Customer Reviews

Ramage's Diamond

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is installment 7 of Dudley Pope's Nicholas Ramage series. It is heards and tails above #6. Ramage is the quintessential hero. The reader knows that Ramage will succeed in his endeavors. The fun part about these novels is finding out HOW Ramage will succeed. He has way too much success--almost Deus ex machina. The action and episodes in this novel are all interesting. The battles are described well and keep the reader's interest. As usual, though, there is really too much detail when Ramage has his men hoist some guns onto the top of a mountain. Pope, just let the guys get the guns up and start shooting at the Frogs! For that, this book get 4 and a half stars. But the rest of the book is great fun. I might add that the BBC chose the wrong story for its naval hero. The Ramage stories are much more interesting than Hornblower.

Based on historical events, this novel retells the story of a tremendous feat of martial engineering. Ramage captures frigates and schooners and builds his own fleet. Recognizing the importance of controlling the shipping lanes in and out of Fort de France, he manages to mount baterries on a huge towering rock, known as the Diamond. With the batteries and his ragtag fleet, he manages to defeat a much larger French fleet and supply convoy, sinking, burning or capturing the entire lot. The detail work is good, and the story moves well, never letting the readers interest lag. My personal favorite in the series.

The book before this seventh one in the generally excellent and highly enjoyable Napoleonic naval series was not one of the author's more successful efforts, focusing as it did on Lieut. Lord Nicholas Ramage's undercover mission into Boulogne to spy out the French preparations for the invasion of Britain. Ramage did well out of it, however, being made post into a frigate by the First Lord himself. He was immediately sent off to Barbados with important dispatches to the admiral and on the way had to whip into ship a very slovenly crew nearly ruined by a drunken captain and his equally alcoholic first lieutenant. He has three young new lieutenants of the First Lord's choosing and all turn out to be excellent, fortunately for him. From Barbados, he's sent to take over the blockade of the harbor of Fort Royal at Martinique, the only remaining significant French holding in the Caribbean. Ramage mounts a cutting-out operation that nets him a French frigate and a couple of privateer schooners. And off the southwest coast of the island is Diamond Rock, sticking up like a canine tooth from deep water. In 1804, Commodore Hood managed to sway up enough ship's guns to turn the Rock into a fortress to control the shipping lanes into Martinique, but here (naturally) Ramage does the job, spurred on by the knowledge that a French convoy is due with very badly needed supplies for the island. With his small squadron, he makes his preparations, building his plans around the element of surprise -- a point Pope makes a number of times as Ramage drums the principle into his subordinates. The whole thing, from the arming of Diamond Rock to the breath-holding action against the convoy, is fascinating and very well done indeed. And at the end of it all, Ramage is poised to embark on another "special service," so there's more to come. This is one of the best in the series so far.

While most writers of historical fiction place their characters in the context of real events, in this case Dudley Pope has substituted Ramage for Commodore Samuel Hood. After preliminaries, the main action takes place at Martinique in the summer of 1804. Ramage is sent to blockade the island and, in the process, fortifies the Diamond Rock (Hood's actual accomplishment that year). Some of the writing goes into extreme detail (e.g., Pope's reconstruction of the probable means Hood used to place guns on top the rock), and some is larger than life, perhaps too much so (Ramage's action against a French convoy). There are some editorial glitches, e.g., a statement that men would be excluded from sharing in prize money when earlier in the story they had participated in the action that captured a frigate.

On an historical note, the Diamond Rock was commissioned and carried on the Royal Navy books as a sloop. It was surrendered to a French fleet in 1805 when the British crew on the rock ran out of water (see W. P. Gosset, "The Lost Ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900").

The novel shows Ramgage growing in his command of the frigate as he is assigned a task to monitor the French. He starts with a single frigate and a lack of knowledge of the area and his enemy .. as the story continues .. Ramage finds himself having to improvise in order to keep his ship from falling into the hands of the French as well as making plans to capture an inbound French convoy. ... theough a series of events .. he manages to acquire a small fleet of ships ... fortify a island ... and all but cut the French off from any help. .. a well written story ... much in the same line as C. S. Foresters Horatio Hornblower series .... or that of Alexander Kent and his Richard Bolitho series

Pope gets a little too caught up in descriptions but when the action comes along..it's well done. Too bad he ended at #18

In which newly made Capt. Ramage buys arms, commands a slovenly ship, blockades Martinique and sees a diamond, removes a frigate, climbs a hill, and plots to devour a French fleet single-handedly in 1804. Ramage, like Hornblower, has a depth of character best revealed in their moments of introspection. But while Hornblower doubts his own courage, Ramage knows courage is a facade put up for the encouragement of others. I found the most fascinating passages were on pp. 259-263, where we get an outsider's view of Ramage and feel the effect of the meticulous planning that is the essence of inspiring leadership. It is likely these passages embody the secret of Lord Cochrane's astonishing successes as a winner who, like Ramage, didn't do it over the dead bodies of his men (the historic Lord Cochrane [1775-1860] being the inspiration for much of British naval fiction). As always Pope's descriptions are clear and precise, but here supplemented with diagrams of a jackstay lift for the central hill-climbing business.

The reader might want to know that this is really the first of several books dealing continuously with Ramage's renewed adventures in the West Indies (but a separate cycle from his W. Indian adventures in vols 2-4). Although this is a pretty complete story unto itself, if you've already read this far in the series (you did, didn't you?) there's no way you won't want to move immediately after this to MUTINY. Proofing is a little sloppy in a series that is doing the McBooks imprint proud.