by Dudley Pope
'Wouldn't ten o'clock have been better - before the chaplain, ah ...'
'No, sir,' Aitken said emphatically. 'Unless you give orders to the contrary, I'd like to watch the parson's face as the women go down into the boat. We'll learn more about him in two minutes than we would otherwise in two months.'
Aitken was quite right, of course. The whole thing was a coldblooded business because it meant a captain had to allow whores on board, but like most other Navy captains Ramage insisted only that a man had to vouch for each woman and be responsible for her behaviour (obeying the Admiralty instruction which said only that a man 'claimed' the woman as his 'wife', with no limit on the number of ports in which the man could have a 'wife'). If she misbehaved (quarrelling with others of the sisterhood or smuggling her man liquor were the most usual offences) she was turned off the ship and the man could not replace her.
The Admiralty were, he admitted, very sensible in their attitude. Their Lordships knew that in wartime few seamen could be given shore leave without 'running', but fear of the men deserting did not stop their Lordships understanding that men at sea for months (sometimes a year or more) without seeing women, let alone sharing a hammock with one, had to be given some freedom in port. If they could not be trusted to leave their ships to find the women on shore, the women had to be allowed on board. The price everyone had to pay was to accept the man's declaration that the woman was his wife, and that he took responsibility for her while she was on board. A ship coming from abroad and staying a week or so at Plymouth before going to Chatham meant that a man could claim two wives, the only proviso being that he could afford them. The price tended to drop the further east the port. The highest price was at Plymouth with the Channel Fleet in: a large number of ships meant plenty of demand.
Curious how these women would quarrel with each other: frantic screeching from below was the signal for the master-at-arms and the ship's corporals to hurry down to stop a hair-pulling, nail-clawing fight. Indeed, the reason why the cockpit was originally given that name was that the raucous noise of quarrelling women was reminiscent of fighting cocks in a cockpit.
Aitken said, with elaborate casualness: 'Orsini still seems very unhappy after returning from leave, sir.' The Scotsman thought the lad might have fallen in love or received some news of his family in Italy. But whatever it was, his sadness was affecting the men. Orsini was their favourite; he had a way of getting twice as much work out of them just because of his cheerful manner. At least, that had been the case until he came back from leave. Now he was as dour as John Knox on a rainy sabbath in December.
Ramage thought for a minute or two. The Marchesa was very well known to a few of the ship's company - men like Jackson, Rossi and Stafford, who had helped rescue her - and known to most of the others. All were interested in any news of her, and undoubtedly Paolo as her nephew benefited from the relationship. Seeing the lad so downhearted must have led to a good deal of speculation. Perhaps now was the time to pass the word that Gianna was already travelling to Paris with the Herveys, on her way home to Tuscany.
'His aurit, the Marchesa, is on her way back to Italy.' Ramage had kept his voice neutral, but Aitken stared at him, obviously shocked by the news.
'But Bonaparte ... He still occupies Volterra, which isn't included in the Treaty . . . He'll seize her, sir!'
'She insisted on going, to be with her people. She would not be persuaded - by anyone.'
At once Aitken saw the reason for the gloom that hung like a thunderstorm over the captain, and for Orsini's dour bad temper. They both loved her in their different ways but they shared the same fear and the same distrust of Bonaparte. If he seized her - when he seized her, rather - there would be nothing they could do. The British government would be powerless. Today Bonaparte did what he wanted, unchallenged; the Treaty was proof of that.
'Shall I tell. . .?'
'Yes. And have a quiet word with Orsini. It's difficult for me to say anything at the moment.'
Aitken straightened his hat and spoke slowly, his Perth accent more pronounced than usual, something which Ramage noticed happened whenever the first lieutenant expressed deep feelings. 'With us sailing tomorrow, sir, and being provisioned for five months and watered for three: we're likely to be away for half a year. That'll be half a year when ye'll have no news of the Marchesa, sir?'
Ramage nodded. 'I'm assuming we'll be away six to ten months, but as you know, I have secret orders which I've not yet read.'
Aitken excused himself, both embarrassed and yet relieved to know the reason for the captain's and the midshipman's sadness. He could imagine the arguments that had gone on in London at the home of the captain's father: the men - the Earl of Blazey, Mr Ramage and Orsini - would have been arguing for reasons of affection; the Marchesa for reasons of state. It must have been a dreadful decision for a woman to make on her own: no husband, no relatives, no ministers could help her; she was - had been, rather-alone in a foreign land. Aitken was suddenly glad to be simply the son of a long-dead officer in the Royal Navy. It seemed inhuman to make a woman choose between some vague loyalty to a country and the man she loved.
CHAPTER SIX
Ramage had purposely not watched the seven men come on board (Aitken had proudly reported that there were in fact nine: two of the three seamen thought to have 'run' had come on board from the same cutter), preferring a more individual approach after they had time to settle in. All except the chaplain were likely to be complete strangers to life afloat.
Had he watched them come on board through the entry-port he would have saved himself the shock of the chaplain's appearance. Ramage had told Aitken to bring him to his cabin and introduce him at noon. For a moment he thought there had been some mistake until he saw Aitken behind the man.
Small, with narrow shoulders and a stance that looked as though he was half crouching, a ferret face with stained protruding front teeth that reminded Ramage of splayed fingers, shifty and bloodshot eyes: the Reverend Percival Stokes looked more like a trapped pickpocket as he stopped inside the door and then lurched forward a few more paces, obviously pushed by Aitken.
'My Lord Ramage? I am -'
Aitken stepped in front of him. 'Captain Ramage, sir: may I introduce the Reverend Percival Stokes? Mr Stokes - Captain Ramage.'
Aitken had managed the introduction very well, but Ramage doubted if Stokes had noticed that the captain did not use his title or, if he did, whether he could let his proximity to a member of the aristocracy go unremarked. The Reverend Percival Stokes, Ramage decided within seconds, would create havoc in the gunroom with his ingratiating brand of snobbery, fawning where he thought necessary and bullying where possible. Obviously someone with influence was indebted to the man - or, perhaps more likely, wanted him out of the way.
'Oh, my Lord, I am honoured and grateful to be the chaplain to such a distinguished officer -'
Ramage held up a hand. 'You have been appointed chaplain to the Calypso frigate, not to me, and at your own request, Mr Stokes. I did not apply for a chaplain.'
At first Ramage regretted speaking in such chilly tones (which clearly delighted Aitken), but a moment later he saw that neither the words, the double correction nor the snub had registered. Stokes, his hands clasped as though leading a congregation in prayer, was eyeing the sherry decanter and glasses on Ramage's desk.
In that moment Ramage thought he saw Stokes's life as though glancing along a narrow, shadowy corridor, and three words came to mind - debt, drink, hypocrisy. The wretched man was probably heavily in debt and, because of drink, had been neglecting his parish more than usual when the shopkeepers decided it was time their parson paid some attention to Mammon as well as God. With the debtors' prison suddenly presented to him as an alternative, it was likely that Stokes decided his vocation - for a year or two, anyway - was the Navy in peacetime. There he was paid, food was cheap and drink, duty-free, even cheaper. The Treaty ensured that no roundshot would spin past his ears.
Why did the man choo
se a frigate? Since his pay depended mainly on the number of men in the ship, a ship of the line offered eight hundred or so souls to be saved. A frigate like the Calypso had only two hundred souls. In both ships a chaplain received nineteen shillings a month, but he also had his 'groats', fourpence a month for every man in his ship. In a ship of the line this meant an extra thirteen pounds a month, which was £156 a year. In a frigate like the Calypso it was about £3 6s a month, or about £40 a year.
Why a frigate? Perhaps, despite the perpetual shortage of chaplains, even the Chaplain General had baulked at Mr Stokes; given that the Admiralty was prepared to grant him a warrant, perhaps the Chaplain General decided that he could do (or come to) less harm in a frigate.
Aitken stood to attention and said: 'If you'll excuse me, sir, I have -'
'No, no, Mr Aitken,' Ramage said genially, having no intention of letting his first lieutenant desert him at such a moment, 'you have the ship so well organized it can run for fifteen minutes without you.'
Aitken noted the fifteen minutes and sat down on the settee as Ramage gestured towards the armchair for Stokes. It was a seat from which a man of his stature would have to look up at both officers.
'Your first ship, Mr Stokes?' Ramage asked amiably.
'Oh yes, indeed, my Lord, oh yes, my goodness -'
'My title is not used in the Navy, Mr Stokes; you address me as "sir" and refer to me as "the Captain".'
'Oh yes, indeed, Captain sir,' Stokes said hurriedly, and Ramage noticed the man sprayed saliva as he talked, his protruding teeth tending to act like fingers over a hose.
'Where were you -' Ramage just avoided saying 'practising'. 'Where were you - I mean, where was your benefice before you decided to come to sea?'
'Oh, in Essex, Captain,' Stokes said vaguely.
'Then you decided you would like to see more of the world?'
'I had a row with my bishop,' the man said crossly and then, realizing his indiscretion, added with an ingratiating smile: I considered I could best serve the Lord by saving souls among our brave seamen, exposed as they are to greater temptations than my flock in Essex.'
'Ah,' Aitken said, glancing at Ramage, 'that's an interesting point of view which I know the captain has considered before. At this place in Essex where you had your kirk - did ye not have whores and thieves and vagabonds, like anywhere else?'
Stokes raised his hands, palms outwards, and assumed what he must have considered a man-of-the-world expression. 'Ah, a few of each, I must admit; the flesh is weak and a chaplain can only advise and pray and point theway...'
'I'm thinking ye've abandoned your flock,' Aitken said, his voice sorrowful, 'because while ye could perhaps have converted the whores and thieves and vagabonds in Essex, we dinna have one of any of those on board this ship for ye to practise on, Mr Stokes.'
'Ah, lieutenant, there you are mistaken,' Stokes said patronizingly, assuming that the fact that Aitken deferred to the captain meant that the chaplain's position was between the two. 'No man is without sin, is he, Captain?'
'He is in this ship,' Aitken said crisply, 'otherwise he gets a flogging!'
Ramage was hard put to keep a straight face: Aitken had set the trap, Stokes had walked in and Aitken had sprung it. Stokes was not to know that Ramage had ordered only two men to be flogged since he first commanded a ship, and anyway, he was technically correct.
'Flogging?' Stokes's eyes jerked from Aitken to Ramage, as though - as though what? Ramage was not yet sure. Did the thought of flogging horrify him, as it did Ramage and many other captains? No, it was more fear than horror in the man's eyes.
'Yes, flogging. As you mentioned, no man is without sin; likewise no man is beyond the reach of the cat-o'-nine-tails.'
'Except the officers, of course!' Stokes tried to smile at his own joke, but Ramage decided to stretch the truth to see what effect it had.
'Officers, too,' he said. 'The captain of a ship has more power than the King - you realize that, Mr Stokes?'
'Er, well, I did not realize that. In what way, sir?"
'The King cannot order a man to be flogged; I can.'
'So let us pray,' Stokes said unctuously, 'that everyone behaves himself.'
'They won't,' Aitken commented gloomily, 'they never do. Well now,' he said, looking at his watch, 'your fellow warrant officers will be busy taking all the food, so perhaps...'
The first lieutenant picked up his hat and Ramage was thankful to see that Stokes was obviously going to follow him. However, there was just one thing to make clear right at the beginning of the chaplain's ecclesiastical reign. 'Mr Stokes - neither I nor the ship's company like long sermons. Apart from anything else, the weather is seldom suitable: too cold in northern waters for them to sit around for long, and too hot in the Tropics. So remember, ten minutes!'
'Oh Captain,' Stokes said reproachfully, 'what can I tell the men in ten minutes?'
'I can read the Articles of War in less,' Ramage said. 'They are the rules governing the behaviour of every man in the Navy, from an admiral to a boy, in peace or war, at sea or in harbour.'
'But all my sermons -'
Ramage pictured a packet of a couple of dozen sermons, written by some hack cleric and sold at fourpence each.
'The men don't like shop sermons,' Aitken said. 'Funny how they spot them, isn't it, sir? They can tell at once whether a chaplain is talking from his heart or just reciting.'
'I'm not sure about all the men, but this captain can, and he's certainly not about to sit through a fourpenny tract.'
It was unfair to harp on fourpence, but Ramage was sure that one of the first questions asked by Stokes when he boarded the frigate was aimed at the purser - how many men did the Calypso muster? That number, multiplied by fourpence, told him how much his monthly 'groats' would total.
Aitken opened the door and Stokes scuttled out, obviously distraught at the loss of his sermons for twenty-four Sundays.
The first lieutenant returned two or three minutes later. 'I think you've squared his yards, sir.'
Stokes had been brought to heel, like a wayward gun dog. 'But,' Ramage said sourly, 'that doesn't alter the fact we've got to put up with him lurking round the ship for the next few months.'
'"Lurking" - aye, ye've got him there, sir; the man's a lurker, that's for sure. But he's the worst of the bunch; the rest o' them seem pleasant enough.'
'I'll see them two at a time this afternoon, beginning with the surveyors.'
Aitken brought in two young men whom Ramage assumed were brothers until the first lieutenant mentioned their names. David Williams, the elder, was a Welshman, black-haired and blue-eyed and with what Ramage thought of as a laughing face; Williams obviously saw the humorous side of life, while his fellow surveyor, Walter White, also black-haired and blue-eyed, came from Kettering and obviously took a far more serious view of his work and his immediate future. One could imagine his notebook showing the distance between two distant points as being correct to half an inch, while Williams would prefer rounded figures.
'Can you give us any idea what we'll be surveying, sir?'
'No, I'm afraid not. I'm not being unnecessarily secretive: we are sailing with sealed orders. But I can assure you there'll be plenty of work for both of you once we arrive.'
Williams grinned happily. 'It's our first voyage, sir, so we're excited. We're lucky it's with you, sir!'
Ramage smiled and said: 'You've heard of me?'
'I've got a copy of every Gazette mentioning you, sir.'
White said it in such a lugubrious voice that it took Ramage a few moments to realize that the young man was making a proud boast.
'I didn't realize the Gazette was so popular in Kettering!'
'Ah, no, but we both worked in the Navy Office, sir.'
'The Navy Office?'
'Yes, sir. The Hydrographer came over to Somerset Place one day and talked to the head surveyor, and we were offered this job. Neither of us is married, sir.'
'Well, I wish I could t
ell you more about the work. It'll be typical of the naval service, though; weeks of tedium getting there, then a frantic rush where eighteen hours' work a day won't be enough, and then weeks more tedium.'
He nodded to Aitken, and the surveyors were replaced with the draughtsmen. They had been recruited in the same way and were equally anxious to know their destination. Their task, they explained, was to take all the measurements supplied by the surveyors, mostly angles and distances, and turn them into maps for people to look at.
The last pair, the botanist and the artist, seemed at first to be an ill-assorted couple. The botanist, Edward Garret, a grey-haired man with the weathered face of a fisherman or farmer, promptly denied that he was a botanist. 'I'm a farmer who likes to experiment,' he told Ramage. 'The Admiralty asked the Board of Agriculture for someone likely to make plants grow on a barren island, and they recommended me. I'm still not sure if the Board want to get me out of the way for a few months - I'm always chasing them, you know!'
'The Board of Agriculture?' Ramage inquired. 'What does it do?'
'Not enough!' Garret said crossly. 'The office is in Sackville Street and its membership looks like the House of Lords at a Coronation - the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Dukes of Portland, Bedford and Buccleuch, and dozens of earls, among them Chatham and Spencer - you'll recall he was the last First Lord of the Admiralty. And plain politicians - Mr Pitt, the last prime minister and Mr Addington, the present one. You'd think that with such a membership the Board would be very powerful.'
'Yes,' Ramage agreed. 'Archbishops and prime ministers - they should be able to move Heaven and earth!'
'You'd be quite wrong, sir; quite wrong. Apart from Arthur Young, the secretary, they're all nincompoops. Just look at the price of flour and bread. Yet farmers feed grain to their livestock. Your father's not a member!'
Ramage raised his eyebrows. Father was notoriously a non-joiner. He would send a subscription each year but he refused to be a patron. The 'Sea Bathing Infirmary in Margate, Instituted for the Benefit of the Poor' ended up asking the Prince of Wales; the 'Society for the Relief of the Ruptured Poor' managed to persuade Henry Dundas to be their president (and thus nearly lost the Earl of Blazey's annual subscription). There was another philanthropic institution that his mother favoured, and was cross with the Earl for refusing to be the patron (but the Duke of York finally agreed). He recalled that it was 'The Benevolent Institution for the Sole Purpose of delivering poor Married Women at their own Habitations'. His mother occasionally went to their meetings at the Hungerford Coffee House in the Strand to make sure the forty midwives it employed were competent and clean.
