Ramage's Trial

by Dudley Pope

  Copyright & Information

  Ramage’s Trial

  First published in 1984

  Copyright: Kay Pope; House of Stratus 1984-2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Dudley Pope to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2010 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  1842324810 9781842324813 Print

  0755124421 9780755124428 Pdf

  0755124596 9780755124596 Kindle/Mobi

  0755124766 9780755124763 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Dudley Bernard Egerton Pope was born in Ashford, Kent on 29 December 1925. When at the tender age of fourteen World War II broke out and Dudley attempted to join the Home Guard by concealing his age. At sixteen, once again using a ruse, he joined the merchant navy a year early, signing papers as a cadet with the Silver Line. They sailed between Liverpool and West Africa, carrying groundnut oil.

  Before long, his ship was torpedoed in the Atlantic and a few survivors, including Dudley, spent two weeks in a lifeboat prior to being rescued. His injuries were severe and because of them he was invalided out of the merchant service and refused entry into the Royal Navy when officially called up for active service aged eighteen.

  Turning to journalism, he set about ‘getting on with the rest of his life’, as the Naval Review Board had advised him. He graduated to being Naval and Defence correspondent with the London Evening News in 1944. The call of the sea, however, was never far away and by the late 1940’s he had managed to acquire his first boat. In it, he took part in cross-channel races and also sailed off to Denmark, where he created something of a stir, his being one of the first yachts to visit the country since the war.

  In 1953 he met Kay, whom he married in 1954, and together they formed a lifelong partnership in pursuit of scholarly adventure on the sea. From 1959 they were based in Porto Santo Stefano in Italy for a few years, wintering on land and living aboard during the summer. They traded up boats wherever possible, so as to provide more living space, and Kay Pope states:

  ‘In September 1963, we returned to England where we had bought the 53 foot cutter Golden Dragon and moved on board where she lay on the east coast. In July 1965, we cruised down the coasts of Spain and Portugal, to Gibraltar, and then to the Canary Islands. Early November of the same year we then sailed across the Atlantic to Barbados and Grenada, where we stayed three years.

  Our daughter, Victoria was 4 months old when we left the UK and 10 months when we arrived in Barbados. In April 1968, we moved on board ‘Ramage’ in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands and lost our mainmast off St Croix, when attempting to return to Grenada.’

  The couple spent the next nine years cruising between the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, before going to Antigua in 1977 and finally St.Martin in 1979.

  The sea was clearly in Pope’s blood, his family having originated in Padstow, Cornwall and later owning a shipyard in Plymouth. His great-grandfather had actually preceded him to the West Indies when in 1823, after a spell in Canada, he went to St.Vincent as a Methodist missionary, before returning to the family business in Devon.

  In later life, Dudley Pope was forced to move ashore because of vertigo and other difficulties caused by injuries sustained during the war. He died in St.Martin in 1997, where Kay now lives. Their daughter, Victoria, has in turn inherited a love of the sea and lives on a sloop, as well as practising her fatherșs initial profession of journalism.

  As an experienced seaman, talented journalist and historian, it was a natural progression for Pope to write authoritative accounts of naval battles and his first book, Flag 4: The Battle of Coastal Forces in the Mediterranean, was published in 1954. This was followed in 1956 by the Battle of the River Plate, which remains the most accurate and meticulously researched account of this first turning point for Britain in World War II. Many more followed, including the biography of Sir Henry Morgan, (Harry Morgan’s Way) which has one won wide acclaim as being both scholarly and thoroughly readable. It portrays the history of Britain’s early Caribbean settlement and describes the Buccaneer’s bases and refuges, the way they lived, their ships and the raids they made on the coast of central America and the Spain Main, including the sack of Panama.

  Recognising Pope’s talent and eye for detail, C.S. Forrester (the creator of the Hornblower Series) encouraged him to try his hand at fiction. The result, in 1965, was the appearance of the first of the Ramage novels, followed by a further seventeen culminating with Ramage and the Dido which was published in 1989. These follow the career and exploits of a young naval officer, Nicholas Ramage, who was clearly named after Pope’s yacht. He also published the ‘Ned Yorke’ series of novels, which commences as would be expected in the Caribbean, in the seventeenth century, but culminates in ‘Convoy’ and ‘Decoy’ with a Ned Yorke of the same family many generations on fighting the Battle of the Atlantic.

  All of Dudley Pope’s works are renowned for their level of detail and accuracy, as well as managing to bring to the modern reader an authentic feeling of the atmosphere of the times in which they are set.

  Some of the many compliments paid by reviewers of Dudley Pope’s work:

  ‘Expert knowledge of naval history’- Guardian

  “An author who really knows Nelson’s navy” - Observer

  ‘The best of Hornblower’s successors’ - Sunday Times

  ‘All the verve and expertise of Forrester’ - Observer

  Dedication

  For the Ballengers - with thanks

  Chapter One

  Southwick walked slowly across the quarterdeck to where Ramage stood trying to find some shade from a small awning which, having done so much service in the Tropics, now comprised more patches than original cloth and in places was so threadbare from sun and wind that it provided only a little more shade than a piece of muslin.

  “This current is stronger than I’d allowed for,” the master said. “I’d be glad if you’d make up your mind in the next few hours, sir, because it might save us a hard beat against both wind and current…”

  Ramage nodded agreeably because in fact he had at last decided. The choice had been simple – they had sailed northwest along the South American coast from French Guiana, shepherding their two prizes captured off Devil’s Island, and he had to decide whether to make for Barbados or Antigua.

  Barbados, being further out in the Atlantic, a sentry box guarding the Windward and Leeward Islands running north and south like a fence dividing the Caribbean from the Atlantic, meant they had to turn a point or two to starboard and hope that the flagship of the admiral commanding “His Majesty’s ships and vessels upon the Windward Island station” was anchored in Carlisle Bay.

  With luck the admiral would be very short of frigates and only too glad to buy in the two prizes to add to his force – no commander-in-chief ever had enough frigates, and two unexpected priz
es coming up from the south would be like a quart of fresh water to a parched man.

  The admiral might let the Calypso sail at once for England – he should, since she was sailing under another admiral’s orders. However, many convoys assembled at Barbados for the long haul across the Atlantic to England, and what admiral could resist ordering an extra homeward-bound frigate to join the escort? Ramage guessed that, even worse, few if any admirals could resist putting Captain Ramage in command of a convoy and escort, which would mean a long and tedious voyage home.

  Antigua, the alternative choice, was likely to have the other admiral there, the one commanding the King’s ships on the Leeward Islands station. Whoever he was at the moment – Ramage seemed to recall that it was Hervey – would be in a very bad temper because he probably had his flagship in English Harbour, which with its mosquitoes, unpleasant and windless anchorage, and notoriously corrupt dockyard staff, made most officers rage against it. One of the most vocal had of course been Rear-Admiral Nelson (when a captain), whom Ramage once remembered getting very angry over the corruption of the Antigua merchants who were busy trading with the Americans in clear defiance of the Navigation Acts.

  Ramage recalled the long days and nights spent in English Harbour refitting the Calypso after capturing her from the French and the constant rows with the master shipwright, master attendant, boatswain and (worst of all) the “storekeeping and naval officer”, each of whom regarded the King’s stores as personal investments upon which they could draw, selling cordage, canvas (and probably even spars) to merchant ships, illegally and at grossly inflated prices.

  Men who were likely to know reckoned that the dockyard minions vied with local businessmen for the size of their profits – with the advantage that they took no risk (the King’s stores being delivered there in the King’s ships) and faced no competition: a merchant ship with blown-out sails was forced to buy more canvas; those with sprung masts or yards rarely carried any spares and the master might visit the dockyard with a sorry story but he had to have hard cash in his purse.

  After all the strain of the past few weeks, which had started when he had been forced to leave his new bride on board one of the King’s ships off Brest as the Treaty of Amiens collapsed and war started once again, Ramage decided he could not face the heat, stink and corruption of English Harbour.

  He turned to Southwick. “Make it Barbados,” he said.

  The master, his white hair streaming in the wind like a freshly dried mop, gave a knowing grin. “I’d already put my money on it, sir, and took the liberty of keeping up to windward. Is it all right if I pass the word to the ship’s company, sir? Most of them hate Antigua, too, but they like Barbados, even if it does mean a convoy for us.”

  He waved towards the two prize frigates following the Calypso, one on each quarter. “It’s been a profitable voyage for the lads – I reckon they’re a fair way to becoming the wealthiest seamen in the Navy. You don’t often come home with less than a couple of prizes!”

  “That makes you one of the Navy’s wealthiest masters!” Ramage said, teasingly.

  “Reckon I am,” Southwick said cheerfully, “and all of it safe in the Funds.”

  Ramage’s curiosity overcame his usual tact. Southwick had served with him from the day he was given his first command (it seemed so many years ago that a very young Lieutenant Ramage was given seemingly impossible orders by Commodore Nelson, and by a glorious stroke of luck had managed to carry them out successfully). Now he and Southwick shared the bond that comes from having death beckon them many times. “Who inherits the Southwick riches?”

  Southwick looked so embarrassed that Ramage could have bitten his tongue. “My sister (as you know, she’s my only living relative, and she’s been a spinster all her life), well, she’s provided for, so she’ll never need again, and then what’s left will be a sort of thank you.” With that the master excused himself, saying he had some more work to do on the chart.

  The three seamen sitting at the table were chatting and teasing each other with the easy familiarity that comes from often-shared dangers. The tall, sandy-haired man who had a natural authority ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “So it’s Barbados,” he commented. “I guessed the captain wouldn’t choose Antigua, after the trouble we had refitting this ship there.”

  “Nor me neither, Jacko,” said Stafford, the Cockney in the trio. “Not after the way those dockyard people behaved. Reckon they’re rich men now, on the Calypso alone. Nasty lot, they are; they’ve turned on their own people.”

  “But the Calypso’s just one of dozens of ships,” said the plump, black-haired man whose accent betrayed his Italian origins. “They all get cheated.”

  Rossi, known to most of his shipmates as Rosey, in fact came from Genoa and was a volunteer in the Royal Navy, although since Bonaparte had later turned Genoa into the capital of the Ligurian Republic, the French might now claim that Rossi was a traitor to the French cause. Ramage had always assumed Rossi’s original departure from Genoa was connected more with disagreement over the law rather than any personal disagreement with Bonaparte’s politics. Not that it mattered; he was a fine seaman with uncomplicated loyalty: he was loyal to his friends (who were serving in his ship) and particularly Jackson and Stafford. He reserved for Captain Ramage what a priest (if Rossi had ever talked to one, which was doubtful) would call idolatry. Ramage’s fluent Italian – he could mimic most of the regional accents – and deep love and knowledge of Italy made him Rossi’s liege lord, if such things still existed.

  “Still,” Stafford said cheerfully, “the Calypso’s made us rich too. And the Triton brig before her, and then the Kathleen cutter.”

  “Ah,” Jackson interjected, “they’ve made us rich because we’ve risked our necks: we’ve used them to kill Frenchmen and capture their ships. If there’s no risk, there’s no profit; I’ve learned that much. But what did the storekeeper at English Harbour ever do to justify making a penny out of us? Or the boatswain, or the master shipwright, and all the rest of that sticky-fingered crowd of time-servers who are always lurking around there? Still, yellow jack or blackwater fever might yet take ’em off before they get home to spend their loot. It’s an unhealthy spot, Antigua. Especially English Harbour, which has a fine cemetery ready for ’em. Come to think of it, some of the early ones must be there already!”

  “The survivors should all be put in the Clink,” Stafford said emphatically.

  “The Clink?” asked a puzzled Rossi. “Where’s that? We’ve never been there – have we?”

  “You and I haven’t,” Jackson commented, “but I couldn’t be sure about Staff. Go on, you tell him, Staff.”

  “I don’t know what Jacko is being so clever about. The Clink – well, it’s the prison in Southwark. Leastways, any prison’s called a clink by the villains: comes from the clinking of their leg irons. But the original Clink was at Southwark – in London, on the south side of the river – where the vagabonds couldn’t be arrested. A sort of…”

  “Sanctuary,” Jackson supplied.

  “Yus, that’s it: a sanker wherry. Dunno whether it was legal or if them as was going to do the arrestin’ was just scared of goin’ in there.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Rossi said.

  “’Ere, now listen,” Stafford said hurriedly. “The sanker wherry bit was long ago. ’Undreds of years, maybe. Today, that Clink is a clink, like all the other clinks: just a prison.”

  “I’ll remember,” Rossi assured the Cockney. “If I go to London it is to collect my prize money and I’ll stay at an inn, not a clink.”

  “They don’t always give you the choice,” Stafford said darkly and shook a warning finger. “And watch out for them women; very light-fingered, some of them.”

  “We have them in Genoa, too,” Rossi said reassuringly. “What do you reckon we’ll share out for the two French frigates, Jacko?”

  “Depends,” Jackson said. “If the admiral in Barbados is short of frigates (he probably will be) h
e might pay a good price. Though of course his price has to be approved by the Admiralty. The Navy Board, rather. But they’re good ships: no rot; no action damage; sails, spars and cordage in good condition – for Frenchies, anyway. Maybe he’ll pay £10 a ton for each hull, so that’ll be about £7,000 apiece, plus sails, cordage and stores. Hmm…about £10,000. That’ll be some £2,500 shared out among us seamen. Doubled, of course, ’cos there are two ships.”

  Rossi was faster than Stafford in working out an individual share, which in any case varied with the man’s rank. He nodded contentedly, and said: “If this war ever ends, and if we all live to see that day, I shall go back to Genoa a rich man. I may even become a latifondista: ha, that would be a joke!”

  Stafford tried to repeat the word but said sympathetically: “It’s somefing you get from rich livin’? Perhaps mercury’ll cure it, since it helps the venereals. Seems unlucky if you get it, having fought so hard for your money.”

  Rossi laughed and waved a reassuring hand. “No, Staff, is not a disease, a latifondista. Is a big landowner who lives somewhere else on the rents. He has tenants on his land.”

  “Oh, so it’s all right being one, then?”

  “If you can afford it, yes. Maybe I’ll be able to live a rich life in London knowing my tenants are working hard in, say, Piedmont, which is near Genoa.”

  Jackson saw that Stafford was still puzzled and explained: “‘Landed gentry’ – that’s what he’ll be. Like the Duke of Shinbone living in Whitehall although his money comes from a big estate up in North Britain.”

  Stafford’s eyes lit up. “Say, Jacko, if Rosey can live in London on his prize money like the Duke of Shinbone, what about me? I’d make a good Duke of Hambone, and I’d buy an estate nearer to London than North Britain. Somewhere down in Cornwall, say.”