'But they should have finished their examination by then...'
'Yes, sir.'
'And you've no explanation for this lapse.'
'No, sir," Aitken said contritely. 'None at all.'
'Ill give you one,' Ramage said, 'and it's a lesson we've all just learned. Just because no shots have been fired, don't assume a prize isn't damaged and sinking.'
'Aye,' Southwick said, 'and it's worse than that, sir: they could have scuttled her - they should have done, in fact - and I just leaned on the quarterdeck rail and looked at her. I even noticed she rolled more than we did and had less freeboard, but I never thought the reason was that she had several feet of water in her.'
"Well, how's the pumping going?'
Southwick grinned cheerfully. 'With three hundred prisoners and our own pumps on board as well, it's no problem. No man has more than a quarter of an hour at a pump, but he has to work like a madman. It's the only way we'll get the level down.'
'She's making seven feet an hour,' Ramage said.
'Yes, but if we can empty her while she's alongside us, then the French can hold her with their own pumps without much trouble. We've got all the Frenchmen pumping - purser, bosun, sailmaker, captain's steward, everyone is taking a turn.'
Aitken was still rather chastened, and he said to Ramage: 'After we've pumped her dry and left the French prisoners to hold their seven feet an hour, what are we going to do with her, sir?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. 'After capturing her for the price of some cloth to make flags, it seems a pity to let her sink; but our orders are to deal with those privateers. I can't spare fifty men to take La Perle to Jamaica. More than fifty, because the prizemaster would need enough men to sail her and enough to guard three hundred Frenchmen and keep them busy pumping.'
'But losing a prize like this, sir!' Southwick protested.
The chances of her reaching Jamaica with these leaks even if I put a hundred of our men on board are remote.'
'How so, sir?'
The leaks are getting worse. I don't think she's just spewing her caulking; I'm sure she's rotten and the fastenings are going. The planks are loosening as the hull works in anything of a sea and popping 'em out The next thing will be the butt ends of planks suddenly springing, and then shell sink in ten minutes.'
Southwick scratched his head. 'Well, we can't take three hundred prisoners on board, that's certain. Still, we could put 'em on shore right here, in Curacao. Land 'em on that beach there.'
'And give the privateers in Amsterdam another thirty men each?'
'I hadn't thought of that,' Southwick admitted. 'But if we don't bring 'em on board and don't put 'em on shore . . . ?'
Ramage began walking up and down the quarterdeck, hands clasped behind his back. If all revolutions replaced uncomfortable breeches and white stockings which showed every dirty mark with loose - fitting trousers, he thought wryly, then officers would be well advised to change their politics. With La Perle captured he had no excuse for not going down to his cabin and putting on his uniform. The same applied to the rest of the Calypso's officers. Perhaps they were waiting for the captain to give a lead, afraid of offending him by appearing in uniform when he still wore trousers. Perhaps (and much more likely) they were as comfortable as he was and in no hurry to return to the uncomfortable and hot smartness of breeches.
All this thinking about trousers and breeches was wasting time; he had to make up his mind as soon as possible about La Perle and her three hundred men. Very well, state the problem. Well, three problems, sir. I can't spare a prize crew to sail (and pump) her to Jamaica, and anyway she'd probably sink in the first gale she met But, problem two, I can't leave her drifting. She has to be sunk - or set on fire. That leaves me with problem three, the three hundred prisoners whom I daren't land in Aruba or Curacao, because they'll immediately become privateersmen.
Given that La Perle was eventually bound back to France and would have sunk on the way, her meeting with the Calypso is hardly a stroke of good fortune for the British, least of all the Calypso, which loses prize money and head money, and whose captain will have to face the wrath of Admiral Foxe-Foote, who is not going to like losing his share of the prize money.
Very well, milord, as that wretched Bazin insisted on addressing you, with true republican regard to ingratiating himself, reduce the problems to their simplest terms. God it's hot; the deck throws up waves of heat. No sails set to cause a cooling downdraught, no awning stretched to make some shade. And here is Jackson with a straw hat for me to wear. A thoughtful act: he felt as though his brains were already frying, and his eyes seemed scorched from the glare.
The problem, he reminded himself, tipping the hat farther forward so that it shaded his eyes more completely, the problem is really quite simple: how to dispose of a French frigate without drowning her ship's company or handing them over to the French privateersmen in Curasao.
Quite simple, milord: turn both ships and men over to the Dons.
He stopped in mid - stride. That was the answer 1 Where it came from he was far from sure; probably lurking inside this straw hat. The French could land from La Perle on the Spanish Main, but they must not be able to repair the ship. His head buzzed with ideas, but none was any use until he looked at a chart He glanced over at La Perle and saw clear streams of water pouring out of her scuppers and from the hoses of head pumps rigged on the sides. La Creole was tacking back and forth to windward; the two frigates were drifting slowly to leeward, westward along the coast of Curacao. The weather seemed set fair. The only really miserable men on board the Calypso should be Duroc, Bazin and the two junior lieutenants.
Down in his cabin he pitched the straw hat on to the settee and pulled a chart out of the rack, unrolling it on his desk and holding it down flat with weights. The nearest part of the Main was in fact a long semicircle stretching from the tip of the Peninsula de Paraguana, the hatchet - shaped piece of land forming one side of the Gulf of Venezuela and leading down to Maracaibo, round to (for practical purposes) San Juan de los Cayos, a hundred and fifty miles to the eastward. Notes on his chart showed that there was not a port along that stretch where La Perle could be careened and repaired, nothing on the Peninsula apart from a mountain range topped by Pan de Santa Ana, a peak nearly 3000 feet high and visible for sixty miles on a clear day - which meant that any ship sailing south - west from Curacao would sight it within a few hours. Just where the hatchet - handle joined the mainland was La Vela de Coro, a large village on the bay. A soft mud bottom, frequent breakers, a sea whipped up by almost any breeze . . . Yes, hardly the place to careen a fishing smack, let alone a frigate/ Then came Cumarebo, which although the Spanish gave it the name 'Puerto' was simply an open roadstead in front of the town. After that was another small village, and then nothing for a dozen miles to Punta Zamuro, a coastline formed by sandy beaches, clay bluffs, shallow water . . . Punta Aguida had a red clay bluff and shallows of less than three fathoms more than a mile offshore . . . And, after a long stretch, the Bay of San Juan. The point sheltered it from the Trade winds coming from the east and north - east, but there was only twenty feet of water a mile offshore. As long as La Perle was not half full of water, she could get fairly dose in, but she would not careen . . . Now for the distances. He opened the dividers. Fifty miles would bring La Perle to anywhere on the Peninsula; a hundred miles would take her down to San Juan de los Cayos. The wind would be on the beam so she would make a fast passage, but give her the benefit of the doubt and say she averaged only three knots and went to San Juan de los Cayos. Thirty - three hours, a day and a half at the outside.