by Dudley Pope
The drunken First Lieutenant shouted 'Caps off!' as Ramage removed his own hat and, tucking it under his left arm, unrolled the scroll, and began reading it aloud. He pitched his voice so that the furthest men had to strain their ears above the wind humming through the spars and rigging. From long experience he knew that was the best way of getting their attention.
'By the Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral ... to Captain the Lord Ramage ... his Majesty's frigate Juno . . . willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the charge and command of captain . . . strictly charging and commanding all the officers and company of the said frigate to behave themselves jointly and severally in their respective appointments . . .'
It was a long document and from time to time he paused deliberately. He wanted to be sure they all absorbed the full significance of the last line, however many times they had heard it before. He glanced round and saw he had the men's attention all right. 'You will carry out the General Printed Instructions and any orders and instructions you may receive . . . hereof, nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer to the contrary at your peril...'
He put on his hat, rolled up the commission, tucked it in his pocket, and then stood with his hand clasped behind his back. A ship's company always expected a new captain to make a short speech after 'reading himself in', something that set the keynote and gave the men a chance to have a good look at the person who now had more direct power over their lives than their King. More than most ships' companies, this one needed some indication of what they could expect from their new Captain. They were going to be warned that from now on things would change, radically and abruptly. They all knew why their previous captain had left the ship and they had seen that Southwick was the new Master. They did not yet know that the rest of the officers were being replaced.
He took a deep breath. The men saw the swell of his chest, and they interpreted it as Ramage intended: as a sign of exasperation.
'The Juno is supposed to be a King's ship,' he said loudly, his voice a complete contrast from the even tone he had used when reading the commission, 'but just look at her. The first thing I see even before I get on board are badly-furled sails, and the yards aren't squared. The first thing I touch on boarding are greasy manropes. The first thing I see on deck are untidy men lounging round and tripping over uncoiled ropes. I get the impression that this frigate has just been recaptured from a couple of score of bumboat. women . . .'
He paused because he expected at best that the men would give nervous giggles, but instead he heard genuine if somewhat embarrassed laughter.
'Tomorrow everything changes. Tomorrow any sentry or lookout who has not reported a boat heading for the ship the moment he sights it will spend the next five hours at the masthead. Any man in dirty clothes - unless he is doing a dirty job - will find himself scrubbing the messdeck for a week. If any man thinks he will get away with that in future -' Ramage half turned and gestured up to the badly-furled sails on the yards, 'he is an optimist. By noon tomorrow I don't expect to find a speck of dirt or grease on any deck or in any locker, nor any piece of brasswork without a shine ...'
He had their attention all right but he was damned if he was going to end up on a conciliatory note: the former Captain had been at fault and the First Lieutenant had taken advantage of it. The remaining lieutenants might have done their best, but the previous Master had obviously let everything slide, regarding it as a holiday in disguise, and the petty officers had slacked off. Every commission, warrant and petty officer in the ship had taken advantage of the situation. They might just as well have spent the last six months on shore. So they were being warned, and from tomorrow morning onwards no man would have an excuse. He looked at the men again. They had stiffened themselves up already; here and there a man tugged his shirt straight.
'There is plenty of work for the bos'n's mates, but I warn each and every one of you: there is not so much that they will be too busy to sew a few red baize bags if they are needed.'
He looked slowly at the men and glanced round at the First Lieutenant and nodded, then turned and strode below.
As he made his way to his cabin he knew that the last sentence had struck home. It was useless talking to a ship's company and using abstract terms like discipline, loyalty, responsibility - they treated them as mere words. What had really made every man straighten his shoulders had been the new Captain's last remark: a red baize bag was something that every man recognized and feared.
Some of the old traditions were useful, and this was one of them. The sight of a bos'n's mate sitting on deck methodically making a cat-o'-nine-tails, carefully splicing the nine thin tails into the thick rope handle, and probably covering the splice with a Turk's head, had a fascination for the men, who always knew the man who was to be flogged. The sewing of the red baize round the handle was part of a ritual which was rounded off by the bos'n's mate stitching a small bag from the red baize just large enough to hold the coiled cat-o'-nine-tails. With his work completed the cat was put in the bag and the whole thing handed over to the master-at-arms. The expression 'letting the cat out of the bag' had a grimmer origin than landsmen realized.
Since a new cat-o'-nine-tails was used for each flogging, if the captain was a harsh one then indeed the bos'n's mates were kept busy. As Ramage reached his cabin and walked through the door - that damned fool of a First Lieutenant still had done nothing about a Marine sentry - he found he did not want to think any more about flogging.
It was frequent enough in many ships; setting up a grating vertically at the gangway and lashing a man spreadeagled to it, or putting a bar in the capstan and securing a man to it by roping his outspread arms ... He was certain that it rarely served its purpose as a punishment. Captain Collingwood had once said that it spoiled a good man and made a bad man worse, and Ramage agreed. He had ordered only three floggings in his career so far, all three officially for drunkenness, though in fact two were for mutiny. The men should have been court-martialled, and if a court had found them guilty, as it certainly would have done, they would have been hanged, so they were grateful for the floggings. Ironically, Ramage reflected, by ordering the floggings and logging them for drunkenness instead of requesting a court martial for mutiny, he had laid himself open to be court-martialled . . .
There seemed to be irony all round. Ironic that the first time he entered the Captain's accommodation on the Juno he had been so furious at finding the First Lieutenant the worse for drink that he had had no time to enjoy its spaciousness. Ironic, too, that as he approached in the cutter, instead of proudly surveying the ship, largest he had yet commanded, and as a frigate one of the most coveted commands, he had been eyeing her critically, noting badly-furled sails, lounging men, dirty topsides, gossiping officers ...
For all that, his accommodation was excellent. The great cabin right aft, the full width of the ship, was bright and airy, lit by the stern lights, with a settee, a large table athwartships and half a dozen chairs. A mahogany sideboard had been built in to the bulkhead on the forward side with a lead-lined wine cooler to one side covered in matching mahogany. The cabin sole was covered with canvas which had been painted in black and white squares, a chessboard pattern, yet the whole cabin was long overdue for more work with a paintbrush. But by the standards of the ships Ramage had previously commanded, it was a spacious great cabin. Of course it was all comparative; calling it the 'great cabin' would strike most landsmen as sarcasm, but the name referred to its function rather than its size, and even when in it no one could forget that the Juno was a ship of war. There was a 12-pounder gun on each side, the barrel and breach gleaming black and the carriage and trucks painted deep red. The train tackles of each gun were neatly coiled; both were secured for sea. Out of curiosity Ramage went over and ran a hand over the breeching and tackles, and then glanced down at the painted canvas beneath the wide trucks. Obviously the gun had not been run out, in practice or in action, for many months; the wide trucks h
ad not been rolled over that paintwork . . . He glanced across at the gun on the other side. That too had its ropes neatly coiled, but had not been moved for months.
The two remaining cabins were half the size of the great cabin, although each held another 12-pounder. A section of the ship the width of the great cabin and forward of it had been bulkheaded off and then divided in half along the centre-line, making the bed place, or sleeping cabin, to starboard and the coach - some captains referred to it as their state room - to larboard.
He walked through to the bed place to inspeot the cot, and was thankful that it was well scrubbed; simply a long, shallow wooden box suspended from the deckhead by ropes at each end so that it could swing as the ship rolled. A mattress spread in the box and some sheets and blankets completed the bed . . . he felt sleepy at the thought of it.
He could hear men padding about overhead, for the quarterdeck was above, while one deck below and forward of him was the ward room, with cabins on each side for the four lieutenants, Master, Surgeon and perhaps the Marine officer. Forward of that but outside the ward room were the even smaller cabins, boxes, really, with bulkheads made of canvas stretched over frames made of battens, of the purser, gunner, carpenter, bos'n, and captain's clerk. And, larger, the midshipmen's berth.
Forward of that the Marines were berthed, and even farther forward the ship's company lived. They ate their meals at tables slung from the deckhead, each table belonging to six or eight men and called a mess, with a number. The mess system often provided a thoughtful captain with an indication as to whether or not he had a happy ship's company. Once a month a seaman could make an official request to change his mess, which was usually a signal that he had quarrelled with his shipmates. Half a dozen requests a month were acceptable; more than that should warn a captain that there was too much quarrelling and bickering on the mess deck.
At night the tables and forms were stowed and hammocks were slung: hammocks which spent the day stowed in nettings along the top of the bulwarks and covered with long strips of canvas, out of the way and, in action, providing some protection against musketry fire.
Only the captain lived in solitary glory on the main deck, along with twenty-six of the Juno's 12-pounder guns and a Marine sentry. Ramage wondered if it was the loneliness that had driven the previous captain to drink. Loneliness and responsibility, two things faced with confidence by a competent captain but which became corrosive acids to destroy an uncertain man.
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 of fourth lieutenants either - nor a Marine officer.'
