Daylight had been a melancholy time on board the frigate because Ramage had to conduct a funeral service for the Iwenty-three Spaniards and then for the five men from the Calypso who had been killed while boarding the Jocasta. Yet the ship's company had soon cheered up after the last body, sewn into a hammock and with a roundshot at the feet, had disappeared over the side. Ramage sensed that the men had, like him, expected far heavier casualties, and most of them were too concerned with the wonder of being alive to mourn five lost shipmates for long.
Ramage paused to look ahead at Isla de Margarita and then resumed his pacing of the starboard side of the quarterdeck. By now the Santa Barbara would be in Santa Cruz and Velasquez and Lopez - and the Captain-General's nephew - would be telling their story. By now a messenger (two or three of them if the Mayor had any sense) would be galloping along the coast, carrying the warning to the Captain-General in Caracas that La Perla had been captured. Looking across the mountains, which swept on westwards like enormous petrified waves, Ramage did not envy the messengers.
The last cast of the log showed that the Jocasta was making nine and a half knots. If they could keep up this speed they would arrive off La Guaira soon after dawn tomorrow. In fact it mattered little whether it was dawn or noon, providing they reached there in daylight and before the messengers.
"A particular cargo." The phrase nagged him. The word "particular" had a certain significance when used in the Royal Navy, usually meaning that something was both important and secret. When Admiral Nelson had been given the task of covering the English Channel against the threat of invasion, he had been given command of a squadron "to be employed upon a particular service".
Ramage cursed his deficient Spanish. Normally it was good enough to pass himself off as a Spaniard, but occasionally he was caught out by the deeper significance of a particular word. Southwick might be right; the "particular cargo" from Cartagena could be a present from the Viceroy, something intended to curry favour at Court.
In steering for La Guaira he was now acting without orders. If anything went wrong Admiral Davis would be quite justified in accusing him of actually disobeying orders, since his instructions had been commendably brief: he was to sail to the Main, recapture the Jocasta and bring her back to English Harbour. There was not an inch of slack in the wording.
If Ramage brought back a nice fat prize, the Admiral would not throw up his hands in horror and refuse his share, but if Ramage lost the Jocasta or the Calypso while going after a prize of unknown value, it would be a different story. Captain Ramage would probably spend the rest of his life on the beach on half-pay, being used as an object lesson to other young captains, like a carrion crow strung up on a piece of string beside a gamekeeper's lodge.
Should he forget about that damned merchant ship?
Supposing he managed to cut her out and found that the "particular cargo" was an elaborate suite of furniture made of some exotic tropical wood, or even cages of parrots or rare birds intended to amuse the vapid ladies of the Spanish Court? It could be something like that, because the normal exports to Spain from the Main were items like indigo, tobacco, hides and sometimes cotton.
From Admiral Davis's point of view, he could have had the Jocasta back, with the destruction of the two fortresses guarding Santa Cruz as a bonus. His orders would have been obeyed. He could report to the Admiralty that their instructions were carried out. If Ramage brought back a merchant ship full of birds and furniture as a prize it would be doubtful if the Admiral's dispatch to London would even mention it.
He picked up the telescope and looked to the north. There was no sign of the Calypso. The lookouts aloft could probably still see her sails, but from down here at deck level she had disappeared below the curvature of the earth. She was fast - faster than the Jocasta - and Wagstaffe would waste no time. Would he go along the north side of the chain of islands, or stay south? Either way there was no chance of the Jocasta catching up with her before she reached the rendezvous.
Southwick, the officer of the deck, caught his eye, obviously wanting to chat.
"The chart doesn't help us much, sir."
"It rarely does along this coast, " Ramage commented sourly. "But surely the Spanish ones I gave you are better than ours?"
"They give a few more soundings, but the current is marked 'strong and variable'. This Margarita Channel - I just hope there are no shoals the chartmakers missed."
"We'll soon know. I hadn't realized that Isla de Margarita was so mountainous."
"Aye, that peak, San Juan they call it, is more than three thousand feet high. They reckon you can see it seventy-five miles away in clear weather."
Ramage nodded. "There are more mountain peaks along this coast than I thought existed! "
"It's an iron-bound coast for sure, " Southwick said soberly. "This ahead might be called the Pearl Island but it's a rare old pile of rock! I wonder if they still find pearls?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see why not. It depends on the oysters! "
"They've probably cleaned them all out, " Southwick said gloomily.
"I'm sure the King of Spain has enough pearls in his crown hy now, " Ramage said vaguely, thinking of breakfast and then a few hours' sleep. "Call me as soon as we reach the Margarita Channel."
Southwick watched Ramage disappear down the companionway and then took off his hat with all the ceremony of a bishop removing his mitre. The wind blew through his white hair and refreshed him. There were times when he felt his years. However, he felt happier now, since he was at last convinced that the Captain had given Rennick the job of capturing Castillo San Antonio only because he wanted the Master on board for the passage out of Santa Cruz.
He had been with Mr Ramage enough years now to recognize most of his moods, but he was damned if he could understand some of them. Just now, for example, he had been pacing the deck with a face as long as a yard of pump water, and snappy and sarcastic as a henpecked parson. Why? He should have been as cheerful as a bandmaster; he had just done the impossible - here was the Jocasta bowling along the coast under stunsails, and less than twelve hours ago she was moored in Santa Cruz with a Spanish captain strutting her quarterdeck. Why the long face? Yet while going in to Santa Cruz with the Calypso, playing a game of bluff where the slightest mistake would have seen the frigate blown out of the water by the batteries, the Captain had had a grin on his face like a curate who had just converted the Devil.
Perhaps he was worried about chasing after this merchant ship at La Guaira. If the Jocasta ran up on an uncharted reef - he looked ahead nervously and then glanced at the binnacle - it would be hard to explain away to the Admiral. Would he understand how that phrase "a particular cargo" had intrigued them all?
He looked astern at the Jocasta's wake. The wind was freshening as the sun came up and with the sails rap full the ship would be making more than ten knots within half an hour. He eyed the stunsail booms projecting out from the ends of the yards and wondered when they were last inspected for rot. The metal fittings were rusty - he could see stained wood from down here.
Margarita was coming up fast now. He turned to Orsini, who was pacing the deck, telescope under his arm, and no doubt dreaming, like most midshipmen on a bright sunny day, of commanding his own frigate.
"Mr Orsini! You see the island of Margarita ahead of us, on the starboard bow?"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"The tall peak is Cerro San Juan, and it is 3200 feet high. Out with your quadrant, then, and take a vertical angle and tell me how far off it is. Step lively, though, we're approaching it at nearly ten knots! "