by Dudley Pope
“How I envy them,” Ramage said. “If he had to go to India even your John Knox would have chosen an Indiaman and fresh milk in preference to a frigate and salt tack!”
“Make no mistake, sir, it’s envy in my voice, not criticism,” Aitken said with a grin. “Now, I’d better give Mr Southwick a hand.”
The Master gave him a speaking-trumpet and went down to the main-deck, walking forward to the fo’c’s’le where a group of men stood near the cable and bitts while others waited at the anchor, now hanging over the side ready for the order to let go.
Aitken glanced aloft and saw that the topsails were just drawing. Without bothering to look over the side he knew the Calypso was making less than three knots.
As he stood at the quarterdeck rail, deliberately leaving the handling of the ship to his officers, so that they increased their experience, Ramage watched the frigate’s supernumeraries. Wilkins, sitting on the hammock nettings, was sketching: he would draw a few brief lines, write some words and tear off the page, stuff it in his pocket and then start work on a fresh sheet. A study for the Calypso’s arrival at Trinidade? The five other ships against the harsh grey curve of the cliffs and the five peaks rising high behind them would be a challenge someone like Wilkins could not resist. The surveyors and draughtsmen seemed more interested in the land than the ships: they were probably discussing how they were going to find their way across the ridges, some of which looked very sharp, and up to the peaks. The botanist stood alone but he too was looking from one end of the island to the other—or, rather, what he could see of it as the Calypso glided into the bay, the southern headland and the northern bluff seeming to enclose her like welcoming arms.
Aitken was just shouting the order to back the fore-topsail, to bring the Calypso to a stop within a hundred yards or so of the Indiaman, so that when the frigate settled back on the full scope of her cable she would be exactly where Ramage wanted, when Jackson hailed again.
“Foretop—four men in that boat, sir, apart from the oarsmen, and one of ‘em is holding up something like a boarding-pike.”
“How do you mean—threatening us?” Ramage lifted his telescope but could not for a moment sight the boat.
“No, sir—he’s sitting on a thwart with it vertically between his knees. May be just a long stick.”
“Very well. Keep an eye on it—and watch for other boats: they’ll be flocking over soon.”
“No one’s moved yet, sir. Just a few people on the deck of each ship.”
Kenton, who had been standing to one side, waiting for orders, laughed to himself and then said: “We surprised everyone and the ladies have rushed below to change into their best dresses and attend to their hair.”
“And you’re hoping that some of the nabobs have eligible daughters, eh?”
“They’d have been snapped up by now, sir: Trinidade isn’t famous as a place where impoverished lieutenants find rich young ladies to marry!”
“Not famous yet,” Ramage said. “You might start a fashion.” There was a creak from the fore-topsail yard, and then a dull thump as the wind caught the sail on its forward side, pressing the canvas back against the mast, slowing and then stopping the ship.
Southwick was standing on the fo’c’s’le, watching Aitken. The First Lieutenant’s left arm shot up vertically and at once Southwick turned and barked out an order. The heavy anchor dropped into the water with a splash and the cable ran out the hawse with a noise like a hundred galloping cattle. A few moments later the familiar smell of scorched rope and wood drifted aft.
By now the bosun was standing beside the larboard quarter boat, waiting for it to be lowered so that he could be rowed round the ship to give the appropriate signals for squaring the yards, while aloft seamen were furling the courses. The moment the fore-topsail had finished its present task of giving the Calypso sternway, putting a strain on the cable and ensuring that the anchor dug itself in, it and the maintopsail would be furled and the jibs neatly stowed at the foot of their stays.
Ramage was pleased that there were ships here for another reason. Aitken had kept the ship’s company busy, except during the hottest part of the Doldrums, smartening up the Calypso. Long days without rain and with the sails furled meant that masts and yards could be painted, leather fire buckets polished, capstan painted in blue and white with some of the patterns and the crown on top picked out in gold. He was thankful now that he had bought a few books of gold leaf: they were expensive, but gilt work was always an economy because gold paint did not last and always turned into the colour of grey mud under the twin assault of sea and sun. The Calypso’s boats looked new: the hulls were a little darker than sky blue, the top strake white, and the metalwork black. The rowlocks had been picked out with gilt, and the oars were white. It seemed a pity to put the boats in the water: within a few weeks green weed and limpets would be growing thick and fast on their bottoms.
With guests coming on board, and the Calypso’s Captain and officers paying social calls on other ships, Aitken’s work would be seen and admired, and Ramage knew that an ounce of praise from the master of a John Company ship was worth the same from the captain of a 74-gun two-decker.
The lookout on the fo’c’s’le shouted: “Quarterdeck there—boat approaching, sir: a hundred yards on the starboard bow.”
Aitken acknowledged the hail and looked round for Rennick. A glance over the quarterdeck rail showed a Marine sergeant already marching a couple of Marines to take up their posts at the entry ports on the starboard and larboard sides once the Calypso was at anchor. The sentry’s task was to hail any approaching boat and, from the reply, find out who was in it.
The Marine sergeant, Ferris, had heard the fo’c’s’le lookout’s hail and marched the two Marines to the starboard side first: officers boarded on the starboard side, and the visitors were almost certainly officers. He halted the two men, detached one amid a volley of orders and a cloud of pipeclay, and then marched the second Marine over to the larboard side.
Aitken looked at the boat with the telescope in the few remaining moments before it was hidden by the frigate’s bow. After his inspection he looked grim, shut the telescope and put it away in the binnacle box drawer. He walked over to Ramage. “I’ll meet our visitors, sir; I don’t think you’ll need to see them.”
Ramage nodded, because no one in the Navy had much time for privateers; in fact he assumed these privateersmen had been cruising well down in the South Atlantic and had only just learned of the new Treaty that put them out of business. Their licence, or letter of marque, to give it the proper name, gave them permission to wage war on the King’s enemies (the Republic’s enemies if French, of course) providing there was a war on. A hostile act against any ship in peacetime was piracy, and the penalty for piracy was hanging.
As he walked down the ladder from the quarterdeck towards the entry port, Aitken heard the sentry’s challenge, and, from beyond the ship, a reply that sounded like a single word, the name of a ship. So the Captain of the privateer—the former privateer, he corrected himself—was paying a visit. Probably, he realized, to get news of the Treaty: they would have heard only gossip and hearsay from the merchant ships, and were now seizing the opportunity of having it—officially, as far as they were concerned—from one of the King’s ships. After all, hearing that a profitable way of life was now illegal, well, even privateersmen could not be blamed for wanting to have the news confirmed by a reliable source.
“Sir,” the sentry said, obviously puzzled, “the boat’s alongside and they’ve got a white flag flying—lashed to a boarding-pike. They’ve only just lashed it this moment because I saw a fellow sitting there with a pole, and there weren’t no flag …”
Aitken went to the port and looked down at the boat. The bowman had hooked on; a man at the stern was waiting for one of the Calypso’s seamen to throw down a stern-fast while the bowman waited for a painter.
In the meantime the four men sat in the sternsheets, one of them, a big Negro, holding betwe
en his knees the boarding-pike with a square of grubby white cloth secured to it.
Aitken noticed that the four men had pistols in their belts, and there were cutlasses in the bottom of the boat, but that was reasonable enough: the Calypso herself had flown false colours in the late war to get herself into a position to attack the enemy—after hoisting her true colours. And privateersmen, he had to admit, would be among the most cautious and distrustful men afloat.
Nevertheless, Aitken wanted an explanation of the flag of truce before anyone stepped on board.
“Why are you waving that truce flag?” he demanded.
“Not waving it,” one of the men answered. “Holdin’ it still.” “Answer my question.”
“S’bluddy obvious. We want to come on board under a flag of truce.”
“A truce for what? The war’s over.”
“Oh—it’s true what they tell us, then?”
“I don’t know who’s been telling you what,” Aitken said, his tone more friendly, “but Bonaparte signed a treaty of peace with Britain on the first day of last October.”
“That’s good news. Can we come on board, then?”
“Of course. What’s your ship?”
“The Lynx of Bristol, letter of marque.”
“Former letter of marque,” Aitken said.
“Well, yes, give us time to get used to the idea of peace!”
Aitken laughed and watched as the speaker stood up and reached for the battens.
“I don’t rate side-ropes, eh?” The man looked up but started climbing.
“You could have been a bumboat selling bananas,” Aitken said sarcastically. “But we’d have fired salutes and piped you on board, if you’d given us due notice.”
The man looked up as he climbed. “You didn’t give us any notice.”
Aitken stood back several paces, with the Marine sentry to his left, musket at the slope, and Orsini and Martin to his right. He knew that Kenton was on the quarterdeck ready to pass any messages down to the Captain, and Southwick would be within earshot. It was quite surprising, he noted ironically, how many seamen now had tasks that kept them amidships where they could watch the Calypso’s first visitors since she left the Medway.
The man coming on board was tall and thin; so thin that Aitken had the impression the skin had been shrunk on to his head. The face and head had sharp angles, like a five-sided lantern, and the man was completely bald. Not just bald, Aitken realized, but hairless: the result, presumably, of some illness like malaria. As if in compensation, he had a full set of perfect teeth, which were only slightly stained from chewing tobacco.
“Jebediah Hart,” he announced, “master and part owner of the Lynx, schooner.”
“James Aitken, First Lieutenant, His Majesty’s ship Calypso, frigate.”
By now a second man had come on board: as fat as Hart was thin, shorter than Aitken, he had a large and black drooping moustache and thick, bushy eyebrows. His eyes seemed black and flickered round the Calypso’s deck, as though expecting a trap.
Hart said: “I must introduce the mate, Jean-Louis Belmont. Unfortunately he speaks no English.”
Aitken nodded and bowed. The First Lieutenant noted that despite the fatness, the man had climbed up the side without getting out of breath. And he was French. Presumably a royalist and a refugee from Bonaparte’s regime. He took a risk if ever the privateer had been captured while the war was on: the French would have hanged him at once as a traitor.
The next man on board was small, muscular, with blond hair beginning to turn grey. Unlike the others he wore breeches instead of trousers and had a severely-cut coat of dark green. Aitken was unsure whether meeting him onshore he would mistake the man for a farmer or a rural dean. Unexpectedly he stood to attention, bowed his head, and moved to one side. Hart was busy looking round the ship and did not introduce the man, who did not give his name. Aitken was sure, from his appearance and manner, that he was Scandinavian.
The fourth man to come through the entry port was the big Negro, still carrying the boarding-pike, although he had spun it a few times to wind the white flag round it.
Hart turned and said: “Tomás—he’s Spanish; speaks no English.”
“You have a language problem in the Lynx!” Aitken said, but Hart shook his head.
“I’ve picked up a few words here and there.”
Aitken waited for him to continue, but the four privateersmen stood in a half circle, as if waiting for him to make the next move. The First Lieutenant glanced over towards the Lynx as if intending to admire their ship but in fact to see if boats were coming from the merchantmen. No boats had moved; those with their boats made up astern with painters still had them sitting like ducklings behind the mother and the rest of the boats hoisted up in quarter davits or still amidships, stowed on the cargo hatches.
Aitken looked across at Hart, puzzled by what he now recognized as a strange sight. Hart stared back at him and said in a flat voice: “We want to see your Captain.”
“Explain your business,” Aitken said brusquely, “then I’ll see if he has time: he is very busy.”
“What’s his name?”
“Ramage, Captain Ramage.”
“Christ,” Hart said in a low voice, “of all the ones the Admiralty pick it has to be him!”
“You know him?”
“Know of him,” Hart said, “who doesn’t? Well—” he shrugged his shoulders and said something in rapid Spanish to Tomás, who swore, “—fetch him.”
“I don’t fetch the Captain,” Aitken said stiffly.
“Now you do,” Hart sneered. “You see those ships?” he gestured at the anchored merchantmen.
When Aitken nodded, Hart said: “They’re all our prizes. Now fetch your precious Mr Lord Ramage.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
RAMAGE sat in his chair behind his desk, not because he needed the desk in front of him but because his cabin was crowded with the four privateersmen, Aitken and Southwick. Aitken had hurried in to give a quick explanation of why he was bringing the privateersmen down and a couple of minutes later had led them in, Southwick following presumably because he realized something strange was happening.
“Strange” was the appropriate word. For the moment the privateersmen were settling themselves down with the leader, the Englishman calling himself Hart, sitting in what was usually regarded as Southwick’s armchair and his three companions taking up the settee. Southwick stood on one side of the door and Aitken the other, both stooped because there was not enough room to stand upright under the deck beams.
This is the first time I have taken my ship to a foreign island in peacetime, Ramage reflected, and I meet a situation more perplexing than any I met in the war. Perplexing because more than one hundred and fifty innocent lives are at stake: people I have never seen; men and women passengers, officers, petty officers and seamen from five merchant ships: Dutch, French and British. What did this fellow Hart want or intend? Well, the privateersmen seemed to be waiting for him to start the proceedings.
“Well, Mr Hart, my First Lieutenant tells me you command the Lynx privateer, and you claim that the merchant ships anchored here are your prizes.”
“Correct, except for the ‘claim.’ I’m not ‘claiming;’ they are.”
Ramage nodded, as if accepting the point, but he said quietly, as though mentioning it apologetically: “Britain and France have signed a treaty: Britain is now at peace with France, Spain and the Netherlands. Can you take prizes in time of peace?”
“We can,” Hart said bluntly. “We have.”
Again Ramage nodded. “The two British, two French and one Dutch ships I see at anchor here?”
“Those very ones. And probably another two or three within a week: our sister ship is still at sea.”
“Yes, it must be quite easy taking prizes now,” Ramage said. “No one expecting trouble: guns not loaded—in fact I expect many merchant ships will have landed their guns.”
“They will, they will,” Har
t said confidently.
“What do you propose doing with your prizes?”
At that moment the black spoke to Hart in rapid Spanish, demanding to know what was being discussed. Ramage was surprised at the words the man chose. He was careful to keep the tone of voice suitable for a seaman who was probably a bodyguard, but the actual words in Spanish were those an officer would use to a seaman. Clearly neither Hart nor the black had the slightest idea that Ramage spoke Spanish. The only trouble was that Ramage’s Spanish and accent were Castilian, while the black spoke the crude and heavily accented Spanish of the New World; almost as hard to understand as the Creole spoken by blacks in the French islands.
“What are you telling this man?” the black was asking.
“Just that the ships are our prizes, Tomás.”
“You be sure he makes no argument.”
“He is not. He is accepting everything.”
“Why?” The black was shrewd and probably the real captain of the Lynx: Ramage was becoming quite sure of that.
“I do not know,” Hart said vaguely. “What else can he do?”
“Find out,” Tomás said.
Hart turned to Ramage with a friendly smile. “Tomás speaks no English; I was explaining what we had been discussing.”
“Perhaps you’d like to translate for the benefit of your French mate as well?”
Hart nodded and quickly related to Belmont the gist of the conversation so far, and Ramage’s suspicion was confirmed: Belmont was of no consequence. Once again the tone was right but the words used were those a master would use to a petty officer, not his second-in-command.
The hierarchy of the Lynx, Ramage guessed, was that the big Spanish Negro, Tomás, was the leader, with Hart the second-in-command, while Belmont and the silent blond were mates.
“Well, Captain,” Hart said smoothly, “you do not seem very surprised to find five prizes anchored here at Trinidade!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Ramage said vaguely. Tomás would not understand the words, but he would be quick to notice if a foreigner was an ineffectual man. Clearly Hart knew of Captain Ramage—he had made that clear at the beginning—but Tomás would not believe him if he saw that this Captain Ramage had a vague and indecisive manner. Even Hart might begin to wonder. “Well, yes, I suppose I was surprised to find ships here. After all, it isn’t a very big island. It takes a lot of finding.”