Aitken shook his head ruefully. 'At the moment I'm afraid they're more of a danger to themselves than an enemy, sir.'
'Very well, give 'em plenty of exercise with small arms, and remember they'll be using both muskets and pistols at night, and one gun going off accidentally can raise the alarm. Exercise them at rowing with muffled oars - oh yes, you look surprised, but believe me, Aitken, it's harder than it sounds. It isn't just frapping oars with bits of canvas, it's the whole attitude of the men in the boat - not to bellow an oath if they stub their toes, not to smuggle drink into the boat on the pretext of drinking it to keep warm . . .’he glanced at Southwick as the Master nodded vigorously.
'More boat operations have been wrecked by drink than anything else, sir,' Southwick said. 'The men hoard their tot and take it with them. They don't realize when they've drunk too much and the officer doesn't see it going on, and then they get stupid or quarrelsome . . . Search every man a'fore they get into the boat, sir, 'tis the only way.'
‘The boat guns,' Ramage said. 'Loading, aiming and firing those little brutes is difficult work in anything of a sea. Spray all over the place, shot roll into the bilge, the lock gets wet, and the slow match goes out. Something else to exercise the men at, Aitken.'
'Hoisting out and recovering, sir,' Southwick prompted. 'Oh yes,' Ramage said. 'Easy enough to hoist out a boat with the stay tackle in harbour, and sometimes more difficult at Spithead. But with a sea running . . .'
'I'll see the lieutenants are warned, and with your permission I'll exercise them at it as soon as we can,' said Aitken, his face getting longer and longer.
'Night work with boats means using a compass and knowing where the devil you are,' Ramage went on relentlessly, anxious to make sure that Aitken realized that the Juno would soon be engaged on a type of operation of which the First Lieutenant had no experience. 'It means developing a sense of - well, of position, more than navigation. On a night when cloud hides the stars, most men completely lose their sense of position after a boat has rowed round in a circle a couple of times. I don't mean simply knowing you are still off a certain headland, that's obvious even to a blockhead. I'll give you an example: supposing you are leading three boats in a cutting out expedition against a ship of war at anchor in Fort Royal Bay, and you run into some guard boats and have to dodge. It's being able to keep in your mind the relative positions of the rest of the boats that matters. Like playing chess when you are blindfolded after the first four moves.'
Southwick looked startled. 'Please don't say anything like that in front of Bowen, sir,' he said pleadingly. 'That is just the sort of thing that would appeal to him, an' I'm glad to say he hasn't thought of it yet.'
'You must get Aitken interested in chess,' Ramage joked, knowing that the Surgeon was always after the Master for a game, but one look at the First Lieutenant told him that Bowen already had another victim.
'I said I knew the game before I knew what a good player he was,' Aitken admitted ruefully. 'He caught Wagstaffe, too, and now he's busy teaching Baker and Lacey.'
'It's a good exercise for the brain,' Ramage said airily - he himself was now safe from being dragooned into games. 'I'm sure you all benefit from playing with Bowen.'
Southwick caught his eye. 'Oh, we do indeed, sir,' he said gravely. 'I'll soon be walking the deck making the knight's move - two steps forward and one to the side.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
A brisk easterly wind that probably started life off the African coast, three thousand miles away across the Atlantic, brought the Juno surging through the channel between the south end of Martinique and the north end of St Lucia, her bow wave creaming away and soon losing itself among the white caps. Flying spray sparkling in the bright sun left salt drying like white dust over the decks and guns. The men were thankful for their sennet hats to keep the sun's direct glare out of their eyes.
From several miles out Ramage had identified Martinique with the three high peaks jutting up from the mountain chain running from one end of the island to the other. At the northern end and four thousand feet high, the volcano of Mont Pelée had its peak hidden in cloud, as though cooling off; Les Pitons du Carbet, a series of peaks, the highest of which was only five hundred feet lower than Pelée, had thin cloud streaming away to leeward like lancers' pennons. Only Vauclin, nine miles short of Pointe des Salines at the southern end of the island and 1650 feet high, was clear of cloud.
Southwick lowered his telescope. 'That's Cabrit Island, the big rock off Pointe des Salines. The big hill in the distance almost in line with it, sir: that's Diamond Hill, and you'll see Diamond Rock in a moment.'
Ramage looked through his telescope to the north-west. ‘There!' Southwick said. 'Like a big tooth sticking up out of the sea. More than five hundred feet high, and deep water nearly all round it!'
For a few minutes, before its outline was lost against the high land beyond it, Ramage stared at the magnified picture in the lens. A tooth, yes; the tooth of an old horse, vertical sided and slightly rounded on top, sticking up out of the sea as though Nature had accidentally dropped it, for there were no other islands anywhere near. It was going to be very useful as a navigational mark: as useful for the Juno as Mr Eddystone's remarkable lighthouse was for ships approaching Plymouth. Southwick's chart, admittedly copied from some other master, showed a five fathom patch on the north side where it might be possible to anchor. Otherwise the rock was surrounded by depths of fifty fathoms or more.
He put down the telescope. His immediate task was to find the Welcome brig, hand over her orders from the Admiral and send her on her way. He squared his shoulders and began striding up and down the starboard side of the quarterdeck, hardly noticing that everyone else moved away, for traditionally that was where the Captain of a ship could walk alone with his thoughts, be they of battle or nagging wives, duty or doxies.
Yes, there were many advantages in being a post captain, even though at the bottom of a list, and a frigate was a nice command. He ran a hand along his jaw and felt the skin smooth. The Captain's steward provided hot shaving water, while poor lieutenants had only cold in which to work up a lather. A clean shirt every day and he could change his stock as often as he wanted, knowing that the steward had several more ready, laundered and ironed. If the whim took him he could call for his steward, even though it wanted a couple of hours to noon, and demand his supper. He could insist that the officers wore their hats back to front. At a snap of his fingers he could have every alternate man flogged - or allow them to laze in their hammocks for the rest of the day.
He was king of all he surveyed, as far as the Juno was concerned, and he enjoyed it. Not because of the power he wielded, for that was only comparative (Rear-Admiral Davis had taken only seconds to decide that Captain Ramage should spend the next few weeks watching for rabbits off Martinique), but because it gave him the chance of handling a much larger ship and moulding the men. The Jocasta business seemed to have worried the Admiral, and if he had asked the question about the loyalty of the ship's company off the Lizard, Ramage would have had to give a different answer. Now the Junos were cheerful; many an evening the fiddler was in demand on the foredeck so the men could dance and skylark.