by Dudley Pope
"Come now, don't blame the poor girls; the moment their mothers heard that Lieutenant Lord Ramage had arrived in Jamaica they knew the season's most eligible bachelor was within their grasp: tall, dark and handsome, two romantic scars won in battle, wealthy and the heir to an earldom ... what more could a mother - let alone a daughter - want from life?"
"My friend," Ramage said, "unless you use all your energy in spreading a story that I'm a notorious rapist and the family estate is mortgaged to the butler whose daughter my grandfather recently deflowered, I'll drop the hint that not only is that young shipowner Sidney Yorke so rich that he lends small fortunes to nabobs at one per cent, but that his main reason for coming to Jamaica is to find himself a wife."
"Your ruthlessness appals me," Yorke said cheerfully, and glanced round to see if anyone was within earshot. "Well, you've been suitably mysterious all through dinner, so now you can tell me what's happening."
"I have a new job - acting as Neptune's Postmaster, I think."
"Ah - so you accepted! Why was Sir Pilcher being so generous?"
Ramage pointed across to the door from the dining-room where two men stood looking out across the terrace. "Here are Southwick and Bowen," he said, waving to attract their attention. "They might as well hear about it at the same time."
Edward Southwick was a stocky man in his early sixties, with flowing white hair and a cherubic pink face. If he was wearing long vestments and holding a crozier in his hand, Ramage thought to himself, he could pass for an amiable bishop calling to exorcize the hotel terrace of jumbies. Certainly no one looking at him now would guess that he was never happier than when leading a boarding party with his enormous meat-cleaver of a sword in his hand - preferably against absurd odds. Ramage had a deep affection for the old man who had been master of each of the two ships Ramage had commanded in the past two years. He treated the seamen like a group of wayward schoolboys, and Ramage with a quiet loyalty that made nothing of the fact that his captain was young enough to be his grandson.
The man with him was perhaps ten years younger, tall with a stoop, but walking with an air of authority. An almost haggard face marked him as recently recovered from a severe illness. It was unlikely that many of the wealthy patients who had once flocked to his fashionable surgery in Wimpole Street would recognize him now. Since they had last seen him, James Bowen had changed from being one of the finest surgeons in London to a pathetic wreck needing a bottle of gin to get him through the day and whose nights were a private hell of drunken fears. Shame had finally driven him to quit his practice and go to sea. A Navy short of surgeons did not quibble about his drinking habits and sent him to the Triton brig, commanded by Lieutenant Ramage and bound for the Caribbean.
But Lieutenant Ramage, responsible for the lives and well-being of a ship's company of seventy-five men and bound for one of the unhealthiest stations in the Navy, was far from pleased that circumstances had brought him a drunken surgeon. With Southwick's help, he had ruthlessly cut off the man's alcohol and systematically nursed him through the horrors of delirium tremens. By the time they arrived in Barbados, Bowen had sworn never to drink again and had proved himself to be a witty and cultured man, as well as a superb chess player. Southwick, instructed by Ramage to play chess with Bowen to keep his mind occupied during the worst part of the cure, had unexpectedly turned out to be a good player.
The two men pulled up rattan chairs and sat opposite Ramage and Yorke.
Ramage gestured at the board and box which Bowen held in his lap. "I didn't mean to interfere with your chess."
"Southwick isn't in the mood, sir."
Ramage looked inquiringly at the Master, who grinned. "He's beaten me six times in the last three evenings, so I'm not sacrificing anything! It's time I got back to sea; this idle life is rotting m' brain!"
To Ramage's surprise, Bowen asked: "No news of a ship yet, sir?"
"Not exactly, but I called you over to hear the news I was just about to give to Mr Yorke."
He saw that Southwick's face had fallen. Like the surgeon, the Master knew that he would not get a ship if it was left to the Commander-in-Chief; their only chance lay in Ramage obtaining a command and asking for them.
"I haven't got a ship, but I've got an appointment. What it'll lead to, I don't yet know."
Quickly and briefly he told the men of the orders he had received from Sir Pilcher, and then described the information from the Deputy Postmaster-General about the lost packets. He purposely told them only the facts of the losses, and when he finished he said: "Well, has anyone a theory?"
Yorke and Southwick both spoke up together, and the Master gestured to Yorke, who said: "I was puzzled by the number of homeward-bound packets that are lost. I'd have expected most of them to have been captured between Antigua and here."
Southwick agreed. "I was going to mention the same thing, sir. Those lost on the way home - were the majority captured on this side of the Atlantic, in mid-ocean, or as they approached the chops of the Channel?"
"The Postmaster doesn't know the positions - the Post Office in London didn't bother to tell him. He seems to think most were taken on this side of the Atlantic - the moment they'd cleared the Windward Passage, to hear him talk - but I doubt it. For one thing, the crews are exchanged too quickly for them to be taken this side, carried to Guadeloupe, sent to France and then exchanged. That alone makes me certain packets are taken towards the end of the voyage."
"It sounds logical," Yorke said, "especially since they are exchanged in - what, about eight weeks, didn't you say?"
Ramage nodded. "It seems amazingly quick to me, but the Postmaster didn't seem to think there was anything unusual about it. Maybe there's some sort of arrangement with the French Government so that the Post Office men get special treatment."
"I can't see us getting a ship out of it," Bowen said gloomily. He turned to Yorke. "Looks as if Southwick and I will be travelling back to England with you."
"I'd better start polishing up my chess," Yorke said. "I have plenty of time, though; the next convoy isn't due to leave for seven or eight weeks..."
The four men sat in silence for several minutes, each engrossed in his thoughts, until finally Southwick said bluntly, "I'll be damned if I see where you start, sir. Seems to me a job for the whole Channel Fleet; can't see what good can be done this side of the Atlantic."
"Ah, Southwick, you're an honest fellow," Yorke said, tapping the Master's knee. "But just think back. The Post Office referred the problem to the Cabinet, and the Cabinet turned it over to the Admiralty. And the Admiralty - I hope I'm not being too unfair to Lord Spencer - were as puzzled about where to start as you. Then they realized that since so many West Indies packets had been lost, they could get rid of the problem by passing it over to the Commander-in-Chief in Jamaica ... Am I right?" he asked Ramage.
Since he had not told them that Lord Spencer had named him especially - as well as passing the whole problem to Sir Pilcher - Ramage contented himself with a suitably cynical laugh and the comment, "I'm sure that's how the Admiral views it!"
But as he sat with the three men, he found himself wondering if the Post Office and the Board of Admiralty had considered the homeward-bound losses significant: Lord Auckland had not mentioned it to Smith: Lord Spencer had made no comment to Sir Pilcher.
"Magic," Yorke said suddenly. "The French are using magicians. Wouldn't surprise me to hear the Ministère de la Marine has had a hot press out for them for the past couple of years."
"Aye," Southwick said, "it must be something like that. It'll be my birthday in a month or so, and since I could have fathered both you young gentlemen I'm not saying how old I'll be. But if you'll forgive me for saying so, sir," he said to Ramage, "this story of the Post Office packets is the weirdest yarn I've heard, an' I've heard a few in my lifetime!"
Yorke was tapping his teeth with a thumbnail. "So the Post Office compensates the owner if a packet is lost," he said, almost to himself.
When Ramage nodde
d, Yorke commented: "So no underwriters are involved?"
"I doubt it. You know more about marine insurance than I, but I can't see the Government reinsuring on the open market."
"Nor can I; they'd have to pay a pretty premium! And I have a feeling that before paying out underwriters would ask more pointed questions than the Inspector of Packets, who is probably an underpaid quill-pusher who has never been to sea."
"He hasn't," Ramage said. "I checked that with Smith. It's purely an administrative job. He has the book of rules and makes sure everyone abides by them."
"But what questions could he ask?" Southwick ran a hand through his white hair. "No one doubts the packets are captured by privateers; no one's suggesting they sink, because the lads are exchanged."
"True enough," Yorke admitted, "but are there really that number of privateers on either side of the Atlantic?"
Ramage shook his head. "I doubt it very much. In fact Sir Pilcher has had a frigate at one end or other of the Windward Passage continuously for the past two years, and for the past twelve months they've sighted almost nothing."
"There's only one way of finding out what goes on," Southwick said bluntly, "and that's to man a packet with proper fighting seamen, not these Post Office gentlemen raised on a bread-and-milk diet of running away. You take command, and we all sail for England..."
"That's a damned good idea!" Yorke exclaimed. "I'll come as a passenger."
All three men were looking questioningly at Ramage who smiled grimly and shook his head. He had reached that conclusion long before leaving Smith's office, but he had no hope of persuading either the Commander-in-Chief or the Deputy Postmaster-General to agree.
"My last question to Mr Smith was 'When is the next packet due?'"
"And what was his answer?" Southwick growled.
"His exact words were, 'Using the forty-five-day passage rule, she was due here yesterday.'"
"That doesn't necessarily mean she's lost," Yorke pointed out. "Bad weather, light winds..."
"No, I agree," Ramage said, "and Smith gives her up to a week. But he's not accepting any passengers or mail..."
"Look on the bright side," Bowen said cheerfully. "If she comes in, you really don't think Sir Pilcher would agree – and give you three dozen former Tritons to man her?"
Ramage shook his head again. "The knight's move," he said enigmatically. "It's the only way to find out what's happening, but..." He thought for a few moments, then said: "I can get the men - Sir Pilcher has already promised me a dozen Tritons without knowing what I wanted to do. But the Post Office would never agree..."
Yet another idea was forming vaguely in Ramage's mind; a possible improvement on the one that formed in Smith's office. "You're serious about going back in a packet?" he asked Yorke.
"Not in an ordinary one," Yorke said emphatically. "After what we've just heard I'd sooner wait and go in a convoy. If you can get your hands on one, that'd be different."
The idea was now slowly taking shape, like a buoy emerging from a fog bank. "We might all four be passengers."
"What - you wouldn't be in command?"
"Perhaps not. After all, we don't know what happens, do we? It might be better to have a normal packet sailing in the normal way. With a few passengers - us, and perhaps some others."
"What, no Tritons, sir?" Southwick was shocked. "The four of us wouldn't stand a chance."
"A packet has - by Post Office regulations - a ship's company of twenty-eight men and boys ... that includes the commander, master and mate."
"But even so, sir..."
"But if a dozen of her men were given a few hours' leave and didn't return by sailing time ... and the Navy offered a dozen seamen to help out..."
"By Jove," Yorke said gleefully, "that's it!"
"As far as the Post Office commander and the rest of the crew are concerned, they'd be just a dozen seamen taken at random from one of the King's ships. That wouldn't seem odd because the chance of finding a dozen merchant seamen in Kingston at half an hour's notice is nil - particularly if one or two of the ships o' war had sent out press gangs a few hours earlier..."
"Lack of secrecy, that'd be our best ally," Yorke said. "Make a great fuss if the packet comes in - be sure the newspaper announces it, and so forth - so that the French will hear."
Ramage nodded slowly. "We might even use the newspaper to reveal - accidentally, of course - when she's due to sail."
"Aye," Southwick said, "have the Postmaster announce that all letters for England have to be at the Post Office by nine o'clock in the forenoon on a certain day. That'd warn anyone who was half awake that she's sailing by noon."
As they talked, Ramage became convinced that the idea was not only a good one, but the only one likely to bring results. Then Yorke caught his eye and said flatly:
"You suspect treachery, don't you?"
The words reached into Ramage's mind and jogged something: something lying there since the visit to Smith's office but which still refused to emerge. "I'm not sure. At the moment I suspect everything - and nothing."
"But as you've just outlined it, you're covering yourself against it."
"Of course, but treachery from any direction, not just on board the packet."
Southwick was shaking his head. "It'd have to be treachery on board all the packets lost so far," he said. "I can't really..."
"No, I suppose treachery doesn't seem likely," Yorke admitted. "But privateers nabbing packet after packet doesn't seem likely either."
"What happens if the packet doesn't come in?" Bowen asked, in his usual down-to-earth manner.
"We'll have to think again," Ramage said with a lightness he did not feel.
"All that chess," Southwick muttered. "She has to come in..."
Ramage had just washed, shaved and dressed next morning before going down to breakfast when a knock at the door revealed a lugubrious servant who handed him a letter with the announcement that it had just been delivered by hand. As he fumbled in his pocket for a coin and gave it to the man, Ramage noticed the Post Office seal on the letter.
It was from Smith and said: "The lookout on Morant Point has sent word that a vessel believed to be the packet was sighted to the south-east at daybreak, and I'm hastening to pass on the good news to you."
Ramage sat on the bed, feeling strangely excited. The lookouts at Morant Point, at the east end of Jamaica, had seen enough packets not to be mistaken: Smith's "believed" was probably no more than a bureaucrat's inability to write anything definite.
One thing is certain, he thought bitterly. Although persuading Sir Pilcher to agree to the plan would be very difficult, Smith would never agree. The natural reluctance of a bureaucrat, and Post Office pride, made it dangerous even to suggest it. Dangerous in case Smith's refusal resulted in a definite order from Sir Pilcher forbidding it ... He went along to Yorke's room, banging on Southwick's door as he passed and calling him to join them.
Yorke was having trouble shaving. "This damned strop," he grumbled. "My hand slipped and I've almost cut it through!"
Southwick chuckled. "Take your chance with the hotel's barber!"
"Prefer to shave myself," Yorke said crossly, "it's part of the ritual of waking up!"
"You gave a hail, sir," Southwick prompted Ramage.
"They've sighted the packet."
"Well I'm damned!" The Master ran his hand through his flowing white hair like a shopkeeper demonstrating a mop. "I thought the French had got her."
"You're going off to Sir Pilcher?" Yorke asked.
"Once she's anchored. I'd sooner be able to point to her than talk to him of a ship that's out of sight."
Yorke nodded approvingly. "That's a good idea. Out of sight makes it - well, abstract almost. By the way, should I dash down and see Mr Smith about a passage?"
"No, I'll arrange all that. Incidentally," Ramage added, "I must warn you that it'll cost you fifty guineas and you provide your own food as well as bedding."
"Food? Why on earth does th
e passenger supply food?"
"I don't know," Ramage said, "and nor does Smith. It's an old tradition, though food is provided outward-bound. If it's any consolation, the fare back to Falmouth is four guineas less than the fare out!"
"The whole thing intrigues me," Yorke said, busily lathering his face. "The packets for Lisbon, Gibraltar and Malta provide food each way."
"Each way," Ramage said, "but Smith tells me the fare homeward from Gibraltar costs ten guineas more than outward, and from Malta it's five guineas extra."
"Tradition, too?"
"No - he says victuals cost more in Gibraltar and Malta than Falmouth."
Yorke snorted. "More likely they know they have passengers on board at pistol point!"
"Don't you charge more in your ships?" Southwick asked.
"No fear. Same either way. And we provide food and bedding."
He wiped the razor and began shaving, his voice distorted as he stretched the skin of his face. "By the way, I've been thinking of your passenger idea. I can see a disadvantage."
"That I end up in England?"
"Yes. You might end up in England and have nothing to report to the Admiralty."
"I know, but I don't think it matters."
"Doesn't matter? But surely-"
"The only place I'll find the answer is at sea in a packet, that's for sure. And being at sea in a packet means departing from one place and arriving at another."
"Still-" Yorke began doubtfully.
"At least it'll mean a packet got safely back to Falmouth," Southwick said.
"And you'll have had a quiet voyage playing chess with Bowen," Ramage said.
Southwick's face dropped as if he was suddenly seeing the packet's progress across every minute of latitude and longitude as a game of chess with the doctor.
"I'll put up a silver cup," Yorke said. " 'The Western Ocean Trophy'. The winner is the man with the most games as the packet enters Faimouth."
