Ramage & The Freebooters

by Pope, Dudley

  ‘Not much – it set out minimum standards for British slavers. Not less than five feet headroom between decks for example, and a slaver of less than 160 tons burthen can carry only five slaves for every three tons; and three for every two tons if she’s less than 150 tons…’

  ‘How strictly does the Navy enforce the law?’

  ‘Oh, very strictly – when a ship’s found breaking it. That’s not very often and they pay a small fine. Means nothing to these fellows.’

  Just as Bowen was about to ask another question, Ramage ordered Southwick to get a boat ready for hoisting out, with an armed boarding party.

  Bowen then saw a skilful display of near insubordination by Southwick, realizing half-way through that there must have been many similar arguments in the past on the same subject.

  After Southwick had given the order which set men preparing the boat and sent boarders to collect cutlasses and pistols, he said casually to Ramage that he was going below to change his uniform.

  When the captain raised his eyebrows questioningly, Southwick explained, as though stating the obvious, that the uniform he was wearing was shabby. The captain, equally innocently, replied that since he’d worn it on board for several weeks, it hardly mattered now since no one would be seeing him, but would Mr Southwick please take the conn for a few minutes while he himself went down to change.

  It had been Southwick’s turn to raise his eyebrows, and Bowen was quite surprised how high they went: they seemed to slide half-way up his forehead.

  ‘But surely, sir, you’d prefer me to board her.’

  Bowen knew he’d burst out laughing if he continued watching the exchange and turned away. If the pair of them played chess as skilfully as they politely battled with words… Southwick was patient and polite; so was the captain. Finally Ramage said flatly he was going and that was that. Southwick merely replied, ‘Aye aye, sir,’ and turned away with a sigh.

  By now the brig’s carronades were loaded and run out; the decks were wetted and sand spread – though just as Bowen noticed the water was drying quickly on the hot planks, Southwick called for the men to carry on wetting, so they continued walking back and forth, splashing liberally from leather buckets.

  And Bowen was thoroughly enjoying himself. The sky more blue than ever he remembered it; the sea more vivid and sparkling. The squat carronades now became menacing weapons of war; boys, hitherto noisy wretches always up to mischief, now sat on their cartridge boxes along the centreline, one between each gun on either side, and their nickname, ‘powder monkeys’, for once was appropriate.

  Then behind him he heard Ramage talking to Southwick.

  ‘Looks as though she’s going to need a shot across her bow.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Southwick grunted and Bowen turned to see him watching the schooner through the telescope. ‘No, there’s a group of men round the mast – reckon the halyards are in a fair tangle with all the jury rigging they’ve had to set up to hold the mast.’

  Even as he spoke the flying jib began to drop and flap, men out on the bowsprit stifling it as it came down. The peak of the foresail gaff dipped slightly, then dropped a few more feet. Suddenly the schooner turned to starboard, heading up into the wind, and the gaff dropped quickly, the big sail bellying before being swiftly sheeted in. Within a couple of minutes the schooner was wallowing in the swell waves, every sail furled.

  ‘He wants some help from us all right,’ Southwick commented.

  Bowen saw his chance and seized it.

  ‘That falling mast must have injured a lot of men, sir,’ he said to Ramage, who eyed him thoughtfully, then smiled and nodded.

  ‘Yes – I’ll take your mate with me.’

  Bowen’s disappointment showed in his face and Ramage laughed.

  ‘All right, Bowen: stow your butcher’s tools in a bag!’

  Five minutes after the Triton had hove-to four hundred yards to windward of the schooner, the jolly boat, with Jackson at the tiller and Bowen and Ramage sitting in the sternsheets, was pulling down towards her. With her sails furled and so much windage on the foremast and bowsprit, she had paid off to lie with her starboard quarter towards the approaching boat.

  Bowen was surprised how high the seas were. From the deck of the Triton he had, for many days, seen them roll up astern, sweep under her and go on ahead; but against an empty horizon there was nothing to measure them. The Triton had hove-to only a couple of cables to windward but the jolly boat was barely half-way between before both were hidden from view each time it dropped into the troughs.

  Jackson eased over the tiller so the boat passed across the schooner’s stern, and as Ramage turned slightly to look at her he grunted. Bowen looked questioningly.

  ‘Don’t point and don’t stare at it as we get closer; but her name’s been changed recently.’

  ‘How do you know, sir?’

  ‘Just look at the reflection from the paint on the transom.’

  Bowen read the schooner’s name – The Two Brothers – painted on a strip of paint that was not only fresher than the rest but a couple of feet wider than the name: there was a good foot to spare before ‘The’ and after ‘Brothers’.

  ‘You mean the new paint’s covering another name!’ he exclaimed excitedly. ‘Why, yes! The original letters – oh, blast it, I can’t see them now – but they’re raised up a bit and I spotted them in the reflection.’

  Ramage nodded. ‘But her captain will tell us she’s The Two Brothers of Charleston…and have papers to prove it.’

  His voice was flat and Bowen wasn’t sure he’d understood; but he saw Ramage had again turned slightly to keep the schooner in view without being too obvious about it. They were close now – forty or fifty feet. Bowen could hear the heavy splash as the schooner’s counter plunged down each time she pitched.

  Ramage, his lips hardly moving, was saying something to Jackson.

  ‘In addition to the broadside guns she has ten one-pounder swivels on the bulwarks, set well inboard. Easy to squat on the bulwarks and fire them across the decks. Useful if the slaves make trouble, and notice each of ’em has a couple of men lounging nearby… Barking dogs – they’ll be big, savage brutes, trained to attack anyone with a dark skin… There! Through the entry port, did you see that flash of brass? A nasty big brass blunderbuss. There’ll be plenty of those on board… Phew!’

  As he spoke the rest of the men in the boat, both oarsmen and boarders, groaned in protest and Bowen felt sick. They were now just to the leeward of the schooner and thirty feet off, and the wind brought down a stink which made the Fleet Ditch smell as fresh as a pomander full of new lavender.

  The surgeon realized the men were not just groaning; they were protesting. And well they might. The schooner smelled like a gigantic midden, and though accustomed to the stench of hospitals and narrow streets piled with muck which was cleared away only by the rains and scavenging dogs and rats, he found this was worse because it was caused by two or three hundred human beings chained below in the schooner.

  No seaman could bear the sight of a ‘blackbirder’ – he’d just realized that. And it was a curious thing, Bowen reflected, since a seaman’s life on board a ship o’ war of any nation seemed, to a landman, little removed from slavery.

  Suddenly Jackson was singing out a string of orders, oars were being tossed, the boat was alongside and the bowman hooked on. Ramage, already standing, waited as the boat rose on a crest and jumped for the wooden rungs of the rope ladder hanging over the bulwark. A moment later he was climbing up it and Bowen was praying he’d even be able to grab the ladder, let alone do it as lightly and easily. The boat dropped in the crest and Jackson said quietly, ‘If you’ll excuse me, sir – just in case there’s any trouble up there…’

  With that he squeezed in front of Bowen, jumped and in a moment or two was out of sight over the bulwark. Feeling particularly clumsy, Bowen waited as the boat rose on the next crest, jumped and clung desperately to the ladder. As he climbed laboriously he remembered his b
ag of instruments and turned to see a seaman holding it and waving him on. He just had time to note ruefully that being a seaman involved having a mind that grasped everything like a fifty-tentacled octopus before he reached the deck.

  As he looked round he was immediately reminded of standing back-stage at a theatre watching a dress rehearsal before the opening night, when everyone was in the right costume and speaking the right words, but the stage was littered with carpenters finishing off the scenery. The remains of the mainmast were lying along the deck surrounded by wood shavings and carpenters’ tools: the bulwark opposite was broken down; the deck gouged and dirty.

  Ramage was standing stiffly in front of a very tall, very thin man, who was completely bald, and Bowen realized his captain had just ignored the hand proffered to be shaken.

  The tall man, wearing a faded red woollen shirt, grubby, once-white cotton trousers, and a red band round his forehead to stop perspiration running into his eyes, let his hand drop to his side again. He spoke with an American accent.

  Ramage had already introduced himself and now asked: ‘What ship is this?’

  ‘Well, now ’tenant, you saw the name clear enough didn’t you?’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

  ‘I guess it’ll have to, ’tenant, because that’s us – The Two Brothers.’

  ‘It won’t, though,’ Ramage said flatly. ‘I’d like to see the ship’s papers.’

  ‘Gladly, ’tenant, gladly. Perhaps you’d step below.’

  ‘Are you the captain?’

  ‘Yes, the master under God, as they say: Ebenezer Wheeler, ’tenant, at your service.’

  He gave a mocking bow and as his shirt front fell open Bowen realized he was not just bald but completely hairless. Common enough after some of these jungle fevers…

  ‘Perhaps you’d introduce your officers.’

  Wheeler refused the bait.

  ‘That won’t be necessary, ’tenant. Now you just come below and inspect my papers. I’ve a favour to ask, too.’

  He pointed aft and Bowen saw that as Ramage turned he glanced at Jackson. To the American captain it would have been imperceptible; but Bowen knew some order or idea had been passed. As Ramage walked to the companionway, followed by the American captain, Bowen noticed that Jackson stood so that as the Triton’s boarders came up over the bulwark they’d be bunched up. A whispered instruction could be heard by all of them.

  As Ramage strode towards the companionway he hurriedly summed up what he had seen – his eyes had been noting facts which his brain could not attend to while he talked with the captain. The mainmast was broken off eight or ten feet above the deck and they’d managed to get it back on board, where it was now lying diagonally across the deck. The topmast wasn’t in sight: that must have been lost, along with the gaff.

  Enough wood chips and shavings to fill a dozen sacks were scattered around the deck where men had chopped off the jagged splinters and begun to shape the stump and the upper part ready to scarph the two pieces together. But the carpenters’ tools were lying around as if no one had done any work for a day or so. The only adze in sight had bright red rust marks on the blade, and there were flecks of new rust on three saws. Why had work stopped? Scarphing was no problem.

  It wouldn’t be easy to get the mast up even though the foremast was standing. Not easy, but not impossible since they could rig shearlegs. They’d need to use a dozen or so pieces of two-by-four-inch planks to make the splints at the join – ‘making a fish’ as the carpenters called it. But he hadn’t noticed a single plank on deck…

  What else?

  Four huge brindle-coloured hounds held by seamen on rope leashes; men standing around, apparently idling, but each with a brass musketoon by his side. And another smell – a curious, familiar odour which wasn’t part of the stench of a slave ship, but which for the moment he couldn’t recognize.

  And from below the rhythmic moaning – like monks chanting in a distant hilltop monastery – of the slaves lamenting. A small pile of whips at the foot of the foremast – brutal affairs, handles eight feet long and tails as much again, knotted every few inches.

  As he turned to go down the companionway Ramage was able to see Jackson had understood, and the ten men forming the boarding party also appeared to be standing about idly – but they were between the slave ship’s crew and the ladder to the captain’s cabin.

  The cabin was the full width of the ship and surprisingly large, but the headroom was surprisingly low. Well furnished, too – a silver teapot and some good china in a rack at the end of a table made of fine-grained, highly polished mahogany. A cavalry sword with a curious silver-thread pattern on the scabbard rested in a rack on the starboard side. Four or five cut-glass decanters, the many faceted stoppers winking as they reflected the light, sat elegantly in fitted racks on the sideboard. And a long bookcase with several books in it. Leather bindings worn and mottled in dark stains where the mildew had attacked. A cloth flung over the books hung down just enough to hide the tides. Curious, for otherwise the cabin was very tidy. Ramage found it hard to think of the captain reading books. Again the curious odour.

  The American followed him in and pointed to a chair as he went to a small desk beneath the large skylight. His head was small, the nose narrow but prominent, the ears large with pendulous lobes. Chin narrow and long. The baldness made the man’s head in profile look like a vulture’s.

  He took a folder from a drawer in the desk and as he put it down he grinned, exposing teeth yellowed with decay and tobacco juice.

  ‘First, ’tenant, what’ll you drink?’

  Ramage shook his head.

  ‘Now, now,’ the American chided, ‘can’t have the Royal Navy accusing us Jonathan of being inhospitable.’

  ‘You’ve offered hospitality,’ Ramage smiled frostily, ‘but the sun’s not over the foreyardarm yet.’

  ‘True, true. Now, look’ee here’ – he opened the folder and took out papers – ‘certificate of registry, duly signed and sealed in Charleston… Bills of lading… Charter agreement with Benson and Company of Charleston, signatures duly witnessed… Everything’s here and in regular form.’

  Ramage took the certificate of registry and unfolded it. Glancing at Wheeler’s hands he saw they were filthy and obviously always were, but the certificate was clean. The paper was thick and had been folded twice. Ramage inspected the document and then folded it once and put it back on the desk. The upper side lifted slightly. The certificate said the ship had been built at Charleston five years earlier, but the certificate – and the paper on which it was written – was at most a few months old.

  ‘The muster book?’

  Ramage watched Wheeler closely and the American’s eyes glanced for a moment not at the desk but at the sideboard and then focused on the folder.

  ‘Well, ’tenant, to be truthful I don’t know where it is right now, and anyway I can’t see it’s any interest to the British Navy.’

  ‘On the contrary, it’s of great interest. If you’ve any British seamen on board, I can press them–’

  ‘Well, we don’t have, so you can rest assured on that point.’

  ‘I’d still like to see it. Perhaps you’d get it from the sideboard.’

  Wheeler looked up, startled for a moment; then his eyes narrowed. His cranium had a ridge across the top that came down the brow to his nose.

  ‘Now see here, ’tenant, I’m not used to being dictated to on board m’ own ship. You go back and tell your captain that.’

  ‘I am the captain,’ Ramage said shortly. ‘You had a favour to ask, I believe.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Wheeler said with an easy grin. ‘You’ve seen the mainmast, or what’s left of it. We lost it eight days ago – after being becalmed in the Middle Passage for thirteen days – thirteen days! Never been becalmed there for more than three. Then this squall caught us in the dark. Took us three days to get the mast back on board and the foremast jury rigged so we could set a stitch of canvas.’
r />   ‘So you’ve used up more than three weeks’ extra provisions. You’re three weeks’ short in other words.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. Still several bags of yams and coconuts left. Short of rice and beans. Plenty of palm oil. And we catch fish – they love it, heads and all. Lucky we’ve plenty of brandy: they get two tots a day – keeps ’em happy so they don’t notice they’re hungry. But all that’s not so important: we haven’t the lumber to fish the mainmast – without tearing the ship apart – and make up a gaff. I need six ten-foot lengths of two by four and a spar for the gaff. I’ll pay well for it – can you help?’

  Suddenly Ramage recognized the odour. Garlic. The whole ship reeked of it. This cabin reeked of it. But there was none of it on Wheeler’s breath.

  ‘Six ten-foot pieces of two by four, you said?’

  ‘That’s right, ’tenant – Capting, rather – and then there’s the gaff.’

  ‘And an extra squaresail yard to make shearlegs?’

  Wheeler looked embarrassed. ‘Yes, I was just coming to that. We’ve got the foretopsail yard, but like the foresail gaff, it’s got a patch of rot in it. I doubt if either of ’em will see us into Charleston.’

  ‘Spare yards are expensive – and difficult to come by in the Caribbean.’

  Wheeler mustered a grin. ‘Especially a few score miles east of Barbados.’

  Ramage wanted a few more minutes before he fired his broadside; he wanted to be sure of the target, so there’d be no bloodshed.

  ‘Well, is that all you want?’

  ‘Water, Capting, if you’ve any to spare. An’ bread – I’d be glad to buy a few sacks. We have a hungry cargo.’

  ‘How hungry?’

  ‘Pretty. We’re so short of victuals they’ve been on quarter allowance for two weeks.’

  Ramage nodded in feigned sympathy and Wheeler grumbled: ‘This’ll knock every bit o’ profit out o’ this voyage – an’ more. Now’s the time we usually double the rations – fattens ’em up just right for when we get into port and they’re put to auction.’