Ramage & The Freebooters

by Pope, Dudley

  And how ironical – here’s Jackson, an American and in law neutral, explaining away the disloyalty of Britons to the Royal Navy!

  ‘It’s like this, sir,’ Jackson finally began, running a hand through his thinning hair, then pinching his nose. ‘The delegates from all the sail of the line have told the smaller ships to stay out of the mutiny, but they’re being ignored, because all the men think the Fleet’s claims are reasonable. So the Kathleens – well, in the Lively we were just a small group and with everyone else in favour – well, we agreed.

  ‘Everything’s being organized by the delegates in the big ships: they’re doing all the running around, shouting and cheering, sending the officers on shore, and hoisting the “bloody flag”. In the frigates it’s different; it just means no one doing any work. Just playing cards and so on–’

  Ramage interrupted: ‘Stop backing and filling! Get to the point!’

  ‘Well, you couldn’t have done anything with the Kathleens in the Lively because whatever they thought they were outnumbered five to one. In the Triton there’s thirty-six originals and twenty-five Kathleens. It’s a question of whether the Tritons threaten to stop the Kathleens doing anything.’

  ‘You think they will.’

  ‘Yes. At least, this fellow I was telling you about will.’

  ‘And the Kathleens would obey him?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Jackson said frankly. ‘Stafford, Fuller, Rossi, Maxton – all of them would do anything for you personally, sir. But – well, this mutiny’s the only chance the Fleet has of getting an improvement.’

  ‘What you mean is,’ Ramage said bluntly, ‘they think they’ve got to be loyal to the mutineers, and it’d be unfair to ask ’em to be loyal to me as well.’

  ‘That’s more or less it, sir,’ Jackson admitted.

  ‘I wonder if the mutineers realize that if the French Navy mutinied Bonaparte’d shoot every third man.’

  ‘I know,’ Jackson said soberly. ‘That’s why I’m…’

  He didn’t finish the sentence, and Ramage knew there was nothing more the American could tell him.

  The task was simple enough; the execution was so complicated he doubted if anyone could do it. Who, with nothing to offer, could talk honest men into dividing their loyalty?

  ‘Go back on board,’ he told Jackson, ‘and pass the word to Mr Southwick that I’ll be out within the hour. But don’t tell anyone else.’

  The boatman at the tiller of the little cutter slicing its way through the choppy sea to take Ramage to the brig at anchor near the Spit Sand outside the harbour was as talkative and inquisitive as his mate was silent and uninterested.

  ‘The Triton you said, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nice little ship. Just finished refitting, they say.’

  Ramage nodded.

  ‘You’ll be the new capting, I suppose, sir?’

  Ramage dodged the question in case the man was in the pay of the mutineers, and asked: ‘What happened to her present one?’

  ‘Put on shore by the mutineers he was, like a lot of the officers from the ships of the line. An ’ard man, they do say.’

  Ramage nodded.

  ‘Took the new Master out to her last night.’

  Ramage nodded again and, tapping the leather bag he held on his lap, said, ‘I’m merely a messenger.’

  The boatman eyed his trunk stowed under a tarpaulin to protect it from the spray.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, with all the insolence of a man who carried a Protection in his pocket, exempting him from the attention of a press-gang, ‘I guessed you must be.’

  With that he spat to leeward and, jamming his hip against the tiller, dug into his pocket for a knife and a quid of tobacco. He sliced off a piece, stuck it in his mouth and began chewing.

  The Triton was at anchor off Fort Monckton and just clear of Spit Sand, the big shoal on the Gosport side which almost sealed off the V-shaped entrance to Portsmouth Harbour. The shoal left only a narrow channel for large ships and it ran close in along the Southsea and Portsmouth side. Ramage noted grimly, as an idea began to form in his mind, that at half-ebb and half-flood the tidal stream there was very strong.

  At first the Gosport shore sheltered the harbour entrance from the brisk west wind, but as the cutter slipped across the shallow Hamilton Bank the waves were short and high and spray blew aft, and Ramage wrapped himself in his boat cloak.

  As the cutter beat down parallel with the coast he could see the Triton more clearly. Finally, with the brig bearing north-west the boatman growled: ‘Mind yer ’ead, sir: smartly with them sheets, Bert.’

  He pushed the tiller over and the sail swung across, filled on the other tack, and the cutter sped directly towards the brig.

  Outlined against flat land to the south of Haslar Hospital the little brig looked trim and warlike. Her two masts were exactly the same height; her hull gleamed black with a broad white strake sweeping along a few inches below the top of her bulwarks and a little wider than her gun ports, which showed as five black squares. She was floating low on her marks – showing she’d been provisioned for several months – and her yards were hanging square.

  Ramage realized the boatman was steering to go alongside on the larboard side, a deliberate insult since the other side was used for officers.

  ‘Starboard side, dam’ you,’ Ramage growled without looking round. ‘That’s cost you your tip.’

  ‘Sorry sir – no offence meant; just wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘Don’t lie: d’you think I don’t recognize a former man o’ war’s man?’

  It was a long shot but, from the way the man lapsed into silence, an accurate one.

  The mate went to the halyards and, as the boatman luffed up the cutter, let go the halyard. Both of them grabbed the sail and stifled it and a moment later the mate had hooked on alongside the brig.

  After paying the boatman Ramage slung the strap of his leather bag over his left shoulder and climbed up the brig’s side battens.

  There’d been no hail from a sentry on board the Triton, but Ramage knew many pairs of eyes had been watching his approach.

  A few moments later he was standing on deck just forward of the main mast. A score of seamen lounging around were doing nothing, but Southwick, his hat unsuccessful in its attempt to contain his flowing white hair, was standing there saluting, a broad grin on his red face.

  ‘Welcome on board, sir!’

  Ramage returned the salute and at once shook the old Master by the hand.

  ‘Hello and thank you, Mr Southwick: I’m glad to see you again. Are there any other commission or warrant officers on board?’

  Realizing the significance of Ramage’s words, Southwick said quickly: ‘No, sir, only myself.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Unhurriedly Ramage opened the leather bag, took out and unfolded a large sheet of paper and, turning so the men on the deck could hear, began reading it aloud, the wind snatching at his words.

  ‘By the Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom and Ireland… to Lieutenant the Lord Ramage… His Majesty’s brig Triton…willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the charge and command of captain in her accordingly; strictly charging and commanding all the officers and company of the said brig to behave themselves jointly and severally in their respective appointments, with all due respect to you, their said captain…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 folded the paper and put it back in the bag. By reading to the officers on board the commission appointing him captain, he had ‘read himself in’, lawfully establishing himself in command. In happier times the ship’s company would also have been mustered to hear it and he would have concluded with a speech which would have given them all a chance to size him up.

  Jackson, Stafford and Fuller wer
e now standing by the gangway, and Ramage was thankful for the American’s foresight which ensured that his first order, to be made through the Master, would be obeyed. First impressions…

  ‘Mr Southwick, would you have my trunk hoisted on board from the cutter – the boatman has been paid. Then join me in the cabin.’

  With that he walked slowly aft to the taffrail, turned and looked forward along the whole length of the deck.

  Every object and every person he saw was under his command: he was the king of all he surveyed. Legally, he had more power of life and death over these men than the King himself: he could order any of them to be flogged, which the King could not. He could order them into a battle from which they couldn’t possibly return alive, and since the King didn’t command a ship he couldn’t do that either.

  But, Ramage thought ruefully, just as no king was safe from revolution, no captain was safe from mutiny; and for all the good it did, his commission could have been a cook’s recipe…

  Walking forward the fifteen feet that brought him to the companionway, he clattered down the steps and turned aft into the two cabins which would be his home for the next few months. Stretching the full width of the hull, one abaft the other, they formed the stern of the ship. Forward of them were three small cabins on either side, against the hull, the space in the middle forming the wardroom. Each was about six feet square and in them lived Southwick, the surgeon, purser, and other senior men.

  Ramage glanced round at the main cabin. It was larger than he expected and he needed to bend his neck only slightly to avoid banging his head on the beams. The door was in the middle of the bulkhead and there was a similar door in the other bulkhead leading to his sleeping cabin.

  The main cabin was well furnished: a desk to starboard against the forward bulkhead was lit by the skylight above; next to it a sideboard fitted the ship’s side and had a glass-fronted cupboard over it.

  On the larboard side a well-padded settee made three sides of a square, its back against the forward bulkhead, the ship’s side and after bulkhead. A table was fitted in the middle so that four or five people on the settee sat round three sides of it, leaving the fourth clear for the steward to work.

  Walking aft into the sleeping cabin, Ramage found it was small and dark and airless: the hull was curving into the centre-line so sharply (the rudder was hung only a few feet farther aft) that there was less than five feet headroom.

  The long, open-topped box that was the cot, slung at head and foot by ropes secured to the beams above, had just enough room to swing with the ship’s roll without banging the larboard side of the hull. On the starboard side there was a chest of drawers and an enamelled basin with a mirror above it. But the only light came through the open door: the skylight did not reach over this cabin.

  Ramage returned to the main cabin and went to the desk, opening the leather bag and emptying out its contents as he sat down.

  His commission, a new copy of the Signal Book for Ships of War, the letters for Admiral Curds, Lord St Vincent, and Admiral Robinson, a small flat parcel, and the copy of his orders from the Admiralty.

  After locking the Signal Book and letters – the most secret items on board – in the top drawer of the desk, he opened the parcel. It was a small portrait in a plain gilt frame, and a good likeness – the artist had almost caught the unpredictability of Gianna’s expressions – one moment so patrician, the next so impudent. And the way the light glistened in her jet black hair. And the small nose, high cheek-bones and warm, expressive mouth.

  Although the portrait was simply a head and shoulders, one could see the subject was small – barely five feet tall; and even a stranger could sense she was accustomed to rule. How long, he mused, before she ceased being a refugee and could return to her tiny kingdom of Volterra, with its 20,000 inhabitants, all of whom were now part of Bonaparte’s empire?

  She might be the ruler of Volterra and a wave of her hand might have dismissed her chief minister; but Ramage relaxed for a few minutes to relive their parting a few hours ago at Blazey House, in Palace Street. Since Gianna was living with his parents, she’d insisted on nursing him while he recovered from the head wound. Neither of them had been over-anxious to speed his convalescence.

  The door of his bedroom would be flung open; a moment later Gianna would come in carrying a tray of food. She’d set down the tray, shut the door and run into his arms. He grinned to himself as he thought of the cold meals he’d eaten because the tray had remained on the table for so long before they remembered the ostensible reason for her visit to the sickroom.

  When the time came to write to the Admiralty reporting he was fit for duty she’d been full of secret plans to prevent him getting an appointment; in fact his father had eventually – unknown at the time to Ramage – warned her not to meddle. But, like Ramage himself, they loved her deeply; she’d become the daughter his mother always wanted. Yet when his mother had once hinted, when Gianna was out of the room, that she would make an excellent daughter-in-law, the old Admiral had pointed out that Volterra would be a turbulent state by the time Bonaparte was driven out of Italy; the spirit of revolution would linger. The people might be unwilling to return to the old, almost feudal system. Gianna might have a struggle to regain her place as Volterra’s ruler, and a foreign husband would be a handicap. Grunts and the scuffling of feet on the companion ladder beyond the bulkhead interrupted his thoughts and told him the seamen were bringing down his trunk.

  Stafford backed in first, holding one end, followed by the lanky Suffolk fisherman, Fuller, who was holding the other. Jackson brought up the rear with sharp but good-natured exclamations of ‘Mind the table – steady, Fuller, you clodhopper!’

  Ramage pointed to the after cabin. He’d have to find out if the captain’s steward was on board; but for the moment, until he was sure of the man’s loyalty, he didn’t want him rummaging around.

  After putting down the trunk both Stafford and Fuller returned grinning, reminding Ramage of a pair of eager spaniels.

  ‘Well, you two, I’m glad to see you again.’

  ‘’Twas a surprise, sir,’ said Fuller; and Stafford’s cockney face showed he meant it when he said, ‘Never guessed we’d ’ave the ’onour o’ servin’ wiv you agin, sir!’

  ‘From what I hear,’ Ramage said dryly, ‘it’s an honour the rest of the ship’s company don’t wish to share.’

  ‘Well, sir…’ Stafford began, and Fuller’s bony hands clenched and unclenched with embarrassment, the few yellowed teeth he still possessed showing as he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

  ‘Very well,’ Ramage said, and grinned. ‘Carry on, Jackson, pass the word for Mr Southwick.’

  ‘He’s just coming, sir.’

  Ramage heard shoes clattering on the ladder and as the three men left Southwick burst into the cabin.

  ‘Heavens, I’m glad to see you, sir!’ He shut the door. ‘What a mess it all is!’

  Ramage nodded. ‘You’ve had an enjoyable leave?’

  ‘Fine – though I’m glad to be back afloat again. And you, sir?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘The Marchesa?’

  ‘She’s very well and enjoying England. She asked me to give you her best wishes.’ He pointed at her portrait. ‘She’s still with us in a sense!’

  Southwick grinned with obvious delight. ‘It was good of her to remember me, sir. And that’s a splendid likeness. Your father, sir?’

  ‘Very well. He enjoyed the tale of our scrap off Cape St Vincent.’

  ‘Thought he would – and wished he was there with us, no doubt.’

  ‘Now,’ Ramage said briskly. ‘Thanks for sending Jackson. How do we stand here?’

  ‘Jackson was the only one I could send who’d be any use. That’s how we stand…’

  ‘As bad as that?’

  ‘Well, that’s how we stood a’fore you came on board.’

  ‘How’s my arrival affected the situation?’

  Southwick ruffled his
hair, obviously choosing his words carefully.

  ‘Put it like this: the Tritons look to me like good lads who’ve just followed the rest of the Fleet, just as the Kathleens followed the Lively. What matters is that the thirty-six Tritons don’t know you, and the twenty-five Kathleens do. They’d be a poor lot if they ever forgot what you’ve done for ’em.’

  ‘I’ve merely tried to kill them from time to time.’

  ‘Now, now sir,’ Southwick chided, surprised at the bitterness in his captain’s voice. ‘You always take on so. In war some’s got to get killed, and the men know that. Still…’

  ‘Still what?’

  ‘Well, you’ll be wanting to know if the Kathleens will get this brig under way, even if the original Tritons won’t lift a finger.’

  ‘More than that: would the Tritons try to stop them?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to find out, and to be honest I’m not sure; nor is Jackson. The Kathleens are torn between loyalty to the mutineers – you can understand that, though I’d like to see all those dam’ delegates dangling from the foreyardarm – and their loyalty to you.’

  ‘And what happens when the strain comes on both loyalties at once?’

  Southwick, looking at him directly, said in a flat voice: ‘It’s entirely up to you, sir. That’s Jackson’s opinion – and he’s a seaman among seamen – and it’s mine, too.’

  Ramage had known that only too well, even without the First Lord saying it. But coming from Southwick so bluntly it jolted him. It’s entirely up to you! This was the loneliness of command. From the First Lord of the Admiralty to the old Master of the Triton came the same verdict.

  ‘Any idea what my attitude should be?’

  ‘None, sir, more’s the pity. I was talking half the night with Jackson on just that point.’

  ‘But you must have some idea: harsh and threatening, friendly and appealing to their loyalty, just laughing at the whole thing?’