For the third time in an hour Ramage was embarrassed. 'She'll be delighted, Southwick, and so will I.'
With that he decided to go down to his cabin and put in an hour or two studying the chart of Martinique and then bring his Journal up to date. He might as well start a draft of a report to Admiral Davis, reporting that the Surcouf was ready and three batteries had been established.
He spread the chart on his desk and with a pair of compasses scribed a circle round the Diamond Rock so that one edge just touched the land at the foot of Diamond Hill. The guns certainly reached that distance, and it was startling how the western section of the circle would affect French ships making for Fort Royal outside the Diamond Rock after rounding Pointe des Salines. It did not add much to the actual distance they would sail - sixteen miles from the Pointe up to Cap Salomon staying inside the Diamond Rock, the most direct route, and only seventeen and a half keeping outside the radius of the Juno battery's guns. But it forced them another couple of miles offshore, into the strong current which might sweep them out westward, well to leeward of Fort Royal.
The last few days had shown him why the French ships, men-o'-war as well as merchantmen, liked to hug the coast once they rounded Pointe des Salines. For half the distance to the Diamond they did not risk running out of wind entirely because the land to the east was not so mountainous. If they lost some of the wind as they came up to the Diamond, intending to pass through the Fours Channel, at least they were out of the worst of the current.
If the current was north-going, they could risk going outside the Diamond, but he knew from Captain Eames's experience and Wagstaffe's brief reports from La Créole that it was predominantly west-going. He laughed to himself. If he forced too many French merchantmen so far to the west that they ended up across the Caribbean at Port de la Paix at the western end of Hispaniola, there would soon be complaints to the Admiralty from the Commander-in-Chief at Jamaica that the French forces there were being heavily reinforced with supplies. It was an ill-wind...
He rolled up the chart and put it aside. Bowen's sick list was under a paperweight, left there by the clerk, and he glanced through it. Only one man on it, and that the Marine wounded by a cutlass in the attack on the Diamond Hill battery. As young Paolo was not mentioned it showed that the boy was carrying out his duties despite his raw hands.
He opened his journal again, made an entry and then read through those he had made for the previous few days. The Surcouf prepared for sea, the guns for the Marchesa, Juno and Ramage batteries installed on the Diamond Rock, with three months' provisions landed for the men, plus water and sheep. La Créole maintaining a patrol, the Juno battery's range tried . . . The only thing missing was an entry recording the return of La Mutine. The distance to Barbados was just over a hundred miles, but it was a beat to windward. La Mutine was close-winded, so would probably cover 180 miles because of frequent tacks. She would make at least six knots to windward, probably eight. At a conservative estimate Baker should have arrived in Bridgetown thirty hours after leaving the Diamond some time last Tuesday. He would have reported to the Admiral, who might have kept him until noon on Wednesday before letting him sail. Or the Admiral might have told him to wait until the Invincible could get to sea and make for Martinique. A ship of the line like the Invincible would cover the distance to Martinique in eighteen hours at the most. Leaving at noon on Wednesday she would arrive off Martinique in the darkness, which the Admiral might have wanted to avoid, so she might have left that evening, to arrive off Pointe des Salines at daylight on Thursday.
That was yesterday and neither La Mutine nor the Invincible had arrived. But the convoy was due (as far as the French authorities in Fort Royal knew) by tomorrow at the latest.
He checked his figures again, but he had not made a mistake. So now, this afternoon, he had to assume that he was going to have to attack the convoy and its escorts with the Juno, the Surcouf and La Créole. And the Diamond batteries, of course, with all the advantage of surprise that they would have.
Two frigates and a schooner - he had managed to double the number of frigates maintaining the blockade, and had a schooner as well. It was a nice little squadron for the most junior captain in the Navy List to command, however temporarily. But no amount of juggling with figures could change the fact that he did not have enough men to use all the ships effectively.
He began writing again. Fourteen men at the Juno battery, seven at the Ramage and six at the Marchesa. Lacey had been disappointed at not being put in command of the Diamond, but Ramage needed him. That made a total of twenty-seven men on the Diamond. Wagstaffe and twenty men were in La Créole, and the Third Lieutenant and twenty men were away in La Mutine, wherever the devil she was. With nine Junos killed in the original fight with the two schooners, he was short of seventy-eight officers and seamen. The Juno's original ship's company had totalled 212, so he had only 134 officers and men left, including Marines.
He checked the figures again. Yes, Aitken and Lacey, Southwick, the Marine Lieutenant, a master's mate who had proved completely useless, two midshipmen, the Surgeon and 126 warrant officers, petty officers and men, to share between the Juno and the Surcouf. He was seventy-eight short if he wanted to man the Juno alone ...
He sighed, feeling his earlier confidence slipping away as he stared at the figures he had scrawled. Then he took another sheet of paper and drew in two columns, heading one 'Juno' and the other 'Surcouf.
He wrote in his own name at the top of the 'Juno' column, followed by Southwick, Orsini, Bowen and Jackson, He would sort out the remaining sixty-three later. In the 'Surcouf column he wrote the names of Aitken, Lacey, Rennick (which meant that all the Marines would have to go as well), Benson, and the master's mate - he could never remember his name and so scribbled 'M.M.'
It seemed a fair division: Aitken had Lacey as his second-in-command and Rennick was a useful man whose Marines could be relied upon. He could have the gunner and the bos'n, too, and the Juno, would make do with the mates. The carpenter might as well stay in the Juno: in battle he spent his time below, standing by with shot plugs and mauls.
He was hot, sticky, tired and depressed. His head ached from the heat of the cabin and his eyes ached from spending all the morning and much of the afternoon in the glaring sun, climbing up and down that damned Diamond Rock like an outcast goat. Suddenly he sat up as a thought struck him: if the Juno was in battle and had sixty-three men and her Captain and Master still alive and unwounded, he would never dream of breaking off the action.
Then he remembered his famous Monday morning lecture to the Juno's officers about preparing against the unexpected. This was a perfect example of what he meant. Put yourself in the place of the senior officers of the French escort, he told himself. If there were three or four frigates, the Frenchman would be the most senior of the captains. If there was a ship of the line, then it would be a very senior captain, if not a rear-admiral.
As the French rounded Pointe des Salines they would be looking for the British ships known to be blockading Fort Royal. They would have been worrying about them for some time; probably ever since they left France. They would not know whether to expect one frigate or four; a ship of the line and three frigates or a carriage and four greys complete with postillions. However, if they saw two manned British frigates they would assume that they were fully manned and ready for action, and would behave accordingly. They would never for a moment expect that neither ship had a third of her proper complement. That, he realized, put the unexpected on his side. And the batteries on the Diamond represented his most powerful surprise.