Ramage & The Freebooters

by Pope, Dudley

  ‘Right – now you answer two questions for me. Forget any feelings you have for her – don’t get embarrassed; I envy you – and tell me if you, as a King’s officer, are certain she was telling you the truth all the time.’

  ‘Yes, and apart from that, her answers tally precisely with what we already knew.’

  ‘Very well, second question – if she hadn’t answered your questions, could you have found out about the butler and all that business?’

  Ramage shook his head.

  ‘Definitely not. After all, we only discovered about her by eliminating everyone else. But the trail would have stopped there.’

  ‘So in effect she’s turned King’s evidence: she’s helped us trap a spy?’

  Suddenly Ramage realized what the old Colonel was driving at.

  ‘Yes, and willingly.’ Then, after a moment’s thought, he added, ‘But from your point of view, sir, since you’re responsible for the internal security of the island, you mustn’t forget that if she’d committed suicide this morning…’

  ‘I’m only concerned with what she did; not what she might have done,’ Wilson said crisply. ‘By the way, what’s the Governor proposing to do?’

  ‘His last words to me, while you were seeing the trunk loaded on to the carriage,’ Ramage said dryly, ‘were that he was going to write a strongly worded protest to Admiral Robinson and the Admiralty about me.’

  ‘Protesting about what?’

  ‘I don’t think he was too sure. Probably because I deprived him of his butler…’

  Wilson laughed.

  ‘A serious offence. But just one more question about Miss de Giraud: what made her – well, obey her father and give away secrets?’

  ‘Sheer terror. He was a fanatical revolutionary – one of Fèdon’s right-hand men. During the insurrection he took her to see some voodoo nonsense – the ritual murder of a negro accused of helping the British, and the negro’s wife. It was five hours before they were dead. The drummer who beats the tom-tom was one of the murderers. She was eighteen years old when she saw that. When she went to Government House, her father simply told her if she didn’t do what he told her, she’d be handed over to this man. She believed he’d do it – and so do I.’

  ‘Did the Governor know she was the butler’s daughter?’

  ‘No, nor was the man really a butler. Came from an old French family. Some row at Court and he was exiled. It embittered him, so he was ripe to become a revolutionary. When the war began, he was sent to the West Indies as a spy because of his perfect English, and his daughter, too.’

  ‘Why, isn’t the daughter a Jacobin, then?’

  ‘Her mother – she was English, remember – left him years ago in France and took the girl to England. After the Revolution but before the war began the father forced her to go back to France, though she regarded herself as English.’

  ‘And the Governor knows none of this?’

  ‘Not a thing. Just that I had to kill his butler because he was a spy, and that the whole thing must be kept secret.’

  ‘Very well, that closes the affair. What do you intend doing now?’

  ‘About the privateers? Frankly sir, my head’s still in a whirl: knifing a man accidentally like that leaves a nasty feeling…’

  ‘You’d have an even nastier feeling if he’d shot you, which he obviously intended doing. Don’t become one of those people who cheerfully kill a man with a cannon at a mile range but baulk at killing the same man with a sword at one yard.’

  ‘Just as lethal, but less personal. No, I really meant killing him in front of his daughter. Although I think he intended shooting her as well.’

  ‘Upsetting,’ Wilson admitted, but without much conviction. ‘Now, what else is to be done about the butler?’

  ‘Well sir, to be honest I don’t think I’ve the patience to try to deal with Sir Jason. We’d be unwise to tell him any more than he knows already. If he knew the whole truth he’d probably talk. Or his wife would.’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ Wilson said flatly. ‘I’ll go up and see him. Now for Miss de Giraud – I don’t like leaving her there. A shot through her window… There are plenty of French sympathizers on the island. We don’t know how many knew what the butler was doing. Now he’s vanished, as far as they’re concerned they might get frightened.’

  Ramage nodded. ‘That’s crossed my mind, but–’

  ‘She can stay at my house. My wife likes her and the place is always guarded. I can get her there this evening without anyone knowing. All the servants are soldiers’ wives and been with us years.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to get back on board.’

  ‘Fine – leave Sir Fishpot to me. And let’s hope we think of a way of smoking out those privateers. Pity the Triton’s not a Trojan horse!’

  Ramage was drafting a brief report for Admiral Robinson when Jackson knocked on the door and came into the cabin, handing him the throwing-knife.

  ‘All cleaned up and resharpened, sir. Nasty nick just to one side of the point; must have caught the bone.’

  ‘Probably,’ Ramage said, cutting short the American’s curiosity. ‘Now, how are your lessons going?’

  ‘Maxton says pretty fair, sir. He’s softened up that goatskin for the tom-tom and we’re using a butter firkin, not a cask. More like the real thing, so he says. It’ll be ready in an hour or so.’

  ‘You’ve got the rhythm right?’

  ‘Yes – leastways, he reckons so, though it’s difficult to tell with a Marine drum ‘cos the skin’s stretched differently.’

  ‘Have you got out of Maxton what that signal was?’

  ‘Yes. They don’t beat out words or numbers apparently; just prearranged sort of tunes. They all have different meanings.’

  ‘Right. Now listen carefully, Jackson. When you’re next practising I want you to say something casually to Maxton. Just say it conversationally, and watch his reaction.’

  ‘I follow, sir: catch him unawares.’

  ‘Exactly. Now I think I know the name of the man who uses the tom-tom and we’ve got to catch him. I don’t know where he lives, but Maxton probably does. If he does know the man – and you’ll have to judge that from his reaction – he’s got to tell us. Tell you, preferably.’

  ‘Leave it to me, sir,’ Jackson said confidently. ‘He’s a good lad. Just that the witch doctor put the fear of – well, I don’t know what – into him.’

  ‘I understand. Now, this tom-tom fellow is called Josiah Fetch.’

  Jackson repeated the name and left the cabin, saying his next lesson with Maxton was due at two o’clock.

  Footsteps on the companion ladder and the clump of the Marine sentry’s boots as he saluted warned Ramage that Southwick had at last finished his duties on deck.

  As the old Master sat down in a chair, tossing his hat on to the settee and running his hand through his bushy white hair, Ramage was surprised how much had happened in the four hours or so he’d been away from the ship. As far as Southwick knew at present they were probably four hours spent drinking rum punches with Colonel Wilson or the Governor.

  Briefly Ramage retailed the morning’s events, omitting only the father-daughter relationship, and Southwick acknowledged the various episodes with a nod of his head. When Ramage had finished Southwick said slowly: ‘Glad you weren’t out of practice with that knife of yours, sir. But now this butler’s dead we’ve – well, reached a dead end!’

  ‘As you say, a dead end.’

  ‘Looks as though we’ll have to let another schooner sail and shadow her with the Triton, or send off a false signal and hope they take the bait, sailing the Triton instead of a schooner.’

  ‘That’ll never work. You know how the privateer schooner can work up to windward. Apart from that, we’d be spotted sailing: the butler, gardener and drummer can’t be the only ones involved.’

  Southwick sighed. ‘I knew there was a catch in all this – told you so, didn’t I, sir? As soon as I heard
those two frigate captains had failed and you’d been given the job I knew the Admiral was up to something.’

  ‘You don’t think I imagined he was selecting me for promotion do you?’ Ramage said sourly.

  ‘Did that Colonel have any ideas, sir?’

  ‘I didn’t ask him – hardly his field. All he contributed was a Trojan horse.’

  ‘What do we want horses for?’

  Ramage looked so puzzled that Southwick added hurriedly, ‘Sorry, sir, is it some special sort of horse?’

  Ramage laughed and began to tell Southwick the legend. Suddenly he broke off. ‘I’ll tell you the rest some other time – I’ve just remembered something. Have the jolly boat manned – I’ll be on shore for a couple of hours.’

  Wilson was at first sceptical of Ramage’s plan because of the danger it involved: it was impossible to guess the odds against Ramage and his men, he protested, but likely they’d be at least three to one.

  ‘Always assume the odds’ll be greater than you expect – you’ll never be disappointed,’ he warned.

  But apart from the heavy odds, he finally agreed the plan was for the moment the only possibility. Like Ramage, he was disappointed that Claire de Giraud had no idea where the privateers were based except that it was at one of the islands to the north.

  Surprisingly, Wilson had agreed with Ramage that of all the ship-owners to choose, Rondin was the most trustworthy, as well as being the most intelligent. Ramage was even more surprised when Wilson advised that Rondin should be brought to the Fort, instead of Ramage visiting the man’s house.

  ‘We don’t know who our enemies are,’ Wilson declared. ‘If anyone sees you going to Rondin’s house, who knows what they can guess? But he’s in the country today. I’ll arrange it for tomorrow morning.’

  Next morning Wilson’s carriage brought a puzzled Rondin to the Fort. He listened attentively as Ramage began by telling him the schooner that sailed two nights earlier had almost certainly been captured.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ he commented. ‘The owner was a fool to make the Governor persuade you, and to do it in the midst of a ball… Now, you want me to do something?’

  Ramage liked his direct manner. He did not ask questions; merely listened to what was said, as if sensing he was being told all he needed to know. When Ramage finished outlining what he wanted of the ship-owner, Rondin shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

  ‘You’re doing me an honour: to show you trust a man these days is to honour him. But schooners are expensive, and if this one is lost–’

  ‘She’s insured,’ Wilson interrupted. ‘And if we don’t catch these blasted privateers you’ll probably lose her anyway – and others.’

  Rondin nodded. ‘She’s insured all right, though I imagine the underwriters would quibble if she was lost through being involved in Lord Ramage’s plan. Still, that’s not why I’m hesitating.’

  ‘Why, then?’ Ramage asked.

  ‘I’m a rich man, my Lord. I could lose half a dozen uninsured schooners without worrying too much… No, I’m more worried about you and your men.’

  ‘Me and my men?’

  ‘One doesn’t become a successful plantation-owner and ship-owner, my Lord, without weighing up odds and taking a long view. Sometimes I’ve found it worth taking a short-term loss to make a long-term gain. But you naval officers rarely have the choice: when you sight the enemy you have only two alternatives – to attack or not – and only a matter of minutes to decide.’

  Wilson interrupted: ‘All that’s obvious, if you don’t mind me saying so, Mr Rondin.’

  ‘Of course, my dear Colonel; I’m merely mentioning it as a preface to explaining my reluctance.’

  Ramage was beginning to share Wilson’s impatience.

  ‘If you’re reluctant, Mr Rondin, then I can only ask that you keep secret everything you’ve heard here this morning and we’ll approach someone else.’

  ‘You misunderstand me, my Lord: I’m reluctant, but I’m certainly not refusing.’

  ‘Come on, Rondin, explain yourself,’ growled Wilson.

  ‘I’ll address my remarks to you, Colonel, to avoid embarrassing this young man. You’ll remember Admiral Robinson sent two frigates which sailed up and down for a couple of months…?’

  ‘Yes, I remember well enough.’

  ‘Well, without meaning any disrespect to the Royal Navy, we still lost schooners. But the two captains were dull-witted men. They regarded their task – at first, anyway – as a simple one. But as the weeks went by with no success, they just regarded themselves as unlucky. They didn’t realize it wasn’t simple; they didn’t revise their original view…’

  ‘Go on, go on,’ Wilson said impatiently.

  ‘Very well, I think we can agree they were stupid men. But then we were lucky enough to be sent Lord Ramage who realized from the start it wasn’t an easy task because he has the imagination the others lacked. He has moral courage – more than enough, from what I hear – to stand up to His Excellency…’

  Rondin had a habit of tailing off his sentences, his voice dropping and giving the impression to his listeners that they had gone deaf.

  ‘I wish the Governor was as terrified of me as he is of the lieutenant,’ Wilson said with a broad grin, ‘but do hurry up!’

  ‘Bear with me a moment, Colonel. My only objection is this: privateers carry enormous crews. Any two privateers have four times more men that the whole ship’s company of the Triton. You’re likely to meet odds of about seven to one. I’d put my money on you and your men at two, perhaps even three to one. But above that…’ He turned his thumb down.

  ‘I’ve already pointed out all this to him,’ Wilson said, nodding in agreement.

  ‘I would have bet on that, Colonel,’ Rondin said, ‘because you’re a brave man concerned with the safety of another brave man. No, don’t blush like a girl, my Lord; one’s either brave or one isn’t; it’s as simple and as complicated as that. No, just listen to the reasoning of a businessman.

  ‘If you go ahead with your plan you stand perhaps a ten per cent chance of success. That kind of percentage rules out the whole thing from my point of view.’

  ‘But–’ Ramage started to protest.

  ‘Listen carefully: no businessman would risk his whole capital for a ten per cent gain. If he loses, he’s lost everything; he can’t start again. Even a gambler would only risk his whole capital if he had a chance of a hundred per cent gain.’

  ‘But I still don’t–’

  ‘No, because you aren’t a businessman. Now, to be blunt, you’re our only chance of destroying these privateers. Very well, I want you to succeed. Apart from my personal regard for you, my profits will quadruple if the privateers are destroyed – and be quartered if they’re not.

  ‘So I’d rather you waited for a better chance of succeeding. If you’re killed we can resign ourselves to another six months or a year of losses. That means ruin: we’ll have no schooners left. Not a hundredweight of produce can be shipped to England. Grenada will collapse.’

  ‘But there are frigates,’ Ramage protested. ‘Admiral Robinson–’

  ‘Can do nothing: it’s men that matter, not ships,’ Rondin said. ‘No ship of war is better than her captain.’

  Having spent most of his life in the Navy, his contact with men of business had been small, so Ramage was fascinated by Rondin’s honesty in weighing personal against business feelings.

  Wilson asked bluntly: ‘For all that, you’ll let us use one of your schooners?’

  ‘Of course! But I hope I’ve persuaded him to wait for a more propitious opportunity.’

  Ramage shook his head.

  ‘The big difference between a businessman and a fighting man, Mr Rondin, is that the businessman can rarely surprise his competitors. He gets a higher price for his goods only if he gets to the market first selling something everyone wants.’

  ‘True enough,’ Rondin admitted, ‘and in wartime the convoy system means all our produce arrives on the En
glish market at the same time, so that overnight scarcity becomes a glut, and prices drop accordingly.’

  ‘Exactly, but a fighting man can often surprise his enemies. I’m hoping surprise will give us a considerable advantage – bringing the percentage down to something more acceptable to an investor!’

  Rondin smiled. ‘The schooner’s yours, my Lord. Now, tell me again exactly what you want me to do.’

  Jackson and Maxton reported promptly to Ramage on the quarterdeck.

  ‘Well, Maxton, how’s your pupil coming along?’

  ‘Fine, sah,’ the West Indian said enthusiastically. ‘We’ve made the drum and it’s just right. Jacko’s been practising. You won’t be able to tell the difference.’

  Knowing a West Indian’s two faults were the habit of saying what he thought the other person wanted to hear, and an incurably optimistic approach to all problems, Ramage said sharply: ‘It’s not whether I can tell the difference, Maxton, but whether that fellow listening up to the north can.’

  Maxton shook his head, as if guessing what Ramage was thinking. ‘Even I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, sah.’

  ‘Very well, you’ve obviously been a good teacher. I appreciate it.’

  Maxton looked embarrassed, knowing there was more behind his captain’s words than most people realized.

  ‘Jackson,’ Ramage said, ‘I want to see you in my cabin in five minutes. Mr Southwick! If you can spare me a minute.’

  Down in the stuffy cabin the Master listened with his usual cheerfulness as Ramage described the latest developments, nodding at the prospect of action at last.

  ‘M’sword’s been getting rusty!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I hope it’ll stay rusty,’ Ramage said. ‘I’ll be leading the boarding party and you’ll be commanding the Triton.’

  ‘Oh, sir!’ Southwick sounded like a disappointed schoolboy. ‘The boarding party’s really my job. After all,’ he added slyly, ‘you command the Triton, sir: she’s your responsibility…’