Ramage And The Rebels r-9

by Dudley Pope

  'You want to see me, Southwick?' he asked the master.

  'Not me, sir,' the old man said, 'it's the purser. He's been cast into debt, I think, and wants to talk to you about it.'

  Ramage grimaced. 'Very well, send him down in five minutes' time. And make the signal to the Creole for Lacey to come on board.'

  Southwick waited, hoping for some hint of what the Calypso was to do, but his curiosity remained unsatisfied because of his own efficiency: all the frigate's water casks were full, all but one boat were hoisted on board and stowed on the booms, all sail repairs had been completed and the old foretopsail, worn and chafed beyond repair, had been sent down and replaced with a new one. The ship could be under way in the time it took to hoist in the last boat and weigh the anchors.

  Ramage clattered down the steps of the companionway, acknowledged the Marine sentry's salute, and ducked his head under the deck beams as he went into his cabin. He tossed his hat on to the settee, took off his sword and sat at his desk as he took Foxe-Foote's written orders from his pocket He broke the seal and smoothed the paper, his hands sticky with perspiration. There were the usual cliches, and then came the orders: the Jamaica committee of merchants were complaining that ships plying between Jamaica and the Windward and Leeward Islands (which meant from Antigua down to Barbados) were being attacked by increasing numbers of privateers holding Spanish, French and Dutch commissions. These privateers were apparently using the Dutch islands as the market place for the cargoes in the prizes they captured.

  However, the Royal Navy frigates patrolling off Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, and in the Mona Passage, reported sighting fewer privateers than usual. From this it was apparent that the privateers had retreated southwards right across the Caribbean to the coast of the Spanish Main, and Ramage was to patrol that coast for two months, paying particular attention to the island of Curacao, 'and remove the threat'.

  Ramage sighed, folded the paper and dropped it into die top right - hand drawer of his desk and, after finding his key ring, locked it. They were not the sort of orders one would ever need to refer to again. The more cynical of his brother captains referred to such orders as an 'admiral's awning' because they were so worded that they sheltered him from any criticism by Their Lordships at the Admiralty should anything go wrong.

  He wanted to look over the charts, such as they were, before Lacey came over from La Creole, but first there was the purser. Rowlands was an old woman, as quick as a lawyer to spot anything that might be to his disadvantage as the ship's businessman and prevent him balancing his books. This would 'cast him into debt', as all pursers described making a loss, forgetting that anyone in business was likely to make a loss at some time or another.

  Ramage smiled to himself as he remembered Southwick's face at the head of the companionway. The old man's flowing white hair stuck out from under his hat like a new mop, and the order to make the signal for Lacey had obviously left him wondering what orders the Calypso had received. Ramage had decided to tantalize him for the time being, knowing that as soon as Lacey came on board Southwick would, with the ship's other officers, hear all about it.

  The sentry announced the purser and Ramage called the man in. He was not carrying a handful of papers - that was a good sign. His plump face with bags under the eyes looked mournful (like a village grocer saying farewell to his best customers as he was marched off to the debtors' jail) but Rowlands always looked like that, the result of the Welshman's firmly held view that most people had a far too frivolous attitude towards money. To him it was not a means of enjoying life, Ramage realized; acquiring it was the whole object of life, as though dying a rich man was the ultimate satisfaction.

  The man was nervous - that was only too obvious as he ducked his head like a pecking pigeon as he entered the cabin although he was only an inch or so taller than the five feet four inches of headroom. He was nervous and he had taken particular care in dressing himself to see the captain. Past experience had shown Ramage that this was a bad sign, the preliminary to announcing trouble. But trouble without a handful of papers, long lists and inventories, surveys and account books? Could it be personal? A confession of fraud? Or bigamy?

  Ramage gestured to Rowlands to sit on the settee, and twisted his own chair round to face the man. 'Southwick said . . .' he began encouragingly.

  ' 'S the water,' Rowlands said hurriedly. 'I dunno what to do with it.'

  Immediately Ramage pictured more than thirty tons of water carefully stowed below in casks (and intended to last the Calypso's men more than three months) suddenly going bad, or proving to be brackish. Now, within a few hours of sailing, the bungs would have to be started and the water run into the bilges and pumped out over the side. Then would come the tedious and laborious task of ferrying the empty casks over to Passage Fort with the boats and filling them and then swaying them back on board again and stowing them below . . . And all the time there would be the sneers (if nothing worse) of Admiral Foxe-Foote, who would see it as a ruse to delay sailing because to him all orders involving going into battle could only be unwelcome. Having never smelted powder, Foxe-Foote attached too much importance to the experience.

  'It's only a few casks, sir,' Rowlands said eagerly. Two dozen butts, in fact.'

  'Is that from here in Port Royal or did we take it on in Antigua?'

  ' Twas on board when we captured the ship, sir. I suppose the French loaded it in France. Must have, come to think of it; they couldn't get it anywhere else.'

  What on earth was the man talking about? 'Is France the only place that supplies water, Rowlands? Or is this spa water, so good for the liver?'

  'No, sir,' Rowlands said dolefully, ' 'tisn't spa water. Wish it was. Nor is it plain water. No, it's brandy, sir, twelve tuns of it, which is three thousand and twenty - four gallons, wine measure.'

  Ramage was so relieved that he asked with mock seriousness: 'I trust it is good brandy, Rowlands? The French haven't fobbed some new, raw spirit on us, I hope? The sort of spirit more useful as liniment for rubbing into bruises than drinking?'

  'I can't be for saying,' Rowlands said miserably, although not so upset that his favourite expression was forgotten. 'No, sir, I can't be for saying, seeing as how I'm not a drinking man.'

  Rowlands had a knack of being able to phrase an apparently innocent remark so that it put the other person in the wrong. No casual listener would guess that Ramage rarely drank even three pints of wine in a year, and detested spirits. But the purser had the ability to irritate Ramage more than any other man in the ship. He was smug, money - grubbing, self - righteous and self - seeking, and Ramage had done nothing about having him replaced because he was also reasonably (if tediously) efficient and, Ramage never co-operating in any of his hinted schemes, just as honest as he had to be.

  Ramage heard a hail on deck that showed Lacey was approaching, and in the meantime he had more important things to think about than Rowlands's discovery of two dozen butts of brandy stowed down below, posing as water.

  'Copy all the marks painted on the butts and give them to Southwick so' we can enter it all in the log,' Ramage said.

  'But, sir,' protested Rowlands, 'they're stowed bung up and bilge free, and some of the marks are on the under sides.'

  'I should hope butts of brandy are stowed bung up and bilge free,' Ramage growled. 'I can just imagine the owners' joy on finding bungs popped out and butts sprung because they had been thumping against the ship's side in a heavy sea, and the bilges flowing with brandy, instead of milk and honey.'

  'Milk and honey, sir?' the purser repeated, obviously puzzling over how two items never issued to the King's ships could have slipped into the bilge.

  'Rowlands,' Ramage said heavily, 'get those figures for Southwick. Now, have you checked all the rest of the water casks'? The ship's company might think that brandy is a good substitute for water, but I doubt if the surgeon would agree. And tell the Marine officer that we need a sentry guarding those butts until we get them stowed in the spirit
room.'

  Rowlands scurried from the cabin, reassured now that he had something to do and the responsibility for the butts had been lifted from his shoulders. He had informed the captain and, as far as he was concerned, the butts rested on Captain Ramage's shoulders, like the world did on that man in the print he once saw, Atlas or some such name; a Greek fellow probably, perhaps the first man to publish maps.

  As Ramage reached up to the rack over his head to find some charts he reflected that the paperwork concerning the brandy could cause more trouble than capturing the frigate from the French in the first place. In fact, before he started his examination of the coast of the Spanish Main, he had better finish dealing with the matter which had started in France.

  Southwick arrived in response to the sentry's hail with an alacrity which told Ramage that the master had not strayed far from the top of the companionway.

  'Rowlands's problem is sorted out, sir?' he asked with what, for him, passed as a subtle enquiry.

  'It's not Rowlands's problem.' Ramage made no attempt to hide his exasperation. 'It's mine and yours and Rear - Admiral Davis's and all those fools at Antigua who took an inventory of this ship when we brought her in as a prize.'

  'What did they miss?' Southwick asked shrewdly.

  'Two dozen butts of brandy ...'

  'Two dozen? Why, sir, that's three thousand gallons! Where is it?'

  'Nestling down there with the water,' Ramage said sourly. 'And now you have the job of shifting it to the spirit room. It's a wonder it hasn't blown the ship up.'

  Those damned Frogs - just a lot o' smugglers! Why, they must have been smuggling it into Martinique. Ill bet they never intended to declare it to the Customs! Just sell a few gallons at a time to the planters, who're probably sick and tired of rum. Makes you wonder what the Revolution's all about, doesn't it, sir? The officers might be full of liberty and equality and fraternity, or whatever it is they shout, but they're not above a bit o' smuggling, given the chance.'

  'Nor are we, as far as the Customs in Antigua and Port Royal are concerned,' Ramage pointed out.

  Southwick's face fell. 'Oh dear . . . Officially I suppose we smuggled it out of English Harbour and into Port Royal. But whose is it? Who pays the duty? And who gets it?' he added as an afterthought That can be decided later,' Ramage said. 'In the meantime well have to cany on smuggling, but Rowlands is going to give you the numbers on the casks. Make a full entry in the log for today stating how it was found, if the butts are full, and so on ... And note that it was removed to the spirit room. In the meantime I've passed the word for Rennick to put a sentry on it - we're lucky none of the seamen discovered it first: I can just imagine us finding half the ship's company one morning lying drunk among the casks.'

  Those fools from the dockyard at English Harbour,' South - wick growled. They spent days on that inventory. They must have just made a quick count of water casks and assumed they held water. But anyone getting within a dozen feet should smell the brandy. Why, seepage alone I'

  'Don't talk about it,' Ramage said. 'If anyone had walked round in the dark down there, using a lanthorn to count up water casks, the flame of the candle would have made the fumes explode, and the whole ship would have gone up.'

  'By the time we've finished with all the extra paperwork this is going to create we might wish that it had,' Southwick said bitterly. 'Why, it affects the original inventory of the prize and the valuation; and that in turn affects the final valuation and the prize money paid. Which means our shares — everyone's, from Admiral Davis's down to the cook's mate's. Why, they could hold up payment for years - you know what prize agents are like. Any excuse to hold on to the money and draw interest.'

  'Let's wait and see,' Ramage said. 'We can't be expected to bother Admiral Foxe-Foote with it now because he wants us to sail as soon as possible. We shan't be back for three months, and who knows what might have happened by then.'

  Three months, sir?' Southwick said eagerly. 'Where's it to be - let me guess. The Gulf of Mexico? Cuba? Moskito Coast? Surely not back to Antigua, sir?'

  'Wait for Lacey. Is that him coming on board now? Very well, pass the word for the rest of the officers - Rennick, too. He might as well know what we're supposed to be doing, to see if his Marines can help.'

  When Lacey came into the cabin he was embarrassed because the last time he came through that door he had been the Calypso's fourth lieutenant and therefore the most junior commission officer on board. The frigate had just been brought into the King's service after having been captured by Mr Ramage's previous command, the frigate Juno. And, Lacey remembered almost with a start, he had been fourth lieutenant in her, too.

  Now, he thought to himself, he was twenty - five years old and the strides from his home in Somerset in the shadow of the Quantocks were beginning to show: he had not seen Nether Stowey for four years, not since he passed for lieutenant. And in those four years, thanks almost entirely to Mr Ramage, he had progressed from the most junior officer in the Juno's gunroom to the most junior officer in the Calypso's gunroom and then, after that last wild voyage, command of La Creole schooner.

  His own command. Magic words and they could be as heady as a strong rum punch. He was still a lieutenant, of course; orders came to him addressed to Lieutenant William Lacey. But on board La Creole he was 'the captain', with two commissioned officers under him, second master instead of a master, and a sergeant of Marines.

  La Creole was a witch of a ship. The French could build fast vessels, and it was fitting that he should be commanding one that he had helped to capture. And he was thankful that Admiral Davis had finally left her with her original French name, instead of calling her 'Diamond' after the Diamond Rock, off Martinique, where she had been captured. That had been the original intention.

  'Creole' came off the tongue nicely. Most of the Creole women he had met so far had been extraordinarily beautiful; slim and sleek like the schooner, with jutting breasts under bright dresses. "Your ship?' 'Oh, I command the Creole, that black schooner over there.' 'Weren't you at the capture of Diamond Rock, and then the cutting out of the Jocasta?' And he would admit - with becoming modesty, of course - that he was. At that moment he glanced up and saw Mr Ramage was watching him, and he flushed because the captain's deep - set eyes seemed to bore right into him, revealing his thoughts and fears - and perhaps his hopes, too.

  When Ramage asked him if all was going well with La Creole he was thankful he could answer honestly that there were no problems.

  'How many men are you mustering?'

  'Fifty - one, sir, and ten Marines and a sergeant.'

  'And you have ten 6 - pounders?'

  'And the two 12 - pounder carronades they fitted at Antigua.'

  'She handles well?'

  'Like a witch, sir. Clean bottom, coppered - just the vessel for privateering!'

  'Which she was doing up to the time we captured her.'

  'Was she, sir?' Lacey was surprised. 'I thought she was a French national ship.'

  'No, she was a privateer out of Fort Royal, but the French Navy took her over, and a sister ship, the day before they attacked us.'

  Lacey would never forget the night those two schooners attacked the frigate in the darkness, trying to board. But - well, although it happened only a few weeks ago, it seemed part of another life: the nervous young lieutenant who had been hard put to keep his head amid all the cracking of muskets and pistols, the yelling and screaming and the clash of cutlasses - yes, and the screams of wounded men: that had surprised him. Now that frightened young lieutenant commanded his own ship, one of the two schooners that made the attack, and he wasn't frightened: at least, not in sailing her. It may be different when I take her into battle, he admitted to himself; but I haven't run away when going into action with Mr Ramage these several times, and maybe I've learned something from him. But keeping a clear head in the middle of a battle and never being frightened - that's what made Mr Ramage unique.

  Suddenly Lacey felt cheerful because he t
hought he could see why he had been called on board the Calypso: the Admiral was sending the frigate on some operation or other and La Creole was to go with her . . . Perhaps Mr Ramage had even asked for him . . .

  'You are up to establishment, then?'

  'Yes, sir, Admiral Davis was very good at English Harbour: he gave me a full complement of men and Marines, and there's no one on the sick list'

  'And your officers?'

  'Both lieutenants are excellent, sir. Young but good. The second master is steady enough - could be Southwick's younger brother. And the Marine sergeant is one of the best I wouldn't change a man, sir.'

  'You're lucky,' Ramage said soberly, looking back at some of the ships he had commanded. 'A captain's only as good as his ship's company. When you're considering whether or not to weed out a particular man it's worth remembering that One rotten apple, you know. "When in doubt, weed him out!'" Lacey sensed Ramage was waiting for something, and after a few minutes of small talk he heard several people coming down the companionway and the sentry's hoarse call: The officers, sir.' And suddenly they were all in the cabin - Aitken the first lieutenant, Wagstaffe the second, Baker the third, and young Peter Kenton, the small and red - haired youngster who had taken his place as fourth lieutenant, and Southwick, white hair flowing and looking even younger, his skin taut, as though years of salt spray had never given wrinkles a chance to get a grip. And Rennick, still looking as though he had been levered into his uniform with a shoe - horn, still red - faced and still with the cheery exuberance of a fairground barker. This is what he missed when he sat in the captain's cabin of La Creole. It was hardly bigger than his old cabin in the Juno (from which he could talk to the other officers without bothering to open the door), but it was solitary. The lieutenants and warrant officers ate in their gunroom; he had his meals in his own cabin. On deck the officers walked the lee side and left him the weather side, the captain's privilege. But there was no one to whom he could chat; no one spoke to him unless first spoken to because he was the captain. And even now he sensed it: there was a friendly smile from Aitken, who was way above him in seniority on the lieutenants' list, but the Scotsman's smile had that slight remoteness about it; the remoteness he sensed always existed with his lieutenants in La Creole, as though command had slipped a pane of glass between them. And the same from Wagstaffe and Baker, while young Kenton glanced at him with something approaching awe. He sensed it and now he understood it: these men were lieutenants in the Calypso, and in the case of Aitken likely to get command of his own frigate before long. But at this particular moment they did not command their own ships while he did: he alone among them was referred to in his own ship as 'the captain'. Of course, he did not have the rank of post captain, like Mr Ramage, allowing him to command a fifth - rate ship or bigger; he was still only a lieutenant, but officers in other ships would describe him as 'the captain' of La Creole, referring to the job he carried out, not the actual rank he held in the Navy List The captain'. Those were the two words making that difference; they put that pane of glass between a man and those who had been his friends. Yet it had to be; this was what discipline entailed, a remoteness. A captain who tried to remain intimate with his officers or friendly with his seamen was, quite invariably, a bad officer, even though he might be a pleasant enough man. Mr Ramage never courted popularity; he was by turns surly, witty, bitter, silent, chatty - but he set the pace; he laid out the terms, as it were. The quarterdeck could be a chilly place on the hottest day if Mr Ramage was in a surly mood or angry over some incident They weren't frequent, but be could remember them well enough. And, for that matter, he suddenly realized there were days when he too was surly; days when La Creole's quarterdeck must seem chilly, and now he thought about it he realized they were more frequent than they should be, but he was still finding his way, sometimes irritated by mistakes he made and sometimes irritated by the mistakes of others; particularly when he had deliberately left them on their own to do something, determined not to nag and interfere - and then he had found he should have interfered; that few officers and petty officers had enough confidence to work on their own. And of course his own standards were rising, the more he learned about command.