Ramage's Diamond

by Dudley Pope

  A competent captain: for a moment Ramage mulled over the phrase and then felt a spasm, if not of fear, of something deuced close. Alone in the great cabin wondering what had destroyed his predecessor suddenly brought home to him that he now commanded a frigate. Not that captain walking down the Admiralty steps, nor the one hailing a passing boat, but Nicholas Ramage, who had never previously commanded anything larger than a brig.

  He had dreamed of it for years and now he had achieved it, but thanks to a drunken predecessor the excitement was not there. The Juno, a 32-gun frigate, carrying twenty-six 12-pounders on the main deck, four 6-pounders on the quarterdeck, two more on the fo’c’sle. A typical frigate, in fact. She was 126 feet long on the gun deck and had a beam of thirty-five feet.

  Ramage recalled some other details he had looked up hurriedly before leaving London: when fully provisioned her draught was sixteen feet seven inches. She had a complement of 215 men, and her hull had cost about £13,000, her masts and yard more than £800. By the time she had been rigged, sails put on board and boats hoisted, the total had risen to £14,250. The Progress Book at the Admiralty had ended up with a total that included a halfpenny.

  He sat back in the chair and stared out through the stern lights. Prices, weights, lengths… They were a ship on paper, yet the Juno frigate was so much more. You began with six hundred tons of timber, carefully selected and shaped; you needed some forty tons of iron fittings, bolts and nuts, and a dozen tons of copper bolts. Her bottom was sheathed with more than two thousand sheets of copper, to keep out teredo and deter the barnacles and weeds. Eighteen thousand treenails locked futtocks and planks, beams and breasthooks, stem and stern-post… Four tons of oakum had been driven into hull and deck seams by skilled and patient caulkers, and there were twenty barrels of pitch and twice that number of tar used in her construction. Two hundred and fifty gallons of linseed oil – much of that rubbed into masts and yards. Three coats of paint for the whole ship weighed two and a half tons, yet that was nothing when you realized that masts, yards and bowsprit weighed more than forty tons. Fifteen tons for the standing rigging, twelve for the running; six tons of blocks and nine of spare yards and booms. Six tons of sails (the main course alone needed 620 yards of canvas), thirty-five of anchor cables. Weight, weight, weight – and water, provisions, men and their chests, stores for the gunner, carpenter and bos’n, let alone guns, powder, shot… She’s all yours now, he told himself, until the Admiralty say otherwise, or you put her on a reef or sink her in a storm of wind. Like all ships, the Juno would be a demanding mistress but an exciting one.

  She was a great deal bigger than his first command, the cutter Kathleen, which he had lost at the Battle of Cape St Vincent; she was a lot bigger than the Triton brig, his next command lost after a hurricane in the West Indies. Yet the most important thing – what he found daunting at the moment – was that the complement was 215 men, which was twice that of the Triton and four times as many as the Kathleen.

  Captain the Lord Ramage was now, by virtue of the commission still in his pocket, the commanding officer of the Juno frigate.

  The responsibility for the ship and her men was his from now on, to wear like an extra skin. All he had to show for it so far was an epaulet on his right shoulder, but the printer of the Navy List would eventually lift the type and move his name from the list of lieutenants and put it at the bottom of the list of captains…

  As he stood up to put his commission away in a drawer he heard a noise outside the door and found that the first lieutenant had at last provided him with a Marine sentry. Ramage told him to pass the word for the Master and Southwick arrived so promptly that Ramage guessed the old man had been standing by the capstan, waiting for the call.

  The Master sat down in a chair at Ramage’s invitation, his hat on his knees, and when he saw Ramage’s eyebrows raised questioningly he nodded: ‘Your talk worked, sir; I can see a difference in the men already. I think it was the red baize bag: I saw a lot of ’em straighten themselves up when you mentioned that!’

  ‘They’ve probably noted me down as a wild man with a cat-o’-nine-tails,’ Ramage said ruefully. ‘Damnation, you can remember the only times I’ve had men flogged.’

  ‘Don’t you fret, sir; one man came up to me not five minutes ago – one of the Kathleens who served with us in the Mediterranean. He was all excited that you’d joined the ship and by now is probably talking up a gale o’ wind on the messdeck!’

  Ramage nodded, and then waved at the sideboard. ‘There’s nothing to drink yet. My trunk is on board – I hope – and some purchases I made in Portsmouth should be out later in the day. In the meantime I shall have to eat by courtesy of the ward room. Now, to bring you up to date.’

  Quickly Ramage explained that the Juno was under orders for the West Indies and was to sail as soon as possible. All four lieutenants on board would be leaving the ship in the morning – their orders from the Admiralty were on the sideboard – and four new ones would be arriving during the day. Southwick’s old chess opponent, Bowen, was due on board during the day, and so was a Marine officer.

  By the time Ramage finished the Master had a contented grin on his face: he had looked glum at the prospect of four new lieutenants – all strangers to each other as well as the ship, he grumbled – but brightened at the mention of Bowen’s name. The Surgeon was a fine chess player and had spent many hours teaching the Master. And between the two men there was a bond that included their captain: Ramage and Southwick had spent most of their time in the Triton brig during a voyage from England to the West Indies – Bowen’s first in one of the King’s ships – curing the Surgeon’s alcoholism. They had nursed him through the horrors of delirium tremens, and kept his mind occupied in the critical weeks after that, which was when Southwick had been under Ramage’s orders to cultivate an interest in chess.

  ‘Midshipmen,’ Southwick said suddenly. ‘The four on board with the previous captain have all transferred. I hope we aren’t sailing without any…’

  ‘You might end up wishing we were,’ Ramage said. ‘We’ll have at least two. The Marchesa–’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ Southwick interrupted hurriedly, ‘how is she?’

  ‘Very well, and she wishes to be remembered to you. She has a young nephew who arrived in London recently. Apparently he was in Sicily when we rescued the Marchesa, and stayed there until he could get to Malta. He came back in a frigate and, according to the Marchesa, learned a little on the way and now talks of nothing but ships and the sea. We shall be having him with us. He’s fourteen years old and speaks good English. A lively lad. I had no others, so when Lord St Vincent heard there were vacancies…’

  Southwick nodded understandingly. ‘I hope his choices are good but–’

  ‘I think he is only providing one, but don’t complain,’ Ramage said with mock earnestness. ‘His Lordship intended to nominate a chaplain.’

  Southwick’s face fell. ‘I hope that–’

  ‘I bargained very gently. I did not ask for a particular first lieutenant – but I mentioned you for Master. His Lordship was delighted. I did not ask for a particular second lieutenant – but I said I would like a particular surgeon. His Lordship was still delighted. When His Lordship said he had a chaplain who wanted a berth, I mentioned casually that I was not asking for particular third or fourth lieutenants either – nor a Marine officer.’

  ‘His Lordship did well out of it,’ Southwick commented. ‘ln giving you your Master and Surgeon, he has four lieutenants, three midshipmen and a Marine officer for himself.’

  ‘I forgot to mention that he allowed me a dozen men for you…’

  ‘For me, sir?’

  ‘Yes – Jackson, Stafford, Rossi, Maxwell and a whole lot more former Tritons.’

  ‘By Jove, sir,’ Southwick exclaimed delightedly, ‘how did you manage to trace where they were?’

  ‘Well, of course, Jackson, Rossi and Stafford were with me in France, so I could trace them, and Maxwell and the rest were al
l in the Victory here at Portsmouth, and one of them wrote to me on behalf of the rest a month ago, asking if I was ever given a ship…’

  ‘They’re lucky fellows,’ Southwick said. ‘Anyway, I must admit I’m glad to be getting them. From the look of some of the men we have at the moment, we’ll be able to promote some of the lads. By the way, sir, the ship’s already provisioned for four months; that’s the only pleasant surprise I had when I came on board!’

  For the next half-hour the two men discussed how they would get the Juno into a condition where she could join the squadron of the most eagle-eyed of admirals, a discussion which ended when Ramage remembered that his trunk had not been brought below, and was sufficiently angry to send for the first lieutenant, telling Southwick to wait in the coach.

  The man stood just inside the door of the great cabin, swaying slightly and with a befuddled grin on his face. He was drunk not from a few incautious tots earlier, but because he had long ago reached the stage where he needed a tot an hour to get through the day, just as a ship could only get to windward by tacking. Apart from Bowen, he was the first officer ever to be drunk on duty in any ship Ramage commanded, and his eyes had the cunning look of a ferret. He was making no attempt to hide his condition and Ramage suddenly guessed the reason. An officer found drunk on duty would normally be sent to his cabin, if not put under an arrest. This wretched fellow, finding that the new captain had done nothing about it, had concluded that Ramage was nervous and unsure of himself and, like the previous captain, would let him stay happily drunk.

  He did not know that Ramage had orders from the Admiralty to send the man off the ship and that it was unlikely he would ever be employed again. The letter transferring him out of the Juno was there on the sideboard and for a moment Ramage considered giving it to him. Then he decided to wait until next morning: the man ought to be punished, however lightly and briefly, for his part in reducing the Juno to its sorry state.

  ‘My trunk?’ Ramage asked quietly. ‘Why has it not been sent below?’

  ‘You told me to have it hoisted on board – sir.’

  ‘I forgot to order you to have it sent below?’

  ‘Yes.’ The man was grinning.

  ‘Very well. I hardly expect the first lieutenant of a ship I command to need orders for such a routine matter. However, you are drunk; you were drunk when I came on board and now you are under arrest. Go to your cabin and stay there. If you have any liquor in your cabin you will leave it outside the door. If you touch a drop more I’ll have you put in irons–’

  ‘But you can’t put me in irons!’ the man exclaimed. ‘I’m–’

  By now Ramage was standing in front of him, his face expressionless. The first lieutenant looked up and saw the narrowed eyes but he was too drunk to notice anything except that the captain was not shouting: he was not the first man who failed to realize that the quieter Ramage’s voice became, the more angry he was.

  ‘Can’t I?’ Ramage asked, almost conversationally. ‘If I thought it would sober you up I’d have you put in irons and stand you under the wash-deck pump for an hour.’

  The man, suddenly alarmed, tried to stand to attention but banged his head on the beam overhead.

  ‘Go to your cabin,’ Ramage said. ‘Report to me at seven tomorrow morning with your trunk packed. In the meantime you are relieved of all duties and are under close arrest.’

  The man lurched from the cabin and Southwick came back, shaking his head. ‘There’s no saving a man like that, sir; he’s drunk because he is bad, not bad because he’s drunk. I’ll rouse out the master-at-arms and arrange for a sentry. I’ll have your trunk sent down in five minutes.’

  Ramage nodded. ‘Well, we’ve made a start, but it’s going to be a long job…’

  Next morning Southwick grumbled to Ramage that the Juno was more like Vauxhall Turnpike when the Portsmouth stage came in than a ship of war. The former Tritons were arriving with sea bags, the officers leaving the frigate were cursing and swearing as sea chests were accidentally dropped, and each of the new lieutenants was wandering round the ship with the lost look of a Johnny-Come-Lately. Ramage gave up long before the sun had any warmth in it. He met the dozen former Tritons and welcomed them on board with bantering warnings that their recent holiday on board the Victory was over; he watched stony-faced as the former first lieutenant left the ship, sober for the first time in many months and perhaps even ashamed of himself.

  Bowen arrived just before noon and, with three leather bags of surgical instruments, looked more like the prosperous surgeon from Wimpole Street that he had once been than a surgeon of a frigate. He greeted Southwick with obvious pleasure and, waving at the sea chest being hoisted on board, told him he had brought him a present of a set of chessmen. This announcement provoked a loud groan from the Master, who protested that he had vowed to play only on the even-numbered days of the month.

  The new first lieutenant, John Aitken, arrived an hour after the Surgeon. He was a fresh-faced and diffident young Scot from Perthshire who, half an hour after climbing the gangway steps, had changed into his second-best uniform and set the men to work cleaning up the ship. Head pumps were soon squirting streams of water across the decks as seamen sprinkled sand and scrubbed with holystones; aloft topmen were refurling sails, tying and retying gaskets until the quiet Scots voice coming through the speaking trumpet announced that the first lieutenant was satisfied.

  The other three lieutenants had arrived together and Ramage, with memories of joining ships in similar circumstances, saw from the way they behaved towards each other that they had already compared the dates of their commissions. The vital dates established their seniority and sorted them into the second, third and fourth lieutenants, without the need for a decision by Captain Ramage, the Port Admiral or the Admiralty.

  To Ramage, now in his late twenties, the three junior lieutenants looked very young. Each must be more than twenty, because that was the youngest age allowed; but he was himself getting older, and this was the first time for a couple of years that he had seen a group of young lieutenants. They seemed cheerful and competent fellows: Wagstaffe, the second lieutenant, was a Londoner, Baker, the third, was a burly youngster from Bungay, in Suffolk, and Lacey, the new fourth lieutenant, spoke in the easy relaxed burr of Somerset, having been born at Nether Stowey.

  As he walked round the ship, watching but not interfering, storing items in his memory, noting the way certain men were working and others were hanging back, Ramage kept an eye open for the midshipmen. Gianna’s nephew was due today – Ramage had emphasized that if he did not get on board today he would be left behind. To be fair to the boy he was having to make his way from somewhere in Buckinghamshire to London, buy his kit, and then get down to Portsmouth. Ramage stopped walking for a moment, appalled at the prospect of Aunt Gianna taking the boy shopping; he would probably arrive with a large trunk full of expensive nonsense, instead of a small sea chest tightly packed with the items on the list that Ramage had left behind.

  He was thankful that the shop in Portsmouth had sent out his own purchases: two chests of tea, cases of spirits and wine, boxes of freshly baked biscuits they swore would last two months without going hard, and after that could be freshened by soaking in water for a couple of minutes and putting in a hot oven. He had a good selection of preserves: cucumber put down in vinegar, quince jam, mint sauce in bottles, and there was a small string of garlic and several large ones of onions, stone jars of lime juice, a box of apples packed in hay…

  Promotion to the command of a frigate brought other changes, apart from the number of men and the size of the ship. The captain of a frigate, with four lieutenants, Marine officer, midshipmen, Master and Surgeon, was expected to entertain; from time to time he would have to invite three or four of them to dinner, and spend an amiable hour being pleasant. It was up to the captain to provide a palatable meal and make sure plenty was available: young midshipmen and junior lieutenants came to dinner with the captain with awe and a hearty appeti
te.

  By late afternoon Ramage was heartily sick of the ship. Every time he wanted to walk the deck to ease his tension he had to dodge groups of busy seamen. The ship stank of pitch because Aitken had the carpenter’s mates and caulkers hardening down some of the deck seams with hot irons; there was brick dust blowing around as seamen tried to work up a polish on brasswork that had been left to corrode for weeks. New coils of rope were being unrolled as Southwick and the bos’n replaced running rigging that had aged and stretched to the point of being dangerous. Cursing seamen struggled with fids as they spliced in new thimbles, and the gunner and his mates were systematically picking up shot from the racks and passing them through gauges, metal rings of an exact diameter which would show if too much paint or hidden flakes of rust on a shot would make it jam in the bore of a gun. Only Aitken was entirely happy: Ramage seemed to hear his soft Scots voice coming from a dozen places at once as he encouraged, cajoled and bullied the men to get the work done.

  Gianna’s nephew arrived at four o’clock with the midshipman sent by Lord St Vincent. Each boy had two sea chests and Ramage watched Southwick glaring as they were hoisted on board. He decided not to say anything unless more midshipmen arrived: with these two and the master’s mate, the berth would not be too crowded because the chests made up for the lack of chairs.

  Ramage gave both boys half an hour to settle in and then sent for them. Paolo Luigi Orsini was a typical young Italian: olive-skinned with black hair, large and warm brown eyes, and an open friendly manner. At the moment he was very nervous, overwhelmed at being in uniform and serving in one of the King’s ships. Ramage suspected too that warnings from Gianna were still ringing in his ears about what would happen to him if he did anything to incur the captain’s displeasure. The high-spirited boy who had romped through the house in Palace Street, teasing Zia Gianna had vanished; in his place was a lad who gave the impression that he feared that at the slightest lapse he would vanish in a puff of smoke.