Ramage & The Drum Beat

by Pope, Dudley

  ‘Explosion boat! By Jove, a splendid idea! That accounts for it!’

  Ramage looked puzzled and Usher explained, ‘When you hove in sight we recognized the frigate as Spanish but couldn’t think how you’d managed to capture her, so we suspected the Dons were setting some sort of trap for us. By Jove, and not a bit of paint scratched on your own ship. By the way, you have your orders with you?’

  Ramage gave him the folded paper signed by Commodore Nelson and as he read a new interest showed in Usher’s face.

  ‘This Marchesa – is she old?’

  Ramage said warily, ‘She’s fairly young, sir.’

  ‘And pretty, no doubt?’

  ‘Fairly sir, but a tiresome woman. Never satisfied with anything – always grumbling. You know the type…’

  ‘And this Count Pitti?’

  ‘Cousin of the Marchesa, sir. A chaperon,’ he added hopefully, ‘he never lets her out of his sight.’

  ‘Yes – well,’ Usher handed back the orders to Ramage, ‘since the Commodore places such importance on the safety of your passengers and they’re cramped in the Kathleen, I’ll take them on board the Apollo. They’ll be more comfortable, and safer, too – the Dons are out in force.

  ‘I must say you can hardly be accused of obeying your orders, Ramage; you’ve taken just about every possible risk with this young lady. I can’t help feeling the Commodore won’t be very pleased. Yes, she must come on board the Apollo for her own safety. My mind is made up. And her cousin, too,’ he added hastily.

  ‘May I–’

  ‘And I have to make all speed for Gibraltar, so I’ll leave you to try to get the frigate in. Discretionary orders, of course – you can cast her off if you meet bad weather, and no one’ll think any the worse of you.’

  ‘Perhaps I–’

  ‘I’ll help you out by taking off all the Spanish crew and the officers you have on board and split ’em up between the Apollo and Heroine, so you won’t have prisoners to worry about. And I’ll give you twenty hands to man the frigate. That’s the wisest plan.’

  Ramage knew Usher was right. Gianna would be safe and, with twenty British seamen in the frigate, towing would be much easier. And Usher was being very generous; he could have taken the frigate in tow himself, or ordered Ramage to scuttle her, which would have meant the prize money would have to be shared or lost altogether. Usher must have read his thoughts.

  ‘Won’t affect your prize money; I shan’t put in a claim because of my men – by Jove, no! That’d be dam’ unsporting. My clerk’ll have your orders ready by the time the Marchesa comes on board. It’s a pity we both have so much to do, otherwise I’d ask you to join us for dinner.’

  He shook Ramage by the hand. ‘Stout effort, m’boy. I’ll tell ’em in Gibraltar. Of course, I’ll be making a report to Sir John and the Commodore, too. Best of luck.’

  Ramage went down into the boat knowing he was sulking like a schoolboy, and he knew Jackson was curious to know what was happening, but he was in no mood for talking. Gianna met him as soon as he climbed on board the Kathleen. ‘All went well?’ she asked in Italian. ‘They’re pleased with you?’

  ‘Yes – they are taking off the Spaniards and sending English seamen across to the frigate.’

  ‘Oh good – we’ll get her to Gibraltar yet!’

  ‘The captain of the Apollo, a Captain Usher, is very concerned about your safety – and rightly so.’

  Gianna looked at him suspiciously. She recognized the slightly pompous tone he used when he was about to tell her something he knew she would not like. ‘And…’

  ‘And so you and Antonio will go in the Apollo to Gibraltar.’

  ‘We shall not!’ she retorted.

  ‘Gianna – you must.’

  ‘No. We stay with you. You have the Commodore’s orders. You must obey them and take us to Gibraltar. I insist. Antonio insists, too. We both insist. I shall tell this Captain Ushair!’

  ‘But Captain Usher can give me new orders in the circumstances. My job was to get you both to Gibraltar safely. Captain Usher can do that better. And,’ he warned, knowing it was the only thing that would end her defiance, ‘if he wanted to, he could get me into a great deal of trouble over the frigate. Instead he’s writing a favourable report.’

  Antonio, who had heard most of the conversation, took Gianna’s hand. ‘It’s the best way,’ he said reluctantly. ‘We are a – a preoccupazione for Nico. He must concentrate on towing his prize; but with us here, he’s thinking always of our safety.’

  Southwick came up and saluted. ‘Lot’s of boats putting off from the Apollo and Heroine, sir. Look as if they are pulling for the Spaniard.’

  Ramage outlined Captain Usher’s orders.

  ‘Ah – so we can sleep o’ nights without worrying what the Dons are doing at the other end of the cable!’

  Gianna said, ‘I’ll go downstairs and pack.’

  ‘Down below,’ corrected Antonio.

  ‘Humour me,’ she said, ‘I’m doing my best to be obedient. But I am on the verge of mutiny.’ She looked at Ramage and said coldly, ‘This Captain Ushair – he is handsome? Yes, I am sure he will be. I think I shall enjoy myself.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Every man of the Kathleen’s crew missed Gianna’s lively presence. The ship was as dead as if lying to a quarantine buoy at The Nore. Already the Apollo and Heroine had disappeared into the broad purple band of haze joining sea and sky on the western horizon and in an hour it would be dark. Astern the prize was towing in the Kathleen’s wake like a docile cow following a dog back to the farmyard.

  For the first time in his life Ramage discovered loneliness was a many-sided thing; not simply being alone. And its worst side was being parted from someone who – and he’d only just acknowledged it – was part of himself. Now she’d gone, he knew that without Gianna he was incomplete: there was no one to share the secret joys of a glorious autumn sunset; no one else who saw the usual, almost prosaic spray sliced up by the bow as flying diamonds forming the Kathleen’s necklace; her excitement had exhilarated him and her zest had put new life into the ship’s company.

  As he watched La Sabina, Ramage saw a boat pull towards the cutter. Southwick must have completed his work, leaving behind the Kathleen’s Master’s mate, Appleby, to the responsibility of his first command – if that was not too grandiose a description of being the senior of twenty men in a towed prize.

  Southwick was soon reporting that in obedience to Ramage’s orders all casks of wine and spirit in the frigate had been staved and the liquor poured over the side, to avoid the seamen getting drunk. There was plenty of water and ample provisions but, Southwick said with disgust, ‘The state of the ship, sir! Don’t think she’s had a scrub for weeks. Not just scraps of food on the mess decks and the galley, sir, but chunks; just like a piggery!’

  ‘Quite,’ Ramage said hastily to interrupt the recital. He could visualize it and guess Southwick’s reaction to a ship which was not spotless.

  With that Ramage went to his cabin (at the bottom of the companionway he almost walked forward to his former temporary berth) and slumped in the chair, staring at the dim lantern. Weariness numbed him; he seemed to exist only in his eyes while his body remained remote and detached. Yet with Appleby away in the prize, he and Southwick would have to stand watch and watch about.

  As the cutter rolled, the cot slung from the beams overhead, swung from side to side and he saw something dark lying on the pillow. It was a long, narrow silk scarf in dark blue embroidered with gold thread. The tiny patterns were all the same, delicately sewn designs of a mailed fist holding a scimitar. Instinctively Ramage touched the heavy gold ring which – from the time the two frigates came in sight – he wore slung by a piece of ribbon round his neck, beneath his shirt. The same design was engraved on it, Gianna’s family crest. She had left him a memento – or, remembering her last remark and chilly farewell, had she just forgotten it? – and he wound it round his neck, half-ashamed of his sentimentality, and
sat back and thought of her and fell asleep.

  Ramage paced up and down the quarterdeck in the darkness: ten paces forward, turn about, ten paces aft and turn again. He had taken the first watch, from 8 p.m. until midnight, slept soundly until 4 a.m. while Southwick stood the middle, and now with dawn not far off he was shivering with cold an hour or so through the morning watch.

  The wind had backed until it was on the beam and the down-draught from the mainsail was chilly. Ramage’s clothes felt damp and smelled musty – spray had so often soaked the material that it was impregnated with salt which absorbed the damp night air, and he made a mental note to get his steward to rinse them if there was enough fresh water.

  He shook his head violently, banged his brow with his knuckles, but still sleepiness came in waves. Using the old trick of licking a finger and wetting his eyelids to refresh himself, he cursed as the salt in the spray which had dried on the skin made his eyes smart.

  But with a tremendous effort he listened carefully because the distant shouts had finally penetrated his drowsiness. He heard them again: a series of calls, very faint and up to windward on the starboard beam. A seaman padded up to him in the darkness.

  ‘Captain, sir,’ the man whispered.

  ‘Yes – who is it?’

  ‘Casey, sir, lookout in the starboard chains. Reckon I just heard shouting to windward and some blocks squealing, like a ship was bracing up her yards. Thought I’d better come aft instead of hailing you, sir.’

  ‘Quite right. I’ve just heard it myself. Warn the other lookouts. And report anything else you hear – but keep your voices down.’

  A ship close to windward – and the Kathleen advertising her presence by burning a lantern on either quarter and the prize three more.

  Ramage turned to the quartermaster standing beside the two men at the tiller, ‘Douse the lanterns, pass the word for Mr Southwick, the bosun’s mate and my coxswain, and send the hands to quarters. But be sure no one makes a sound. There’s a ship close by up to windward. And sling a jacket over the binnacle to shield the light.’

  He prayed the prize crew would hear the shouts and snuff out their lanterns as well.

  It’d begin to get light in ten minutes or so. At that moment he heard another shout – to leeward this time, close on the larboard beam, and then a deep creak that could only be the rudder of a big ship working on its pintles. She must be very close for that to be audible. Southwick, Evans and Jackson arrived in quick succession and men were gliding past him bare-footed on their way to the carronades, which were still run out.

  Southwick left and after a quick inspection of the men at the guns returned to report the ship ready for action. Once again he was rubbing his hands and Ramage guessed he had the usual expression on his face, like a butcher well-satisfied with the meat on a newly slaughtered carcase.

  ‘Just because we’re ready for ’em, they’ll probably turn out to be British. You think so, sir?’

  ‘No,’ Ramage said shortly. ‘I couldn’t make out what was being shouted but I’m sure it wasn’t English. Anyway they must have seen our lanterns and one of our own ships wouldn’t make such a noise if she was going to clap herself alongside as soon as it’s light.’

  ‘Hadn’t thought of that,’ Southwick admitted. ‘Which of ’em will you have a go at first, sir?’

  ‘Neither.’

  ‘Neither?’ Southwick could not keep the surprise out of his voice.

  ‘Mr Southwick,’ Ramage said sourly, ‘don’t let’s make a habit of attacking frigates with a small cutter. We’ve been lucky so far, not clever.’

  ‘Quite, sir. Then why don’t we–?’

  Ramage snapped, ‘Think man! If we cut the tow and drop astern or draw ahead we lose the prize to them. If they’re British we won’t get a penny. If they’re Spanish – which is more likely – it’ll be light enough for ’em to see us in’ – he glanced eastward – ‘four or five minutes, and with this breeze they’d soon catch us. And anyway, I doubt if they’re alone.’

  ‘So what do we do, sir?’

  ‘We’ve no choice. We wait, Mr Southwick, and hope. Those who wish can pray as well.’

  ‘The prize has doused her lanterns, sir,’ Jackson reported. Ramage thought he could see a vague, blacker outline in the night, showing where the prize lay, but he was far from sure. ‘Very well. Keep a good lookout; I’m going below for a few moments.’

  In his cabin, the sentry shielding the lantern with his hat, Ramage unlocked the drawer in his desk and once again put his secret papers in the lead-lined box. Suddenly he remembered a conversation with a midshipman who’d once been prisoner in France: it was essential to have strong boots and warm clothes – the French marched their prisoners hundreds of miles north to such camps as Verdun, and presumably the Spaniards did the same. And you needed money to buy food on the march.

  Ramage was already wearing boots and breeches. He took some guineas from a drawer and tucked a few into the lining of his hat, dropping the rest down his breeches. He waved the sentry away and as the man left with the lantern he thought he could detect the night turning grey at the skylight overhead. As he took a last glance round the cabin he remembered the ring round his neck: that would be stolen from him. He knotted it into a corner of Gianna’s scarf and put them both in his pocket. He’d feel a damned fool if the ships turned out to be British, and they probably would, after all these precautions.

  He took the weighted box up on deck and gave it to the quartermaster beside the binnacle, ‘You know what this is by now. Keep it beside you.’

  As soon as Southwick saw him he reported: ‘Sound a rum lot, sir: make as much noise as if they was beating through a convoy anchored in a thick fog off Spithead.’

  The cries from to starboard were musical. Even though the words were blurred, Ramage was sure he could detect a certain sibilance, an emphasis of certain vowels. The ship was a good deal closer now and from the shouting and subsequent noises, he was certain her sails were being trimmed constantly to edge her slowly down to leeward, to where they thought the Kathleen was. He walked over to the larboard side and could hear more voices from the second ship, even closer, and thought he could make out the hiss and bubble of the water being thrust aside by her stem.

  The two ships obviously knew they were converging on the Kathleen but did each know the other was? Were they working to a pre-arranged plan or had they been sailing in company and both separately spotted the Kathleen in the darkness? Did they know their intended victim was only a small cutter? Unlikely. Was there a chance, therefore, of playing one off against the other?

  For a wild, almost ecstatic moment he thought of manoeuvring the Kathleen until she was precisely midway between the two frigates and then, as they closed in on either side, drop all sail. The weight of the tow would act as an anchor and the Kathleen would stop as suddenly as if she’d run up on a sandbank.

  Then, with a bit of luck, the two Spanish ships would crash alongside each other in the darkness, each thinking the other was the enemy. The chances were that each would have fired at least one broadside into her consort before realizing the mistake.

  But a glance round the Kathleen’s deck and up at the sails showed him the attempt would be hopeless: it was too late.

  The black of night had gone, the grey of dawn was already here. In a few minutes both Spaniards would be able to distinguish the outlines of the cutter. A pity; the prospect of provoking a brief outbreak of fraticidal warfare between two of His Most Catholic Majesty’s ships of war appealed to him. But he was wasting valuable time even thinking about it.

  ‘Evans.’

  The bosun’s mate appeared beside him.

  ‘Send the ship’s company below – two at a time from each gun, and the rest take it in turns – to get shoes, a couple of shirts and any warm clothing they can sling round their neck. Don’t put the shoes on,’ he added hurriedly, ‘in case there’s any powder on deck.’

  Evans paused a moment; although he had heard, he did
not understand.

  ‘Prisoners have to march, Evans. Probably through thick snow over mountain passes…’

  ‘Oh – aye aye, sir!’

  Jackson handed him his pair of pistols. ‘Sound like Dons for sure, don’t they, sir?’

  Ramage grunted as he tucked them into the top of his breeches.

  ‘Their fleet’s at sea, isn’t it! sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hum, wouldn’t surprise me if–’

  ‘Nor me,’ snapped Ramage, who wanted time to think. ‘They’re probably about five miles astern, twenty sail of the line, and Admiral Don Juan de Langara sound asleep in one of them. Now, go below and get yourself shoes, warm clothes and money, in case we become prisoners.’

  ‘Prisoners, sir?’ Jackson exclaimed involuntarily. ‘Aren’t we–’

  ‘Get below, Jackson. This isn’t a debating society.’ He felt ashamed at the snub; but all the Kathleens seemed to be off their heads, unable to distinguish between capturing a dismasted frigate and engaging a pair of them. He pictured himself and his Kathleens trudging first under a blazing sun along a track shimmering with heat, trying to breathe while the stifling air was thick with white dust thrown up by dozens of other prisoners being herded along by dull-brained shuffling, Spanish soldiers. And then dragging one foot after the other across mountain passes almost blocked by snowdrifts, the wind so cold that every indrawn breath was like a knife in the chest and against which no clothes could protect them.

  The shouts this time were unmistakable: they were Spanish and he almost sighed with relief. Fear was not knowing. Once you knew, you weren’t frightened – or at least there was a limit to it. It was not knowing that made fear depthless.

  ‘Dons, sir; I can hear ’em clearly,’ said Southwick.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The prize, sir?’

  ‘Keep her in tow: there’s no point in letting her drift and Appleby hasn’t time to scuttle her.’