Governor Ramage R. N.

by Dudley Pope

  Before going on deck he went to the St Brieucs’ cabin. None of them had come to watch the ship coming into Kingston and he was disappointed. He knocked, called out his name, and heard St Cast telling him to enter. Maxine had been weeping. Her eyes were red and as Ramage looked at her, too startled to look tactfully away, she gave a dry sob.

  St Brieuc said quickly: “Don’t worry, my lord. My daughter is both sad and happy and so is my wife.” Ramage saw that she too had been crying.

  St Brieuc went on quickly to avoid an embarrassing silence,

  “We are sad at the prospect of leaving you, even though it will probably not be for a day or two.”

  Ramage was too dumbfounded to do anything more than stand there, holding his sword and hat.

  “And a little worried too until you return to tell us how the Admiral receives you. Sir Pilcher, I mean.”

  “Goddard,” Ramage said without thinking.

  “He is here?”

  Ramage pulled himself together, unable to take his eyes off Maxine.

  “The Lion is. She’s badly damaged, but safe.”

  “And the others?” Maxine asked.

  “I don’t know about the merchantmen, but none of the escorts are here.” Hastily he added: “If they weren’t damaged, they might have sailed again already.”

  She did not believe him and began sobbing again. So Ramage bowed helplessly and left.

  Jackson was waiting in the boat and within five minutes the men at the oars were pulling clear of the schooner and heading for the shore.

  Ramage saw none of the local boats, which had given up hope of passengers from the schooner and were speeding back to the shore, nor did he notice the curious eyes watching from nearby merchantmen. He did not notice the heat, the dust, the noise or the smell as they arrived at the jetty. He was thinking about Goddard, who had survived but could not know that Ramage had done so as well. The moment the Admiral discovered that Ramage was alive, something unpleasant would happen. Ramage could not think exactly what it would be because there was such a wide choice.

  The heat and noise hit Ramage like a blow as he reached the top of the stone steps of the jetty and began walking to Rear-Admiral Goddard’s house. The streets were crowded. Goods landed from the merchant ships were being carried to the stores and warehouses in heavy drays, light carts and on the backs of stubborn donkeys. Cheerful Negroes pulled and pushed, shouting and singing at the top of their voices and good-naturedly jostling each other; coloured women walked with grace and elegance, many of them carrying large baskets balanced on their heads with as much dignity as a dowager arriving at a court ball in a tiara.

  Rear-Admiral Goddard’s house was some distance from the jetty, a big and cool stone building with a red roof and whitewashed walls, standing in the centre of a walled garden. Wide, covered balconies ran all round the ground and upper floors, reminding Ramage of a square, two-tiered wedding cake.

  An old coloured man with grey hair was sweeping leaves from the withered apology for a lawn. The heat of the sun had scorched the grass brown, and in places the hard ground showed enormous bald patches, criss-crossed where the earth was cracked, as though wrinkled by age.

  The Marine sentry saluted, but the coloured butler who came to the door when Ramage jerked the brass bell handle left him standing on the top step while he went back into the building. The Admiral seemed to have given standing orders about how to deal with young lieutenants who called at the second-in-command’s residence without orders or invitation.

  At last the pimply young Lieutenant he had seen at the convoy conference on board the Lion at Barbados came to the door.

  “Good afternoon,” Ramage said coolly. “Have you got any spare handkerchiefs?”

  The Lieutenant looked blank and Ramage could not be bothered to explain.

  “Admiral Goddard, please. Lieutenant Ramage to see him.”

  “I—er, we thought you’d … Yes, well, he’ll be busy for about fifteen minutes. Come this way.”

  Nervously he led Ramage to a waiting-room, ushered him in like a doctor’s assistant, and left.

  A cool room in a cool house, and somewhere to sit down. The door was slatted like a large, partly-opened venetian blind. The roof over the outside balcony shaded the room. The legs of a small, round mahogany table stood in shallow metal trays of water as part of the ceaseless war against ants that had to be waged in the Tropics.

  Ramage put his hat and sword on the table and opened the canvas pouch to check over the documents he’d written using his knee as a desk while crouched in the cuddy on board La Perla. On the top of the pile was his report to the Admiral describing the loss of the Triton. He made that a separate report since he would have to face a routine court of inquiry which always followed the loss of one of the King’s ships. He had been careful to cover the period from the onset of the hurricane up to the dismasted Triton running on the reef at Snake Island. It described building the rafts and using them to ferry men and provisions on shore, and it stopped there.

  The second report covered the capture of La Perla and the voyage from Snake Island to Jamaica. It was a brief three pages of writing. Every word was true, yet it did not tell the whole story. It did not mention that he had fallen in love with Maxine, for instance, nor that Sydney Yorke, who had become a good friend, was ruefully envious of her attitude to him.

  The third report, marked “SECRET” and sealed with wax, dealt with the treasure. With it was a complete inventory. “Treasure Log,” a detailed list of the contents of the crates, a stowage list and a diagram—recently amended by Southwick after he shifted some to trim the schooner—describing in which holds the crates were stowed in La Perla.

  As he put them back in the pouch, carefully keeping them in the same order, he thought about how little of an episode an official report really described. The report on the treasure was probably the most detailed and complicated he’d ever written, but it told nothing of the days and nights when he thought he’d never work out the meaning of the poem, the misery and disappointment they had felt when they found the first bones, the ghoulish effect of digging up skeletons by lantern light, or the excitement when Jackson leapt out of the trench with the first coins….

  He heard voices outside the front door and heavy boots clumping up the carriageway from the gate. Impatient at the long wait for the Admiral, he walked to the window and looked out. Five Marines armed with muskets, one of them a corporal, were standing sweltering in the sun, and the pimply Lieutenant was whispering to the corporal.

  Ramage sat down again, and a moment later the Lieutenant, perspiring freely, came in to say abruptly: “Follow me: the Admiral will see you now.”

  The room was large and heavily shaded by partly closed shutters. A large desk stood in front of the windows and beyond it, where the breeze cooled him, the Admiral was lounging back on a settee.

  He looked as hot, uncomfortable and petulant as he had when Ramage first saw him at the convoy conference with the pimply Lieutenant passing him fresh handkerchiefs. Now his face was slack and drawn, as though heat and worry were making it difficult for him to sleep through the sweltering Jamaica nights. He looked, Ramage thought, like a rich nabob fearful that someone is about to tell him he is bankrupt, that his wife has cuckolded him, or perhaps both.

  Ramage stood stiffly, holding his sword scabbard with his left hand, hat tucked under his left arm, and grasping the canvas pouch in his right hand.

  “Good afternoon, sir.”

  Goddard just stared at him.

  The room was silent except for the distant high-pitched laughter of Negroes and a faint ticking somewhere, showing that a death watch beetle was at work. The settee creaked as Goddard moved slightly, and in spite of the open door and window, the room smelled musty, like a family vault.

  Ramage stared at a point a foot above Goddard’s head and listened to his heavy breathing; the man was far too fat for the Tropics.

  “Where have you been?” the Admiral inquired finally, in
a tone of voice that suggested that he would have preferred to ask:

  “Why have you come back from the dead?”

  “The Triton went on a reef, sir.”

  “I’m not surprised. Some strange and unexpected current, no doubt, that swept you onto a reef not shown on any charts? The standard excuse.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You admit it, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “By God!”

  The Admiral was dumbfounded. His questions had been hopes put into words. This was what he hoped to prove against Ramage and now Ramage was admitting it.

  “You’re under close arrest, Ramage.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Damnation, is that all you have to say? A bloody parrot!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you being insolent?”

  “Oh no, sir!”

  “Don’t you want to know the charges?”

  “If you wish, sir.”

  Of course he wanted to know the charges but he would be damned if he’d give Goddard the satisfaction of knowing it.

  Not attempting to keep the note of triumph out of his voice the Admiral said: “Articles ten, twelve and seventeen. To which will now be added number twenty-six.”

  “Ten, twelve, seventeen and now twenty-six, sir,” Ramage repeated calmly.

  “So far. There may be more after I’ve read your report. You have it ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Give it to Hobson as you go out.”

  Ramage flushed. “Yes, sir. May I send a message out to the former Master of the Triton on board the little schooner we came here in?”

  Goddard was not interested. “Of course,” he said and waved his hand in dismissal.

  Lieutenant Hobson was outside the door.

  “Your escort is waiting,” he said triumphantly.

  Ramage put his hat down on a chair and opened the pouch. He looked through his reports and took out the top one.

  “For the Admiral.”

  Hobson took it as though snatching a hot chestnut from a fire. Ramage unclipped the scabbard of his sword and handed it to Hobson. “You’d better have this. And pass the word that the Admiral’s given permission for me to send a message out to my ship.” With that he picked up his hat and walked swiftly to the front door. “Come, corporal, let’s not hang about in the sun!”

  Ramage strode down towards the gate, squinting in the bright sun, and it was several moments before he heard shouted orders and the hurried thumping of boots, and then the corporal’s voice pleading: “‘Old ‘ard, sir! Yer’ll get us inter trouble if the h’Admiral sees!”

  Ramage slowed down to let the Marines form up round him. “Step out, corporal, it’s a lovely day.”

  The corporal was clutching Ramage’s sword.

  Ramage put the pen down and screwed the cap on the inkwell. He folded the sheet of paper and cursed himself for not asking for wax. He decided to enclose it in another blank sheet folded into an envelope and trust that if whoever delivered it was nosy he wouldn’t understand the significance of what was written.

  Although addressed to Southwick, the letter was meant for Yorke, and knowing he wouldn’t seal it Ramage had written with deliberate ambiguity:

  “I have been put under close arrest on charges presumably arising from the Peacock’s attack on the Topaz. Articles ten, twelve and seventeen. More charges are likely, relating to the loss of the Triton. I have not yet received the precise charges nor been told the date of the trial. Unless it is necessary I’d prefer nothing went on shore yet from La Perla, particularly talk, but if you happen to call on me at the Marine barracks, bring my razor and fresh clothing.”

  Yorke and St Brieuc would realize that Ramage wanted them to stay out of sight. Southwick would understand that the treasure must stay on board under guard and under conditions of secrecy.

  Ramage got up from the table in his small and hot room—the quarters intended for a Marine subaltern—and banged on the door.

  The Marine corporal, a red-faced, plump and cheerful Londoner, unlocked it and came in.

  “Can you see this is delivered to La Perla schooner—the Spanish prize that came in earlier today?”

  “Yes, sir! Saw you come in, sir!”

  “What ship?”

  “Lion, sir.”

  “You came in with the convoy?”

  “Yessir!”

  “How was the hurricane?”

  “Cor!” The corporal rolled his eyes and kicked the door shut with his heel. “Confidenshurally, sir, it was ‘orrible.”

  “Windy, eh?”

  “The wind warn’t too bad,” the corporal said ambiguously, dropping his voice. “T’was storm aft, sir.”

  Ramage looked puzzled and the corporal winked, repeating “Aft, sir.”

  “Two hands at the wheel?”

  It was the best Ramage could do on the spur of the moment. The corporal, for reasons Ramage could not guess, was friendly, and the way gossip spread he probably knew even more than Ramage himself about the circumstances leading up to the arrest. If the corporal wanted to pass on information, it was up to Ramage to make it easy for him.

  “Two hands at the wheel?” The corporal thought a moment and then nodded his head vigorously. “And hauling in different directions, sir!”

  Ramage nodded sympathetically. “That’s how masts go by the board.”

  “Indeed they do! Killed eleven men. The mizen mast did for the Master, two midshipmen and eight of the afterguard.”

  “The Captain wasn’t hurt?”

  “No, thank Gawd! We’d have drarnded if ‘e’d gorn. ‘Mazing sir, ‘ow it took ‘im.”

  “What took him?”

  “Losin’ the masts. He was a noo man. Ordered—” he broke off, paused and then plunged on, using emphasis to make his meaning clear. “Ordered everyone off the quarterdeck wasn’t on watch. Everyone,” he repeated. That included the Rear-Admiral. “Then ‘e did what ‘e wanted, an’ that’s ‘ow we got ‘ere. Later we met a frigate orf the Morant Cays an’ she towed us in.”

  The corporal looked at Ramage.

  “You don’t remember me, do you, sir?”

  “I thought your face was familiar.”

  “The Belette, sir. ‘Afore I got promoted. When you was wounded. My proudest day, sir. You was wonderful, sir; I’ll never forget ‘ow you took command. Cor, yer looked dreffel wiv that cut on yer ‘ead!”

  The corporal’s eyes widened. “Why, sir, yer got two scars there nar!”

  “St Vincent,” Ramage said briefly. “The French seem to like my head!”

  Satisfying though it was to know the corporal was friendly; and grateful as he was for the information about Captain Croucher’s troubles with the Admiral, he wanted his letter delivered to La Perla.

  The corporal took it. “Mr Hobson passed the word, sir. I’ll send my best man out wiv it. Oh—it ain’t sealed, sir.”

  “I’ve no wax. Can you get any?”

  “Aye, sir, no trouble at all.”

  “Just seal it and give it to your man.”

  “Leave it ter me, sir,” the corporal said, flattered at Ramage’s trust in him. He returned in a few minutes to report the letter sealed and on its way to La Perla, and apologizing for having to shut and lock the door.

  An hour later there was a peremptory rap on the door which flew open to admit a shrivelled little man who strutted like a bantam cock and wore tiny, steel-rimmed spectacles that stuck on his nose like a price label.

  “The deputy judge advocate!” he announced in a high-pitched voice that fitted the body like a squeak would a rusty hinge.

  Ramage remained seated, eyed the man and said: “What about him?”

  “I am the deputy judge advocate.”

  “Your manners are certainly familiar; what’s your name?”

  “Harold Syme,” he said, oblivious of Ramage’s snub. “I have come to serve you with the charges.”

  Ramage held out his hand for the papers. P
uzzled at Ramage’s silence, he began fumbling in the leather bag which had been tucked under his arm.

  “The charges are exhibited by Rear-Admiral Goddard. They are capital charges.”

  Ramage gestured impatiently with his hand.

  “Deliver any documents necessary, please. I am busy.”

  “Busy? Why—”

  “I will let you have the names of my witnesses in due course,” Ramage said. “The documents?”

  The man burrowed into his case, took out several papers and handed them to Ramage as if they were delicate, breakable objects. Ramage tossed them carelessly on the table.

  “I have to read the ‘Letter to the prisoner’ to you.”

  “I can read,” Ramage said. “Please have some wax sent in.”

  “What do you want wax for?”

  Ramage gestured to the writing materials on the table. “To seal my letters from prying eyes.”

  “Really! Do you suppose I would—”

  “The thought occurred to you, not me. Good day to you, sir,” Ramage said, and began unscrewing the inkwell.

  “Mr Ramage, how—”

  “I’m preparing my defence. Do you want it said you deliberately hindered me?”

  After a pause the man strutted from the room, calling loudly to the corporal that he was leaving.

  As the door slammed, Ramage opened one of the letters. It was Rear-Admiral Goddard’s report to Sir Pilcher, dated two weeks earlier, soon after the Lion arrived. He began reading, underlining with his pen the words which were taken directly from the various Articles of War.

  “I beg leave to inform you that Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, commanding officer of His Majesty’s brig Triton while escorting ships of a convoy under my command, on the occasion of one of the ships being attacked on the night of the 18th of July last, by a French privateer, did not make the necessary preparations for fight, and did not in his own person, and according to his place, encourage the inferior officers and men to fight courageously; and furthermore the said Lt Ramage upon the same occasion did withdraw or keep back and did not do his utmost to take or destroy the enemy ship which it was his duty to engage; and furthermore the said Lt Ramage upon the same occasion, being the commanding officer of the ship appointed for convoy and guard of merchant ships, did not diligently attend upon that charge according to his instructions to defend the ships in the convoy, and did neglect to fight in their defence: in consequence of which I am to request you will apply for a court martial on the said Lt Ramage for the said crimes,