'I can't blame him,' Ramage said mildly. 'The world has tumbled round his ears in the last hour!'

The Master gave a monumental sniff. 'It hasn't finished yet,' he announced.

Ramage wagged a warning finger. 'There are three hundred men on board that ship. We have sixty-three, and the Surcouf the same. Don't forget that. We haven't captured a frigate ourselves yet: the Diamond knocked out one, and two of them locked themselves together!'

'But they don't know we're short of men,' Southwick said with a broad grin. 'With the Juno ranging up on one side of her and the Surcouf on the other, 'twouldn't surprise me if she -'

He broke off as Jackson, a look of horror on his face, pointed ahead. A moment later there was a sound like a clap of thunder which rolled and echoed back from the mountains, and where the escaping French frigate had been there was now only a swirling mass of yellow and black smoke spurting and boiling upwards and then curling and billowing. Round the base of the smoke was a mass of ripples surrounded by dozens of splashes as pieces of the ship, flung high into the air by the explosion, finally landed. There was complete silence in the Juno apart from the gurgling of the sea as the ship drove on towards the pall of smoke, which was now beginning to drift to leeward. Ramage felt sick but braced himself as he remembered that, dreadful as the sight had been - and still was, for the smoke seemed reluctant to disperse - it had saved the lives of many of his own men, those in the Juno and the Surcouf. Only then did he realize that the French ship must have blown up as a result of plunging fire from the Diamond batteries.

With the remaining frigate disabled there was no need for the Diamond batteries to go on firing at her; she would surrender to the Surcouf and the Juno.

'Orsini, hoist the Diamond's pendant and number thirty-nine.'

The Master nodded in agreement. 'Discontinue the engagement. Yes, we might as well tow her back to Bridgetown as a prize, We're assembling a bigger squadron out here than the Admiral has!'

Ramage flicked through the signal book once more and found what he wanted. Get to leeward of the chase. That would tell Aitken that he wanted to take possession of the disabled frigate before attempting to sort out the two that were locked together.

He turned to Southwick as the signal was hoisted and pointed to the frigate, which was slowly drifting westward through the Fours Channel, turning slowly like a feather in a stream as the wind caught her torn maintopsail aback and swung her round so far that she tacked and the sail filled. ‘Aitken will be getting to leeward of her in a few minutes, and I want the Juno tacking back and forth about eight hundred yards to windward.'

'She hasn't hauled down her colours yet,' Southwick commented as he put the speaking trumpet to his lips.

Ramage was less concerned with what was little more than a formality than with the problem of physically taking possession of this frigate and the two that were locked together. There would be nine hundred Frenchmen altogether. One mistake on his part, one hint to any of the three ships that the Juno and the Surcouf had less than seventy men on board, might result in some enterprising French captain boarding them, capturing both ships, getting the merchantmen manned again, and sailing the convoy into Fort Royal. There he would report the loss of one frigate blown up, two damaged but repairable, and two more captured: a net gain of one frigate for the French,

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Now the Juno was running down with a quartering wind towards the disabled frigate, which was beginning to turn again, presenting her transom. Ramage snatched the telescope and read the name, La Comète, painted in flowing gold script on a background of red. Like the Surcouf she was a well designed ship with the same flowing sheer, but two white strakes along her hull instead of one gave the appearance of lower freeboard - an example Ramage noted, of how a pot of paint can improve the sheer of one ship and spoil that of another.

He looked again, remembering the cloud of dust he had seen rising from one of the Diamond batteries' roundshot, then some of his elation vanished. The two white strakes certainly gave La Comète the appearance of a lower freeboard than usual, but the streams of water running through her scuppers told him that there was more to it than appearance: she was settling in the water. She had a bad leak - perhaps more than one - and the Frenchmen were pumping desperately. They had the head pumps rigged, and the steady stream of water pouring over the side amidships was from the chain pump. That explained why the French were not rushing about trying to rig preventer stays and get the ship under way. If three hundred Frenchmen could not stop her sinking what hope had a handful of men from the Juno and Surcouf? He realized that in the past fantastic fifteen minutes he had been counting on having three French frigates as prizes . . .

He waved to Southwick, who came running up to take the proffered telescope. The Master examined La Comète for a full minute, then gave the glass^back to Ramage. 'Seems a pity to let her slip through our fingers ...'

Ramage walked forward and leaned his elbows on the quarterdeck rail. He never allowed any men to do that, and he had never previously done it himself, but now his head felt heavy. Scattered round him were ten prizes. If Admiral Davis had caught the convoy with the Invincible and three frigates, he would have been delighted with himself for having destroyed one ship and captured the rest. Ramage realized bitterly that that was the difference: ten helpless ships were not ten prizes. Nothing was a prize until she was under his control and now his lack of men was likely to prove disastrous.

One frigate was sinking, two more were locked together, seven merchantmen were slowly drifting out to sea, and the further they got to the west the more the current would catch them. Finally they would come clear of the wind shadow cast by the island of Martinique and probably end up drifting across the Caribbean to Jamaica.

Southwick was still standing beside him, and looking ahead they could both see La Comète. She was less than a mile away now, with the Surcouf racing down to get to leeward of her.

'It's a good thing we can leave the merchantmen for a while longer, sir,' Southwick said quietly. 'Wagstaffe is tacking back and forth between them and the beach making sure those beggars don't row out again. Leaves us a few hours of daylight to tackle the frigates one at a time ...'

Ramage stared at the two frigates locked together before answering. All their sails had been furled, but the jibboom and bowsprit of one was still locked into the other. Through the glass it seemed as if her bow had ridden up the side and then dropped down in a chopping movement, perhaps smashing a hole in the planking above the waterline. They would not get free for many hours.

'One at a time, Mr Southwick,' Ramage agreed, and the Master's cheery and confident manner helped the plan forming in his mind. 'First we force La Comète to surrender . . .'

'Then I'll go over and inspect the damage, sir,' Southwick interrupted eagerly.

'No, you remain on board here. I'll go over and take the carpenter and some of his mates with me.'

‘But, sir,' Southwick protested, ‘’tis not a job for a captain!'

'You don't speak French, and there's more to it than hammering in leak plugs. We need bluff more than planks and nails.'

He cut short Southwick's protests by ordering Jackson to tell a cutter's crew to stand by and hand over to someone else as quartermaster.

La Comète's Tricolour was still streaming in the wind. Would the French go through the ritual, by which they set so much store, firing a broadside before hauling down the Colours? She was still turning slowly and by the time the Juno reached her she would be lying with her bow to the south.