Ramage & The Freebooters

by Pope, Dudley

  Of course it had darkened for a few moments because the man’s body blocked out the light as he started up the ladder.

  ‘Here comes Harris.’

  ‘He’s got some brains then,’ Southwick grunted, ‘and wants to keep ’em inside his skull. Was that yarn you were going to tell ’em about the midshipman dying true, sir?’

  ‘No, but I nearly believed it myself as I was telling Harris!’

  The lantern swung as Harris walked to the other bulwark and Ramage saw the rest of the men following. One by one they scrambled up and put their hammocks in the netting. Harris said something inaudible to the seaman next to him who edged along the bulwark and pulled out a rolled-up hammock cloth.

  ‘So far so good,’ Southwick muttered.

  Ramage waited until the cloth was tucked in along its whole length, covering all their hammocks against rain and spray, then said: ‘Muster everyone here if you please Mr Southwick.’

  The Master bellowed the order and the men shuffled aft. The shuffle told Ramage what he needed to know and what he feared: the men had stowed their hammocks, they were obeying the order to come aft to hear what he had to say, but that was all: they were still mutinous – the majority anyway.

  He scrambled up on top of the capstan and said loudly: ‘Gather round, men.’

  And, he thought grimly, this is one of the moments for which all the years of training are supposed to have prepared me.

  They grouped themselves in a half-circle facing aft. Apart from the faint moan of the wind, the rattle of halyards against the mast and the slop of waves against the hull, there was a sullen, brooding, menacing silence that could come only from a mob of discontented and potentially dangerous men: a silence like fog soaking cold and damp right through to the skin of the man facing them.

  Ramage hadn’t rehearsed a speech because his memory was so bad he usually forgot the words. Instead he usually memorized the main points he wanted to make. This morning there were just five.

  ‘Well, men, you know by now I am your new captain and Mr Southwick is the Master. I know some of you because we sailed together in the Kathleen. The rest I’ll get to know very soon. And I have some news for all of you: news the Fleet won’t be hearing for a while.

  ‘Two days ago I was at the Admiralty receiving my orders from Lord Spencer, the First Lord. He told me I could tell you the government has considered very sympathetically the delegates’ requests for better pay, provisions and conditions in the Fleet. Because Parliament has to approve any changes, the government is drawing up a new Act as quickly as possible.’

  End of point one, and no reaction from the group, but they were listening intently.

  ‘As far as all you Tritons are concerned, the Fleet’s delegates will have to look after your interests – and I’m sure they’ll do it well enough – because this ship is under orders to sail at once for Brest and Cadiz with despatches.’

  End of point two and the men began murmuring: an angry murmuring, like disturbed bees. Ramage realized that in a moment someone – this fellow Harris for example – would take a pace forward and start haranguing the men. Then, as had happened in the rest of the ships, the officers – he and Southwick in this case – would be bundled on shore. Quiet words weren’t working. Very well, now the gambler’s bluff was being called.

  ‘In the meantime,’ he continued, his voice only slightly louder but the change of tone indicating the importance of his words, ‘in the meantime, I want to remind you the discipline and conditions to be maintained on board this ship are those laid down in the Regulations and Instructions and in the Articles of War. No more and no less. But apart from them, let no one dodge his duty – it just means more work for the next man. And remember this: if you’d been in Bonaparte’s Navy, every single one of you would’ve been hanged by now.’

  That was point three. No reaction – nor did he expect any.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he added, as if it was an afterthought, ‘hands up those of you who can swim.’

  Hands were raised and Ramage counted them aloud.

  ‘Nineteen out of sixty-one. Hmm…forty-two of you can’t swim. Very well. Harris!’

  He snapped out the name, and years of prompt response to discipline could not stop Harris taking an involuntary step forward.

  ‘Harris – I want to speak with you alone. Go below and wait in the cabin. Take a lantern with you.’

  It took Harris a couple of minutes to collect the lantern and go down the companionway, every man on deck watching him and wondering.

  Ramage guessed – was gambling, rather – that Harris, by himself, was no threat: he was almost certain – but not quite – that Harris had become the men’s spokesman simply because he was better educated and more articulate: he was not a trouble-maker nor a revolutionary.

  He’d learned a lot in the few moments he’d watched the man in his hammock, and Harris was probably sensible enough to realize by now that Ramage unofficially acknowledged him as a spokesman, and sending him below at this moment indicated there was something to talk about

  Suddenly Ramage said sharply to the group: ‘Right: every man to his station for weighing and making sail.’

  This was the crucial moment: he stood poised above the men, trying to will them to move, the words of Lord Spencer, Southwick and Jackson echoing and, as he watched, mocking.

  Eight or nine men – all former Kathleens – turned and walked forward. But everyone else stood firm, many of them muttering to each other, a muttering which increased to excited talk. A dozen or so – again, they seemed to be Kathleens – remained silent.

  ‘Very well,’ Ramage snapped, a harsh note in his voice. ‘Just remember this: forty-two of you can’t swim, the tide’s falling, and over there, dead to leeward, you can see the sea breaking over the end of Spit Sand…’

  The muttering stopped abruptly, the men puzzled by his words, unsure what he meant, unsure whether or not they’d just heard some fearful threat whose significance they did not understand.

  Ramage knew he had the initiative again and promptly jumped down to walk forward through the group, forcing men to step aside.

  Then, stopping abreast the mainmast, he turned and said: ‘Mr Southwick, the axe please!’

  Southwick, who had been waiting unnoticed to one side of the men, walked over with a large axe in his hand: an axe used on wooding expeditions, when a boatload of men were sent off to some deserted beach to cut wood for the ship’s galley.

  Slipping his sword belt over his head, Ramage gave it to the Master in exchange for the axe, moving so he could look at the group of men as he turned. They might have been carved from stone – an impression increased by the grey morning light. But Ramage felt as if he was made of wet bread.

  Axe in hand, Ramage walked forward, suddenly feeling almost sick with disappointment, apprehension and too much weak, oversweet tea. Talk had failed, but he knew talk was always dangerous – seamen interpreted soft words as weakness; hard words as a challenge. They judged a man by what he did, not what he said. As he’d half expected, his speech had proved a compromise and suffered the fate of all compromises, simply delaying the moment for action. Parliament and bureaucrats please note, he thought sourly, and wished he hadn’t drunk the tea, which was slopping around inside him.

  And then he was standing beside the anchor cable which, taut with the strain on it and three feet above the deck, was made fast round the solid H-shaped wooden bins before being led below to the cable tier. The largest cable in the ship, it was a massive piece of cordage, thirteen inches in circumference. (More important, there were four others of the same size, each 720 feet long and weighing more than two tons, stowed below.)

  Ramage took a firm grip of the axe, noting the wind hadn’t changed direction and, if anything, was blowing stronger, so the Spit Sand shoal was still dead to leeward. He changed his stance, placing his feet wider apart. Had the men guessed? Hard to believe they hadn’t, but like some wretched actor he had to make sure he was building up t
o an effective climax.

  Turning to look over his shoulder he called: ‘All well aft there, Mr Southwick?’

  ‘All well, sir.’

  The Master would shout a warning if they tried to rush him. Surprising how quickly the time was passing: it was light enough to recognize the men’s faces. And, more important, light enough for them to see every move he made, and to see the waves breaking white on the shoal.

  He raised the axe over his head and swung down hard on the cable where the first turn went over the broad and solid top of the bitts.

  The thud almost numbed his hands, but the bitts made a solid chopping block. The blade cut perhaps a quarter of the way through the rope, but there was such a strain on it that already the severed strands began unravelling. A second stroke, then a third and fourth. The cable hummed as the whole strain of holding the ship against the wind came on the remaining strands. Stepping back a pace, clear of danger for the final blow, he swung the blade down again.

  As if some giant plucked an enormous harp string, the severed end of the cable twanged and shot away from him, whiplashing the width of the deck before snaking out through the hawse like an escaping boa-constrictor.

  A moment later a splash told him the cable, with one of the Triton’s bower anchors at the end of it, was now sinking into the murky water of Spithead.

  The Triton was adrift: already, even as he turned aft, the wind began swinging her bow round to leeward. Since it was high water, with no tidal stream, the Triton had been wind-rode, lying with her bow heading to the north-west. Now she was swinging broadside on to the wind and in a minute or so the wind would be driving her down on to the eastern end of the shoal. Few if any of the men would know there was a channel, the Swatchway, cutting diagonally across the shoal just to the west of where the sea was breaking.

  Ramage flung down the axe and began walking aft, his face cold with a perspiration brought on by fear, not physical exertion. It was done now: the challenge had been flung at the mutineers’ feet: obey the order to make sail or drown when the Triton hit the shoal and either heeled over and then filled on the rising tide or was lifted up and down by the waves until she pounded to pieces. There was only one flaw and he hoped they’d be too excited to spot it: boats from other ships in the Fleet might rescue them in time.

  The men began shouting at one another and gesticulating – not at Ramage but at the two boats stowed on deck between the two masts. Three or four men began hurrying towards the boats but Southwick was beside him holding out a musketoon, a musket with a very large bore and the muzzle belled out like a trumpet.

  Ramage took it and shouted: ‘Still!’

  The sudden shout combined with the equally unexpected single word ‘still’ – which normally brought everyone on deck to attention – stopped every man and every tongue for five seconds, during which Ramage promptly cocked the musketoon, the click in the silence sounding as loud as a blacksmith’s hammer hitting an anvil.

  ‘If anyone moves towards those boats I’ll fire through the bottoms so they won’t float anyway. Now, you’ve three minutes to make sail before we hit the shoal.’

  Touch and go: would they have the wit to rush him instead? There’d be plenty of confusion anyway because it’d been impossible to prepare a general quarter, watch and station bill which would have described every man’s post for manoeuvre, including weighing anchor and making sail.

  But no one was moving. Frightened or still defiant? Hard to tell, but he must assume the former. Plenty of confusion gave anyone with definite ideas or orders an opportunity to get control.

  ‘Carry on, Southwick, this is our chance!’ he said quietly. ‘Walk aft – detail the first dozen you meet as foretopmen, second dozen maintopmen, then half a dozen afterguard and fo’c’slemen, and we’ll sort the rest out as we go. Jackson and Stafford at the helm.’

  Southwick gave him back his sword and walked through the group, gesticulating as he went. Still holding the musketoon Ramage watched, his body rigid with tension.

  Yes! A dozen men were walking forward now, six of them going to the larboard side and six to the starboard – the foretopmen. A dozen more split up to go to the main shrouds as maintopmen. A small group headed aft and another turned to the fo’c’sle.

  Keep the initiative, he muttered to himself; but there’s not much time. A glance over the larboard side at the wide area of waves breaking grey and white showed that even if he got through a crisis with the crew, another of his own making was looming close to leeward in the shape of the shoal.

  ‘Away aloft!’ he shouted.

  At once two dozen men began scrambling up the ratlines of both masts.

  With that he began walking aft to the quarterdeck, the traditional centre of all orders and discipline where Southwick was waiting anxiously.

  ‘Going to be touch and go whether we can get into the Swatchway!’ the Master muttered.

  ‘It’d better go – if we touch we’ll never get off!’

  Southwick’s laughter, louder because of the strain he was under, boomed across the deck. Men stopped for a moment and looked aft nervously. Ramage, realizing it might ease the tension, also began bellowing with laughter at his own joke. Then the men carried on, obviously puzzled but probably reassured. The shoal was a couple of hundred yards away: six ship-lengths. He’d just weather the western end if no one made a mistake.

  ‘Jackson, Stafford! Take the helm. Speaking trumpet, Southwick.’

  Handing Southwick the musketoon, he put the black japanned trumpet to his lips and methodically began shouting the string of familiar orders which would get the Triton under way. Quickly the triangular-shaped jib snaked up as men hauled at the halyard, and the sheets were trimmed.

  Almost at the same moment the foretopsail was let fall from the yard, hanging down like an enormous curtain, followed by the maintopsail.

  He could see the men were working swiftly now: the instinct for self-preservation was swamping any mutinous ideas…

  Swiftly the yards were hoisted and braced round and the sheets hauled home so the sails caught every scrap of wind, but for many long moments the brig was dead in the water, the wind on her hull simply pushing her sideways down towards the end of the shoal.

  Then, at first almost imperceptibly, the Triton gathered way and Ramage began passing orders to Jackson and Stafford at the helm. Once she was making a couple of knots or more the rudder would get a bite on the water; until then she’d continue moving crabwise to leeward.

  Ramage watched the buildings on the shore at Gilkicker Point and saw the Triton’s bowsprit gradually stop swinging towards them, then begin to head up to starboard. Steerageway at last!

  A glance over the larboard side showed the end of the shoal was less than forty yards to leeward; but even as he watched the flurry of waves breaking over it began to draw aft. Another glance round to get his bearings and see where the Swatchway Channel began.

  Now the brig was beginning to heel in stronger gusts of wind and slowly Ramage managed to work her up until, with the entrance of the channel broad on the larboard bow, it was safe to ease sheets and braces and bear away to pass through it.

  Leaving Southwick to give the final orders to trim each sail to perfection, Ramage watched the bulky line of battle ships anchored to the south at Spithead, beyond the Spit Sand. The Port Admiral had been sure they’d open fire as the Triton passed, but Ramage hoped he’d taken them by surprise, unexpectedly cutting through the Swatchway instead of using the main channel and then, by hugging the shore under Gilkicker Point, keep out of the arcs of fire even if they could get the guns loaded and run out in time.

  There was no sign of the alarm being raised; no flags being hoisted or a gun fired to draw attention to them.

  ‘There’s a little cutter flying our pennant numbers and trying to catch up, sir,’ called Southwick.

  Fresh orders? Or the surgeon, midshipman, bo’sun and sergeant of Marines the Triton lacked and the Port Admiral had been trying to find for him?
Well, they’d have to chase for a few more minutes, until he could wait out of range of the Fleet’s guns. Finally he said: ‘Heave-to and wait for ’em, Mr Southwick; I’ll be in the cabin.’

  As he went down the companionway to his cabin it was broad daylight but the thick, grey rolling cloud coming over the Porchester hills would hide the sunrise in a few minutes.

  Well, he’d won every trick so far – although, he told himself bitterly, he’d had to do it by force: he’d failed to persuade the men to obey his orders from the beginning. Still, the effect was the same.

  But winning the final trick depended on the cards held by the seaman Harris, waiting in his cabin. That one man might have it in his power during the next few hours to stop the Triton delivering the despatches to Admirals Curtis and St Vincent and then crossing the Western Ocean to warn Admiral Robinson in the Caribbean.

  It was a crazy situation, he reflected, that the success of the First Lord’s orders, the intentions of the Board of Admiralty, the desperate need to warn these admirals at sea without a moment’s delay that the Fleet at Spithead had mutinied, probably depended at this particular moment not on storms in the Western Ocean, good navigation or Lieutenant Ramage, but on a man called Harris, rated able seaman in the Triton’s muster book.

  He was standing by the table as Ramage entered the cabin and he stood to attention. Ramage nodded and hung his sword on a hook beside the desk. Pulling the chair round he then sat down and took the muster book out of the drawer.

  The daylight shining down through the skylight was cold and grew, stronger now than the yellow, warm light of the lantern whose wick gave the cabin a stuffy, sooty smell.

  Turning to Harris, Ramage asked quietly: ‘When did you join the ship?’

  ‘July last year, sir.’

  Ramage turned back a few pages and found the entry.

  Alfred Harris, age thirty-one, born at Basingstoke, Hampshire, volunteer, three years in the Navy.