Ramage's Devil

Now they were passing the captain's skylight - built over the forward side of the great cabin it was a mixed blessing: it provided air and light, and he could hear what was going on, but sometimes the quarterdeck was a noisy place: at night there could be the thunderous flap of sails followed at once by the officer of the deck cursing the quartermaster, and the quartermaster cursing the helmsmen for their inattention... The officer of the deck at night would regularly call to the lookouts (six of them, two on the fo'c'sle, two amidships, and one on each quarter) to make sure they were awake and alert ... Then, Ramage thought sourly, there would be one of those 'Is-it-isn't-it' conversations, probably between the sharp-eyed young Orsini and the officer of the deck. One would think he glimpsed a sail, or land, or breakers in the darkness. The other would be equally sure there was nothing. The muttered but heated debate would be enough to make sure that a drowsy Ramage wakened completely, and often, although he knew there was no land for a hundred miles, he would pull on a cloak and go on deck - there was always a chance ...

Finally the last gun on the starboard side and a few more paces brought them up to the taffrail and time to turn back, both men turning inwards, a habit which ensured no interruption if they had been talking.

'This Count of Rennes, sir?' Aitken said cautiously. 'You've met him?'

'He has been a friend of my family since long before the war began.'

'Ah, so you feel all this personally, too, sir?'

'Yes - but he escaped to England at the Revolution and lived in England until the recent treaty. He still has an estate in Kent. But we're chasing L'Espoir because he's one of the most important French Royalists alive today.'

'And he won't be alive for long if they get him to Cayenne. That Devil's Island is well named, so I've heard.'

'There are two or three islands. I think the French call them the Îles du Salut. One is for convicts and another for political prisoners.'

'I have some notes on Cayenne and the islands,' Aitken commented. 'Taken from some old sailing directions from the Seventies. They probably haven't changed much!'

'You have them on board?'

'In my cabin, sir. I checked as soon as you mentioned where L'Espoir was bound.'

'We'll go over them soon, just in case.'

'That's where you'll catch the rabbit, sir,' Aitken commented. 'A poacher doesn't set a snare in the middle of the field; no, he puts it just outside the burrow. Then you catch the rabbit when it runs for home!'

Ramage stopped for a few moments. Yes, Aitken's simile made sense: why comb the Atlantic? Three thousand miles was the distance, and assuming the Calypso's lookouts could see ten miles on each beam in daylight, they were searching a swathe three thousand miles long and twenty miles wide - sixty thousand square miles. Which, to continue Aitken's simile, must be like walking across a county unable to see over the top of the grass. Cayenne was the burrow: that's where he had to set the noose.

Yet... yet... He resumed walking with Aitken.

'It doesn't leave us room or time to make any mistakes,' he said. 'If we're off the coast of Cayenne and L'Espoir heaves in sight, she only has to cover five miles or so and she's safe.'

'But if we're patrolling that stretch of the coast with all our guns run out, sir,' Aitken protested.

'You might just as well leave them unloaded with the tompions in,' Ramage said grimly. 'I can hardly fire into a ship where a quarter of those on board are likely to be those I'm ordered to rescue...'

'Then how are we ... ?' Aitken broke off and came to a stop facing Ramage. He shook his head. 'I've spent many hours trying to decide the route L'Espoir would take, so that we could intercept her, but I didn't think of ... Yet it's so obvious!'

'Not that obvious,' Ramage assured him. 'Neither the admiral nor his flag captain considered it in drawing up my orders!'

'We're going to have to bluff 'em,' Aitken said dourly.

'Bluff won't help much: the French will see Devil's Island close to leeward and all they have to do is make a bolt for it.'

'Would they risk damage to their spars with land so close to leeward?'

'Of course. From what I've read, it's a mud-and-mangroves-and-sand coast and it's theirs, so even if we sent all their masts by the board, the ship would drift on to a friendly lee shore and the French would march their prisoners off at low water. Not quite that, because there's ten feet or so of tide, but you know what I mean.'

'But L'Espoir's people would know they'd then be marooned there for months, until the next batch of prisoners are sent out. Worse than that, until the next ship arrives that manages to break our blockade of Brest.'

Ramage thought of the problem often facing captains: how to train their officers fully to consider all the enemy's advantages without getting too overwhelmed or depressed to think of ways of overcoming them. An overwhelmed or depressed officer was almost as dangerous as an overconfident one. Well, perhaps Aitken would get there by himself.

'The French captain may have guessed that a British frigate is after him,' Ramage said, without adding the corollary that he would have had a long time to think of his advantages and disadvantages.

'I don't see why, sir,' Aitken said politely but firmly. 'In fact, if you'll pardon me, I think it'll be just the opposite. He'll be treating it like an unexpected cruise.'

'But he can't be sure he won't be intercepted somewhere by a patrolling British frigate.'

Ramage almost grinned at the effort Aitken, usually a very patient man, was making not to show his complete disagreement with this sort of reasoning. In other words, Ramage thought, it's working: Aitken really is considering!

'Sir, no ship that he meets, not one, whether French or British, Spanish or Dutch, will know that the war has started again: the news can't possibly have reached them yet. Cayenne and Devil's Island won't know of the new war until L'Espoir arrives, and her captain knows that as long as he smiles and waves if he sights a British frigate, he's in no danger because the British frigate will think the world is at peace.

'The Calypso, sir,' Aitken continued emphatically, 'is the most westerly British ship that knows the war has started again. If we've overtaken L'Espoir, then we are the westernmost ship in existence.'

Ramage nodded agreement. 'We can be thankful Bonaparte didn't send out a dozen frigates from Brest the moment our ambassador left Paris: in areas off Madeira and the Canaries they could have captured dozens of John Company and other ships all bound to and from England. But he didn't because he's a soldier and not a sailor, and anyway they're very short of seamen in Brest.'

'Aye,' Aitken agreed. 'That Bonaparte seems to be a bonny soldier and we can be thankful he didn't take to the sea. Anyway, L'Espoir will have no reason to think the Calypso knows there's a war.'

'Wouldn't she be suspicious at seeing a British frigate so far south on this coast? About eight hundred miles south of the nearest British naval headquarters, Barbados?' Ramage continued testing Aitken.

'Sir, the Calypso's French-built, and apart from the fact that she's a little smarter than the usual French national ship, there's no way she'd know we're British unless we're flying our own colours.'

Now Aitken was straying from the point Ramage wanted him to discover and consider.

'Yes, I agree with all that but - and it's a big "but" - Bonaparte never forgives anyone who makes a mistake. In France there's a very complicated secret police system under which everyone is supposed to report on everyone else. One effect is that anyone failing to carry out his orders is likely to be accused of treason. Failure is frequently labelled treachery to the Revolution. And that usually means the guillotine - few brought before the courts in France are ever found not guilty.'