Ramage & The Drum Beat

by Pope, Dudley

  Maxton’s recital showed he had obviously served in several ships and knew the headings under which a man’s details were listed against the name in the muster book.

  ‘Where’s Belmont?’

  ‘Grenada, sir. Across the lagoon from the Carenage at St George. It’s a beautiful place, sir,’ he added proudly. ‘And we’ve got big forts to protect us!’

  ‘And before you went to sea?’

  ‘I worked in a sugar plantation, sir, cutting cane with a machete.’

  ‘So you can handle a cutlass, then.’

  Jackson gave a low whistle and Ramage glanced at him inquiringly.

  ‘Toss an apple, sir, and he can slice it in half and then cut one of the pieces in half again before it hits the ground.’

  ‘I was born with a machete in my hand, sir,’ Maxton said modestly.

  So, mused Ramage, these are my six men. All fine seamen, all with another trade – if that was the right word – at their fingertips.

  ‘Very well, we’ll go down to breakfast. Watch your tongues – the innkeeper probably speaks some English and will report everything he understands to the Spanish authorities.’

  * * *

  The chill in the morning air warned Ramage that December was approaching, although there was enough sun to remind him that Cartagena was in Spain, with the usual piles of stinking refuse lying about in the streets, a happy hunting ground for flies and beggars and packs of miserable, emaciated dogs. The cathedral bells tolled mournfully as he walked down towards the Plaza del Rey where the main gate through the great walls surrounding the city was guarded by bored sentries who did not bother to challenge him.

  Immediately outside the gate was another square with a big rectangular dock on the far side which had only one end open to the sea. A long, low building on the nearer side of the dock had piles of cordage stacked outside it and was probably the rigging store, with the sail loft next to it. At the landward end of the dock was a large timber pond in which great tree trunks floated, seasoning or left in the water to stop the sun’s heat splitting the wood. Next to that two big slipways sloped down to the dock and on one of them shipwrights were busy with adzes shaping new planks to replace rotten ones in the hull of a small schooner.

  Turning left and walking seaward he came to the Muralla del Mar, the long quay forming the landward side of the great, almost land-locked harbour. As he glimpsed the white crests of waves through the narrow entrance he saw he’d underestimated just how much Nature had given the harbour almost complete protection.

  To his right a peninsula of high hills jutted out seaward to form the western side of the entrance, the two highest peaks capped by small castles, with several batteries built into natural platforms at various levels on the lower slopes.

  On his left, more high hills thrust even farther out to sea to make the eastern side of the harbour, with several more batteries built into them and a fort almost at sea level covering the entrance.

  An old Spanish fisherman in threadbare clothes, toothless, tanned and wizened as a walnut, sat on the ground with his back to the great wall, mending a net, and he nodded amiably at Ramage who realized he could be as useful as a harbour chart. Ramage nodded back and then looked at the Spanish Fleet at anchor: so many masts that the harbour looked like a forest of bare trees, so many hulls they overlapped each other.

  Carefully he counted them… Twenty-seven sail of the line, and twelve frigates. But there had been thirty-two sail of the line and sixteen frigates in the Fleet a few hours before they reached Cartagena, which was the last time Ramage had been able to count them. Jackson was right after all: the missing five sail of the line and four frigates must have been French. Since they’d come so far to the westward but were not here, they must have gone on through the Strait of Gibraltar and out into the Atlantic. Had they been intercepted? Unlikely, since there were so few British ships in the area. More important, had they found any of the British convoys from Corsica and Elba?

  How long was the Spanish Fleet going to stay in port? And what a Fleet it was! Ramage knew that whatever reputation the Spanish had as fighting seamen, they built splendid warships. There was talk than many of them had been designed by a renegade Irishman named Mullins, but whatever the truth of that, the Fleet at anchor was one of the finest afloat. And the great ship of the Fleet – the greatest in the world, in fact – was the four-decker Santísima Trinidad, the flagship, and conspicuous because of her red hull with its white strakes as much as for her sheer size. She carried 130 guns – some people said 136 – compared with the 112 guns of each of the six three-deckers anchored near her.

  Ramage knew that until the end of his days he would carry in his memory the sight of those ships, and even now he felt a spasm of fear when he thought what they could do. What could England match with them? Her Navy was scattered half-way round the world – blockading the French Fleet in Brest, protecting the Tagus against any Spanish attacks on the Portuguese, guarding the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope for the Honourable East India Company ships, watching over the West Indies from the Windward and Leeward Island stations, and Jamaica and covering dozens of convoys… And here, anchored in one harbour, were one 130-gun ship, six of 122 guns, two of eighty, and eighteen seventy-fours.

  Several of the big ships and some of the frigates were showing the effect of their recent cruise: many had yards sent down on deck while others were lowering them into the sea, indicating they were sufficiently badly damaged to need towing to the dockyard for repairs. And he suddenly realized neither the Kathleen nor her captor was in the harbour yet.

  He turned to greet the old fisherman who put down his net and the long wooden needle and, apparently noting his accent, asked: ‘Are you French?’

  ‘No, American. I came in yesterday with the Fleet. You have a fine harbour here.’

  ‘Indeed!’ exclaimed the old man. ‘You can get in with most winds. Just watch out for Santa Anna, that’s all!’

  ‘Santa Anna?’ inquired Ramage.

  ‘Over there,’ the old man said, pointing to the eastern ridge of high hills and cliffs jutting seaward to their left. ‘You see the guns at this end – that’s the San Leandro battery and then farther along another, the Santa Florentina battery. Then the fort low down on the small point you see it? That’s Fort Santa Anna on Point Santa Anna. Just off the point is Santa Anna Rock – very dangerous. You can’t see it now because the flagship is in the way. Beyond that is Trinca Botijas Point with another battery on it. Those guns! Bad for fishing, you understand? The noise drives away the fish. They swear it doesn’t, but why aren’t there any fish after they fire them for practice? You tell me why not, if it isn’t the noise.’

  ‘It’s the noise all right,’ said Ramage hastily. ‘But do they fire them often?’

  ‘No,’ said the fisherman, ‘mercifully not. Did you ever hear of a Government spending money? No! Collect it yes. Taxes, taxes, taxes. But spend it on powder and shot? No! And it’s poor powder, too. Why, when the Santa Florentina battery last fired you know what happened? It was laughable. All ten guns should have gone off at once, but bang! Only one gun fired. When they drew the shot and powder from the other nine they found it was bad powder. Damp and poor quality. Good thing, otherwise we fishermen would starve.’

  ‘Bad powder means good fishing, that’s certain,’ agreed Ramage. ‘What about over here–’ he gestured to the hills on the right. ‘Any rocks to worry about there?’

  ‘No, not one. But these nearest hills,’ he gestured to the right, towards the two small sugar-loaf hills with a steep one behind (Ramage guessed it was more than six hundred feet to the castle on the top), ‘they make the wind fluky when it’s from the north-west. I’ve seen many a three-decker get caught a’back there and almost go on to Santa Anna before they could brace round.

  ‘Then they built that big castle on top, too: that makes the wind even crazier. Castillo de Galeras they call it, but I can think of a better name. And that battery below there, almost on the
beach. You know what they call it? Apostolado Battery. It’s blasphemy, no less: no Apostle would harm a fisherman – think of St Peter. But those damnable guns…

  ‘And you see the big hill beyond, at the entrance? That’s Punta de Navidad, and you can guess – another battery of guns. The blasphemous pigs,’ he grumbled. ‘I’ve told the priest many times that it’s sacrilege to call batteries after saints and holy things when all the guns do is drive away the fish and leave honest folk like me to starve after a day hauling nets.’

  Ramage nodded sympathetically as he looked at some of the small coastal craft alongside the quay unloading their cargoes. The nearest one, La Providencia, was a zebec, a fine example of one of the most beautiful vessels in the world, and, for her size, one of the fastest.

  She had the narrow, sleek hull of a Venetian galley but more beam, and her long graceful stern and slender bowsprit was emphasized by comparison with the clumsy, applecheek bows of the ships of war near by. Her stern sloped aft in a gentle curve, narrowing all the time, so it overhung the water by several feet. But to an eye unused to Mediterranean craft, the most striking feature was her rig: she had three masts and lateen sails. Although the mainmast was vertical, the foremast raked forward and the mizzen aft. Each mast had a long, thin yard slung fore and aft from it, hanging diagonally with the fore end down at deck level and curving gently from its own weight. The triangular sails were furled at the moment, and all Ramage could see confirmed its reputation of being one of the simplest and most efficient rigs afloat.

  La Providencia was the only vessel alongside the quay that was not unloading cargo. She had ports cut into her bulwarks on either side to take her guns, and abaft each of them was a much smaller oar port, so that in a calm she could be rowed. La Providencia, Ramage guessed, was probably a privateer at the present moment: she had new sails and her rigging looked new. And her paintwork was too elaborate for a vessel constantly loading and unloading cargo.

  He nodded farewell to the old man and strolled along the quay for a closer look. Yes – through the ports he could see that the ropes of the breechings and tackles of the guns were all new. Obviously the owners had decided that now Spain had entered the war there was more money to be made from privateering (since the British merchantmen from the Levant had to pass only a few miles south of Cartagena to get through the Gut – as the Strait of Gibraltar was known to generations of sailors) than from carrying cargo. And they were right.

  There was only one man on deck, and Ramage sat down on a nearby bollard and mopped his brow as if hot and in no hurry to go anywhere. Slowly and carefully he examined the zebec, familiarizing himself with the position of every sheet, halyard and brace. He’d seen zebecs tacking into harbour enough times to know how the great lateen sails were handled, and as soon as he returned to the inn he would make some sketches, and he’d also send the men down to walk along the quay and study the ship.

  While Ramage had been inspecting the harbour and the zebec La Providencia, Jackson had found the American Consul’s office and made an appointment for the four possessors of Protections to see him at four o’clock that afternoon. The booming of the cathedral clock was just filling the whole port when Jackson led them to the Consulate building just inside the main gate in the Plaza del Rey.

  Ramage was thankful the Consul, unlike Spanish and Italian officials, did not find it necessary to keep them waiting half an hour to demonstrate his importance. Instead, as they entered the hall a quiet voice called them into a large room. Ramage made a conscious effort to appear as nervous as Stafford and Fuller, hoping to leave the talking to Jackson.

  The Consul was a tall, grey-haired man with twinkling blue eyes, and as the four men came through the door he was collecting up some playing cards which had been laid out on the desk at which he sat.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said cheerfully, ‘you’ve interrupted my game of patience, but fortunately I’d reached the point where I could only win if I cheated. Now, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Seamen we are,’ said Jackson. ‘We…’

  ‘We thought,’ Ramage said equally as nervously, ‘that…’

  The Consul shuffled the cards and began setting them out for a new game. Ramage, guessing he did it to lessen their embarrassment, continued in a hesitant and uncertain voice, ‘The Spanish rescued us from a British ship of war, sir. We were all pressed a long time ago. The Spanish – well, we showed them our Protections, sir, and they – well, as soon as we got here they set us free.’

  The Consul picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Nicholas Gilray, Thomas Jackson, Will Stafford and Henry Fuller?’

  ‘Why, yes, sir!’

  ‘Yes, the admiral wrote to me about you. He even had you paid up to date, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, sir – well, more or less.’

  ‘How much less by the time the money reached you?’ the Consul asked shrewdly.

  ‘Only about a third, sir.’

  ‘You were lucky. They’re a sticky-fingered nation.’

  A curious expression, Ramage thought. Did the Consul dislike the Spaniards? If he did – and it was a distinct possibility if he had been in Cartagena for a long time – he might be of some use.

  ‘So we gathered, sir. Tried to make us serve in the Spanish Navy, they did; but we insisted on our rights.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the Consul said drily. ‘Perhaps I could see your Protections?’

  The four men fumbled in their pockets. Jackson was the first to find his and, after unfolding it and smoothing out the creases, put it in front of the Consul, who read aloud from it, half to himself. ‘Thomas Jackson… Charleston, South Carolina…about five feet ten inches high…’ He held the paper up to the light to see the watermark, then folded it and gave it back to Jackson and picked up the other three, reading out the details. ‘You are Stafford?’

  When Stafford replied the Consul’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You were born in America?’

  ‘No, sir. Taken there when I was a baby.’

  ‘Indeed? And you must be Fuller?’ he said, turning to the Suffolk man, who nodded. ‘No doubt you, too, went to America as a baby?’

  ‘Aye, sir!’ Fuller said eagerly. ‘Just a tiddler.’

  Ramage almost laughed aloud at both the accent and the inevitable allusion to fish.

  ‘And you, then, are Gilray.’

  For a moment Ramage looked at the Consul blankly then said hurriedly, keeping his voice as flat as possible, ‘Yes, sir: Nicholas Gilray.’

  The Consul handed them back the Protections and asked: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’

  ‘If you could help us get a berth in a ship going to America, sir?’

  ‘Not too difficult, but you might have a long wait, though.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jackson sadly. ‘Haven’t seen my home for three years.’

  ‘Have you enough money to live on while you wait?’

  ‘Depends how long we wait, sir.’

  ‘Of course, of course. But anyway, for the time being you have enough Spanish money. By the way. Stafford, how much did you pay for that Protection?’

  ‘Two pounds!’ exclaimed Stafford and then looked down at the floor, realizing he had fallen into a trap.

  ‘Don’t sound so indignant,’ the Consul said, smiling, ‘five pounds was the current price when I sailed from New York two years ago. I imagine Gilray and Fuller probably paid more.’

  Ramage knew that with the exception of Jackson, the only genuine American, they were now at the Consul’s mercy. He also knew, since the man was at least fifty years old and American Independence had been declared little more than twenty-five years ago, and the accent sounded familiar, he might well help them. Clearly this was no time for evasion.

  ‘I don’t know what Fuller paid, sir, but mine cost more. This doesn’t mean that you’ll…?’

  ‘No, don’t worry, you’re not the only Englishmen with American Protections. And I was born an Englishman too, only I took the precaution of becoming an American citizen by lawf
ul means.’

  Ramage couldn’t resist the impulse. ‘Cornish, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Cornish,’ the Consul said, almost wistfully. ‘Cornwall…the finest county of them all. I want to walk again on Bodmin Moor…and yet here I sit playing patience in an odd corner of an alien land.’

  The man was talking to himself now, reviving old memories and longing to see once again his birthplace. ‘Yes, to get away from this heat and stink and walk across Bodmin as the sun comes up and melts the mist. To hear the church bell of St Teath ringing out again…’

  The name of the village startled Ramage into a sudden movement which broke the Consul’s reverie and made him look up inquiringly. St Teath – the next village to St Kew, where his father and mother lived at the Hall: St Teath, every square inch of which had been owned by the Ramages since the days of Henry VIII, and father was also the patron of the very church the Consul remembered, and probably paid for the very bell he longed to hear ring again. Why did the Consul leave England? Had he been a debtor – perhaps to father even? What would be his reaction if he knew that the son and heir of the Lord of the Manors of St Kew and St Teath stood before him, at his mercy?

  Because Ramage’s first impulse was to tell him at once, he deliberately said nothing: it could wait until tomorrow, by which time he would have slept on it.

  ‘Well,’ the Consul said, ‘I’ll do what I can to find you a ship. Don’t spend all your money on wine and women, because I’ve no funds to help you, and there’s not enough work round here for the Spaniards, let alone Americans who don’t speak the language. Which inn are you staying at?’

  Jackson told him, and the four men saluted and left the room after thanking him profusely.

  Back at the inn Jackson waited until they were alone, then said to Ramage, the concern showing in his voice: ‘Was there anything wrong, sir? You went white as a sheet when the Consul mentioned that village – St Teath, wasn’t it?’

  ‘My family owns it,’ Ramage said sourly. ‘My home is in the next village. Obviously he left there before I was born. But why did he leave? Most people leave in a hurry for America because they’re in debt or wanted for some crime. Debt usually means rent. Rent may well mean my father. But–’ No, rent wouldn’t mean his father; the low rents on the Ramage estates were a sore point with neighbouring landowners. But the Ramages were rich and the old admiral saw no reason to charge his tenants more than was required for the upkeep of the cottages. He always maintained there was no such thing as a bad crew, only a bad captain; and as a landowner he lived by the same principle, that there were no bad tenants, only bad landlords.