Ramage's Diamond

'A jackstay, sir?' Southwick exclaimed. 'But where can you secure the lower end? The water's too deep for the men to dive down and find a big rock, and anyway, that'd –‘

A dull and distant boom interrupted him.

Ramage leapt up with an oath. 'That damned battery on Diamond Hill!'

There was a shadow at the skylight. 'Captain, sir,' Wagstaffe called. 'The battery on the Hill - a single shot and it's fallen half a mile short.'

Ramage acknowledged the report and followed Southwick up the companionway. He took the telescope Wagstaffe was offering him and trained it on the ridge that ran round the Hill a third of the way up. It was too late, the smoke had drifted away in the wind and there was no sign of the guns. Suddenly he spotted a brief red glow, barely a pinpoint, and then a puff of smoke.

'Watch the fall of shot,' he snapped. 'I don't want to lose sight of the battery. A clump of six small trees permanently leaning to the west from the wind - they're growing at the eastern end of the battery, A triangular bare rock in front. Yes, there's a track ru

'Fell half a mile short, sir,' Wagstaffe said.

'Pass the word for the Marine Lieutenant,' Ramage said and, looking round, nodded. 'Ah, there you are, Re

A third and a fourth shot from the battery fell half a mile short, but both were in line with the Juno. Southwick gave one of his enormous sniffs of contempt but Ramage said: They're only 6-pounders. If they were 12-pounders we'd be slipping our cable in a hurry. These fellows know what they're up to; they just don't have the range.'

'Aye, belike they'll pass the word to the Governor and he'll decide they need bigger guns,' Southwick said gloomily. 'Better we get under way now and bowl 'em over.'

'Have a look through the glass,' Ramage said patiently. 'The battery stands well back on the ridge that spirals up the mountain. Twenty or thirty yards back, as far as I can see. Once we were close enough to open fire - don't forget they have an advantage of being five hundred feet up - that ridge protects them: it's a natural rampart. We'd need mortars to lob shells over the ridge and down on to them. A bomb ketch.'

Southwick glanced at the Marine Lieutenant, who was slowly swinging the telescope down the side of the mountain and across to the long beach ru

Ramage saw Re

Ramage nodded, pleased at the lieutenant's enthusiasm. 'You can have a couple of dozen seamen too, if you need them.'

'Thank you, sir, but my own men will be sufficient. A few extra seamen in the boat, perhaps, in case there's cavalry patrolling along the beach.'

'Very well, get your men ready. Mr Wagstaffe, a cutter if you please, and a dozen extra men with muskets. Make sure they have plenty of powder and shot for the boat gun - cavalry might arrive before Mr Re

Half an hour later Ramage and Southwick watched the cutter run up on the beach, having stayed out of range of the battery, wait for a few minutes as the Marines scrambled on shore and then come out again, rowing round to a small cove fifty yards west of the beach and in the lee of the mountain. There, Ramage noted, the boat would be out of sight of any cavalry galloping along the beach.

Southwick grunted in the nearest he ever came to expressing satisfaction with Marines. 'They'll be all right. Pity they can't surprise those damned Frenchmen. Well, sir, I see the men are ready to re-anchor the Surcouf to get that ten-inch cable in. I'll go over and keep an eye on them.'

Aitken was now bringing the schooner Créole in from the westward: he had seen the Juno's signal ordering him on board and Wagstaffe was waiting with a seabag ready containing his clothes and quadrant. The Second Lieutenant was obviously excited and Ramage knew that this command, however brief it might prove to be, would make up for the disappointment of seeing the Third Lieutenant go off to Barbados in La Mutine.

Ramage took a pencil and pad from his pocket and went aft with a telescope, sitting down on the breech of the aftermost gun. He spent the next half an hour examining the Diamond Rock with the telescope, occasionally making a sketch on the pad and scribbling notes.

He had already drawn the south side of the great rock while in the cutter. There it was completely vertical from sea level to within a hundred feet or so of the top; then it sloped back gently for fifty feet, and then more sharply again to the peak. His sketch resembled a tooth, the raking pack at the top being the natural shape to bring the tooth to a point.

His inspection in the cutter had confirmed what he had feared from the start: the only way of getting guns up the Diamond, to whatever height, was by jackstay. Only the gun covering the landing place was going to be straight forward - if lowering it to the sea bed from a boat and then dragging it ashore could be described as straightforward.

He turned to a fresh page and copied the sketch he had made from the cutter, drawing the tooth-shaped rock with the vertical cliff face to the left. Then from sea level he drew a diagonal line up to the top of the cliff. That would be the jackstay, secured at the top round the rocky outcrop, and at the bottom to the anchored Juno. Ru

As he pencilled in the lines showing the ropes it seemed almost alarmingly simple, though he could imagine the difficulty he was going to have describing it all in a letter to Gia

You put a pulley on the line (Gia