Ramage nodded and Aitken bellowed: ‘Number one gun, fire!'
Ramage barely registered the crash of the gun firing - apart from noting that up here it was free of any echoes - as he trained his telescope on the rocks at the foot of Diamond Hill. He waited anxiously, but there was no plume in the water showing the shot had fallen short. Nor was there any sign that it had ricocheted off the rocks.
He turned to find Aitken almost dancing with excitement. 'You were right, sir!' he said gleefully. 'It reached, just think of that! I don't know how you calculated that it would, sir, but there's the proof! No splash so it must have hit the land.'
Ramage was embarrassed. An evasive answer and a knowing look had been interpreted by Aitken as the confidence of superior knowledge. For a moment he wondered how many times in the past the various captains under whom he had served had got away with the same thing. Still, Aitken was only assuming that the shot had hit the land because it had not splashed in the sea. It might have disintegrated in mid-flight: that sort of thing was rare but not unknown and they would never have seen the tiny splashes made by the pieces. He had to be sure, and luckily there was an easy way of finding out without revealing his doubts.
'Mr Aitken, let us see how accurately we are shooting. I want the gun captain of number two gun to drop a shot a hundred yards short of the rocks and watch for a ricochet.' The second round landed just in front of the rocks, ricocheted twice and disappeared. 'Fifty yards short at the first grave, sir,' Aitken reported.
'Very well, I think we can get back to the Juno.' He looked round for the petty officer who was being left in charge of the batteries. 'Ah, Richardson. Rig a mast out of those spars you used as sheers and watch the Juno and the Surcouf for signals. You have a copy of the signals?' The man dug into the inside of his plaited sennet hat and showed Ramage the thin volume. 'Good, and you have a set of flags. Fine, so all you need to do is keep a sharp lookout. You'll see any ship rounding Pointe des Salines long before us. Keep in touch with the lower batteries. Any questions?'
The man shook his head and Ramage smiled. 'You have food and water for three months, and muskets to chase the goats. However, I hope someone will be up to see you before then.'
It took Ramage and Aitken twenty minutes to scramble down the steep slopes to reach the site for the third battery, two hundred feet lower down the Rock. It was a perfect place: a cave in which all the provisions had been stored and still large enough to house a dozen men. With a flat platform of rock in front of it, facing to the north, it was large enough for two or three guns, let alone the single 12-pounder which was all that Ramage could spare from the Juno. He saw that Lacey and his men had already rigged the jackstay.
From this point the rock face dropped down to the Marchesa battery so steeply that men were having to use rope ladders. Ramage commented on the steepness and asked Aitken who had managed to climb it in the first place and get a ladder into position. The young Scot admitted that several seamen had tried and found that after fifty feet or so they could get no higher. In the end he had climbed up himself, with a coil of rope slung over his shoulder. Once he reached the platform he had secured an end of the rope and hurled the coil down to the waiting men, who had bent on a rope ladder which he had hauled up.
Both men were standing on the platform and looking across the Fours Channel to Diamond Hill when they noticed that the ropes holding one of the two ladders were shaking. A minute or two later Lacey's perspiring face appeared over the edge of the rock.
'I'm afraid we're behind, sir,' he reported apologetically to Ramage, 'but I'm just bringing up a party to rig this end of the luff tackle; then we can start hoisting the gun immediately.'
'It might be better to hoist the carriage first,’ Ramage said, 'just in case ...'
Lacey's eyes fell. 'Certainly, sir, if you would prefer it.' Ramage glanced at Aitken and laughed. 'No, carry on, Lacey, you're in charge!'
The Fourth Lieutenant brightened up immediately. 'If you'll excuse me a moment, sir . . .' he said and ran to the edge of the rock, calling down to the men climbing the ladders to hurry.
He returned a moment later and asked Ramage almost shyly: 'If you could wait a minute or two, sir, I think the men would like you to be here when they secure the luff tackle: everything will then be ready for hoisting. And, sir . . .'
Ramage guessed what was coming next: they had thought of a name for this battery too, and wanted his permission. He was pleased with the names they had chosen so far: Gianna would be delighted, and it was a fine thing to honour the Juno frigate. What would it be this time?
'Go on, then,' he prompted Lacey.
'Well, sir, they want to call it the Ramage battery.'
Ramage felt embarrassed for the second time in half an hour. The men meant well, but ...
'I am flattered, Lacey, but - well, I think the Admiralty might regard it as ... er, well, a piece of pretentiousness on my part.'
'Ah, but we thought of that, sir,' Lacey exclaimed triumphantly. 'Officially it could be named Ramage after your father, because he fought his great battle in sight of Diamond Rock. But we, the Junos, sir, would know differently . . .'
Aitken, sensing Ramage's discomfiture, said quietly: 'The Captain's father is the Earl of Blazey, you know.'
'I know he's the Earl of Blazey now' Lacey said doggedly, 'but he was Lord Ramage when he fought the battle 'cos he hadn't succeeded to the earldom. Just as the Captain is Lord Ramage now, but he'll be the Earl of Blazey one day.'
Ramage realized that Lacey and the men must have had a long discussion about it, but Lacey was too young to remember that the battle had been a desperate affair, his father being sent out too late with only a few ships to fight an overwhelming French fleet. The result had been predictable and his father had been made the scapegoat for the stupidity of the government of the day, receiving no recognition for an action which had revealed him as a brilliant tactician. He suddenly decided that this little battery could indeed be named Ramage, and whatever the Junos thought he would be naming it after his father.
Lacey saw Ramage's face softening and he grinned. 'I can tell the men you agree, sir?'
Ramage nodded and then said emphatically: 'I agree to it being named after my father because of the battle.'
'Oh yes, sir,' Lacey said, 'they'll understand that.'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ramage arrived back on board the Juno to find Southwick waiting with ill-concealed impatience and asking for permission to leave the ship for two hours and to use the jolly boat. It was such an unusual request that Ramage frowned for a moment.
'You want to go over to the Surcouf?’
'No sir, I want to visit the Marchesa battery,' he said gruffly.
Ramage then noticed that the Master had a bulky canvas bag normally used for carrying papers under his arm.
'You can have the boat,' Ramage said grudgingly, 'but I can't really spare you for two hours. What on earth is there to do at the Marchesa battery? Lacey was just about to sway up the gun when I left.'
Southwick gave one of his sniffs. 'I've got my paints and sketching pad here, sir,' he said. Then in answer to the puzzled look on Ramage's face: 'Masters of all the King's ships are required to send sketches of unusual coastlines and harbours to the Navy Board, sir, as you well know, and I've always been very punctilious about that'
'I know, I know, and your sketches and paintings are excellent, but what is unusual about the Diamond Rock that the Navy Board don't already know?'
Southwick sighed, obviously unwilling to reveal his real motive. 'I wanted to make a water-colour of the side of the Rock showing the Marchesa battery, sir, and frame it, and I was going to ask you to give it to Her Ladyship with the compliments of the Junos.'