By now the Juno, jogging along under topsails, was approaching the Diamond Rock, and Ramage searched the coast from the headland at the foot of Diamond Hill round to the eastward, to half-way along the instep. He was irritated that the Welcome's commanding officer had not been able to tell him the precise position of the shore batteries, and he knew that at this very moment Frenchmen would be watching the Juno with telescopes, noting and reporting to Fort Royal that the brig had gone off to the north and a frigate had taken her place.
Having criticized Captain Eames and the poor fellow commanding the Welcome, who had obviously been thankful to have lasted a year in the West Indies without dying of yellow fever or running the Welcome on a coral reef, Ramage had to decide what they should have done, and do it himself. The Admiral's orders were simple enough: blockade Fort Royal. The French Army is desperate for supplies, and so is the Navy. Paris probably knows about it and various ministers may be trying to do something to help.
He put his telescope away in the binnacle box drawer and resumed walking the deck oblivious to the fact that the officers had noted his furrowed brow and were alarmed at the way he was glaring at a spot a few feet ahead. Paris must be well aware of the position, but what would the ministers do? They could dispatch a single merchantman, hoping that they could sneak past the British blockade. In that way supplies could be sent out as soon as they became available. He knew well enough that the dockyards and arsenals of France were short of almost every item needed to keep a ship at sea and an army on its feet. The alternative was to send out a convoy escorted by two or three frigates or even a ship of the line. A convoy with three frigates might well be able to find its way through the blockade - especially if Paris knew that there was usually only a single British frigate on patrol. That was the one thing about which Paris could never be sure: Admiral Davis had said that he appeared occasionally with the Invincible and two or three frigates off Fort Royal Bay...
A convoy seemed more likely than single ships. If the convoy had an escort of two frigates, then the Juno had a chance of picking off a merchantman or two and of surviving. If there was a ship of the line he had the choice of making a fight of it or bolting for Barbados to warn the Admiral. Unless the convoy was spotted far out in the Atlantic and a warning passed to Barbados, the first he would know of it would be when he saw it rounding Pointe des Salines and bearing up for Diamond Rock.
That raised another problem: he could not be in two places at once. If he was watching off Fort Royal Bay, then the whole French fleet, let alone a small convoy, could round the Pointe and get half-way up to Cap Salomon without him seeing it until it had only fifteen miles to sail to get right under the guns of Fort Royal itself.
All that was obvious enough, he told himself crossly, and until the convoy appeared it was useless making any plans: what he did depended on the size of the convoy and escort, whether it was sighted by day or night, and its position. And the wind's strength and direction. And a dozen things.
Very well, that deferred the problem of a convoy until the Juno's lookouts sighted it, which could be tomorrow or in two months' time. What could he do in the meantime to rattle the bars and annoy the French? The only bars worth rattling were those at Fort Royal. What about those two frigates that the Welcome reported in the bay? They were stripped of their yards, but that could be of no significance.
Damn, the sun was bright. He pulled his hat down to shield his eyes. What was the possibility of one of those frigates crossing her yards, bending on sails and suddenly appearing off Cap Salomon or the Diamond, loaded with troops and with half a dozen privateers in company? He rubbed the scars over his brow: the more he thought about it, the more ths possibility became a probability. It was a good twenty miles from Fort Royal Bay down to Pointe des Salines. From the time she looked into Fort Royal, went south to look round Pointe des Salines and returned to Fort Royal, the Juno would have to cover forty miles. In a light breeze that could take eight hours.
Eight hours - yards up, sails bent on, and the ship under way: yes, it would need careful preparation but the French could do it. But in fact unless he looked into Fort Royal at dawn every day the French could have the whole night as well, with special lookouts along the coast warning them as the Juno made her way back north again ...
Those two frigates which had caused both Eames and the Welcome's lieutenant so little concern could break the blockade. If they knew when a convoy was due they could sail out and either capture the Juno or drive her off, and then help escort the convoy in. It was all very well for Admiral Davis to shrug off the little harbours of La Trinité and Robert on the Atlantic coast of Martinique. Certainly they were too small for landing supplies which would then have to be carried right over the mountain ridges to Fort Royal; but either harbour was ideally placed for a small French ship to sail in from the Atlantic and warn of a convoy's approach. Suddenly the blockade of Fort Royal took on a different appearance. Captain Eames and the Welcome brig had been lucky ...
Ramage found himself standing on the fo'c'sle by the belfry with no memory of having left the quarterdeck, but he was at last fairly clear in his mind what the blockade of Fort Royal entailed. He was startled to see Diamond Rock only a couple of miles ahead, fine on the starboard bow, and it was a fantastic sight: a rocky, stark islet jutting up out of the sea like an enormous tooth, nearly 600 feet high and each side about 400 yards long. Greyish rock mottled with patches of green and brown, like a great cheese attacked by mildew. With an effort he switched his thoughts back to the main problem.
First, he had to find out about the French frigates, and that meant going in close to Fort Royal to have a good look. Then he needed to know exactly what other ships and vessels the French had available in Fort Royal Bay, and that included the schooners and droghers anchored in the Salée River, on the south side. That was going to be a more difficult task because almost the entire Salée River anchorage was hidden behind Pointe de la Rose, with a fearsome number of shoals protecting it: even the French did not attempt to pass through them without local knowledge.
How well Fort Royal itself was protected was another question. The city itself did not matter, but the anchorage where the frigates were was vital. The batteries would be somewhere in the lee of Fort St Louis, which was built on a spit of land poking out southwards like a thumb. There would be other batteries, but the guns of Fort St Louis would be the most dangerous. Again Captain Eames and the Welcome's lieutenant were vague ...
He strode aft and told Wagstaffe, who was the officer of the deck, to pass the word for Mr Southwick to come to his cabin with the chart of Fort Royal Bay. At the top of the companionway he stared once again at the Diamond Rock. It seemed less menacing now because there was a scattering of green over the grey rock, like shreds of baize, and shrubs clung precariously to the almost sheer slopes. Beyond the Rock, across the Fours Channel, he could see a long silvery band of beach on the mainland: that must be the Grande Anse du Diamant, where the Welcome ran the drogher ashore, and which ended at the cliffs of Diamond Hill.