by Dudley Pope
Not one of the Calypso's officers approved of his plan. Ramage bad sensed that when he had explained it to them. Only Lacey was full of enthusiasm, and that was because his role was exciting. But the rest of them, from Southwick (who had been in battle dozens of times) to Kenton (who was relatively untried) had misgivings. None had said a word; to most captains they would have seemed full of enthusiasm.
Looking round at them in his cabin the previous day, when he had asked if there were any questions, he could guess how each man's mind was working. Each was reacting differently because he had a different personality. Southwick regarded it as wasting time: to him there was little wrong in getting alongside the other ship as quickly as possible and resolving the battle with his broadsides and boarding pikes. The master's strength was in his right arm, wielding a meat cleaver of a sword. Aitken, the quiet Scot, was intelligent enough to see the purpose behind Ramage's plan but he did not believe it would work, and nor did he think it necessary. Wagstaffe did not think the French would fall into the trap - that much was clear from the questions he asked - but if they did he could see the trap would then work. Young Kenton had never heard of such a plan and, because he was young, he was conservative: why fence with a foil when you could slash with a cutlass? Kenton had been at sea long enough to see that wars could not be fought without men being killed, but not long enough to try to reduce the odds. To him - and, to be fair, to the other officers, including the Marine lieutenant - one British frigate and a schooner were a match for any French frigate, and given that historic truth, proved in hundreds of actions, why monkey about ...
Aitken was a deep - thinking officer and Ramage could guess that the young Scot, wise beyond his years and almost certain to have his own command soon, was beginning to see things through the eyes of a captain, weighing risk against reward, risk against responsibility, risk against culpability. He knew that a senior officer, a commander-in-chief, Their Lordships at the Admiralty, were always reading the orders and looking at the results, rarely giving praise for success but quick to select and accuse a scapegoat if they saw failure ( even though, often enough, the original orders were too absurd to allow success).
Yet there were times when a captain trying to make the weights balance on those scales, putting the risk on one pan. the responsibility and culpability on the other, saw the responsibility and culpability pan drop with a decisive clang. So he did not take the risk because it would hazard his future. Rejecting the risky plan, he drew up a safe one. The risky plan might have saved many lives if it was successful; the safe plan was, all too often, safe only because the certainty of its success was bought with many men's lives.
As Ramage watched the lighter eastern sky push the darkness westward he felt his anger growing with the whole of the present system of command in the Royal Navy. It meant that no captain depending on his regular pay to support a wife and family dare take a risk where failure could blast his career. There were a few exceptions - very few indeed, and Rear - Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson was the only one who came to mind at the moment.
The officers who could and did take risks with their careers in order to save lives tended to be men who had private incomes. Alexander Cochrane, for instance, who was heir to the Earl of Dundonald, and although there wasn't much money in the family, it was just enough to make sure that Cocky would not starve if the Admiralty court - martialled him over one of his wilder exploits. Not that so far they had any reason to bring him to trial; he took quite fantastic chances - but he succeeded and his men worshipped him.
There were of course stupid officers, rich and poor, who took risks simply because they lacked brains; the kind of men who gambled every penny they had on the turn of a dice without realizing that, even if they won, the low winnings compared with the high stake they could lose made the risk absurd - . No, he was thinking of intelligent men; men like Aitken, who had travelled a long way from a widowed mother and that grey stone cottage in Perthshire; who had managed by sheer ability and bravery to get well up to windward in his career, but who in a very few years would be unable to risk losing it.
Which, Ramage thought bitterly, boiled down to the fact that all too often the commander-in-chief and the Admiralty judged success by the size of the butcher's bill. An action in which a French frigate was captured by a British one which lost fifty men killed and a hundred wounded was regarded as a great victory, without anyone questioning whether the casualties were necessary. After all, the French frigate was captured . . . capture the enemy and no one questions the casualties. But capture the same frigate with only half a dozen casualties and the captain was given little credit, authority shrugged its collective shoulders and commented that the French were poltroons.
Perhaps it was the right attitude: Their Lordships could not be expected to weep because a hundred men died in a battle. If they did, the Admiralty would cease to function; no one would dare give orders. No admiral could order a ship into action if he stayed awake at night thinking of all the women who would be widowed, all the children made fatherless, as a result of his order. Admirals had to have hard hearts, and in his experience most of them did anyway, as well as an appreciation of captains responsible for payments into their prize accounts.
The trouble arose when a captain knew his ship's company too well; when he knew each man's quirks and habits, recognized his accent out of a dozen others, knew of his hopes and fears, perhaps had been asked for advice concerning some wayward wife or errant son. Then the question of taking a risk and hazarding his future did not apply. The captain was involved: he was the father of a large family.
Take Jackson, for instance. The muster book merely listed him as Jackson, Thomas, American, born in Charleston, Carolina, volunteer. Then there was Stafford, William, born in London, prest, and Rossi, Alberto, born in Genoa, volunteer ... There were up to fifty other men now in the Calypso who had served with him for two or three years and sometimes more; who had been with him, for example, when the Kathleen cutter was rammed by the Spanish three - decker and reduced to kindling; had been in the Triton brig in various actions and saw her end up dismasted and wrecked on a coral reef . . . Yet men like Jackson, Thomas, had been with him when he rescued Gianna from the beach in Tuscany, with Bonaparte's cavalry galloping at them and Jackson making weird noises in the darkness which scared off the horses.
There was so much to remember; so many shared experiences with these people, men like Southwick, for instance, and more recently Aitken, Wagstaffe, Baker and young Lacey astern there in La Creole. If any one of these men was killed in battle he would mourn them like - like what, a brother, a nephew, an uncle? No, like one of his men; a curious relationship that encompassed all the others. With Southwick, for example, there was the combination of an eccentric uncle and an erratic nephew. Jackson, tall and sinewy, his sandy hair thinning, was like the most valued of family retainers. Officially he was the captain's coxswain, but over the years he had become the equivalent of bodyguard and head gamekeeper. Jackson had saved his life several times; he had saved Jackson's. There were no debits or credits, only mutual respect.
And Stafford. Not to put too fine a point on it, Will Stafford was a bright - eyed young Cockney picklock at the time the pressgang took him up, but even if his boyhood had been spent burgling, the result as a young man was a fine seaman, fearless and loyal in a way that reminded Ramage of old stories of knightly chivalry. Stafford could just about write his name with much effort and tongue protruding, but he would give his life for his friends, men like Jackson and Rossi. He had an engaging way of mispronouncing words, and Jackson patiently corrected him.
Rossi was the third man about whom Gianna always enquired in her letters. Plump, black - haired, olive - skinned and jolly, he was a Genovesi; had left Genoa in a hurry, hated the French with a deep bitterness, was proud - and completely loyal to his adopted country. He was a volunteer and, as far as Ramage could make out, had joined the Navy because it gave him the best opportunity of killing Frenchmen. He had left
Genoa before the conquering French arrived there to set up a new republic, and no doubt the city records would show that the authorities did not believe the story that Ramage had heard - that Rossi had killed the other man in self - defence - but Ramage took the attitude of most captains: that a man's life before his name went on the ship's muster list was his own affair.
Rossi was inordinately proud of Gianna: proud that the woman his captain loved (that was no secret in the ship) was Italian. He might have a slight and secret reservation because she was not a Genovesa, but Volterra was in Tuscany and near enough to be acceptable. He would not have accepted a Neapolitan, a Sicilian or a Roman, and might have been doubtful about a Venetian, but a Tuscan was a neighbour, almost a paisana. Almost, but not quite; Tuscany was a different state; simply close to the Republic of Genoa.
Both Stafford (to whom she was invariably 'the Marcheezer', with Rossi trying to correct him, although the Cockney's tongue was incapable of uttering 'Mar-kay-zer') and the Genovesi regarded her as the most beautiful woman they had ever seen, and Ramage wondered if they speculated whether she would marry the captain. Ramage sensed that Jackson had no doubt, but Jackson's relationship with Gianna was slightly different: he had been with Ramage when they had searched an Italian town for a doctor to save the life of (as they thought) a dying Gianna.
A bellowing beside him made Ramage go rigid with surprise, but it was Wagstaffe answering a hail from the main - masthead, whose lookout then reported: Horizon clear to the south and west, sir, only thing in sight is land to starboard.'
It was almost as if the ship shrugged and sighed with disappointment. Southwick sniffed, Wagstaffe rapped his knee cap with the speaking trumpet, a frustrated Aitken muttered some Scottish oath, and in the half - light it seemed that the men slumped at the guns.
No French frigate. She was still at Aruba. He looked astern - La Creole was so close it seemed her bowsprit and jib - boom would soon ride up over the Calypso's taffrail. Lacey's lookout - Ramage could just make him out, a fly clinging to the mainmast - would also be reporting an empty horizon, and the schooner's men would be equally disappointed.
Ramage said nothing for several minutes, then commented to Wagstaffe: 'I can see a grey goose at a mile.'
That was the standard distance always used for visibility: from that moment each morning the life of the ship could go on. Small arms would be stowed in the chests, and guns run in, canvas aprons, or covers, lashed over the flintlock on each gun to shield the flint and mechanism from spray, and the cook would soon have the galley fire alight (it was always doused when the ship went to quarters). And then the cooking would start. Cooking ... everyone could have their meat however they wanted it, as long as it was boiled; and the same went for vegetables. The Navy had a sense of humour when they called the man a cook: he had only to light the galley fire and boil the water in the coppers.
Today, Ramage remembered, was sauerkraut day. The pickled cabbage was good for the men's health, but he could well understand their lade of enthusiasm for it because when a cask was first opened it smelled like a privy. Worse, in fact. The stench lasted only fifteen minutes, but it quickly filled the ship. And, the dutiful captain, he always made a point of sampling it even though the thought, let alone the taste, made him want to retch.
In the meantime the damned French frigate was not in sight and the south and west coasts of Curacao had little to offer by way of scenery. He would spend the day off the entrance to Amsterdam: it would help keep the Dutch quiet, and there was always a chance of capturing a fishing boat, so they could discover what was happening on the island.
He beckoned to Wagstaffe and took the speaking trumpet, hailing the lookout at the mainmasthead. 'Can you see any smoke over the land?'
'No, sir; nor smell it'
The lookout was wide awake: they were dead to leeward of the island now, and a lookout high aloft would be much more likely to smell smoke than someone on deck, where the odour of bilgewater, tarred rope, the breath of the men chewing tobacco and the damp smell of clothing provided strong competition. There was, of course, the usual smell of hot and dry land. Not the rich herbs - and - spices of Spain or Italy, but a dried - hay - and - manure smell of an arid tropical island just before the sun gets high enough to scorch off the night dew.
The fires causing yesterday's smoke near the village with the impossible name had not been spread to the western end of the island by the night breeze, nor had he seen any glow. The lighter eastern sky now put this western side of Sint Christoffelberg into dark shadow and the hills rolling down towards the flat eastern end of the island looked more than ever like giant waves tumbling flat to their death on a beach. There was no sound of gunfire, cannon or musket. The island's troubles were obviously over. Ramage pictured cattle sheds accidentally burning, and men shooting fear - crazed animals. He shrugged his shoulders: fire in these parched islands was as dangerous as in a ship.
It was tune to beat back to Sint Anna Baai and look once again at those privateers: a beat of twenty - five or thirty miles against a westgoing current of one or two knots, perhaps more, probably increasing as the wind came up. He looked round for Southwick and, relaxing, suddenly felt hungry. In ten minutes or so his steward Silkin would come on deck to report that his breakfast was ready. The sky was clear - an hour or so after sunrise the little white puffballs of cloud would begin to form up to the eastward and start their daily trek to the west; the sky would become a bright blue, the sea its dark reflection, hinting at great depths, the unmarked graveyard of the centuries and of secrets. And the sun would climb steadily to sear and scorch, withering plants and men, directly overhead at noon at this time of year and making everyone thankful for the cool of night.
For forty years or more the buccaneers had tacked along this coast That was a century and a half ago, when it was always called the Spanish Main. Had his great - grandfather passed this way, heading for one of the towns on the Main? He had a sudden longing to know, to be able to sail up to a Spanish port and know that great - grandfather Charles and his men had once captured it from the Spanish. Even to take bearings of the peak of Sint Christoffelberg and Westpunt, and draw them in on a chart to fix the ship's position, and to know that Charles Ramage had done just that, using a crude chart for the lack of anything better and an even cruder compass. Old Charles had won a fortune from the Spanish along the Main; enough to rebuild and furnish a home shattered by Cromwell's troops, men who thought beauty was a sin and were offended by one of the loveliest houses in the west country.
'Old Charles': why old! He may well have been in his twenties at the time, the same age as his great - grandson was now. Curious how one rarely thought of a forebear as having once been young. Why, he wondered, these recent thoughts about Charles, who had succeeded a brother as the eighth Earl of Blazey?
Ramage had served in the Caribbean for several years without giving Charles more than an occasional moment's thought; now it was almost as though he was sailing with him. He then realized it dated from finding the Tranquil with her passengers and crew just massacred by the privateer with a Spanish name. That had jolted his memory, thrusting him into the past He suddenly noticed that Southwick was waiting patiently; the old master was used to finding the captain daydreaming, and he knew when to interrupt and when to wait, without appearing to be waiting. 'Disappointing, sir - not seeing the Frenchman, I mean.'
'I've never met a punctual Frenchman.'
True, sir, true,' Southwick said soothingly, 'you did warn us we might have to wait a day or two. Still, we may pick up a Spanish prize by this evening - they must trade between Amsterdam and the Main. I seem to remember all the fruit and vegetables for the islands come from the Main in small schooners; they have a market in Amsterdam, selling direct from the schooners.'
Ramage nodded, already regretting his sourness. They have so little rain that they must get fresh food from somewhere. But a prize schooner laden with bananas and cabbages . . .'
The men would be glad of fresh
cabbage instead of that sauerkraut, sir. We have to open a cask today.'
Neither Ramage nor Southwick mentioned the prize regulations: there were times when a sensible captain ignored them. The regulations said that any ship taken in prize had to have its hatches sealed and be sent into a British port, where it would be inventoried, valued and sold at auction. There was no provision in the regulations for capturing a small Spanish schooner or sloop laden with perishable fruit and vegetables. A prize would have to be sent to Jamaica, some 700 miles to the north - west. The chances of such a vessel staying afloat for a long voyage (local schooners and sloops were roughly and cheaply built) were slight, and a fruit and vegetable cargo would be rotting within hours and almost explosive in a couple of days. A schooner full of exploding bananas ... v A wise captain, ever on the watch for scurvy and the fresh fruit and vegetables that could prevent it, would in such a case take off the cargo, sink the prize, land the two or three men on board, or let them off in their boat, and make a note in the ship's log implying the capture was only the size of a rowing boat, and therefore scuttled. It would be different if a schooner was laden with tobacco, grown on the Main and shipped to Curacao - that would be worth a lot of money.
'We'll return to Amsterdam, patrolling about five miles off,' Ramage said, 'and Lacey can take La Creole in closer every four or five hours to look at the privateers and generally rattle the bars."
'Can we stay close in with the coast, sir? I'd like to have another look at where we saw those fires.'
So Southwick was intrigued as well. 'As close as you want: there's deep water right up to the shore, isn't there?'
