Ramage and the Renegades r-12

by Dudley Pope

  He wrote the final row of figures, 20° 01' 50". And that, he knew without looking it up, was within thirty miles of the latitude of Trinidade.

  A cast of the log half an hour ago had given just over six knots and they were able to lay the course. By five o'clock they might be there; it should be in sight at the latest in an hour or two - if it was as high as reported and the chronometer was anywhere near passing for correct.

  Southwick walked across the quarterdeck and reported to Ramage, who grimaced and nodded ahead. 'A thousand or fifteen hundred feet high? We should be seeing it by now.'

  'It's hazier than it looks, sir,' Southwick said confidently. 'Had you given any thought about who might ...'

  'All right, all right, pass the word through the bosun. Though why I should always pay up a guinea to the first man to sight such a place, I don't know!'

  'It's the trickiest landfall we've ever made, sir. The Atlantic is 2,500 miles wide here, from Trinidade to the nearest tip of West Africa, and we're looking for somewhere two or three miles long.'

  'That's a fine argument to impress old ladies,' Ramage said unsympathetically, 'and it'd impress me if I thought Trinidade could lie anywhere along that gap of 2,500 miles. But you have a quadrant, almanac, tables and a chronometer that allow you to be rather more precise.'

  'Well, yes sir,' Southwick agreed and added with a grin, 'but I can't make it seem too easy!'

  He walked back to the binnacle to inspect the calculations made by the two young lieutenants and midshipman.

  He looked first at Orsini's slate and his brow furrowed. 'I can assure you, Mr Orsini, that the Calypso is about seven hundred and fifty miles from Rio de Janeiro; in other words, about four-fifths of the way across the South Atlantic between the Cape of Good Hope and South America, not far from the tropic of Capricorn. But you, Mr Orsini, seem to be not only north of the Equator, almost on the far side of the Torrid Zone, but close to the Cape Verde Islands, which the rest of us left thousands of miles away some weeks ago...'

  Orsini, his face crimson, hurriedly rubbed out some writing on his slate and corrected it. 'The latitude is north, not south. I'm sorry, I mean, I should have named it south, not north.'

  Southwick grumbled and picked up Martin's slate. He put it down again. 'Lieutenant Martin has made a mathematical discovery of note: three and two make four. Well, the rest of us will continue to struggle along with five. And Mr Kenton? Ah, the method of calculation is correct, but the original altitude is wrong. Check your sextant, Mr Kenton; I suspect you have knocked it and it now has an error.'

  Ramage had listened to this daily routine for weeks and it varied little: Orsini made some enormous mistake that was due to lack of interest in mathematics; Martin made some silly mistake; and Kenton worked out the sight correctly but had been careless with his sextant. It was almost new, and one of the few sextants on board: Southwick and Aitken used quadrants.

  Yet Southwick was right to keep nagging these young officers. One of them might be in command of a prize one day when war broke out again and responsible for navigating her thousands of miles to port, or even to a rendezvous at a place like Trinidade . . .

  The lookout's hail came at exactly three o'clock in the afternoon; his shout was partly drowned as six bells was being struck.

  There was, he called, what might be only a cloud on the horizon but it was a different shape from the trade wind clouds and seemed to be lying athwart their course.

  An excited Orsini asked 'May I, sir?' and, when Ramage nodded, grabbed a telescope and raced up the shrouds, climbing the ratlines as fast as any topman.

  He braced himself beside the lookout and glanced ahead as he pulled open the telescope. Low on the horizon there was something the colour of a fading bruise.

  He held up the telescope, balancing against the Calypso's roll and focused his eye in the circle of glass. It was land. As the lookout had said, it was athwart the Calypso's course, probably lying northwest and southeast. Low at each end and rising towards the middle. There were some peaks in the centre of the island - he counted four which seemed the same height and a fifth quite a bit lower. It sounded like Trinidade, but where was Martin Vaz Rocks?

  'Deck there!' he hailed. 'It's land lying across our course and I can distinguish five peaks in the centre part of the island.'

  'How far?' Aitken shouted.

  'Difficult to say, sir; there's nothing to use as a scale. Fifteen miles, I reckon; I think haze must have been hiding it, then the wind cleared it away.'

  Paolo felt like saying that even at this distance it looked like an island off Tuscany; cliffs with rounded hills just inland. Mr Ramage would understand - but so many islands in the West Indies looked like Tuscany, too, and neither of them wanted to be reminded that it would be months before they were back in England and receiving news of Aunt Gianna.

  Down on deck Aitken and Ramage, using the only two other telescopes, sighted the island at the same moment.

  'I don't know what happened to Martin Vaz,' Ramage said, 'but that must be Trinidade. We'll pass round the southern end to the lee side, so that we can run down the west coast.'

  'Supposing we don't find an anchorage, sir?'

  'Then we'll be wasting our time, because the whole reason for taking the island will be gone.'

  What Ramage did not say was that he had been thinking a great deal about that very point, which was not covered by his orders. He knew that the Admiralty's only interest in Trinidade was as a base, and a base meant a safe bay in which ships could anchor, and with fresh water available on shore, from a river or wells. It had not occurred to their Lordships that there might be neither, although, to be fair, many ships had visited the island in the last hundred years. Presumably if they had found neither anchorage nor water they would have reported the fact: no one looked for either at Martin Vaz.

  But supposing . . . Well, he could do one of two things: first he could say: 'This island is no use to anyone' (after having put landing parties on shore to be certain about water) and return to the United Kingdom, calling in at one of the South American ports for water before crossing the Doldrums again. That would mean the Calypso would stay less than a week.

  The alternative was to do a survey of the island anyway, plant the vegetables on the basis that although there was no river there was sufficient rain, and make soundings so that their Lordships at least had a record of the island, even if it was no good to them. That would take a couple of months, perhaps longer, and he might return to England to find that their Lordships considered he had wasted their time and his own.

  Although Aitken had just raised the point. Ramage had made up his mind three or four weeks ago, when he first thought of the possibilities: he would survey, sound and plant, even if the Calypso could not anchor and had to back and fill in the lee of the island for as long as it took. Two months backing and filling ... if he was more sure of the situation in Rio it would have been worth landing a survey and planting party on the island, leaving them with a couple of boats, and taking the Calypso on a visit to Rio - or even up to Bahia, which was nearer - where he could also provision and water.

  As he looked over the quarterdeck rail Ramage saw the surveyors and draughtsmen standing on top of the hammock nettings, eager for a sight of the island that would comprise their world for several weeks. Indeed, the Calypso at the moment looked far removed from a ship of war.

  There were ten or eleven of Wilkins's canvases lodged in various places on deck, to help the oil paints to dry, and his new easel was by the mainmast with a canvas clipped to it, so several square yards of deck looked like an artist's studio.

  Round the foremast several sacks of Irish potatoes and yams had been emptied out and spread over the deck, and a dozen seamen were patiently sorting them out and throwing away those that had gone rotten or showed signs of mildew. The smell drifted aft, and Ramage was reminded of a country barn. For a moment, as his memory went back to Cornwall, he thought of swallows jinking through shafts of sunlight and
shadow.

  Already Southwick had assembled a party of foretop and fo'c'slemen to prepare anchors and cables. As soon as the Calypso was clear of the English Channel, her anchor cables had been taken off the anchors and hauled below, to be stowed in the cabletier. The hawsehole, one each side, out of which the cable led when the ship was at anchor, had been blocked first with a hawse plug the size of the hawsehole, and that had been reinforced by a blind buckler, yet another circular wooden disc backed up by iron bars, and ensuring that waves could not force water into the ship.

  Now men were driving out the iron bars and then levering out the blind bucklers. The plugs were harder - men had to drive them out with heavy mauls while others, scrambling over the bow, caught them and made sure they did not fall over the side.

  Meanwhile men were busy down in the cabletier. a hot and dank part of the ship, where several cables were coiled down but which was always damp because the cables, impregnated with salt (as well as sand and shell scraped off the sea bed and ingrained in the lay of the ropes), never properly dried out. Now they were hauling the end of one up to the hawse and then another. Each end was led round, one to be secured to an anchor on the larboard side, the other to starboard.

  Soon Southwick was back on the quarterdeck reporting that the ship was ready for anchoring, and Ramage offering him a telescope to inspect the island. The master was not impressed by what he saw. 'If the other side's like this, then there are no anchorages,' he grumbled. 'All I can see are steep cliffs. Those mountains must be a good fifteen hundred feet - one looks like that big sugarloaf at Rio de Janeiro. I grant they should put the other side in a lee, but a lee's no good without a bay. Nothing for that fellow Wilkins to paint...'

  At that moment Ramage saw that 'that fellow Wilkins' was collecting his canvases together and taking them below. He was one of the Calypso's more welcome guests: he had quickly picked up the routine of daily life in a frigate, and quietly went about his painting without asking for special favours. The result was, of course, that he had become popular. He had painted several striking portraits. The first, of Southwick, was one of the best likenesses that Ramage had seen of anyone: looking at the canvas, one half expected Southwick's face to break into a grin. The second one, of young Paolo, had revealed his Italian lineage but in some subtle way merged it into his midshipman's uniform. The next venture had been a large canvas with three seamen sitting on the deck with a sail across their legs, busy stitching. Wilkins had contrived to let the viewer feel he was sitting among the men, Jackson, Stafford and Rossi, with the canvas round him. The portrait of Bowen sitting with his head bowed over a chess board made Ramage think that Wilkins had somehow diagnosed something of the surgeon's tragic past, when drink had nearly ruined him, but the painting showed Bowen's victory, not a defeat. And, knowing Southwick's frequent defeats at Bowen's hands while playing chess, Wilkins had painted in the chessmen so that Bowen was trying to find a way out of checkmate.

  Within another hour the Calypso was reaching fast and only two or three miles from the southern tip of the island. Aitken came up to Ramage and saluted formally.

  'Do you want the men sent to quarters, sir?'

  Ramage shook his head and smiled. 'It's a hard habit to break, isn't it! But we're at peace and this is a deserted island, so we'll keep your decks free of sand.'

  Ramage thought for a moment and then said: 'Send Jackson to the foremasthead, and Orsini to the main: tell them to watch out for any dark patches in the water that'll warn of rocks. And light patches for reefs, too!'

  Aitken passed the order and then Ramage said: 'Have the deep sea lead ready. I hope we don't have to use it. but if we can't anchor on the other side we might as well have some idea of the depth.'

  The deep sea lead was a very long line with a heavy lead weight on the end. The lead was taken out to the end of the jibboom and the line led back aft, clear of everything, and then forward again to the forechains, where it was brought back on board. As soon as the word was given the lead was dropped, taking with it line nearly twice the length of the ship. The leadsman and his mates could let more run, but initially more than 300 feet went in a matter of seconds. The usual hand lead was used only for depths of twenty fathoms and less.

  Ramage, now holding the only telescope on the quarterdeck, because the other two had been entrusted to Jackson and Orsini, went through all the evolutions the Calypso might need to perform and could rely on Aitken and Southwick remembering the various drills, while Kenton and Martin had enough ingenuity to think of anything unusual.

  'Quarterdeck there, foremast here!'

  Aitken lifted the speaking-trumpet and answered Jackson.

  'Thought I saw a puff of smoke at the southern end, sir, like a bonfire being put out.'

  'Can you see smoke now?'

  'No, sir, it only lasted a few moments.'

  'Keep a sharp lookout,' Aitken said, in the standard response. He turned to Ramage, an eyebrow raised. Jackson was one of the best lookouts and probably the most reliable seaman in the ship.

  'Could have been a flock of small birds flying off,' Ramage said. 'I've known the movement being mistaken in the distance for a puff of smoke.'

  'Aye, sir. It's hardly the place one would expect to find a gillie roasting a deer!'

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Colours could now be distinguished, although the sun dipping to the west was already beginning to throw shadows across the near side of the mountains, giving shape and design to apparently smooth peaks. There was some grass on the lower slopes, not many trees and those were evergreens stunted by constant exposure to the trade winds. Although he had only seen paintings of it, Ramage could understand Southwick's reference to the sugarloaf hill being like the famous one overlooking Rio de Janeiro.

  'A tiny Antigua,' Aitken said. 'It has that same dried up and wasted look in places, like a deserted Highland hill farm.'

  'I'm glad I'm not going to command the garrison,' Ramage said, 'although it seems a good spot for young subalterns dodging gambling debts and the furious fathers of jilted brides!'

  He caught sight of small waves breaking on the nearest shore and noted that they showed the Calypso was now less than two miles away. Curious how one had these little mental pictures to help estimate distance when anything was close. At two miles one could see a small building on the beach; at a mile the colour of its roof was distinguishable. A man standing on the beach could be picked out at 700 yards and if he was walking one could spot him at half a mile.

  'Pass this southernmost headland about a mile off,' Ramage instructed Southwick. 'That should keep us clear of any reefs. As soon as we round it we'll then stretch along the leeward side of the island under topsails and hope to find an anchorage for the night.'

  Aitken came up holding a slate. 'If the highest peak is fifteen hundred feet, sir, I calculate the island is almost exactly two and a half miles long.'

  Ramage nodded: the figure coincided with his rough and ready measurement some minutes ago, when he divided the height of the peak into the length of the island and got an answer of nine.

  Now the men were at sheets and braces and the quartermaster kept an eye on Southwick, waiting for the order that would begin the Calypso's turn round the narrow southeastern corner of the island. It was, Ramage had to admit, an island with little to recommend it. Rocky - every inch of coast he had seen so far was backed by jagged cliffs - it had patches of green, indicating grass, but the trees were little more than overgrown shrubs. Something of the coast of southern Tuscany, something of the Leeward and Virgin Islands, but nothing of the lushness of Grenada or Martinique. This was not surprising, because it was only just inside the Tropics, receiving the full force of the Atlantic winds and very little rain.

  It was a long, narrow island: as the Calypso sailed diagonally across the end he could see it was less than a mile wide. Ah, now the western side was beginning to open up and almost at once Southwick began bellowing a stream of orders to wear ship: for several hours the Calypso h
ad been on the larboard tack, the wind coming steadily over the larboard quarter. Now she was coming round to starboard almost eight points, nearly ninety degrees, to steer - Ramage walked over to the binnacle and looked down at the weather-side compass - northwest.

  The creak of yards being braced up, the thump and slam of sails filling again, the grunts of dozens of men hauling on sheets and braces, the cries of bosun's mates, the curses of the quartermaster as the two men at the wheel swung it over too far, making the Calypso bear up a point or two and bringing a glower from the master.

  Ramage was relieved to see that although the weather coast was sheer and inhospitable, the lee coast had half a dozen prominent headlands poking seaward into the distance.

  Aitken gestured towards them. 'There should be some good bays between them, sir,' he said. Ramage nodded, for a moment puzzled, but as the Calypso surged ahead on the new tack he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts: he had been at sea too long and was imagining things.

  'Deck there - foremast here!'

  'Foremast - deck!' Southwick answered.

  'I saw a small boat beyond the headland, sir! Red it was,' Jackson shouted. 'Then it went behind the cliff.'

  Ramage said quickly: 'Just acknowledge: I saw it, too!'

  'Very well, keep a sharp lookout!' Southwick said in the usual response to a routine hail.

  'What's an open boat doing here, sir?' the master exclaimed.

  'From a Brazilian fishing boat, perhaps. Or maybe there is asettlement here after all.'

  Even as he said it, Ramage realized the problems mustered behind that one brief glimpse of a boat. A settlement meant people lived here; presumably they, or the country to which they belonged, claimed possession of Trinidade. Most probably it was Portugal, but it could be Spain.

  It was a point not covered in his orders; the Admiralty had assumed the island was uninhabited. Yet... Lord St Vincent had, verbally, given what would undoubtedly be the Admiralty's view: ownership of the Ilha da Trinidade was not covered in the Treaty, so Britain could claim it. Any settlers would have to leave; he would take them back whence they came - Brazil, probably.