Ramage's Devil

by Dudley Pope

  The next column, bearing and distances at noon, had been left blank, and there was only one entry under “Remarkable Observations and Accidents,” which recorded putting all the prisoners in irons for 24 hours after two of them had started fighting.

  Across in the Calypso, Ramage had just worked out the noon sight and compared his position with those of Aitken and Southwick. They tallied within three or four miles, and with the ship rolling and pitching with following wind and sea, so that taking a sight was like trying to shoot a hare from the back of a runaway horse, that was close enough.

  He opened his journal and under the “Latitude” column wrote 6° 45’ North; next to it was recorded the longitude, 52° 14’ West. The Îles du Salut, according to the French pilot book, were 5° 17’ North and 52° 36’ West, so … they were … yes, ninety miles on a course of south by west a quarter west. Which meant no change in the course, but because they were making eight knots and he wanted to bring the mountains in sight soon after dawn, both the Calypso and La Robuste were going to have to reduce canvas: a little under five knots would bring the mountains in sight at daybreak so that the ships’ companies would be breakfasted by the time the three islands were sighted. Providing of course the visibility was reasonable. Often there was a haze along a lee shore, presumably caused by the sea air meeting the land air, and the mistiness thrown up by the waves breaking on rocks and sandy beaches.

  He wiped the pen, put the top on the ink bottle, and replaced everything in the drawer. He found Southwick and Aitken on deck.

  “If the chronometer is not playing games with us, and if there’s not a radical change in the speed of the current as we close the coast …” Ramage said.

  “Ninety miles, I make it,” Southwick said.

  “Which means we might run up on the beach in the night,” Ramage commented. “Mr Aitken, we’ll try her under topsails, and then a cast of the log, if you please. Five knots will be quite enough, so we can furl the courses and get in the t’gallants and royals.”

  Aitken picked up the speaking-trumpet while Ramage went aft to the taffrail and looked astern at the Calypso’s wake. Despite the speed she was making and the wild rolling, the wake was no more than the first wrinkles on a beautiful woman’s face: the French designer had produced a fast and sea-kindly hull which slipped through the water without fuss.

  La Robuste was a fine sight. He could imagine how often over the past days Wagstaffe, Kenton and Martin had been measuring the angle to the Calypso’s mainmasthead, to maintain that magic distance of a cable. He smiled to himself because while Wagstaffe might not realize it, the next few minutes were something of a test. Wagstaffe was a fine seaman and steady, a good navigator and popular with the men. He had shown himself, in other words, to be an excellent lieutenant. He could and did carry out orders with precision. And, as Bowen had pointed out to Admiral Clinton, this is what Bullivant could do. Bullivant had only failed when he made the enormous jump from taking orders as a lieutenant to making decisions and giving orders as a captain.

  How about Wagstaffe?

  The Calypso’s bosun’s mates finished the shrill notes of their calls and bellowed orders: now came the thud of bare feet as the men ran to their stations. Sails would not be furled as fast as usual, since half the Calypso’s men were now over in La Robuste, but—he took out his watch—with similar ships and similar sails set it would be interesting to compare times.

  The squeal of ropes rendering through blocks, the shouts of bosun’s mates, the grunts of men straining as they heaved on ropes … And the great rectangle of the main course, which for days had been billowing in a graceful curve, suddenly crumpled and distorted as the wind spilled when the lower corner of each side began to be pulled diagonally towards the middle.

  And damnation, La Robuste was beginning to clew up her main course, too! Wagstaffe had plotted his noon position against the latitude and longitude of the Îles du Salut: he must have realized that the two ships would have to slow down to avoid arriving in the night, and he had his men waiting out of sight, waiting for the first wrinkles to appear in the Calypso’s main course … Yes, Wagstaffe passed the test …

  Looking forward again and upward Ramage could see the men on the Calypso’s main yard furling the sail neatly and securing it with gaskets, the long strips of canvas keeping it in place. He glanced at his watch and then looked at La Robuste and waited for the last gasket to be passed. The Calypso won by under half a minute, and that victory could no doubt be explained by defects in La Robuste’s running rigging and the poor state of her gaskets—he had seen two tear in half, weakened by the heat and damp of a year in Far Eastern waters.

  Forecourses were clewed up and then furled and La Robuste’s time was better, allowing for the fact that Wagstaffe had to wait for the Calypso to make the first move because his orders were to conform with the Calypso. In topgallants … the same. Obviously the Calypsos in La Robuste were enjoying themselves.

  It was going to be a busy afternoon—preparations for making a landfall were, in this case, the same as for entering harbour, and as soon as the last sail was furled and the last topman down on deck again, Ramage nodded to Southwick, who was responsible for the fo’c’s’le and all that went on there. The heavy anchor cable would have to be roused out while the blind bucklers closing the two hawsepipes would have to be taken off. That was always a difficult job under way with a following sea, since the bucklers were fixed securely to prevent seas coming in through the hawse holes.

  One end of the first cable would then be led out through the starboard hawse and back on board again and secured to the ring of one of the two anchors on the starboard side. Then the end of a second cable would be led out of the larboard hawse and back to the ring of one of the two larboard anchors. People were often surprised that a ship the size of a frigate in fact carried six anchors and eight cables (seven of them each eighteen and a half inches in circumference and seven hundred twenty feet long). But such people had never seen a ship at anchor in a high and a heavy sea.

  The covers needed taking off the boats and a couple of quarterdeck guns should be loaded with blank charges in case it was necessary to make an urgent signal to La Robuste. And … well, Ramage admitted, that was about all. All that was needed next morning was the sight of the three mountains close to the mouth of the River Kourou, Pointe Charlotte and the Îles du Salut. Still, he’d be quite satisfied if they sighted the “very remarkable conical hill” called Mont Diable in the pilot book but presumably Montagne du Diable, and which should warn in good time that he was a little too far south. Diable, diable … it had started off with Bullivant in his delirium seeing Satan; now English devils in the imagination were going to be replaced by French diables in fact.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THERE THEY WERE, three flat-topped islands still grey in the distance and overlapping so that there appeared to be only two. That would be Île du Diable just coming clear on the left while Île Royale and Île St Joseph merged to the south. As his body swayed with the rolling of the Calypso, making it difficult to hold the telescope steady, they moved from side to side in the circular lens as though being viewed through the bottom of a drinking glass.

  He turned aft to train the glass on La Robuste’s quarterdeck. Yes, they too had sighted the islands; there was Wagstaffe hunched with the telescope to his eye and Kenton, Martin and Orsini standing in a row beside him at the quarterdeck rail like inquisitive starlings.

  It had been disappointing at dawn when the first light seemed to spread outward from the ship and nothing had been in sight. The traditional cry of “See a grey goose at a mile” had brought in the six lookouts stationed on deck round the ship and sent two aloft, and they had reported a clear horizon.

  Then suddenly, as though a bank of fog had drifted away to reveal them (though the fog familiar in higher latitudes was of course unknown in the Tropics), they were ahead. Obviously there had been a haze hiding the coast until the sun lifted over the horizon and burned it u
p.

  Ramage sighed, a natural reaction but one which led Southwick to ask: “You expect trouble, sir?”

  Trouble? They were too far off for him to be sure. If a frigate’s masts showed up behind Île Royale, revealing that L’Espoir had arrived (and had time to send her prisoners over to Île du Diable), then yes, they had trouble. The idea, plan, gamble—he was not sure what to call it—that had come to him several days ago like a wind shadow, and the outline of which had since sharpened, as though someone had used a quill to run an inked line round it, would have been a waste of thought if L’Espoir had beaten them in.

  More important, Southwick’s question merely emphasized that the idea was just a gamble. You could put other fancy names to it, he told himself sourly, but it was still a gamble: he was like some pallid player putting a small fortune on the turn of a dice in the final desperate throw that could lose or save a home which had been in the family for generations and was a son’s rightful inheritance. So if there were masts, he had lost; if there were no masts, he had won.

  Won? That was nonsense. If there were no masts, then he had not yet lost, which was a far cry from winning. No, what Southwick’s innocent and well-meant question emphasized, Ramage admitted to himself with bitterness, was that by pinning everything on beating L’Espoir to the Îles du Salut, he had not fully considered the consequences of losing the race.

  If L’Espoir had not arrived, then the prisoners were still on board the frigate, and frigates were not invulnerable. But if L’Espoir had arrived, then the prisoners by now would be imprisoned on the Île du Diable in what the French pilot book called a “fortified enclosure,” and the whole purpose of these fortifications was to keep people (rescuers, in this case) out.

  Southwick was still awaiting an answer.

  “If L’Espoir is here, yes,” Ramage said.

  “Because she’ll have put her prisoners on shore?”

  “Yes. There must be hundreds of prisoners on the island—perhaps more than one island. We can’t be sure they still keep all the criminals on one island and the political prisoners on another.”

  “I wonder if Bonaparte sees any difference in the two sorts,” Southwick commented. “He’s just as likely to have put ‘em all together.”

  “That would mean our fifty would be among perhaps five thousand others; and five thousand prisoners means how many guards?”

  Southwick gave one of his famous sniffs. They came of a standard strength, but he could give each one a particular meaning. This one indicated that the whole thing was absurd and not for the serious consideration of grown men.

  “Even at one guard for every twenty prisoners, plus all the camp followers and cooks and administration people, we’d never stand a chance,” the master said. “To find out if L’Espoir’s there we’ve got to get in sight of that fort on Île Royale, so they’ll sight us and we lose surprise.”

  “Yes,” Ramage said, and changed the painful subject, which was thoroughly depressing him. “Now, we’d better start working out the positions of those reefs and shoals.”

  “Aye, I have ‘em noted from the pilot book,” Southwick said. “The main bank is over there, between one and two miles nor’-nor’-west of Royale.” He pointed over the starboard bow.

  At that moment Ramage saw Rennick down on the main deck and called him up to the quarterdeck. The Marine captain’s face was as usual burned a bright red from the sun and the skin of his nose was peeling, but he gave a smart salute.

  “How are the prisoners?” Ramage asked.

  “Very subdued, sir. They haven’t forgotten that man Gilbert. I don’t know what he said before they were brought over here, but it frightened them!”

  Ramage nodded. “Keep them subdued.”

  Supposing there were no masts. Oh yes, he had this wonderful idea, but what about the pilot? The garrisons on the islands? He shook his head and left a puzzled Rennick standing on the quarterdeck as he clattered down the companion-way to the great cabin, nodding to the sentry.

  He sat down at his desk and looked at the sketch he had made of the three islands based on the information in the pilot book. Why was he looking at it? He knew the outlines and positions by heart. He pushed the sketch aside and took out the French pilot book and began reading the reference to the Îles du Salut. The words blurred into meaninglessness: he knew them by heart, so why was he reading it yet again? He put the book back in the drawer and stood up impatiently. What the devil was wrong with him? Impatience, he told himself, that’s what’s wrong. It needs patience to wait until we are closer to the islands so that we can be sure about the masts.

  Islands! Even at this distance that was obviously an absurd word for three long lumps of rock lying like broken grindstones half a dozen miles off a flat coastline fringed with mangroves, marshy land and almost stagnant water and buzzing and whining with biting insects.

  At least the islands do not suffer from a shortage of water: the rainfall must be so heavy that perpetual dampness and mildew, not drought, is the problem.

  Up on the quarterdeck he said to Southwick: “Hail the lookouts. No, better still, send a man aloft with a glass.”

  “Yes, sir,” Southwick said, but added: “You did say that Royale was 216 feet high, and Diable 131, didn’t you, sir?”

  Ramage glared at him. “Yes, and the truck of a frigate’s main-mast won’t show clear from behind ‘em.”

  “Yes, sir, so I was thinking …”

  “Nevertheless send a man aloft with a glass.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Southwick knew the strain of waiting. They had left the Channel Fleet how long ago? Nearly three weeks. For twenty days they had looked for L’Espoir and the captain had shown no sign of strain. Now all the tensions and anticipations of three weeks, when everyone had wondered if they would catch L’Espoir or beat her to Cayenne, were being compressed into an hour.

  The new lookout soon hailed the quarterdeck. With the bring-’em-near he could make out some buildings on the largest island. They were low down on the seaward side, he added.

  Ramage nodded: that would be the fort on Royale, and by now the French lookouts would be reporting the approach of two frigates. Was there one préfet in command of the three islands? Or was he a soldier, a garrison commander? It did not matter a damn, really; Ramage knew he was just trying to keep his mind occupied. He turned and began to walk back and forth along the few feet of deck between the quarterdeck rail and the taffrail, occasionally looking astern at La Robuste and allowing himself a glance at the islands only once every hundred times he completed the stretch.

  Eventually Southwick said: “We should close the coast a little more to the north, sir. Then we know we’ll be clear of that bank of rocks and can stretch down to the anchorage. Unless you want to wait for a pilot.”

  “Yes, we’ll heave-to and wait for the pilot, if he’s not there waiting for us.”

  “But … well, sir, won’t the pilot realize that—” Southwick did not bother to complete the question.

  “If we don’t pick him up, he’ll come over to us after we’ve anchored.”

  “Yes, I see, sir,” Southwick said and did not understand at all. To him, the prospect of anchoring the two frigates close in under three French islands which were probably bristling with batteries was something that did not bear thinking about.

  The Calypso hove-to just long enough for the frigate’s cutter to be hoisted out and rowed to La Robuste to collect Paolo, Jackson and the four Frenchmen, and bring them on board. Gilbert and his men had been puzzled and nervous from the moment that Wagstaffe, after reading the instructions delivered by the boat’s coxswain, had ordered them away.

  They were brought up to Ramage on the quarterdeck and he smiled the moment he saw their long, nervous faces. He led them aft to the taffrail and, speaking quickly in French, gave them their instructions. They talked among themselves, embarrassed, for a couple of minutes and then Auguste nodded reluctantly.

  “Me, sir. They’ve chosen me.”

&
nbsp; “Very well,” Ramage said. “I’m sure you’ll do it well. Go down to the great cabin. Silkin is there. Gilbert, you go with him, as translator.”

  With the cutter now towing astern—the shallower water brought calmer seas so there was no need to hoist it in again—the Calypso steered for the western end of Île Royale, followed by La Robuste. Seen from this angle, against the flat land of the shore, the island seemed like the end of a lozenge, crowding Île St Joseph, which was much smaller and only ninety feet high. The resulting channel was wide but the water brown, obviously shallow. Here and there short branches of wood floated on the sea but did not drift, merely moving up and down. Southwick pointed out several to Ramage, who tapped the old man on the shoulder. “You’re lucky to have your navigation confirmed like that—the local fishermen have put their pots down round the bank, and those bits of bough are their buoys. The only trouble is you don’t know if the pots are for lobsters and therefore close to rocks, or fish, in which case they’ll be further away.”

  “All the same to me, sir,” Southwick declared cheerfully. “I don’t want to take us within a mile of that bank! And these islands—I wouldn’t want to stay here a week, let alone a year. If I was a Frenchman I’d take care I didn’t fall foul of Bonaparte and get sent out here.”

  “If you were a Frenchman you might not have the choice. The Count of Rennes just wanted to be left in peace.”

  Southwick sniffed in agreement, recognizing that in two sentences the captain had summed it all up.

  “At least we beat L’Espoir,” he said, gesturing at the empty anchorage. “Tell me, sir, did you expect to?”

  “Hopes were fighting fears. When it was dark I didn’t expect to, but if it was a nice sunny day with a fresh wind—well, I hoped.”