The ship was lying hove-to, with the Calypso five hundred yards away to the east.
"Where's the Santa Barbara?" Ramage asked.
Southwick pointed to the west. "She's well clear of the entrance, sir. I saw her with the nightglass. Towing her boats, so she must have recovered the Marines and Spanish prisoners. She's making up for us, like you told Wagstaffe."
"Prisoners! " Ramage said crossly. "We'll soon have more Spaniards out here than there are in Santa Cruz."
"Don't forget the soldiers, sir."
Ramage gave a short laugh. "No, if we'd arrived twelve hours later we'd be the prisoners."
"I didn't mean that, sir, " Southwick protested, but Ramage felt too drained to do anything more than watch the cliffs. It was hard to believe that less then three hours earlier the Calypso had first approached Santa Cruz to begin a dangerous game of bluff. Certainly it had worked and he had hooked the Jocasta like a fisherman landing a lethargic perch, so he should be cheerful and content. Instead he felt as taut as a flying jib sheet hard on the wind. He had expected to lose half of these men who were now waiting in the shrouds and on the hammock nettings like excited starlings perched in a grove of trees. So, he told himself, he should be cheerful because only a handful had been killed.
The fact was that he was far from being a natural gambler; he had little patience with those pallid fellows crouching over the gaming tables at Buck's, terrified that the turn of a card or the tumble of a dice would ruin them, yet always hoping desperately to win. Obviously all they lived for was the fear of losing and exaltation of winning, but it was sad to think that grown men hazarded their futures on the face of a card or the spots of a dice. A house that had been a family seat for a couple of centuries often changed hands because a dice stopped rolling to show a three instead of a four.
Yet ... yet... he had just done much the same thing, except that no gambler at Buck's or one of those other elegant establishments would play against such odds: no one wagered a guinea to win a guinea, unless he was drunk or desperate, yet he had just risked a frigate, and more than two hundred lives, to win a frigate.
Castillo San Antonio suddenly exploded. A great lightning flash radiating outwards lit the surrounding hills, the entrance channel and the Calypso as though it was day and then equally suddenly plunged everything into a darkness that seemed solid. A moment later a deep rumbling coming through the water made the Jocasta tremble, while a noise like a great clap of thunder skated across the sea, followed by echoes bouncing off the mountains and gradually fading into the distance. Then came the startled mewing of seabirds wheeling in alarm and the sudden chatter of excited men.
Ramage blinked rapidly, dazzled and still hardly able to believe what he had just seen. "The nightglass! " he snapped at Southwick.
The hard, rectangular outline of the castle on top of the cliff was hidden in an enormous wreath of smoke and dust, the top of which swirled snakelike in the moonlight. Gradually it thinned out, blown clear by the wind, and finally Ramage could make out the remains of the castle.
"What can you see, sir?" Southwick asked excitedly.
Ramage realized that every man within earshot was straining to hear his reply, and he spoke loudly: "The centre has gone, right down to the foundations. The western corner is still standing ... yes, the smoke's clearing more: the whole eastern side has collapsed."
"I wonder how much powder there was in the magazine?" Southwick asked incredulously.
"Enough! Ah, there we are, the smoke has cleared completely. Yes, three quarters of the castle - all except the western end - has gone. A lot of the stonework has slid down the hill in an avalanche."
"Rennick needn't have bothered to spike the guns, " Southwick muttered, obviously determined to have the last word on the subject.
Ramage swung the nightglass to find the Santa Barbara and saw that she was still beating up to join the Jocasta. For a moment he had feared she might have been close enough to be damaged by lumps of stone hurled up by the explosion.
A red eye winked at the far end of the channel.
"Santa Fe! " he exclaimed. "They've woken up and started firing down the channel."
"Aye, they probably think the English are coming, " Southwick said contemptuously. "Look! " he added as more red flashes followed, "that first gun woke up the rest of them! "
At that moment El Pilar blew up. Again a blinding flash lit up the hills - showing San Antonio a wrecked shell, the western wall throwing the rest into heavy shadow - followed by a shock through the water and a dull blam-blam, as though the side had fallen away from a mountain.
Ramage handed Southwick the nightglass. "We'll go down to meet the Santa Barbara. The sooner our prisoners are transferred to her the better. I'm going below to finish reading the Spanish orders."
"Ah, we might find a few prizes to take back with us, " Southwick said cheerfully.
"The Jocasta's enough, " Ramage said crossly.
"Yes, sir, but don't forget that Isla de Margarita is the pearl island, and they find emeralds farther along the coast."
"We'll collect enough oysters to make a crown of pearls for you, " Ramage said sarcastically, "then hurry back to English Harbour for the coronation." With that he went below, hearing Southwick beginning the string of orders which would take the Jocasta down to the Santa Barbara.
Captain Velasquez had the irritating habit of putting the earliest letters at the top and the latest at the bottom, but Ramage was curious about the way the Captain-General had handled the Jocasta affair. Here, written at great length, was the first letter to Velasquez describing how English mutineers had brought the ship to La Guaira - "under the command of an officer named Summers" - and handed her over to "the municipality". Clearly the Captain-General was determined not to take any personal responsibility even at that early stage. The junta had ordered the ship to be taken round to Santa Cruz because the port was well defended and there, the junta directed, Velasquez would take command.
That letter alone would have hanged Summers, Ramage thought, and the very next one again referred to the seaman, saying he would act as master for the voyage, and when he handed over the frigate to Velasquez he was to be allowed to return to La Guaira, unless Velasquez had any use for him in refitting the ship "in view of his particular skills".
Then came a series of orders dealing with fitting out the ship. The English were always so short-handed that they sailed the ship with fewer than two hundred men, the junta noted, but it regarded three hundred as the absolute minimum. The master shipwright had assured the junta that the frigate could carry more guns without endangering her stability, so Velasquez was to consider fitting six more, but the junta did not specify the size of the guns, nor whether they were to be mounted on the quarterdeck and fo'c'sle or on the main deck.
In later letters there were complaints - obviously referring to reports by Velasquez - about the amount of work and cost of commissioning the ship. Then, the most flowery letter so far, the junta's unanimous decision on the ship's new name, La Perla. This, the Captain-General ordered (for once he took the credit for it), was to be painted or carved on the ship's transom after all traces of the original English name had been removed, the letters painted in red on a gold background, "to match the glorious flag of Spain". The Pearl, Ramage thought, was hardly a suitable name for a ship of war.
Further letters reported that Spanish merchant seamen had been pressed and were being sent to Santa Cruz to man the ship. Another told Velasquez that soldiers were being used to make up the number, volunteers from two regiments recently arrived from Panama. These men would make excellent seamen, the Captain-General assured Velasquez.