Ramage & The Freebooters

by Pope, Dudley

  One week the heat and humidity would be tempered by the fresh Trade winds into a blissful climate; another, when the wind dropped, would be damp and unbearably hot, draining every man’s energy, mildewing his clothes, sapping his spirit.

  A perfectly fit and strong man could admire the frangipani, its delicate white blossom with gold centres flowering on leafless trees clinging precariously to a cliff face; he could stare at the almost unbelievably beautiful flamboyant tree covered in brilliant scarlet blossom, an enormous ball of flame. And that night the man could be struck down with some disease like the black vomit, which within twenty-four hours, would leave him dying with insects crawling wherever life oozed from his body.

  Islands where moderation did not exist.

  The first day of the rainy season came – and almost overnight the sun-scorched brown hills turned green with tiny shoots sprouting like down on a boy’s face. The sun nourished the plants so they grew fast and then, as they flowered, scorched them to death, and while the sun and rain rotted the remains the ants, scorpions, lizards and great buzzing swarms of flies hunted and feasted…

  The trunk of a fallen tree apparently solid – until you touch it and it crumbled to powder, riddled with termites…

  And beside the rotting piles there’d be scatterings of poinsettia – the Spanish Flor de Pascuas, the Italian Stella di Natale, the Flower of Christmas – growing wild and profuse, each slender stem topped by petals hanging down like leaves in a brilliant red star.

  The dull green of the lignum vitae tree, the wood of which was so heavy it sank in water but whose tiny, gentle blue blossoms, no bigger than a small button, gave no hint of its enormous strength. And the chenille plant whose native name, Red Hot Cat Tail, aptly described its flower.

  He remembered the pelicans, broad-winged and cumbersome, with long beaks, and pendulous sacks beneath, standing on a coral reef like a group of wizened sagging-jowled old men gossiping of politics and bygone days. It was such an effort for them to get into the air but, once flying they did it lazily, almost without effort. Yet when their little button eyes spotted a fish they flopped down to catch it in such a clumsy dive it seemed that flying had suddenly exhausted all their strength.

  And, for comparison, the little white egret, smaller, more graceful than the European heron, high-stepping on deep, stinking mud at the edge of a mangrove swamp with all the delicacy of a little princess entering a ballroom knowing she was watched by ten score guests.

  The osprey hovering on an air current in the lee of a hill and swooping on to some unwary fish in a lagoon below almost faster than the eye could follow – and gaudy parrots squawking raucously in the jungle. Tiny humming birds, like large bees; mocking birds whose shrill whistles were like human beings signalling to each other.

  Memories tumbled over each other, none blurred by time. Amaryllis with its trumpet-shaped flowers; the long, silver barracuda streaking through the sea, face as ugly as a pike’s, teeth sharper than razors; sharks with blue-grey backs and white bellies, scavenging, the vultures of the sea. Papaya trees with their delicious soft orange-centred fruit growing in dusters at the top of the trunks. Tamarind with hard, coloured seeds which the natives strung together into bead necklaces. The aptly and tragically named Belle of the Night, whose buds opened as night fell to reveal white petals and a golden centre (to those with lanterns who cared to look, or who admired in the moonlight) and which closed as the sun rose, never to open again.

  The coral reefs waiting to rip out a ship’s bottom, but swarming with fish so gaily coloured in such strange patterns they might have been created by an inspired artist in the last stages of a drunken frenzy. Long sandy beaches backed by many types of palm trees.

  And at the back of the beaches, neat holes, the homes of land crabs which the natives caught at night, luring them with flaming torches.

  Everywhere among the islands mosquitoes, whining and biting, leaving smudges of blood when you slapped them on your flesh. In the rainy season they were reinforced by sandflies, almost too small to see but which waited for the sun to dip towards the horizon before emerging to bite with the sharpness of needles, leaving angry, itching weals.

  Shiny black scorpions, smaller than one had expected. Centipedes, lurking under stones and twigs, or hiding in the beams of a roof or ceiling and dropping on your arm to give you a bite which swelled like a Scotsman’s haggis.

  Long-tailed, impertinent blackbirds, bigger than those in Europe, strutting around like young midshipmen on a flagship’s quarterdeck, lacking only a telescope tucked under a wing.

  Clothing mildewed, rotted and decayed; iron rusted and flaked until nothing was left but a dull red stain. Nothing moved, yet nothing stood still. Like jagged rocks in a pool, the Windward Islands stood four-square at the southern end of the Caribbean. On them men built houses and hurricanes blew them down. Coral reefs grew, then the coral died and the seas smashed it, hurling the pieces upon the beach where, along with sea shells, the waves pounded and ground it into gleaming sand.

  In the jungles trees died and fell to give life to termites; animals died, but their bodies gave life to beetles and maggots; sailors died – and, Ramage thought bitterly, gave life to clerks filling in forms at the Navy Board.

  Southwick came up from below, where he had been working out his noon sight and, squinting in the bright sunlight, reported: ‘We should sight Ragged Point before noon tomorrow, if this wind holds.’

  ‘How much before noon?’

  ‘Between ten and noon.’

  ‘Hmm…’

  Knowing the captain was thinking of the risk of running on to the island in the darkness, Southwick said: ‘I don’t think we need heave-to tonight, sir. I’m reasonably certain, and there’s been no north-going current for the past five days.’

  Every captain – and master too – making the Atlantic crossing had one fear about making his landfall: that he’d be a few miles ahead of his reckoning so that in the darkness the ship would run up on the low-lying, rocky and wave-beaten east coast of Barbados. If you were too far north or south you could pass it in the night and, if to the south, run on to the rocks (some forty feet high and barely twenty wide) and tiny islands of the Grenadines beyond.

  Well, Ramage knew Southwick was a good navigator but at this stage in the voyage all captains and all masters tried to outdo each other in showing confidence, yet most of them – the conscientious ones, anyway – always had a nagging doubt.

  An error in the quadrant, in the chronometer, an unexpected current during the night between sights… All could land you on the beach at Barbados, where even in a calm day the swell waves thundered their way through outlying reefs and sent a fine spray drifting inland for several hundred yards, an almost invisible mist.

  The lighthouse – one could never trust that a light had been lit; and even then couldn’t be sure it wasn’t put up by a wrecker in a position where it’d lead you on to rocks. More fortunes than anyone liked to admit had been made by wreckers in these islands; in Barbados alone two or three of the leading families were reputed to have a hand in it.

  Soon after dawn next morning it seemed to Ramage every man in the ship was rubbing, scrubbing, polishing or painting. His own steward could hardly wait to get him out of the cabin to start pressing clothes which, for the previous three or four days had been hung up to air.

  Seamen were busy with cloths and brickdust, rubbing vigorously to give all the brasswork an extra shine. The decks had already been holystoned and washed down.

  The gunner’s mate and a couple of men were methodically wiping over each carronade with oily cloths. Two days ago they’d gone round with a bucket of blacking – a mysterious mixture of vinegar and lamp black – painting it on spots where rust marks had been removed, and repainting all the shot in the racks.

  There was still a strong smell about the ship: for the past two days the men had been painting the standing rigging with a mixture of Stockholm tar, coal tar and salt water which had been heated up in
a fish kettle (and as they wielded their brushes Southwick danced around below, cursing them for spilling drops, despite the old awnings spread over the deck which had been liberally sprinkled with sand as an added precaution).

  At the bow three men were putting the finishing touches to the Triton’s figurehead. The wooden replica of the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite was small and well-carved and his head was bent forward slightly, as if supporting the bowsprit. His fish’s tail twisted down the stem and the outline of each scale was picked out in gold leaf. The face was – as Southwick commented many weeks ago – ‘friendly enough for one o’ those Greek chaps’ but the Triton shell which by tradition he held in his hand had been broken off at some time and replaced with one carved from green wood which the hot sun had now split.

  And it was going to cost Ramage a guinea before long (in addition to the price of the gold leaf, which had to come out of his own pocket since the Admiralty issued only small quantities of yellow paint for ornamental work). Ramage had idly commented to Southwick that the spiral-shaped Triton shell actually existed in the West Indies and to Ramage’s surprise the old Master had become quite interested, having previously thought that, like Triton himself, it was a stylized object.

  Anyway, it seemed that Southwick had told the master’s mate, who’d told a quartermaster. Soon a request had come back from the ship’s company: if they found a real Triton shell could they use it to replace the wooden one?

  This, Ramage realized in retrospect, was one of the first solid indications that not only had the original ship’s company and the former Kathleens become firmly knitted together, but they’d developed a pride in their ship. And pride in a ship, he knew only too well from past experience, meant a happy ship. So he’d agreed, offering a guinea to the man who found a shell of the right size to fit into Triton’s hand.

  The men had been delighted – a guinea was within a shilling or two of a month’s pay for most of them; but Ramage knew whoever found such a shell would have earned it – the wooden one was a foot long, and the shells were rarely more than eight or nine inches. He also knew that the man who found it would be the proudest in the ship…

  Occasionally Southwick, his white hair flying in the wind, stumped up to the bow to watch the gilders at work. It was a fiddling but fascinating job, and Ramage too had watched them begin. After cleaning up the whole carving and scrubbing it with fresh water and soap to remove salt and dirt, they’d let it dry, one of them watching in case spray deposited more salt on it. They’d then carefully covered it with canvas for the night and next morning were badgering the bosun’s mate for a tin of yellow paint, wanting to pour off some of the thick oil on top to use as size.

  Leaving the oil to stand in a pot, they’d painted the figurehead with the appropriate colours, and when they were dry, brushed on the size where the gold leaf was to be applied, and left it until it was almost dry.

  By that time they’d managed to wheedle a chamois leather from Southwick and sewn it into a small, flat pad. Once again, with all the enthusiasm of schoolboys, they’d gone back to the bow, secured ropes round their waists in case they fell, and despite the pitching and rolling, with the sea bubbling and spouting only a few feet below them, managed to transfer the gold leaf piece by piece from the book in which it was kept to the chamois leather pad.

  One man had obviously worked as a gilder because each time he had, with a quick twist of the wrist, pressed the pad precisely against the place where the leaf was to be applied, so the leaf stuck to the size. Since each leaf was about two inches long and one inch wide, and so light that a gentle puff was enough to blow it three or four feet, Ramage was glad to hear they’d lost only three leaves in sudden gusts of wind.

  Just after nine o’clock the foremast lookout’s hail of ‘Deck there!’ stopped every man within hearing, and was followed by ‘Land ho! From two points on the starboard bow to one point to larboard, sir!’

  ‘You wall-eyed monkey,’ Southwick shouted, ‘why didn’t you sight it sooner? And how far?’

  ‘’Bout seven miles. Lot o’ haze ahead, sir,’ came the cheerful reply. ‘Must have lifted suddenly.’

  Southwick glanced at Ramage. It was a good enough reason: the sun had heat in it now and haze over land in the early morning was not unusual, lifting as soon as the land heated up.

  Ramage couldn’t resist saying, ‘Bit ahead of your reckoning, eh Mr Southwick? Between ten and noon I thought you said. Or was it nine and noon?’

  ‘Ten, sir,’ Southwick said ruefully. ‘Still, that’s–’

  Seeing the Master was taking him seriously, Ramage interrupted: ‘But for the haze, it’d have been seven-thirty.’

  ‘But sir, after logging more than 2,900 miles…’

  Ramage laughed. ‘Well, it’s a long way from Spithead, anyway!’

  From being a long purplish bruise low on the horizon the east side of the island gradually took on a definite shape and slowly changed colour as the Triton closed the distance, turning a few degrees to larboard to head for South Point with a stiff breeze hustling her along at better than eight knots.

  The purple gave way to a light brown as the contours of the hills slowly emerged, showing shallow valleys between them; then with the brig drawing nearer and the sun rising higher the brown became green; the rich and fertile green of land well-farmed, the large fields of different crops showing like a chessboard.

  The land was lower than Bowen had expected: instead of a high rocky island capped with tall palm trees and standing four-square against the full force of the Atlantic swell with high overhanging cliffs – for there was nothing between it and Africa more than 3,000 miles to the east – it was low with rolling land behind it; more like the Sussex coast.

  As he commented on it to Southwick, the Master grunted.

  ‘Barbados always disappoints people new to the Tropics: I always say that from seaward it looks like the east end of the Isle of Wight. But wait until you see the rest of the islands: Grenada, St Lucia, Martinique – they’re just what you expect: mountainous thick jungle…deep bays and beaches and thousands of palm trees… But for all that, give me Barbados: most civilized of ’em all, except for Jamaica.’

  Nevertheless, as the Triton approached, Bowen admitted the island was a beautiful sight: the deep blue of the sea stretched to within a hundred yards of the shore and then, merging into pale, sparkling green as it swept over coral reefs and outlying shoals, it broke in a narrow ribbon of white foam on a strip of silver sand. Beyond were green, gently sloping fields but very few trees, all of which seemed to be small pines, leaning over at an angle to the left.

  ‘The wind,’ Southwick explained laconically. ‘Always blowing from the eastwards – makes ’em grow like that. Ah – there are some palms for you.’

  Bowen took the proffered telescope and low down, just at the back of the beach, were a few clumps of palm trees, the only ones for a couple of miles either way. He gave the telescope back to Southwick, who sensed his disappointment.

  ‘Plenty more in the lee of South Point – the headland over there. We round it and the next one and anchor beyond in Carlisle Bay. The windward sides of all these islands are barren. Nothing between them and Africa. The lee sides usually have plenty of jungle – completely sheltered, and of course there’s a lot of rain.’

  ‘What are those brown patches scattered where the water’s bright green?’

  ‘Coral heads. Living coral. Usually only a few feet of water over them. They’d rip the bottom out of a ship. The pale green water usually shows there’s a sandy bottom.’

  Bowen remarked on several windmills along the coast, identical in shape to those in England.

  ‘Use ’em for the sugar cane,’ Southwick explained. ‘Instead of having circular grindstones like you use for grain, they use rollers. The sugar cane – it looks like great stalks of wheat, eight feet high and more, and nearly as thick as your wrist – is run between the rollers which squeeze out the juice. It runs off into a lead-lined sink a
nd into vats, where it’s boiled.’

  ‘Then what happens to it?’

  ‘Shipped to England in casks. The most stinking cargo there is, too: never go passenger in a ship carrying molasses…’

  The Triton passed South Point and soon the crescent-shaped Carlisle Bay came into sight, with Bridgetown sprawled comfortably along the western side. Ramage saw at anchor the Admiral’s flagship, the 98-gun Prince of Wales. The Triton’s pendant numbers were already hoisted and men were standing by at all her carronades, which were loaded with blank charges ready to fire a seventeen-gun salute.

  The gunner’s mate was by the foremast ready for Ramage’s signal to begin firing while powder boys stood by with extra charges ready to reload seven of the guns to complete the salute.

  There were only two frigates and some squat, ugly transports at anchor near the flagship while a small schooner approached from the west, still hull down over the horizon, her sails showing like tiny visiting cards.

  The news of the Triton’s arrival must have reached the flagship an hour or so earlier, signalled along the coast, and everyone on board – as well as dozens of people living on shore – would be waiting anxiously for any mail and newspapers she might have brought out.

  Ramage signalled to the gunner’s mate who bellowed: ‘Number one gun – fire!’

  Even as the gun leapt back in recoil on the starboard side, the explosion echoing across the bay and the smoke blowing forward, the gunner’s mate had begun the chant which ensured each gun fired at the right interval, muttering all but the last four words to himself: ‘If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here – number two gun fire!’

  The first gun on the larboard side leapt back in recoil, the crew at once beginning the routine of reloading.

  ‘If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here – number three gun fire!’

  As the guns fired one after the other Ramage realized Southwick was also totting up the number of rounds – it wasn’t unknown for a gunner or his mate to miscount.