As Ramage paused on the quarterdeck, trying to switch his thoughts from the pelicans diving round the Diamond to the problems facing him over the Rock itself, he realized that the Surgeon was waiting to speak to him, and with him was Rennick, the Marine Lieutenant.
'How are the new patients, Bowen?'
'Both in good shape, I'm happy to say, sir,' he said, handing Ramage the copy of the sick list. 'The cutlass wound was a clean cut, and I can see the healing has already begun. The other man is badly bruised but I have given him another thorough examination this morning, and there are definitely no bones broken.'
'He must have fallen fifty feet, sir,' Rennick said apologetically.
'Now he knows the perils of standing near a recoiling gun,' Ramage said grimly. 'I hope you've thought about what I was telling you last night...'
'I have indeed, sir. The trouble was that I had heard of that method before - turning a gun with its breech towards the edge of a cliff and firing it. I did it because it seemed certain the recoil would run it back over the edge of the cliff.'
'And so it would have, if the platform had been level, but there you had an uneven and rocky surface. No wonder the damned gun ran round in a curve and turned over. It only needed one of the trucks to hit a bump.'
'Well, sir,' said Rennick defensively, 'at least we managed to roll it over the edge of the cliff in the end.'
'Where it now lies undamaged and ready for the French to salvage, if we give them the chance,' Ramage said sharply. ‘A brass gun, too. Worth three iron guns, as you well know.' ‘We destroyed the other two, though, sir,' Rennick said contritely.
Ramage nodded, accepting Rennick's apology. 'That's the safest way - double or triple charge, three roundshot and everyone behind some shelter when you fire. That's why you're supposed to carry an extra long trigger line when you attack a battery.'
When the lieutenant went red, Ramage asked suspiciously: 'You did carry one, didn't you?'
Rennick shook his head and clearly wished the deck would open up and swallow him. 'No, sir, but I joined up the three the French were using ...’
Ramage knew that the Marine Lieutenant had learned several lessons and he would not repeat the mistakes again. Apart from that, it had been a brave and well executed attack, and he did not want Rennick to lose confidence in himself. 'Very well, you destroyed the battery, which is what matters,' he said. ‘I’ll have a word with your men later.'
Rennick gave a relieved grin, saluted and left. Ramage looked at Bowen's sick list. 'I see you've discharged three more men.'
'Yes, sir. At least, they asked to be discharged: I'd have kept them another day, but they insisted.'
'Insisted?' Ramage asked curiously. 'I thought every man's ambition is to get on the sick list for a few days' rest!'
'It is in most ships - indeed, it was for the first couple of weeks after we left England. But all that's changed; these three men apparently heard some rumour about the Diamond -' Bowen nodded towards the Rock '- and they, well, it seemed to me they wanted to join in the fun.'
'Fun! They'll have to work so hard they'll probably end up back on the sick list suffering from heat stroke!'
'We'll see, sir,' Bowen said with a knowing look.
Ramage walked forward to the fo'c'sle, where Southwick was busy with a party of seamen. He was watching while the carpenter and bos'n worked on an enormous block of unusual shape. The big lignum vitae sheave fitted into a thick wooden shell, one side of which was longer than the other, and open at one end. Called a voyol block, it was a spare one and rarely used. Now it would ride up the jackstay with a gun slung underneath it. Like many things in a ship that are seldom used, the block had been stowed without being washed in fresh water, and the salt had made the sheave and pin seize up. Now the carpenter was driving out the pin with his maul. It would be cleaned and driven back after being smeared with tallow, and a liberal amount of tallow would be put on the sheave so that it turned freely.
Large coils of five-inch circumference rope had been hoisted up from the store room and men were busy long-splicing them to make up an eighteen hundred foot length. That would be used (with the two large single-sheave blocks which had already been smeared with tallow) to make up the enormous tackle which would haul both gun and voyol block up the jackstay. More men were making up strops, using old rope that would not stretch. They would sling the gun beneath the voyol block. Mentally he ticked them off the list as he walked aft again to look over the taffrail, where Lacey, the Fourth Lieutenant, was standing and occasionally shouting down instructions. Already the Juno's two cutters were being secured together, ready to take on shore the 6-pounder gun that would cover the landing place. One spar was lashed across the bow of each of them like a narrow bridge, and another near the stern, so that they were kept eight feet apart.
Amidships the crew of the jolly boat were about to cast off, towing the carriage of the 6-pounder and carrying the breeching, train tackle, handspikes, rammer and sponge in the boat. The gun itself was lying on the Juno's deck with slings round it, ready for hoisting out.
Ramage shouted down to the coxswain: 'Are you ready to go?'
'All ready, sir.'
Ramage called to Lacey, who hurried forward to get into the boat. 'I'm afraid the cutters aren't ready yet, sir.'
'I'll keep an eye on them. Now, you're perfectly clear what has to be done?'
'Aye, aye, sir: tow the carriage round to the cove. If we can float it into the cove and haul it ashore, do so; otherwise secure it so that it floats clear and come back for more men.'
Ramage nodded and Lacey scrambled down into the jolly boat.
Today's work towards the Diamond plan was easy; he could only pray that tomorrow - in fact for the next three days - the sea would stay as smooth, with no swell. He'd be quite content for today to get the 6-pounder mounted on that ledge, to cover the landing place.
A lookout aloft hailed that La Créole was coming into sight round the end of Diamond Hill, but had no signals flying. Ramage, noting that Wagstaffe had searched as far as Pointe des Salines without sighting anything, acknowledged the hail and moodily began pacing the quarterdeck, occasionally going aft and looking down at the men working in the cutters. They were doing perfectly well - Lacey, like most young officers, was too keen to let men work on their own.
Fifteen paces forward and he was abreast the skylight over his cabin, three more and he was passing the mizenmast. Three more and the wheel was abeam and the binnacle. Six more and he was passing the companionway, its coaming studded with roundshot which fitted like black oranges into cup-shaped holes cut in the wood. Now he was level with the capstan and the water cask with the Marine sentry guarding it. He had doubled the daily ration for the men while they were doing this heavy work: there was plenty to spare with the Surcouf’s casks available.
The deck was scorching hot, even though the awning was stretched overhead, and as he turned to walk aft he felt a momentary dizziness. He was tired and bored. Tired because there was so little time for sleep, and bored because he was the Captain, the man whose life comprised weeks of boredom, of just ensuring that the day-to-day ship routine was carried out properly, punctuated every few weeks (months, more likely) by a few hours of action. He reached the taffrail, glanced down at the cutters, and began to walk forward again.
Now was a good example of the boredom: Aitken was working hard on board the Surcouf getting the sails hoisted up and bent on; Baker was on his way to Barbados in La Mutine with all the excitement of his first command; Wagstaffe was tacking north again with La Créole for another look at Fort Royal. Southwick was busy on the foredeck, preparing everything for hoisting the jackstay tomorrow. Captain Ramage had nothing whatever to do and could only pace up and down, occasionally looking at the work in progress. Even the cook's mate was busy - skimming the slush, from the smell of it; boiling the salt beef in the coppers and taking off the fat that floated to the surface and carefully storing it. When it was cool he would sell it to the men, earning himself some illicit pennies or tots and giving the men something to help the hard biscuit slide down their gullets.