames and his frigate had in several months. That was not an answer he could possibly give the Admiral, though, since Captain Eames was one of his favourites.
To divide one ship's company between two frigates and two schooners might horrify Admiral Davis, but that was not the end of it. Ramage was proposing to take away another twenty men and use them for a hare-brained scheme which could make him the laughing stock of the Navy.
His thoughts were interrupted by the clerk bringing back the letters, having applied the seals. The man had no sooner left the cabin than Southwick arrived with Baker, both apologizing for being so long. Ramage told them to sit down and stared at the sealed packets. The clerk had a flowing style of handwriting and Ramage picked up the letter addressed to Admiral Davis. It would take only fifteen minutes to write another one. Or he could get the Juno under way and tow the Surcouf to Barbados. Or he could see if one of the schooners could tow her, with the second schooner in company. Or -
He picked up the two packets and handed them to Baker, deliberately ending the conflict in his mind; he then opened a drawer and took out another letter which he had written earlier.
These are your orders,' he said. 'They tell you to proceed to Barbados and deliver this to the Admiral and -' he pointed to the thinner packet '- this to the Agent for Prisoners. If you can't find the Agent, leave it with the Admiral's secretary.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' Baker said. 'I'll be under way in a few minutes: we've already shortened in the cable.'
'My written orders tell you to return here immediately you have delivered the dispatch,' Ramage said. 'It might occur to the Admiral, if he thinks about it, to keep you and La Mutine with him in Bridgetown. You might find it possible to ...'
'I'll stay on board the flagship for as little time as possible, sir,' Baker said with an understanding grin.
'What about charts?' Ramage inquired, suddenly remembering this was Baker's first voyage as an acting commanding officer, apart from the visit to Fort Royal.
'I've just been making copies of Mr Southwick's, sir.'
'I've given you copies of the challenge and reply for the next week and you have a copy of the signal book. Remember, guard them with your life and keep them in a weighted bag ready to sink if there's a chance of you being captured.'