Ramage & The Drum Beat

by Pope, Dudley

  ‘Shall we give each of ’em “one for the flag”, sir?’

  ‘No,’ Ramage said sharply. ‘Leave that sort of thing to the French.’

  Pour l’honneur de pavillion: the French ritual of firing a single broadside and then hurriedly hauling down their colours, so they couldn’t be accused of surrendering without firing a shot. Who cared? If the odds were that great no one blamed you anyway; if they weren’t one broadside was not enough. Why for the sake of vulgar pride risk a return broadside which would kill your men unnecessarily?

  When would he see Gianna again? Years rotting in some Spanish prison, and she in England, fêted by all the dandies of London Society. After a few gala balls at St James’s, at the Duchess of This’ and Lady That’s, she’d forget (gladly, probably) the brief days in the smelly and uncomfortable little wooden box that was the Kathleen. Yet oddly enough he didn’t feel bitter: indignant because it was his own bad luck, but not bitter. Perhaps a sign of old age, he thought wrily; perhaps even maturity. Attempt the impossible but accept the inevitable – if you can’t work miracles. Thank God she wasn’t with him now: in his imagination he saw them being parted outside some reeking Spanish prison, watched by the bloodshot eyes of Spanish guards and of lethargic disease-ridden dogs slowly dying in the sun. Surrender. He felt sick. It seemed that for the last few days everything he’d done had been without a thought of the consequences. Without any damned thought at all.

  Just before the boat pulled away from the Spanish frigate lying hove-to to windward, Jackson came up to Ramage and said excitedly: ‘Sir – change into seamen’s clothes quickly!’ Ramage looked so startled that Jackson added: ‘I’ve a plan, sir: no time to explain now, but you must pretend to be a seaman. I’ve explained to Mr Southwick and he’ll say the captain died some days ago and he’s been left in command. Please go and change sir–’ he held out some clothes ‘–I’ll tell the men you are just a seaman.’

  The boat, full of Spanish seamen, and some soldiers too, was ready to cast off. Ramage hesitated, unable to guess what Jackson was planning.

  ‘Oh, sir,’ Jackson exclaimed impatiently, ‘you’ve got to say you’re an American pressed into the Navy, if anyone asks. They won’t for a few hours. Think of a name for yourself so’s I can tell the crew and add it to the muster book. And I’ve got to enter your death, too.’

  When Ramage did not move Jackson realized he would have to explain. ‘I’ve got a blank Protection, sir. I’ll fill it in so you can prove you’re an American. But what name? Think, sir – what about that artist chap that draws the cartoons? You know – the one who always has sailors in his pictures, and the women always have a bosom hanging out of their dresses.’

  ‘Gilray,’ Ramage said automatically, still looking for any hidden snags in Jackson’s scheme.

  ‘That’s him. “Nichlas Gilray” – how about that, sir?’

  ‘Not “sir”, Jackson, “Nicholas Gilray, able seaman”,’ Ramage said, finally grasping the full significance of Jackson’s scheme and realizing it might remove the threat of a Spanish prison.

  ‘Well, hurry up, Gilray,’ Jackson said with a grin.

  Ramage grabbed the proffered clothes and ran to his cabin, calling to the quartermaster to throw the lead-lined box of papers over the side. He slipped off his clothes, guineas cascading from his breeches, and pulled on the trousers and shirt Jackson had given him. Then, taking Gianna’s silk scarf with the ring knotted into one corner, he tied in the sovereigns and secured the scarf round his waist, beneath the shirt. He decided to risk keeping his boots, which were partly hidden by his trousers, but pushed his uniform into a locker. Then wrenching open the door of the lantern, he smeared some of the soot on to his face. He put the pistols in their box, opened the little hatch leading to the bread-room, and pushed the box down on top of the bags, securing the hatch again.

  A thud warned him the Spanish boat was alongside and he ran up the companionway and walked to the nearest gun. The men glanced at him and grinned.

  He looked at the nearest of them. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Fine, sir – er, fine, Nick!’

  ‘Yes, belay the “sir”.’

  Ramage watched Southwick at the gangway receiving the Spanish officer, who spoke English and nodded sympathetically as Southwick explained how the captain had died after a painful but mercifully brief illness. The Master seemed so sorrowful that Ramage had an uneasy feeling that he was already dead. And for the purpose of Jackson’s plan Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage was.

  Jackson joined him at the carronade and whispered: ‘You’re down in the muster book, sir: last name on the list: transferred at Bastia from the Diadem. You come from New Milford, Connecticut. Aged twenty-five and rated able seaman. And you’d better have this.’

  Ramage took the proffered piece of paper, unfolded it, and in the half-light saw it was a printed form with the American eagle at the top: a Protection carried by most American seamen (and many British, too, since false ones could be bought without much difficulty). He could just make out the handwritten name of the person to whom the Protection allegedly had been issued, ‘Nicholas Gilray’, and said to Jackson: ‘You haven’t left the pen wet with ink, have you?’

  ‘No – I used Mr Southwick’s, and wiped it dry.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Herded below the Spanish frigate, the Kathleens stood in a group surrounded by Spanish seamen and soldiers armed with muskets. A small cannon had been hauled over and trained down the hatch at them, and standing at the breech were two Spanish seamen, each holding a slow match in case the flintlock misfired.

  ‘They aren’t taking any chances,’ muttered Jackson.

  ‘I don’t blame them: we didn’t–’ said Ramage but left the sentence unfinished as two Spanish guards threatened him with their muskets.

  It was hot and the ship stank: bilge-water, sweat, garlic, stale olive oil, rotting vegetables and ordure from the animals kept forward all added their quota to the stench. Finally, they heard sounds of the yards being braced round as the ship got under way, and the Spanish guards signalled they could sit down.

  A few minutes later they had to stand again as a Spanish officer came down the ladder holding the Kathleen’s muster book in his hand. Ramage wondered for a moment if Southwick had told a convincing story, then felt angry with himself: he’d put an unfair burden on the old Master’s shoulders. If the Spaniards found out, Southwick would suffer as well, and Ramage felt ashamed at having embarked on the deception by merely following what Jackson had told him to do. Yet Southwick seemed to have accepted everything with his usual cheerfulness; indeed, Ramage sensed he and Jackson must have discussed it earlier.

  The Spanish seamen stood to attention as best they could, shoulders and necks bent because there was little more than five feet headroom. At the foot of the companionway the Spanish officer held up the muster book to catch the light and read out the name of one of the seamen. The man looked startled.

  ‘Over there,’ said the officer, pointing to one side. He then read out more names, each time motioning the particular man to leave the group. Suddenly Ramage realized he was sorting out the foreigners – a Genoese, two Americans (at least, they were so listed in the muster book but Ramage knew both were English), a Portuguese, a West Indian and a Dane. Then he called for Jackson and Ramage, and as soon as they had joined the others, beckoned them to follow him up the companionway.

  On deck the sun was rising and, glancing round, Ramage was startled to see they were in the midst of a large fleet – six great three-deckers, more than a couple of dozen two-deckers, one of which had the dismasted frigate in tow, and five or six frigates, one of them towing the Kathleen, which was flying Spanish colours. Seeing her a prize, picturing a Spanish officer in his cabin – Gianna’s cabin – left Ramage feeling almost faint with dismay and anger.

  As they lined up along the gangway under the direction of the Spanish officer, he realized he was the only one who had shaved within the last twenty-four hours and
promptly rubbed his face to spread the dirt and perspiration more generously.

  As the officer walked towards the captain’s cabin Jackson whispered: ‘Guessed as much: now we just swear we were pressed from neutral ships and forced to serve.’

  ‘What good will that do?’ said Ramage. ‘They’ll just press us into their service.’

  ‘May not. If they do, it’ll be easier to escape from a Spanish ship in port than from a Spanish prison. But we start off claiming our freedom as neutral subjects.’

  ‘Yus,’ said one of the others, Will Stafford, whose Cockney accent belied the entry ‘America’ in the ‘Where born’ column in the muster book. The entry had probably been made in deference to the fact he had purchased a Protection.

  ‘Yus,’ Stafford said almost to himself, ‘we must ’ave our rights: we ’adn’t oughta bin pressed in the fust place. Free men we are.’ He sucked his teeth, as if appreciating his own declaration of independence, and added ‘and that goes fer Nick ’ere, too.’

  The rest of the men giggled self-consciously, but Jackson hissed at them, ‘For God’s sake don’t forget it, lads; he is Nick to us now!’

  The Spanish officer came back with the captain, a tall, slim young man with black, carefully combed curly hair. Ramage guessed that while his friends called his features aquiline, his enemies said he had a hatchet face.

  The man stopped a few paces away, looked them up and down as though they were cattle in a market, and said in perfect English, ‘So – men who are traitors to five different countries!’

  Jackson quickly asked: ‘How so, sir?’

  ‘None of you is English?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then by fighting for the English, you betray your own country.’

  ‘We had no choice, sir!’ Jackson said so indignantly Ramage knew he’d be believed.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We was just kidnapped out of our own ships by the English. We had to serve – they’d have hanged us if we didn’t.’

  ‘Is that true?’ he asked Ramage.

  ‘Aye, sir. These English just come on board, take off the men they want – the best, usually – and that’s that.’

  ‘You are American?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘But you have a Protection, no?’

  ‘Yes, and I showed it to the officers, but they don’t take any notice.’

  ‘But you can insist.’

  ‘S’no good, sir: we all did at one time or another. The only way you can get released is to get on shore somehow and find an American Consul who’ll lodge a complaint. Then they have to free you.’

  ‘Why did you not do that?’

  Ramage gave what he hoped sounded like a respectfully cynical laugh. ‘Never given a chance of going on shore in port, sir. I’ve been allowed on dry land only twice in two years an’ that was for wooding and watering.’

  ‘Wooding and watering?’

  ‘Aye, sir: cutting wood for the cook’s boilers, and filling water casks. Always in lonely places.’

  ‘Of course, I understand. Well now, I am sure all of you wish to enter the service of His Most Catholic Majesty?’

  ‘Who?’ asked Jackson, with such surprise in his voice it obviously was not feigned.

  ‘My Master, the King of Spain.’

  ‘Well, thank-you very much, sir,’ Jackson said, ‘but we’d all much rather be allowed to go home.’

  ‘Very well,’ the Spaniard snapped, annoyed at having lost the chance of getting eight prime seamen. ‘You’ll be transferred to the flagship. You may eventually wish you’d decided to serve with me.’

  With that he went below, leaving Ramage wondering whether it was an idle remark made in a fit of pique or if anything else lay behind the words.

  The Spanish admiral sat at his desk in the great cabin and looked closely at Ramage and Jackson. He turned and spoke rapidly to the translator who said, ‘His Excellency wishes to know when you last saw British ships of war?’

  ‘Two weeks ago,’ said Ramage.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Off Cape Corse – a frigate.’

  With this related to the admiral the translator asked several more question designed to find out where the British Fleet was, sometimes asking Ramage and sometimes Jackson.

  Suddenly the admiral asked Ramage, in poor English, ‘You seem to be a man of superior intelligence: how many sail of the line and frigates do you think the English have in the Mediterranean?’

  Ramage pretended to be counting on his fingers while he thought of an answer. Should he exaggerate to frighten the Spanish admiral back into port, or say fewer, so the Spanish would seek out the British Fleet and thus give Sir John Jervis a chance of trouncing them? Then, remembering that the evacuation of Corsica – which meant protecting large convoys of merchantmen – was Sir John’s prime consideration at the moment, he decided to exaggerate.

  ‘Reckon about fifteen ships o’ the line, sir. Frigates – I can only guess. ’Bout thirty.’

  The surprise showed on the admiral’s face: this was bad news.

  ‘Fifteen? Name them!’

  Ramage listed all those he knew had been in the Mediterranean and to the Tagus in the past few months, although many had subsequently left again.

  ‘That makes twelve,’ the admiral said.

  Jackson promptly added three more names, saying he had seen one off Bastia and two off Leghorn less than a month ago.

  ‘Why did you not know of these?’ Ramage was asked.

  ‘I was in another ship; I wasn’t sent to the cutter’ – he could not bring himself to say ‘Kathleen’ – ‘until two weeks ago.’

  ‘Very well. Your cutter – she was taking part in evacuating Corsica?’

  Ramage just avoided falling into the trap and answered before Jackson could speak. ‘No, sir, we was going to Gibraltar for orders, so I heard at the scuttlebutt: but I never heard any talk of ’vacuating Corsica. Why would they want to do that?’

  Jackson was shaking his head, as if equally puzzled.

  ‘You may go,’ the admiral said abruptly.

  Ramage turned, but Jackson asked: ‘Sir, none of us – that is, the ones sent over from the frigate – is English, so will we be set free when we get into port?’

  The admiral said pompously, ‘We are not kidnappers like the English. If you do not wish to serve the King my Master and I am told you do not, which is ingratitude since his servants were your rescuers – I will consider your applications.’

  ‘Thank-you, sir,’ said Ramage. ‘We are most grateful. When your ships came alongside, we all guessed we’d be delivered.’

  It was spreading the jam thickly, but Ramage could see that profusely thanking the admiral for doing something he had not yet done – had simply said he would consider doing – would ensure his vanity did the rest.

  The admiral held up his hand deprecatingly.

  ‘It is nothing. My officers will see you are fed and clothed.’

  Ramage gave a clumsy salute, followed by Jackson, and they both left the cabin. They found the other men lounging about on the gangway chatting as best they could with the Spanish seamen. There seemed to be a complete lack of discipline: men were sleeping beside the fo’c’sle guns; others were on the hammocks stowed in the nettings along the top of the bulwarks.

  ‘What’s the news, Jacko?’ asked the Cockney seaman.

  ‘The admiral–’ he caught sight of the translator approaching, and raised his voice slightly ‘–the admiral has promised that we are free men and we can go on shore as soon as we get to a Spanish port.’

  The men gave a cheer and Ramage suspected it was in response to a wink from Jackson, but it was effective: the translator, who was probably the admiral’s secretary and clerk, gave an ingratiating smile as he passed, and Ramage knew Jackson’s announcement and the men’s cheer would be reported back to the admiral.

  The main things that interested Ramage now were to discover the strength of the Spanish Fleet and the admiral’s plans
– both the original one, which presumably would now be abandoned, and the new one taking its place. He’d have plenty of time to see how he’d get the intelligence to Gibraltar…

  A glance round the horizon answered the first question: there were exactly thirty-two sail of the line – at least six of them three-deckers – and a dozen frigates (and three or four more presumably over the horizon). The Cockney seaman, Will Stafford, provided some of the other answers, after pointing out that the frigate towing the Kathleen had left the Fleet (to avoid delaying it, Ramage guessed).

  ‘They’ve been telling us they ’aven’t ’ad much luck this cruise, Nick.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Nah – bin chasin’ Old Jarvie all rahn the Medingterraneang, and never did see ’im. They reckon he’s too scared to show ’isself.’

  ‘They’re right, Will,’ Jackson said, conscious two or three Spanish officers had apparently casually walked into earshot ‘Old Jarvie wouldn’t want to meet this Fleet.’

  ‘Nah – well, anyway, the admiral’s goin’ to Carthygeeny for water and vittels, so I reckon ’e’ll put us on shore there.’

  ‘Don’t care much where it is,’ Ramage said, ‘as long as we can get a ship home.’

  ‘Aye,’ echoed Jackson, ’as long as we can get home.’

  Four days later the smell of scorching rope as the anchor cable raced out through the hawse hole drifted back to where Ramage stood on the starboard gangway looking at Cartagena. He could see, even though it was almost dark, that Spain was lucky to have an almost land-locked naval base where Nature provided such high cliffs and mountains as powerful defences against its own onslaught and the attack of enemy fleets.

  As usual Ramage dreaded going below. He had no illusions about conditions below decks in a British man o’ war in port: the regulation space allocated to every seaman was six feet by fourteen inches: in that space he slung his hammock. A man every fourteen inches. At sea, of course, each man had double that space because most of the ship’s company was divided into two watches, arbitrarily called larboard and starboard. Usually a man in the larboard watch slung his hammock next to one in the starboard watch, and since one was always on watch the other had an empty hammock on either side of him. In harbour though, with both watches sleeping, it was a different story, and with the low headroom (usually five feet four inches or less) the whole deck would be packed solid with sleeping, snoring and sweating men (and, all too often, women). The air was frequently so foul the candles guttered in the sentries’ lanterns and men woke with a taste in their mouth as if they’d been sucking a copper coin and a headache which affected their sight. But for all that, in a British ship the decks were clean, spotlessly clean, and the bilges were kept fairly sweet by frequent pumping.