Southwick shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you'd be good enough to keep an eye on the cable, sir, I'll try the forecourse.'

The end of the shoal was on the Juno's quarter now, so there was deep water right out of the bay. La Mutine was riding at anchor and he saw her boat heading for the shore, looking like a tiny water beetle from this distance. It would probably be nightfall before he knew whether the French had honoured the flag of truce: Baker was due to rejoin them by midnight.

He looked forward and saw the Juno's, great forecourse tumbling down from the yard, creased and shapeless like an enormous white curtain until the men began sheeting it home and the wind gave it shape, swelling it into a billowing curve. He watched the cable tauten slightly, saw that the quartermaster was now standing back from the wheel, quite confident the four men could handle it.

Ramage took out the telescope to inspect the Surcouf. There were a dozen men on the fo'c'sle. His orders had included a party with axes ready to cut the cable in an emergency. He thought he could make out Wagstaffe on the quarterdeck and he was standing still, not rushing about, so he must be confident.

Southwick came aft and Ramage gestured astern at the Juno's wake. 'We've picked up a knot or more and she seems to like it. We'll try the topsail as well.'

Fifteen minutes later the Juno, with the Surcouf in tow and La Créole tacking across their wake, passed half a mile south of Pointe des Nègres, at last clear of Fort Royal Bay. A large Red Ensign streamed in the wind from the Surcouf, and when Ramage saw it being hoisted he grinned to himself: one of the boarders from the Juno must have taken it with him.

He was hot, he was tired, he had not slept for some thirty hours but he was cheerful. He only wanted to hear that the French had honoured La Mutine's flag of truce, taken off their wounded and the prisoners, and released the schooner, and he would know that his gamble had succeeded completely.

There had been casualties, but in the confusion on board the Surcouf he had not noticed any Junos lying on the deck. There must have been a few, but so far they had paid a small price for the capture of a frigate and two schooners. He looked down at the compass and then across at Cap Salomon, which was just opening up to the south as the two frigates continued westward.

'Mr Southwick, I think we can now alter course for the Diamond,' he said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ramage's steward brought in a pot of hot tea on a tray, put it on the side of the desk and said: 'When will you be ready for your shaving water, sir? I've laid out fresh clothes.'

Ramage looked up weary and unshaven and put down his pen. His eyes felt full of sand and his head ached. 'Another half an hour,' he said. 'Pass the word for Mr Southwick and bring another cup and saucer for him.' He heard the distant bleating of several goats and the mewing of gulls. Occasionally there was the heavy splash of a pelican diving into the water nearby in the endless search for fish, but apart from that and the noise of men working on deck, there was only the sound of water lapping against the Juno's side as she swung to her anchorage early this Monday morning.

The anchorage, two cables north of Diamond Rock in five fathoms of water, was a comfortable one. The Surcouf was lying just to the south, riding to the cable that had towed her down from Fort Royal, and La Mutine was between the two frigates and the great rock. Out to the west La Créole was stretching seaward until she could see up the coast towards Cap Salomon and then back to round the Diamond. One of the Juno's lookouts aloft was watching the coast but so far he had nothing to report. There was no sign of activity along the two miles of sandy beach forming the Grande Anse du Diamant. No doubt the Governor would send cavalry patrols along the coast to see if the Juno and her prize were at anchor in one of the many bays or if both ships were on their way to Barbados. The naval commander would probably have told him that it was easy enough for the Juno to tow the Surcouf the hundred or so miles to windward; he might even speculate that the Juno's captain would leave the two captured schooners to maintain the blockade, so that the expected convoy, which the French had no reason to think Ramage knew about, had nothing to fear. Ramage was reasonably sure (or, more correctly, trying to persuade himself that he could be) that the French would never dream he would try to finish refitting the Surcouf. He was quite sure Rear-Admiral Davis would never dream of it.

He stared down at the report that he had been writing: it was the third draft, and young Baker was waiting to leave for Barbados in La Mutine to deliver it to the Admiral. Describing the night attack on the Juno by the two schooners and their capture was no problem; using La Mutine as a flag of truce, and the Juno and the Créole to cut out the Surcouf was covered in four paragraphs. The warning that the French were expecting a convoy in a week took a couple of lines. He included the polite suggestion that the convoy could be a week early, in which case it could arrive any moment, or a week late. What was hard was trying to tell the Admiral he was getting the Surcouf ready for the voyage to Barbados without the wily old man guessing that he intended holding on to her until the last moment, so that he had two frigates to tackle the convoy. The Admiral could, and probably would, argue that Ramage should have used the Juno to tow her to Barbados, where many more men were available to get her ready, and that the two schooners could maintain a watch on Port Royal while the Juno was away, and that by the time the convoy was due the Juno would be back ...

There were other reasons, too, and Ramage hoped that Southwick, who had just returned on board after spending most of the night surveying the Surcouf, would confirm them. He picked up the pen and scratched out a sentence. It was always easier to fight an action than to write the dispatch about it.

He poured out a cup of tea and idly picked up the letter which was sealed with the arms of France and addressed to 'The Admiral Commanding the English Forces at Barbados', thought once more about opening it and decided for the fifth or sixth time to send it on to Admiral Davis for whom, Baker had told him, the Governor of Fort Royal had really intended it.

The French had finally honoured the flag of truce, though it had been necessary to send the French lieutenant on shore first. Baker said it had been a close-run affair. As soon as the French wounded had been taken on shore and the prisoners freed, the French authorities had wanted to seize the schooner and take Baker and his men prisoner. At that point the French lieutenant had unexpectedly intervened. He had described how Bowen had worked without sleep tending the French wounded; how Ramage had asked him to conduct the funeral service over the French dead; said that, as a French officer, he had agreed to the exchange and that he had come on shore in the first place on parole. If the authorities held the ship, he had said dramatically (and Baker had given a fair imitation of the gestures that went with it) he would regard himself as still a prisoner of the English. The French naval commander had finally come down to the beach and threatened to arrest the lieutenant for treason and mutiny; the lieutenant had said his honour and the honour of France was at stake, and that he would welcome being arrested because the news would eventually get back to the English. They would know then that he had not broken his word of honour and his parole but been forced into it by his own senior officers who should know better but apparently did not.

That, Baker said, had decided it. The lieutenant was hustled off, but half an hour later another officer came out and handed over the letter from the Governor and, with ill grace, said that if La Mutine was not under way within fifteen minutes the guns of Fort St Louis would open fire. Baker had asked for an assurance that the terms of the exchange of prisoners would be observed but the officer had said he knew nothing about it; he was an aide to the Governor and had been told only to deliver the letter. With that Baker had weighed and La Mutine had caught up with the two frigates before they had reached the Diamond.