Van Someren nodded. There were perhaps fifty women involved: the rest had fled to friends owning plantation houses at the east end of the island many days ago, at the first sign of trouble, and he was thankful they had taken his advice. The fifty that remained were married to stubborn merchants who refused to have their household arrangements upset (even though in the end it might put the wives in great danger).
Finally the Governor made up his mind: 'Very well, well use Waterfort as the last resort Tell the commander of Riffort — I always forget his name - to be prepared to spike the guns and join the garrison on Punda. They should bring their muskets and as much powder as they can carry, and pitch the rest of the powder into the sea.'
He tapped the desk with his pipe. 'Yes, and get more water taken to Waterfort. With all those extra women - and their children, and probably their husbands - we might get short Get as many casks as you can find filled and rolled out to the Point Food, too.'
By now he was tapping to emphasize each word, and at too' the pipe snapped. He looked at the stem which he was still holding. 'You know, Lausser, we can trust our enemies, the British. Our damned French allies are the danger.'
You can just see the entrance to Amsterdam, now, sir,' Southwick said. 'From this angle the walls of the forts on each side look like a single big one. But the main part of the town - the Governor's residence. Parliament, the market - is this side, which they call the Point The channel cuts the town in half and leads to an inland lake called the Schottegat. And the bay at the entrance, such as it is, they call Saint Anna's.'
'What guns do they have in the forts?' Ramage asked.
Thirty in Waterfort on the Point, when I was last here, but .: has three sides. Eighteen guns on the wall parallel with the coast, six on the first angled section facing south - south - west, and six more on the second, actually covering the entrance. The same guns in Riffort on Otrabanda, the fort on the west side. They're probably 24 - pounders, but I'm not sure.'
'Sixty guns,' Ramage mused. 'But not all of them can be rained on us at the same time?'
'No, sir. As we approach, the dozen guns on the two angled parts of Punda won't bear. But all of those on Otrabanda will. About forty - eight altogether, I should reckon.'
The same as the effective broadsides of two seventy - fours.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And how wide is the channel inside the forts?'
'About two hundred yards.'
'So a ship entering has Waterfort on Punda one hundred yards to starboard and Riffort on Otrabanda a hundred yards to larboard.'
'Exactly, sir.'
Ramage imagined the captain of one of the Dutch guns landing beyond the recoil, trigger line in his hand, and sight ing along the top of the barrel. The Calypso, sailing into Schottegat, would seem enormous, and with the steep - roofed buildings and the fort taking some of the wind she would be making perhaps four knots. The gun captain would give a couple of orders to train left or right - and, unless he was poorly trained or over - excited, he should be able to put a roundshot or a round of grapeshot through whichever of the Calypso's gun ports he chose. Or poke a roundshot through the hull along the waterline like a seamstress stitching the edge of a blanket.
Southwick was looking at him quizzically, his face covered with perspiration from the heat of the sun. 'Not even on a dark night in pouring rain, sir,' he said, shaking his head.
Ramage grinned. 'It's a pity there's never fog in these latitudes.'
The master kept a straight face but he was relieved. Amsterdam was one of the most impossible ports to attack that he had ever seen, and, almost more important, the Dutch were tough fighters. You could panic a Spaniard and bluff a Frenchman, but a Dutchman - no, he was too like the British to do anything but fight man to man. Which wasn't to say Mr Ramage wouldn't attack the place if he felt like it, but the Dutch knew a British frigate and schooner were approaching because Mr Ramage had made no attempt to fly French colours, even though both ships were French - built and it would be easy to fool French privateers, let alone these mynheers. So the garrisons of the two forts would be ready; indeed, at this very moment, with the Calypso and La Creole now in sight of both, they would have their guns loaded and run out ready to fire; magazines would be unlocked and more cartridges and roundshot would be ready . . . The guns could lay down an invisible barrier some two thousand yards offshore and anyone stepping over it would be smashed to pieces by 24 - pounder roundshot by the time the range was down to a thousand yards.
Ramage once again raised his telescope and murmured to Southwick: 'It isn't often you see that flag - look over the two forts and that large building on the Point, the Governor's residence, I suppose. The flag of the Batavian Republic.'
The French seemed to like renaming places. Genoa was now the Ligurian Republic, Holland the Batavian Republic; the Swiss were now inhabitants of the Helvetic Republic, while a group of Italian states round Bologna, Modena and Ferrara were now the Cisalpine Republic. From all accounts giving a new name was not the same as giving them their freedom . . .
Ramage turned to Aitken, who was the officer of the watch. 'Pass at least two miles off Amsterdam,' he said. 'We're being nosy, not provocative.'
Half an hour later they could see right into Amsterdam, neatly cut in half by the channel. Not quite in half, Ramage realized; the main part was on the Punda side - the Governor's residence, Parliament and most of the houses. On the other side, so quaintly called the same in Dutch, Otrabanda, it looked as though the merchants flourished. At the far end, where the small inland lake began, the privateers were lying at anchor. Aitken had counted nine, Southwick eight, the masthead lookouts ten, and Jackson and Orsini, sent up the mainmast at the rush with telescopes, confirmed that there were ten.
Southwick had been as puzzled as Ramage when Jackson had come down again and reported that most of the privateers looked as though they were laid up, or undergoing refits. There was no sign of sails; no squaresail yards were in sight Nor, equally odd, was there any sign of activity on any of the privateers: except for two or three men standing at the rail of one of them, Jackson said, they seemed to be deserted.
Ramage had not known what to expect and for that reason had no plans. He turned to Aitken and said: 'Continue running along the coast. The chart shows two or three bays where privateers could bide. Keep a sharp lookout - we might be able to surprise some of them at anchor.'
With that he went below to his cabin, glad of the shade. He sat down at his desk, reached up for the chart from the rack overhead, and spread it out in front of him. Ten privateers: mat meant the Admiral's information was correct: Amsterdam was being used as a privateers' base. Ten privateers. But they were the only vessels in the harbour. Certainly they could have a dozen prizes anchored in that lake, out of sight, but those privateers looked as though they were laid up. Why should the sails have been taken off? It was easy enough to do, but surprising. There might be a good sailmaker there in Amsterdam who was doing some major repairs on a single privateer's sails - even making new ones, because the Trade winds were hard on sail cloth and the sun and showers rotted the stitching. Would all ten have their sails on shore in the sailmaker's loft at the same time? No, there'd be no point: the sailmaker (at best a couple of men and three apprentices) could not work on ten suits of sails at once, and no privateer would risk having his sails on shore a day longer than necessary. He'd bring the sails over, wait for them to be repaired and take them back. If they were not on shore, then the sails certainly could be stowed below, out of the glare and heat of the sun and rain - not that it rained much on these islands: they existed only because there were wells providing fresh water.