Again Thurot nodded, as though fear and misery had made him speechless.

'How many in your ship's company?'

'Two hundred and seventy-three petty officers and men, five warrant officers and four officers, and the Captain.'

'You suffered no casualties?'

'Casualties? Oh yes, I forgot. Eleven dead and seventeen wounded, but only four of them seriously.'

Ramage breathed deeply and noisily, as though considering something. 'My Captain is a stern man. He could send you all to England, even though there is a more - how shall we say it, a more civilized way...'

Thurot was obviously trying to pull himself together, and he wiped his face with the back of his hand. 'What way, m'sieur?’

Ramage gestured towards Martinique. 'It would be more civilized to let your men row ashore. A long row, admittedly, but then it is a long voyage to England. The officers would give me their parole, and you would agree that the men do not serve again until formally exchanged ...'

Thurot glanced down at the box. Ramage kicked it back with his heal, so that it slid under his chair. 'If you agree to those terms, I will take the box away in a kitbag, padded with old clothes, so no one will know ...'

Thurot gulped, as though his Adam's apple was trying to leap out of his mouth, nodded his head vigorously and then, to Ramage's horror, burst into tears.

An hour later Ramage stood with Southwick on the Juno's quarterdeck watching as the Surcouf tacked up towards the Grande Anse du Diamant beach, towing ten boats astern of her. Southwick commented that she looked like a dog running out of a butcher's shop with a string of sausages.

The boats were packed with men. The first four were the Surcouf’sown boats, then came the Juno's launch and jolly boat, and finally La Comète's boats. Only twenty Frenchmen remained on board La Comète to handle the chain pump, and by the time the Surcouf had cast off the boats as near to the beach as possible and waited for the French to scramble up the beach and the boats to return, the Juno's carpenter would have stopped La Comète's leak, ready for the Surcouf to take her in tow.

The heavily-laden merchant ships were the next problem. He had tossed up between them and the two frigates, which were now drifting past the southern end of the Diamond still firmly locked together. Finally he decided that an enterprising French officer, as soon as he landed on the beach, would try to find some native boats (if the merchantmen's own boats had been smashed up by La Créole) and, in breach of paroles and exchange agreements, set about getting aboard the merchantmen as soon as night fell.

Fifteen heavily armed Junos led by Rossi were now guarding the twenty Frenchmen working La Comète's pumps. The moment the Surcouf returned with the boats, those twenty Frenchmen would be allowed to row to the shore, providing the carpenter and his mates had stopped the leak satisfactorily.

Now, as the Juno beat up towards the cluster of drifting merchantmen, La Créole finished a sweep close to the shore and bore away towards her.

Orsini, signal book in hand, was standing waiting. 'The Créole's pendant,' Ramage said, 'and the signal to pass within hail. Number eighty-four, I believe.'

He was teasing the boy but Paolo was still taking his work very seriously. 'Number eighty-four, it is, sir!'

The wind eased as the Juno closed with the coast and as she approached the wallowing merchantmen the Surcouf turned to run back to La Comète, her long tail of boats towing astern. Ramage swept his telescope along the beach and could see a long column of men walking towards the western end. He steadied the telescope and saw that a much smaller group of men was waiting there for them, probably the masters and men from the merchantmen. He swung the telescope back along the beach and saw piles of wood gathered every twenty yards or so along the water's edge. Much of the wood was shaped into curves so he realized that they were a dozen or more smashed-up boats from the merchant ships. Wagstaffe must have taken La Créole in close and given his men some target practice, or sent a party on shore with axes. Anyway, there was no risk of the French getting back on board again from this beach unless they wanted to swim . . .

Southwick finished grumbling at the quartermaster for letting the maintopsail luff flutter and then came over to Ramage.

‘I don't think many of them waited long enough to cut the sheets and braces, sir,' he said, pointing towards the merchantmen. 'I think they just let 'em run. The ropes may have flogged themselves into rare old tangles, but ten men apiece should be enough to get them under way. I'm a bit doubtful about them anchoring in the right places, though . . .'

'As long as they get an anchor down on the five-fathom ledge by the Diamond,' Rarnage said, ‘I’ll be content. They'll have La Comète for company, but the rest of us will be under way all night'

'And the two frigates, sir?'

'I want to go down and look at them as soon as we have these merchantmen safely anchored. I've been watching them, and there's no risk of them cutting themselves adrift. Seems to me the one hit amidships is settling.'

Southwick took the proffered telescope. 'You're right, sir! Well, we'll soon see. I can't wait to hear from Aitken how it all happened.'

The Juno now had fewer than forty-five men on board. Apart from the carpenter and his mates, there were fifteen seamen on board La Comète guarding the French pumpers. Twenty-five men could keep the Juno under way under topsails.

'Pick twenty men,' Ramage said. 'They can handle two merchantmen. Who do I put in charge of each party . . .?' He paused, trying to think of men.

'Jackson and Stafford, sir?' Southwick suggested. 'They're your best men.'

Ramage laughed and agreed. The idea of an American seaman belonging to a British ship of war going off in command of a crew to bring a French prize to anchor had a truly cosmopolitan ring about it. 'That takes care of two ships. Wagstaffe will have to spare ten men, so three ships can come down at the same time,' he said, 'and then he can take the twenty Junos back and with his ten collect three more. His ten men can bring the last one in. That will save time, because the Créole gets up to windward better than we do.'

The schooner came down the Juno's larboard side, swept under her stern and, hardening in sheets, came close under the frigate's quarter. Ramage shouted across Wagstaffe's orders and the schooner bore up towards the convoy, men running aft to the falls of the quarter boat, ready to lower it. Southwick already had his twenty men mustered and was giving instructions to Jackson and Stafford. Both told their men to collect arms, and Ramage noticed they all chose pistols and cutlasses.

A quarter of an hour later the Juno was lying hove-to to windward of the merchantmen and her two cutters were pulling for the two nearest while La Créole's small boat was already alongside another.

Ramage looked across at La Comète and saw that she now had all the Surcouf’s boats astern of her. Aitken obviously wanted them out of the way of the cable, and it was a quick way of transferring more men to work on the French frigate's fo'c'sle. Then he saw a single boat leave La Comète and pull towards the headland. The Juno's carpenter had been better than his word and the Freach seamen had already been freed after their long spell at the pump. Ramage did not envy them their long row: their backs would already be aching ... That would leave one boat on the Grande Anse beach. The French were unlikely to make use of it, but if there was time La Créole could go over and destroy it.

'Jackson's done it!' Southwick shouted gleefully. 'Just look at him,' he added, eye glued to his telescope, 'standing there with a cutlass slung over his shoulder and a couple of pistols in his belt! Looks more like a pirate than the Captain's coxswain!'