Ramage's Diamond

by Dudley Pope

  Copyright & Information

  Ramage’s Diamond

  First published in 1976

  Copyright: Kay Pope; House of Stratus 1976-2011

  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 2011 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

  0755113462 9780755113460 Print

  0755124383 9780755124381 Pdf

  0755124553 9780755124558 Kindle/Mobi

  0755124723 9780755124725 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 father’s 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 Susan and Nick

  Map - Full

  Map - Left Hand

  Map - Right Hand

  Diamond Rock

  CHAPTER ONE

  There was a faint smell of oil, turpentine and beeswax in the shop, and while an assistant scurried off to fetch the owner Ramage glanced first at the sporting guns in the racks round the walls and then at the pairs of pistols nestling in their mahogany cases which almost covered one end of the counter.

  The guns accounted for the smell of oil. Then he noticed the polished floor of narrow wooden tiles, laid in a herringbone design to take advantage of the grain pattern. Turpentine and beeswax – the gun-maker used the same polish on his floor as he did on the stocks of his guns.

  His father gestured round the shop with his cane. ‘My first pistol came from here nearly fifty years ago. This fellow’s father owned it then, and my father was one of his early customers.’

  Ramage looked at the tall figure of the Admiral. His face was lined now and his hair was grey, yet he was erect, his brown eyes alert and looking out on the world with amused tolerance from under bushy eyebrows. He pictured his father as a shy young midshipman – a ‘younker’ nervously choosing a pistol, and no doubt anxious to be off to the sword cutler’s to complete his martial purchases before joining his first ship.

  The Admiral nodded at Ramage’s right shoulder. ‘Your epaulet is crooked. I
know it’s the first time you’ve worn it, but…’

  Ramage tried to straighten it but the padding of the strap was new and stiff, unwilling to sit squarely on the shoulder-bone, and he was unused to the tight spirals of bullion hanging down in a thick fringe round the edges. The light reflecting on them caught the corner of his right eye and made him feel lopsided. He would get used to it, he thought wryly, but probably not before he had three years’ seniority and was entitled to wear an epaulet on the left shoulder as well.

  Don’t grumble, he told himself as he tugged at the strap; it’s taken long enough to be made post and get this single epaulet. He was so used to being addressed as ‘Lieutenant Ramage’ that it was going to take a while to become accustomed to ‘Captain Ramage’. Admittedly his name was right at the bottom of the list of ‘The Captains of His Majesty’s Fleet’, but by next year many more lieutenants would have been ‘made post’, their names coming lower on the list, thus increasing his seniority and pushing him up the ladder of promotion.

  Progress up the list of lieutenants had been slow: he had been less than a third of the way to the top when he had been unexpectedly made post three days ago. The jump from lieutenant to post captain was reckoned to be the hardest to make because in time of war it did not depend on seniority so much as on doing something that caught the Admiralty’s eye – or having enough ‘interest’ in high places. There was a lot of satisfaction in having been promoted as a reward for things done: he had begun to think he was remaining a lieutenant because his father was still out of favour, still regarded as a scapegoat for the stupidity of politicians some twenty years ago.

  Cross-eyed, he tried to jerk the epaulet but was interrupted as the plump gun-maker came through the door at the back of the shop, a delighted smile spreading across his face as he hurriedly removed his leather apron.

  ‘My Lords!’ the man exclaimed with a quick bow and, noticing Ramage’s single epaulet, said with obvious pleasure: ‘Congratulations. Captain the Lord Ramage. Well-deserved, if I might say so, judging by the Gazettes for the past few years! It seems only a few months ago that the Earl brought you here as a young midshipman just off to join your first ship.’ He turned to the Admiral, his brow wrinkling in concentration. ‘It must have been a dozen years ago…yes, going off to join the Benbow.’

  The Admiral nodded. ‘You have a good memory, Mansfield. He was made post last Friday.’

  The gun-maker’s eyes twinkled as he put his oil-stained apron behind the counter. ‘The bullion of the epaulet…’

  ‘It’ll soon lose the new look,’ Ramage said. ‘It hasn’t had a breath of sea air yet.’

  The Admiral sniffed. ‘The smoke and fog in this damnable city are enough to turn it green, even if it is gold.’

  He pointed his cane at the sporting guns. ‘Well, Mansfield, mustn’t take up all your morning. I want a lighter gun for snipe – I’m getting a bit stiff in the joints and those blessed birds seem to jink more today than when I was younger. The captain wants a pair of pistols. He lost that pair you made, and he’s been making do with those confounded Sea Service models.’

  As Mansfield moved towards the cases of pistols the Admiral said: ‘You’d better attend to me first; the Marchesa is buying the pistols as a present, and she’s raiding the shop next door. She’ll join us in a few minutes, after she’s bought a few cables of lace and ribbon.’

  For the next twenty minutes, as carriages clattered along Bond Street and hucksters shouted the merits of their wares, the Admiral and the gun-maker discussed sporting guns. Once they had selected a suitable design, Mansfield insisted on checking the measurement for the length of the stock, and when the Admiral protested that he had had those measurements for years the gun-maker said respectfully, ‘You keep a youthful figure, my Lord, but–’ he tapped the right shoulder, ‘you have put on a little flesh here, just where it makes a difference.’ He went behind the counter and consulted a heavy ledger, then came back again with a rule. ‘If you’ll just lean forward slightly – ah, yes, a difference of nearly an inch…’

  The Admiral sighed. ‘So that’s it! I haven’t been happy with any of my guns lately; they just don’t sit right. I thought my muscles were getting stiff.’

  The gun-maker nodded knowingly: ‘It’s not unusual, my Lord. Try the new gun when I’ve finished it, and if you find it comfortable I suggest you return your other guns and I’ll shorten and reshape the stocks accordingly. It won’t affect the balance – but I can guarantee it will affect your game bag. And–’

  He broke off with an apology and hurried to the door as a small but strikingly beautiful woman in a pale blue cape swept into the shop. Over her shoulder Ramage saw Hanson walking away to their carriage with a large packet holding her latest purchases. The old man was always delighted to leave his domestic duties and go off on shopping expeditions with the Marchesa: her Italian accent and bizarre and impish sense of humour reduced any shop to an excited uproar in a matter of minutes. Ramage wondered idly whether the usually staid establishment they had visited in Albemarle Street an hour earlier had managed to get all the rolls of dress material back on the shelves. The Marchesa would still be there, asking to be shown yet more cloth, if the Admiral had not called a halt by protesting that they had seen enough material to make a suit of sails for a ship of the line, and declaring that her first three choices were by far the best, even though she had changed her mind a score of times since then.

  The owner of the shop, surprised to find that Admiral the Earl of Blazey could not only stop the Marchesa but do it in a way that left her laughing and agreeing with him, hurriedly scribbled down the lengths she wanted and looked still more surprised when she nodded goodbye, turned to Ramage and said: ‘Now let us go to Bond Street for the pistols.’

  The gun-maker welcomed her, guessing that she was ‘the Marchesa’ the Admiral had mentioned, and Ramage winked at his father: the poor fellow was in for a shock. Although she was only five feet tall, with finely chiselled features, high cheekbones and the imperious manner that befitted the ruler of the little kingdom of Volterra, her appearance gave no hint of her adventures in escaping from Bonaparte’s troops when they invaded Italy. That episode had given her a surprising skill in the use of pistols and a knowledge of firearms more usual in an Army officer. She could load, aim and fire a pistol with the casual elegance of a woman removing a necklace from a jewel box and placing it round her neck.

  She nodded to the gun-maker and said to Ramage: ‘I hope you haven’t chosen yet?’

  ‘We’ve been waiting for you. I saw Hanson staggering off with your last purchases! Did you find all the ribbon and lace you wanted?’

  ‘The lace I want is still in Italy. They have a poor selection here. This ’Oniton they talk about – is that the town we pass through on the way to St Kew?’

  ‘“This Honiton”, young lady, happens to be the centre for the finest lace in this country,’ said the Admiral with mock indignation.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said coolly. ‘But if the selection they have next door is a fair example of their work, then Volterra is the centre for the finest lace in the world.’

  The Admiral flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the lace of his stock. ‘My dear Gianna, poor Nicholas and I have to make do with this – smuggled from Bruges, no doubt.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Gianna said tartly, eyeing the lace edge of the stock with disdain. She turned to the gun-maker. ‘Now, the captain wants a matched pair of pistols. Not duelling pistols,’ she added, ‘because a hair trigger is dangerous on board a ship. Those might–’

  She broke off as Ramage took her arm and led her to the far end of the counter. He knew from long experience that it was useless to tell her that even though she was paying for them and knew about pistols, it was wiser to leave the actual choice between the man who made them and the man who was going to use them. In any other woman it would have been intolerable but in Gianna it was partly her upbringing and partly a measure of her love for him. He needed a pair of p
istols and she wanted to give them to him as a present to celebrate his promotion. She insisted on the best because, better than most people, she knew that his life might one day depend on how reliably and truly either or both guns shot.

  Ramage pointed to the case at the end of the counter.

  ‘The pair with hexagonal barrels,’ he said. ‘Mansfield will have to fit belt-hooks but–’ he lifted one of the guns from the case and turned it on its side, so the pan was downwards – ‘yes, that is easy enough.’

  ‘They’re very plain,’ Gianna said and pointed to the pair in the next case. ‘Look, what about these? Look at the design on the barrels – and the wood: the carving is beautiful.’

  ‘I want hexagonal barrels,’ Ramage said firmly. ‘The flat top surface makes an excellent sight when you have to shoot quickly, and I don’t like a lot of fancy work on a gun.’

  The gun-maker heard Ramage’s comment. ‘A pair of good plain guns with nine-inch barrels, my Lord?’

  Ramage nodded. ‘But I’ll want belt-hooks fitted. Can you do that and have them ready in three days?’

  ‘Of course, of course. Your Lordship has chosen exactly the pair I would have recommended.’ He took the other gun from the case. ‘The safety bolt is ready for the thumb, and I’ve made sure it doesn’t protrude so much it might catch in clothing. The stock – will you grip it, please? Yes, it fits your hand nicely. Just watch one thing, my Lord: on this model I have made the trigger guard a little wider here – you see the flare on the forward side? You need to remember that. Or,’ he added hurriedly, ‘if you find it too wide I can change it to the normal width.’