Ramage's Prize

by Dudley Pope

  Yorke said, “This fellow Kerguelen: he’s a cut above what I’d expected.”

  “Several cuts above,” Ramage said. “But his men …”

  “Sweepings of the jails,” Southwick said. “I’d—”

  The key turned in the lock and the door opened. Kerguelen waved Southwick to one side and two seamen carried Much into the cabin and put him in one of the bunks.

  “You change places,” Kerguelen told Southwick as Bowen entered the cabin, clutching a bag of surgical instruments and his chessboard. “You go to the mate’s cabin next door, and he stays here: then the Surgeon is with him all the time.”

  The Master left the cabin and Kerguelen said, “It is best, eh?”

  “Pity he was hit.”

  “Pity? He’s lucky to be alive. Usually we take very few prisoners. But your Captain surrendered so swiftly, you can thank him for your lives.”

  “Are you always so generous?” Ramage asked curiously.

  Kerguelen shrugged his shoulders. “Yes—if a ship surrenders without firing a shot. But usually only these Post Office vessels do, so we can afford to be generous.”

  “You speak good English,” Yorke said as Ramage digested the fact that the packets had a reputation among the privateers.

  “My mother even better.”

  Yorke nodded. Only an English parent or long residence in England could give an accent such polish. Kerguelen looked at Yorke and Ramage, and said coolly, as if warning them against attempts to recapture the ship, “I also understand the English character quite well.”

  Bowen said, “If you’ll excuse me,” and Kerguelen moved to let him bend over Much, who was lying inert on the bunk, his head and brow swathed in bandages.

  “Tell the sentry if you want anything.” With that Kerguelen left the cabin and the door was locked once again.

  “How was that?” Bowen whispered. “No sooner said than done!”

  “What happened?”

  “Much had the same idea or, rather, he wanted to pass the word that he had to talk to you.”

  “Is he badly hurt?”

  As Bowen began to reply Ramage saw Much open one eye and wink.

  “Yes,” Bowen said loudly. “It was a savage attack. The patient will be unconscious for several hours, I fear. I suggest a game of chess while we wait.”

  Ramage looked startled but Bowen pointed to the door and mimed a sentry listening at a keyhole. Yes, an hour’s chess would probably be enough to lull even the most ardent eavesdropper. Bowen took out the board and box of pieces, explaining they were among the few items the privateersmen had left behind in his cabin, and held out both fists. When Ramage touched the left, Bowen opened his hand to show a white pawn.

  “You start,” he said. As soon as they had set the pieces out on the board, Ramage gingerly moved the king’s pawn.

  “That move is a great comfort to you and Southwick, sir,” Bowen said, “and I can guess your next will be to advance the queen’s pawn two squares.”

  Ramage nodded. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all,” Bowen said cheerfully. “Only chess is a game of the unexpected; of bluff and attack, long-term trap and quickly exploited opportunity. It’s truly the game for you, sir, but you play it like the vicar’s wife sipping something she half fears will turn out to be a devil’s brew!”

  “I have an advantage over the vicar’s wife,” Ramage said heavily. “I know it’s a devil’s brew!”

  An hour later, with the game only a third played, Yorke was sitting with Ramage and they both struggled to defend against Bowen, who seemed possessed of a dozen each of bishops, rooks and knights, most of which had the gift of becoming invisible until the last moment.

  Ramage pointed at Much, and signalled to Yorke and Bowen to make conversation. He went to the mate and bent over him, whispering, “Well, Mr Much?”

  “I’m sorry to impose myself on you gentlemen—”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Ramage said. “We were trying to arrange something like this.”

  “Oh?” Much was startled. “Why, sir?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “What about, sir?”

  “Probably what you want to talk to me about,” Ramage grinned reassuringly.

  “Ah—yes, well, it’s complicated.”

  “You didn’t agree with the way Stevens handled the ship?”

  “Indeed I did not!”

  “And we weren’t really trying to get away?”

  “Certainly not! We—”

  Ramage held his fingers to his lips: Much’s voice was rising in proportion to his indignation.

  “—we could have got away, but the Captain’s mind was made up long ago to surrender if a Frenchman’s topsails lifted over the horizon. If not this voyage, then the next.”

  “Why?” Ramage gestured to Yorke and Bowen, who had stopped talking, fascinated by what Much was saying. As soon as they began talking again, discussing the game, Much said, “It’s all insurance. On the ship and on the ventures. You know what ventures are, sir?”

  Ramage nodded.

  “Well, everyone carries them. Captain, Surgeon, seamen, the two boys. You really do know what ventures are?”

  “Leather goods, cheeses, lace, French wines …”

  “Yes, things like that outward-bound. And mostly tobacco, spices and rum for Falmouth. Well, they insure their ventures for the round voyage, out to Jamaica and back.”

  “And back? Why—they sell them out there, don’t they?”

  “They sell them out there, yes; but nearly all the packets are captured on the way back, aren’t they, sir?”

  Again Ramage nodded. “I still don’t understand, though. Presumably they buy more ventures out there to bring back, so they’ve lost if the packet is captured.”

  Much shook his head violently and then winced. “Phew, that hurts! No, sir, let’s take an example. Seaman Brown buys £100 of ventures in Falmouth. He insures them out to Jamaica and back, because—so he says, anyway—he may not be able to sell them in the West Indies and would have to bring them back. But he insures them for £400.

  “Right, his costs before leaving Falmouth are £100, plus the insurance premium. He gets to Jamaica, and sells the ventures for maybe £200. That’s a profit of £100. He gets a draft for £100 and gives it to someone in a merchantman to bring back: a merchantman sailing in convoy. So he knows the £100 profit will get to Falmouth safely.”

  Much reached up and gingerly pushed up the bandage a fraction of an inch.

  “Then he can use the remaining £100 to buy more ventures in Jamaica to sell in Falmouth for £200, which means another £100 profit. Once his draft arrives from Jamaica he has a profit of £200, less the insurance premium.”

  “Yes, and a one hundred per cent profit is excellent,” Ramage said patiently, “but supposing the packet is captured?”

  “Ah,” said Much, “I was describing what used to happen—up to a year or two ago, just so’s you understand the system. But nowadays our Seaman Brown is a lot smarter. Let’s start again in Jamaica, Mr Ramage. Our seaman has just sold his ventures for £200. He can do one of two things: either send all the money back in a merchantman, or keep some of it—say £25—for more ventures. Can you guess which he’ll do?”

  Ramage shook his head, excitement creeping over him as he realized that at last he was on the verge of discovering—

  The key grated and the door swung open without warning and Kerguelen came in. Ramage, bending forward to hear Much, sat up abruptly and was so startled he snapped at Kerguelen. “What do you want?”

  It was Kerguelen’s turn to be surprised. “I just came to see if Mr Much has recovered. I see he has.”

  “Just enough to tell me what happened,” Ramage said indignantly. “Barbarism, M. Kerguelen, sheer barbarism!”

  “You’re all alive,” Kerguelen said briefly. “Most privateersmen would regard that as barbaric: dead men tell no tales—and cause no problems.”

/>   “It can work both ways,” Ramage pointed out. “Privateersmen get captured, too.”

  “True. How is this fellow?” He waved to Much.

  “Time,” Bowen interrupted. “The patient needs time.”

  “Well, he has two or three days before we get into Lisbon. After that—who knows?”

  “Will you let us go in Lisbon?” Yorke asked hopefully.

  Kerguelen shook his head. “Alas, no; I wish I could. Unfortunately I need you with me all the way to France.”

  “Why?”

  “As my insurance,” Kerguelen said with a disarmingly frank smile. “Privateersmen are always a little sensitive about their necks. If I was unfortunate enough to be captured, having you with me …”

  “Oh quite,” Yorke said breezily, tapping the table with one of his pawns. “It’s just that the thought of being locked up in a French prison is …”

  “Not very agreeable,” Kerguelen agreed. “Quite so—I spent a few months as a guest of the British in the prison at Norman’s Cross. You know it?”

  “I don’t know a soul in Huntingdonshire,” Yorke said airily, bringing a smile to Kerguelen’s face, “although I’m told the hunting is good.”

  Ramage knew the largest prisoner-of-war camp was now at Norman’s Cross, although there was talk of building a great new stone place at Princeton, in the middle of Dartmoor. “The hunting could not have been very good if M. Kerguelen escaped!”

  “I had an advantage with my English,” Kerguelen said. “I travelled by coach. No one hearing me speak thought I was a ‘bloody Frog.’”

  “No,” Yorke said with a grin. “You might almost pass for an Englishman!”

  “Almost?”

  “Almost,” Yorke said firmly. “We’re your prisoners, don’t forget.”

  “For the last few minutes I did,” Kerguelen said gracefully. “However, if you’ll excuse me …”

  With that he left the cabin and they heard the key turn in the lock.

  “We were in Jamaica with Seaman Brown’s £200,” Ramage reminded Much, “and deciding whether he’d send it all back in a merchantman or send back £175 and risk the privateers by spending £25 on more ventures.”

  “Well, you’ve probably guessed that he’d spend £25 and send the rest home. But you can’t guess why?”

  “No,” Ramage said. “I was trying while Kerguelen was here.”

  “He gave you a clue,” Much said cryptically.

  Ramage wrinkled his brow. “Kerguelen only said he could not free us in Lisbon because we were his insurance …”

  “That’s it, sir, insurance! Don’t forget that before Seaman Brown left Falmouth he’d insured his £100 worth of ventures for £400 for the outward and return voyage. So his £25 worth of new Jamaica ventures are still insured for £400. Of course, the underwriters don’t know he’s already sold the ventures he brought out and that his draft for £175 is safely on board a merchantman.”

  At last Ramage saw what was happening. “And when the homeward-bound packet is captured Seaman Brown loses his £25-worth of new ventures but claims for and collects the whole £400 from the underwriters because he says he was bringing back the original ventures.”

  “Exactly! As soon as he’s exchanged, Seaman Brown goes back to Falmouth to find the £175 draft from Jamaica and collect £400 from the underwriters. He deducts the £25 spent on lost ventures and the original £100 investment, and finds he has a profit of £450 …”

  “All for six or eight weeks in a French prison.”

  “Yes, and Seaman Brown can comfortably manage at least two such voyages a year. One voyage out lasts 45 days and 35 days back, plus about 20 days’ waiting. That’s 100 days, plus six weeks as a prisoner. So Seaman Brown makes the round voyage, is captured and back in Falmouth before six months is up. Time enough to do it again so that by Christmas—if he’s captured a second time—he’s made a clear profit of £900 on the year at no risk.”

  “And at all times his ventures were insured …” Yorke commented quietly. “Where would he get the original £100?”

  “That’s not difficult. He’d have started as a boy, taking out goods for some Falmouth merchant on commission. Ventures have been carried for many years, Mr Yorke …”

  “How can he be sure the packet will be captured?”

  “He can’t be absolutely sure,” Much said, “but he can be sure—unless he’s sailing with one of the very few commanders who’ll have nothing to do with it—that his packet will surrender if a privateer is so much as sighted. It’s not only seamen involved, Mr Yorke: mates, masters and commanders, too.”

  “Supposing the packet isn’t captured,” Ramage asked.

  “Well, his £25 venture will still make him £50, and he has the £175 draft from Jamaica.”

  “And if the ship’s taken on the way out?”

  “Seaman Brown loses £100-worth of ventures and collects £400 from the underwriters as soon as he’s exchanged. That’s a profit of £300 in less than three months. Believe me, Mr Ramage. Seaman Brown can’t lose!”

  “I can see that,” Ramage said ruefully. “But why has all this spread so quickly in the last year or so? The war’s been on a long time!”

  “It took a couple of years for the men to be certain the French would always exchange them without long delays.”

  “Yes, that also puzzles me: seamen—whether merchant or from the King’s ships—usually wait years.”

  “The French—I’m ashamed to say this, Mr Ramage—the French exchange packetsmen quickly because they know they won’t fight: they want the men back at Falmouth and off in another packet to surrender again. That way the French Government knows it’s disrupting the mails, and it makes sure of a regular supply of prize packets,” Much said bitterly. “They like the ships to use as privateers—fast, well built, most of them new, and captured without damage; no shot holes in the hull.”

  “Yes, the packetsmen, privateersmen and the French Government all get handsome profits. It just chafes across the back of any honest Briton posting a letter,” Ramage said bitterly, “not to mention Government business. Downing Street, the Admiralty and the War Office all cut off from governors, ships and troops because of the greed and treason of a few score men. A few score Englishmen who’ve done what the whole French Fleet have failed to do …”

  The four men sat silent, each lost in his thoughts. Finally Ramage asked the mate, “Why are you telling me all this, Mr Much? Don’t you risk having your throat cut?”

  “The risk is there all right, but supposing you were in my place? What would you do?”

  “Don’t you venture?”

  “Indeed, I don’t,” Much exclaimed angrily. “‘Tis more vicious than drink—apart from being against the regulations—and ‘tis treason, too.”

  “But you’ve sailed with Captain Stevens a long time,” Ramage said pointedly.

  “Aye, to my eternal shame, and I know you wonder why I’ve done nothing before this. Yes, I’ve sailed with him a long time, and his father before him. A commander for many years, the old man, and with his dying breath he asked me to stay on as mate with his son Gideon. I was so upset with the sight of the old man dragging his anchors for the next world that I promised. I kept that promise until yesterday, when Gideon broke his solemn word to me. I think the old man knew he had a bad streak in him; many’s the time I heard him round on Gideon and say money wasn’t everything in this world; but Gideon reckoned it was …”

  Much’s voice faded as he roamed alone with his memories, and finally Ramage brought him back to the present. “What started the quarrelling between you and Stevens after the Rossignol was sighted?”

  The mate sighed. “That I should be talking like this of the old man’s son. Well, the fact is the Captain—I’ll call him Gideon, so we don’t get mixed up—has done this twice before. I was wrong to stay with him—but I’d promised the old man. Still, before we left Falmouth this last time, I’d had enough. I made Gideon swear he’d never do it again. But the Mas
ter—he felt the same as me—didn’t believe him and reported sick, so he didn’t sail with us. Me—well, I thought Gideon would stand by his word and I signed on again, seeing I’d promised his father, God rest his soul.”

  “Why didn’t the Master believe him?”

  Once again Much tried to ease the bandage round his head. “Because he knows how desperately Gideon wants a new ship,” he said simply.

  “But the Arabella’s almost new,” Ramage exclaimed, and a moment later remembered the rot round the eye-bolts of the stern-chase breechings, and the vague remark Stevens had made the evening they had drinks together.

  “Yes, she’s almost new,” Much said, “but the builder was sharper than Gideon: while Gideon was a prisoner that last time, seems the builder used a lot o’ green wood in the stern, and most of it’s gone rotten already. It’d cost a pretty penny to rip it out … And Gideon reckoned that rather than pay for repairs out of his own pocket he’d sooner have those gentlemen in Lombard Street buy him a new ship—they paid for the Arabella of course, because the last one was captured. And Gideon would spend another year—on full pay—supervising the construction.”

  “Yes, but what the devil does Stevens get out of it?” Ramage objected. “He loses charter money and passenger fares …”

  “Aye, he’d lose that, but he gets a brand-new ship. Apart from the rot, there’s a year or so’s depreciation written off just like that!”

  Yorke, who had been listening as best he could while carrying out a conversation with Bowen, turned to Ramage and said quietly, “Believe me, Nicholas, as a businessman I can assure you that even if he takes two years to build the new ship he’ll make a far greater profit than if he’d been at sea. In effect, he’s gained—well, I’d guess a third or half of his original investment.”

  “I can see the temptation is enormous. But the risk of discovery …”

  “It’s been going on for four or five years, much longer than over-insuring ventures,” Much said, “and the Post Office suspects nothing. They think it’s because there are swarms of French privateers at sea.”

  “And we know there aren’t,” Yorke commented. “No wonder the Admiralty are puzzled: I’ll bet their frigates don’t sight that many!”