Ramage's Trial r-14

by Dudley Pope

  He said to Pegg: "Now!"

  The quartermaster snapped a third order to the men at the wheel, who hauled on the spokes and then stopped at another order from Pegg as the Calypso's bow started to swing in towards the Jason.

  After she had travelled to within a dozen yards, the wheel was spun back amidships and the Calypso came back on to a parallel course.

  Wagstaffe sighed, but Ramage had the feeling it was more from disappointment than relief: theJason's guns had not crashed back in a full broadside, even though the Calypso was a perfect target. Then once again Pegg, after a quick glance at Ramage to receive an approving nod, gave more orders which sent the wheel spinning again, except this time the Calypso turned on to a course which would converge with the Jason in two ships' lengths.

  As the ships approached to crash alongside each other Ramage shouted: "Stand by those grapnels," and ran down the quarterdeck ladder to join his men waiting on the maindeck. Pegg calmly gave the order which turned the wheel enough to lessen the shock of the forthcoming crash. An excited Wagstaffe, for once ordered to remain on the quarterdeck instead of leading a boarding party, contented himself with shouts of "Hurrah, Calypsos!"

  Ramage squeezed alongside a gun barrel and peered down into the water between the two ships. Only five yards separated them.

  "Over with the grapnels!" he shouted. "Swing the others out from the yards. Take your time and aim true!"

  The clinking of metal was men's cutlasses banging against gun barrels and metal fittings as they slid to the ports; the sharp metallic clicks were men cocking their pistols. Moments now - and there it was: with a crash that men felt right through the hull rather than heard, the Calypso drove alongside the Jason. The grapnels swinging out to lodge in her rigging and bulwarks were hauled in to hold the two ships together, and before Ramage had time to give the order the Calypsos were swarming on board the other ship, led as far as Ramage could see by Southwick, who looked like a demented bishop as he ran, white hair streaming, across the Jason's deck, his great sword like an immense crozier.

  Ramage scrambled up and over the Jason's hammock nettings and dropped down on to her deck, vaguely noticing that the nearest men to him were Jackson, Rossi, Stafford, Gilbert and the other three Frenchmen. With a pistol in his left hand and cutlass in his right, he headed for the quarterdeck, for the man in the black coat, and was surrounded by dozens of men shouting excitedly: "Calypso! Calypso!"

  But there was a strange atmosphere, as though they had met the coldness of a crypt. The excited dash that surged the Calypsos over the Jason's bulwarks was slowing down: far from men being in desperate cutlass-against-pike, pike-against-tomahawk, pistol-against-pistol duels, they were slowing down to a walk and looking round with all the curiosity of bumpkins at a fair. And beyond - or was it round them? - other shouting: that of frightened men shouting in English, as though desperately trying to establish their true identities before being run through, spitted by a pike or cut down by a tomahawk.

  Was this the trap? English prisoners forced to shout for quarter at the instant the Calypsos boarded? Creating confusion and making them pause just long enough for the French to shoot them down?

  Ramage looked round wildly, saw no immediate explanation and carried on his dash towards the man in the black coat who (Ramage blinked but kept his pistol raised) was now walking towards him, arms outspread in a welcoming gesture: just as a parson would greet a valued parishioner or, more likely, the patron of his living.

  Above the din Ramage could hear the man saying in a normal voice: "Ramage, isn't it? I've heard so much about you, my dear fellow, and I'm so glad we meet at last!"

  Was this the trap? Ramage stopped and motioned with his pistol that the man should stand his ground. Southwick and Aitken stood warily, like hunters waiting for the prey to walk into their gun sights, and the Calypso's boarders had all stopped and were watching Ramage, waiting for a signal or order.

  Ramage glanced at Aitken and snapped: "Talk to her gunners!"

  The first lieutenant, as he took the few paces to the nearest gun's crew, realized how quickly his captain was thinking: the gunners would reveal their nationality, why they had fired high when raking the Calypso, and who or what their captain was.

  There were six men grouped round the nearest gun, all crouching, and none was armed: there was no sign of a cutlass, pistol, tomahawk, pike or musket; in fact a glance showed Aitken what they should have noticed from the Calypso, that the boarding pikes were still clipped into the racks fitting round the masts like dogs' collars.

  The nearest man, holding the trigger lanyard, was obviously the gun captain but his face was white under a superficial tan and his eyes avoided Aitken's glare. He still stood in a half-crouch, as though he had just been kicked in the belly. To Aitken he looked like a pickpocket caught in a congregation and singled out by the parson up in the pulpit for special castigation.

  "Do you speak English?" Aitken demanded.

  The man nodded nervously.

  "Well, stand up straight and tell me what's going on." Aitken suddenly realized something else. "Where are all the officers apart from the man in the black coat and a few midshipmen?"

  At last the seaman threw the lanyard over the breech of the gun, out of the way (Aitken noticed the lock was not cocked, so the gun could not be fired), and stood to attention.

  "All the officers are down in their cabins, sir. One of them could tell you. Yes, sir," he said eagerly, the idea becoming more appealing as he thought about it, "they'd all be able to tell you, 'specially the first lieutenant."

  "You tell me, quickly!" Aitken snapped, slapping the flat of his cutlass against his leg, "or else you'll all be dead men in a couple of minutes: you fired on one of the King's ships. That's treason, to start with."

  "Oh no!" the man protested in an agonized voice, and several of the others round the gun now stood up straight and added their protests. "We fired over you sir," the man said excitedly. "All of us did, even though we'd been told to rake you."

  Ramage, out of earshot, called impatiently and Aitken said: "Quickly now, this is the Jason and one of the King's ships?"

  "She's that," the man said. "Commissioned in Plymouth the week after the war started again. Bound from Barbados an' Jamaica with despatches."

  "Why did you open fire?"

  "Go on, sir; ask one of the officers," the man said evasively, his body wriggling like a hooked fish.

  Aitken's brain felt numbed: if the man in black was the captain, the officers were down in their cabins, and the men were crouched down round guns whose locks were not cocked, then what the devil was going on?

  "What were your orders if and when you were boarded by us?"

  "Orders, sir? Oh Gawd, sir, it ain't like that at all: please go an' ask the officers 'cos they know all abart it."

  "So none of you are going to fight us?"

  "Fight you?" the man said in alarm. "Strike me, we bin 'oping fer weeks something like this would 'appen."

  Aitken turned and reported to Ramage, who thought for a moment and then snapped out orders. "Rennick," he told the Marine lieutenant, "get all these men at the guns lined up on the fo'c'sle, with your Marines surrounding them."

  Then, with his pistol covering the man in the black coat, he told Southwick: "Have all the Calypso's grapnels unhooked and hauled inboard. As soon as she's free I want Wagstaffe to get her clear and keep a gunshot to windward of us."

  He looked round for Jackson and waved him over. "Collect half a dozen men here."

  Then he turned to the man in the long black coat who was still standing there, calm and not a bit alarmed at having men from another ship swarming over the deck of his own ship; in fact, Ramage realized, the man had a strange remoteness, like an effigy in a church which had watched over the funerals, weddings and christenings for centuries and would continue until the church fell down, unless another Cromwell came along.

  Ramage tucked the pistol in his belt and slid the cutlass back into the frog and del
iberately looked the other man up and down. He said loudly to Aitken, aware that the words might well have to be remembered as evidence at a court of inquiry: "I wonder who this man is - you notice he is not wearing any sort of uniform. Green trousers, a long black coat, no hat . . ."

  "Aye, sir," Aitken said, realizing the point of Ramage's remark. "There's no telling who he is."

  "Come, sir," Ramage said, "you have the advantage of me: you have guessed who I am, but I only know your ship has just been firing at mine."

  "Shirley, my dear Ramage, William Shirley at your service, a captain in the Royal Navy but lacking, I fear, your distinction."

  "You have your commission?" Ramage asked sharply.

  "Oh yes indeed, it's in a drawer in my desk. Shall we go down to my cabin and find it?"

  "Later," Ramage said. He wanted witnesses to all the conversation with this man. "Less than half an hour ago you approached my ship in the Jason flying the wrong challenge and then giving the wrong answer when my ship hoisted the correct challenge."

  "My dear fellow, you don't say so?" Shirley seemed genuinely upset. "How careless of me. Still, no harm came of my omission, I'm glad to say."

  "No harm?" Ramage looked round at Aitken to make sure he had heard, and noticed that Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were among several other seamen who had, almost without realizing it, grouped round Shirley, covering him with their pistols. "You narrowly missed colliding with my ship and then fired a raking broadside into her. Do you call that 'No harm'?"

  "A raking broadside?" Shirley repeated in a puzzled voice. "My dear Ramage, you are mistaking the poor Jason for someone else. Why should we want to rake one of the King's ships?"

  "That's the point of my questions," Ramage said, adding heavily: "It is rather an unusual situation."

  "Yes, it would be," Shirley agreed. "By the way, do I address you as 'my Lord' or just Ramage? I've heard it said you don't use your title in the Service."

  "Ramage will do. Why did you open fire?"

  Shirley shook his head sorrowfully, as though regretfully refusing some importunate request. "Must have been some other ship, my dear Ramage. Anyway, now we've settled that, I hope you can be persuaded to stay and dine with me. That is one of the complaints I have about the King's Service: at sea and on foreign stations one does meet such a poor class of person, and that is why it's such a pleasure to meet you."

  Ramage gestured to him. "Come with me." He walked over to one of the starboard guns, ordered the crouching men to stand upright, and told the captain of the gun to step forward.

  The man was in his early thirties, clean shaven, his hair tied in a neat queue. He had a green cloth tied round his forehead to absorb perspiration and did not wear a shirt above his white duck trousers.

  "Name and rate?" Ramage asked.

  "George Gooch, sir, rated able."

  "Very well, Gooch. Tell me, have you fired this gun today?"

  The man glanced at Shirley, looked down at the deck and said woodenly: "No, sir; ain't fired no gun."

  Ramage nodded towards Jackson, who walked to the muzzle and sniffed. "It's been fired recently, sir. Inside half an hour."

  "What have you to say to that?" Ramage asked Gooch. The man shook his head and refused to look up.

  Ramage took Shirley's arm. "Come, Mr Shirley, let's examine that muzzle ourselves."

  "By all means." He stood back a pace and made a sweeping gesture indicating that Ramage should lead the way.

  Ramage bent down at the muzzle. The smell of burnt powder was unmistakable. He pointed. "Smell that," he told Shirley.

  The man clasped his hands behind his back and bent forward. He inclined his body, Ramage thought, like the patient parent leaning over to listen to a mumbling child. "Well?" Ramage demanded.

  "I can smell nothing, but I have a poor sense of smell anyway."

  Aitken and Southwick had come down the other side of the gun.

  "This one has been fired; those on the larboard side haven't, sir," Southwick said firmly. "I'll check all these on the starboard side." With that he turned and made his way along the row of guns, ducking under barrels and holding his sword clear, sniffing at the muzzles like a terrier at rabbit holes.

  "Please wait with these men," Ramage told Shirley and gestured to Jackson to guard him. He noted that Kenton was standing by the men at the wheel giving them orders while Martin was busy with a party of men, helping bear off the Calypso.

  With Aitken beside him he made for the officers' cabins.

  "What do you make of it, sir?" a bewildered Aitken asked. "Seems like a dream to me: each time you reach out to touch something you find it has no substance, as though everything was made of smoke."

  "And we're trying to shovel it," Ramage said sympathetically. "But no, I haven't anything more than a suspicion. Captain Shirley looks crazy enough to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Have you noticed he's not perspiring under that black coat?"

  "He's not moving very much, either, sir," Aitken pointed out.

  Ramage led the way down the companionway, blinking for a few moments in the half-light. But within five paces of the gunroom, a burly Marine lunged forward with a musket and bellowed: "Halt, who goes there?"

  Ramage stopped and inquired in a quiet, polite voice: "Who are you expecting?"

  "That's none of your business," the man snarled, taking another pace forward.

  "Do you recognize my uniform?" Ramage asked, his voice still low. "And the officer beside me?"

  "Aye, I recognize both uniforms but they don't mean nothing to me. Captain Shirley's the only one I take orders from."

  "Not even from the Marine captain or lieutenant commanding your detachment?"

  " 'Specially not 'im; 'e's one o' them."

  "Who are 'they'?" Ramage inquired sympathetically.

  "That lot in there," the Marine said, turning and pointing with his musket. He turned back to find Ramage's pistol aiming at his right shoulder, the eye looking along the barrel deep-set, brown, and as far as he could see, without a glimmer of mercy in it.

  "Tell me," Ramage said, "don't you think it would be a wise insurance to take your right hand away from the trigger and then hand your musket over to the lieutenant standing beside me?"

  The man's right hand came clear; he was making the movement unmistakable. He gave the musket to Aitken as though presenting a large bunch of flowers.

  "Where are the other Marines?" Ramage demanded.

  "Dunno, sir. On deck, I 'spect. I'm not due to be relieved for 'bout half an hour, I reckon."

  "Who are you guarding in there?"

  The Marine looked puzzled, as though Ramage's question was one even an imbecile could answer.

  Ramage, feeling himself near the answer to the whole puzzle, jabbed his pistol for emphasis, wanting to hear what the sentry had to say before blundering into the half-darkness of the gunroom, whose occupants were regarded as dangerous enough to require a Marine guard.

  "Guarding, sir?" The man misunderstood his meaning, and Ramage realized the two senses in which the word could be used, to protect, or to prevent escaping. "Well, sir, they're all in there; the whole bloody lot."

  "Damnation, man, who are 'the whole bloody lot'?"

  "Why, sir, all the commission and warrant officers. Them wot mutinied!"

  Commission and warrant officers mutinying? Against a captain who was walking the quarterdeck wearing a long black coat and denying that every gun in his starboard broadside had just raked the Calypso? Aitken was right: all this had the insubstantial atmosphere of a dream! If only he could wake up and find the Jason, the man in the black coat and the gunroom full of alleged mutineers had all vanished, and his steward had brought him a cup of proper coffee bought in Barbados, whence it had been smuggled from somewhere on the Spanish Main.

  But this was no dream: he was down below in the Jason with his pistol held at the head of a Marine who was startled to find that Ramage did not know the gunroom was full of mutinous officers.

  Ait
ken, realizing that Ramage intended to walk into the gunroom, said hurriedly: "Wait, sir, I'll get Rennick and a brace of our Marines. They can flush them out. Come with me," he said sharply to the Marine, gesturing with the musket, and disappearing up the companionway.

  Ramage, left alone, listened to the slap of the water against the hull - he should have given orders for the Jason to be hove-to, before she and the Calypso were carried too far to leeward of the convoy. And those two newly promoted captains - would they protect the convoy while he was away? Supposing French privateers out of Guadeloupe suddenly attacked, just a couple of them from different directions: would La Robuste and L'Espoir be able to drive them off? They were powerful and weatherly enough, but no ship was better than her captain. And anyway, the commander of the convoy was standing in half darkness outside a gunroom door, waiting for some Marines to act as good shepherds.

  Yet Aitken was right: he was the commander of the convoy, not the leader of a boarding party, and if the convoy came to any harm, Their Lordships would quite reasonably want to know what the devil he was doing.

  He stuck the pistol back in his belt, suddenly conscious that his wrist ached from holding it. Damn and blast, all he wanted to do was get this wretched convoy safely back to England and find out what had happened to Sarah. The devil take frigates commanded by men who looked like run-amok prelates in long black coats and whose gunroom (according to a Marine sentry) was full of mutinous officers.

  Supposing the captain was not mad. Supposing, instead, that the officers had mutinied. What happened now? Captain Ramage had the responsibility of sorting it all out, along with nursing his convoy, and he owed the Yorkes a dinner, he thought irrelevantly, but found he liked thinking about them. Sidney owned a fleet of merchant ships that were among the best kept and best sailed at sea today, and he was an amusing, erudite and lively host, apart from having become one of Ramage's closest friends. Strange how he had so few friends. Yet not so strange really, because most of his adult life had been spent at sea, where the only people he met were naval officers (with the exception of Sidney).