Ramage & The Drum Beat

by Pope, Dudley

  On and on came the seas, relentless, seemingly unending, and even more frightening since each contained its strength in itself, in its very vastness, in the smooth, purposeful and powerful way it surged inwards, rising higher and higher until Ramage, his imagination heightened by fear, tiredness and awe, felt he was looking up at the cataract destined to swamp the whole world. The crest of each wave was a curling, hissing jumble of frothing white water broken only by the Kathleen’s wake which showed on the wave’s face as an insignificant double line of inward-spinning whorls, like the hair springs of clocks.

  The hours passed and Ramage was barely conscious of fresh men at the helm as the watches changed. He saw only wave after wave in a wild chase to overtake the cutter. Just as a roaring crest was about to crash down on the Kathleen’s deck, the ship’s stern began to lift (began, it always seemed, just a moment too late), and the bow dip slightly, as if the ship was starting a hesitant curtsy. Suddenly the crest was right under her counter, first lifting the stern even higher and burying the bow deeper on the forward face and then, as the crest slid forward, tipping the ship like a see-saw in a gigantic pitch which would let the stern sink back on the rear face, the bow lifting high in the air as the crest swept on.

  As suddenly as it arrived, that wave would be gone: for a few moments the Kathleen would be almost dead in the water, sunk deep in a trough so her tiny spitfire jib was blanketed, starved of wind. Then once again the next wave would race up astern…

  Suddenly Southwick pointed. A couple of hundred yards astern a freak wave was rushing down to them. The crest was solid water, still wedge-shaped and still thrusting itself higher.

  Even as they watched the wind’s pressure was working on it, and unable to resist its force the crest slowly turned and then toppled to break into a two-foot high rolling, swirling, roaring mass of water sweeping along on the forward side of the wave.

  The next moment the cutter dropped into a trough and the wave disappeared from view. Ramage, noting it was the third, saw the first sweep down and pass, turning to make sure Southwick had warned the quartermaster and the men at the helm, banged Southwick on the shoulder and motioned him to grip something firmly, and himself seized an eyebolt beside the stem-chase port. The second wave lifted the cutter enough for Ramage to see the third had grown even larger, rearing up as high as a big house.

  In one split second he guessed this time the little Kathleen’s stern would never lift in time to avoid being pooped; that the whole wave would crash down on her and then sweep forward, washing away every man on deck, stoving in skylights and ripping open hatches to send tons of water cascading below, and, with no one at the helm, slew the whole ship round so that she broached, lying broadside on to the next wave and probably heeling over on her beam ends.

  With the heavy carronades then hanging vertically and breaking loose from their slides and tackles, and bulky casks of provisions and dozens of round shot stowed below smashing their way through the hull planking, the Kathleen would founder.

  In the instant before the wave reached the Kathleen, Ramage thought of the scrap of paper on which he’d hurriedly copied part of the order to Admiral Cordoba. Sir John would never see it; the great Spanish Fleet would pass the Strait and eventually link up with the French Fleet at Brest. Gianna would never know of the Kathleen’s fate: all the risks of the past few days had been unnecessary: what a stupid, useless way to die…

  A moment later there was nothing but sky: a grey, menacing sky across which thick cloud raced in untidy patterns. The Kathleen’s stern rose so fast Ramage felt he was being shot up into the air and a moment later dropped just as quickly, and the wave was past.

  He glanced round at Southwick and saw the old man, eyes shut, was muttering a prayer – or a stream of curses – and still hadn’t realized the wave had gone. Then he looked round at Ramage and making no attempt to hide the relief he felt, shouted: ‘I thought that one had our number painted on it!’

  Ramage shook his head and grinned, showing a confidence he did not feel. He was thankful he’d reduced sail in time, and housed the topmast, run in the bowsprit and lowered the cro’jack yard – which carried the cutter’s squaresail – down on deck to reduce the windage. It had been a slow and tiring business stretched over the past few hours: one reef in the mainsail and changing down to a smaller jib as the wind piped up just past Tarifa; another two reefs in the mainsail, handing the foresail and changing to an even smaller jib half an hour later; then furling the mainsail and hoisting the tiny storm trysail in its place, handing the small jib and hoisting the storm jib.

  Still the Kathleen had raced on almost out of control. He and Southwick had watched astern, shouting orders to the four men at the helm and the eight others manning the relieving tackles hooked on either side of the tiller, making sure that each of the seas met the Kathleen exactly stern on. If any one of them had caught her on the quarter she would have been pooped.

  Finally Ramage had admitted to himself what Southwick had been telling him for some time – he was driving the cutter beyond the limit of her endurance: sailing so fast that she was as wild and uncontrollable as a runaway horse.

  Reluctantly he’d told Southwick to hand both storm trysail and storm jib and set the storm foresail in their place. That had no sooner been hoisted and sheeted home than there was an immediate improvement in the handling of the ship – she was sailing more slowly with less tendency to broach. But it was a short-lived respite: with a bang like a 32-pounder being fired, the sail blew out, scraps of flax flying off to leeward and a few strips still attached to the bolt rope streaming out like tattered banners.

  For several minutes it had been touch and go whether they could keep control of the cutter while men scrambled along the deck to bend on and hoist the spitfire jib – a few score square feet of tremendously strong but stiff and intractable flax.

  Every time the ship pitched she dug her sharp bow deep into the sea and flung up sheets of spray which hid the men from sight, and as she rose again the water raced aft along the deck in small tidal waves while Ramage counted the men to make sure no one was missing – not that anything could be done for anyone who went overboard. The wind snatched contemptuously at the sail as they hoisted, flogging it with no more effort than a washerwoman shaking a shirt.

  Finally the men were safely back aft and although the sail once hoisted and sheeted home seemed ridiculously small, the weight of the wind bellied it out as hard as a board and drove the cutter on again, and Ramage expected any moment to see the material tear out of the thick roping round its edges.

  All that was – well, about five hours ago, just after dawn. And now the really great seas were coming: seas that made the earlier ones seem like wavelets. Facing into the wind, he found it difficult to breathe, and the shrill howling in the mast and rigging combined with the actual buffeting of his face and ears left his mind numbed.

  Normal thought was becoming impossible; the only way he could keep any control over the situation was to talk to himself – asking a series of questions to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Navigation – no need to worry about that now with four thousand miles of open Atlantic ahead and the wind and seas forcing the Kathleen to steer west. Sails – well, the spitfire jib was holding. Leaks – the carpenter’s mate had sounded the well fifteen minutes ago and reported only the usual amount of water. Food – the cook and cook’s mate were at this moment doing their best to produce something. Sheets checked over for chafe – Southwick had done that, but he must remind him again in half an hour, was there anything else? God, he was cold and wet and tired – so tired he knew he was on the verge of having hallucinations. Always, beyond every one of those seas piling up one after the other astern, he could imagine the enormous blunt bow of the Santísima Trinidad, the red hull scudding along under just a close-reeled fore-topsail, unable to get round to make Cadiz and with the rest of the Spanish Fleet streamed out astern.

  By noon two days later the gale had eased slightly but g
ave no sign of a break. Ramage and Southwick estimated the Kathleen had run more than two hundred miles, which put the rendezvous off Cape St Vincent nearly a hundred miles away to the north-eastward. And, more important, the cutter was probably astride the western-most route by which Sir John would return (even allowing for the gale) to the rendezvous from whatever position he’d left the Brazil ships. Ramage knew that if he could stay in this position there was a chance he’d meet the Fleet on its way back. And that meant heaving-to – if possible.

  The only way of knowing for certain was to try it, which meant risking being pooped as the Kathleen rounded up. It also meant risking blowing out the spitfire jib, and also the storm trysail that he’d have to hoist.

  Ramage gave his orders to Southwick and then looked aft, waiting several minutes until two large waves were followed by a smaller one. The instant the second wave had passed he yelled, ‘Down with the helm!’

  The bow began to swing so slowly it seemed impossible the cutter would turn before another huge wave built up astern, and although she was swinging faster than Ramage realized – the horizon was just a featureless line of grey and green – he looked round just in time to notice a large sea coming up on the quarter. The Kathleen caught it just abaft the beam and gave such a tremendous roll that for a moment the four men at the helm could only hold on to the tiller to prevent themselves falling over, but the men at the relieving tackles, bracing themselves against the bulwarks, managed to stand firm. Water spurted in waist-high at the gun ports, raced across the deck and sluiced out through the ports on the other side. Then the Kathleen was round, with the wind on the starboard bow.

  Ramage pointed up in the air and he could see Southwick’s mouth working as he hurried the men at the trysail halyards. The sail crawled up the mast, slatting with a noise like musket shots and the tiny gaff swinging crazily. Southwick was keeping an eye on Ramage, who pointed at the spitfire jib sheets. By brute force a dozen men hauled on the tiny sail and as soon as it was backed Ramage shouted at Jackson to put the helm down.

  How was she going to ride? A glance over the starboard bow showed that there were no particularly large seas coming up for a minute or two. It was a juggling act – the wind on the backed jib was trying to push the bow round one way and the trysail abaft the mast was trying to thrust it the other. Although the trysail was larger, the jib was set farther from the mast and exerted more leverage – sufficient for the cutter to need some helm to balance her.

  It took three or four minutes for Ramage to find the right amount of helm, then the Kathleen was lying with the seas rolling in on her starboard bow, lifting to them comfortably although occasionally slicing off crests which drove up over the bulwarks.

  ‘She’s snug enough now,’ Southwick bellowed in his ear. ‘It’ll give the cook a chance to get something hot in the coppers!’

  Ramage nodded, but he knew the sight of Sir John’s flagship would put more warmth in his belly than anything even the most expert and patient of cooks could produce.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The gale lasted three more days. Below deck there was hardly a dry place in the ship: months in the hot sun had dried out and shrunk planking and this, followed by the working of the hull in the heavy seas, provided plenty of places for the water constantly sluicing over the deck to seep below in dozens of regular drips. Hammocks and clothing became damp, then sodden; mildew grew fast, like an odorous green cancer, fed by the humidity. And hour after hour the Kathleen pitched into a head sea, slowly – agonizingly slowly as far as Ramage was concerned – forereaching to the north-east.

  Finally on Friday morning the wind began to veer to the south-east and ease slightly. It could be the gale blowing itself out, but, as Southwick pointed out to Ramage, it could also be the warning that another gale – from the Atlantic this time – was approaching. Both men feared that one of the area’s notorious south-easters would trap the Kathleen in the great gulf between Cape St Vincent and the reefs of Cape Trafalgar. Hundreds of ships over the years had found themselves driven relentlessly into the gulf, unable to beat out against the wind to clear Cape St Vincent on one tack or Cape Trafalgar on the other, and usually ending up wrecked on the low sandbanks between Huelva, at the mouth of the Rio Odiel (from which Colombus sailed in 1492 on his first voyage to Hispaniola) and San Lucar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the Rio Guadalquivir, from where Magellan sailed to circumnavigate the world in 1519. Those forty odd miles between the starting points for two of history’s greatest voyages, Ramage realized, had seen the end of scores of others…

  An hour before noon the cloud began splitting up to reveal patches of blue sky, and with fifteen minutes in hand Southwick appeared on deck with his ancient quadrant. Five minutes before noon a break in the sky allowed him to begin taking sights. Shortly after the bosun’s mate rang eight bells, Ramage looked at him questioningly and Southwick said, ‘Pretty sure of it, sir,’ and went down to his cabin to work it out. A few minutes later, leaving the bosun’s mate at the conn, Ramage joined him and as they crouched in the tiny, hot cabin, the Master pointed to the latitude he had calculated and at two crosses he’d marked on the damp and mildew-blotched chart.

  ‘We’re about here, sir – maybe a bit more to the west,’ he said, a stubby forefinger confidently stabbing the southernmost cross, ‘and there’s the rendezvous.’

  ‘Closer than I’d hoped.’

  ‘Yes, sir, though there’s this current setting south-eastwards, of course.’

  ‘Very well Mr Southwick, we’ll alter course for the rendezvous.’

  Two hours after dawn on Sunday the Kathleen was hove-to near the Victory, a minnow in the lee of a whale, and Ramage was on board, explaining to Captain Robert Calder, who was Captain of the Fleet, that he had urgent news for the admiral.

  Calder demanded to know what it was before taking him to Sir John, but Ramage, with a mixture of stubbornness and pomposity, refused to divulge it, since Calder had no right to ask. Further argument was stopped by a young midshipman arriving to tell Calder the admiral wished to see Mr Ramage in his cabin at once. Ramage hurried aft, hoping to leave Calder striding the flagship’s well-scrubbed deck. Although this was the first time they’d met, he took an instant dislike to him.

  The admiral’s cabin was large and the canvas covering the deck, painted in large black-and-white squares, gave the impression it was a huge chess-board. Waiting with his back to the huge stern lights so his face was in shadow, Sir John stood in a familiar attitude, stooping slightly, his small head to one side and frowning, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes unwavering as he looked up.

  ‘Well, Mr Ramage, the last I heard from Gibraltar was that you’d surrendered your ship and were a prisoner in a Spanish jail.’

  His face was impassive despite the bantering note in his voice, and before Ramage could answer he continued, ‘You’ve met Captain Hallowell? He is on board as my guest. Ben, this is the young man I was telling you about, Ramage, the Earl of Blazey’s son. He has a certain facility for interpreting orders to suit his own purpose – I had almost said “whim”. So far he’s also suited the purpose of his superior officers. I trust,’ he added, turning to Ramage, ‘that happy state of affairs will continue; though I’ve never met a gambler who died a rich man in his old age.’

  Ramage recognized the significance of a warning from the man famous as the Navy’s strictest (and fairest) disciplinarian; and although he tried to fix a smile on his face he knew he looked like an errant small boy facing his tutor.

  ‘I hear you lost the fair Marchesa to the Apollo,’ Sir John added, as if knowing his warning had struck home. ‘Still, Captain Usher was an excellent host. And however cramped the Apollo, it was preferable to a Spanish prison cell…’

  The old devil doesn’t miss much, Ramage thought, and Calder walked into the cabin as he braced himself for the next shaft, but the admiral said conversationally as if to indicate there were no more rebukes to come (for the time being anyway), ‘Well, what brings you
here? Have you any news or dispatches for me?’

  Ramage could not resist imitating the dry, even, unemotional way the admiral habitually spoke.

  ‘News, sir. Admiral Cordoba had orders to sail from Cartagena with the Spanish Fleet by 1st February to make for Cadiz. He has twenty-seven sail of the line, thirty-four frigates and seventy transports.’

  Hallowell jumped up from his chair with an exclamation of delight, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the beams, but Sir John remained impassive.

  ‘You seem very positive, Ramage. How do you know?’

  ‘I read Admiral Cordoba’s orders from the Minister of Marine, sir.’

  Because Ramage forgot Sir John knew nothing of his escape from Cartagena, he was startled by the effect of his bald answer.

  Calder said immediately, without attempting to hide the sneer in his voice. ‘Was it the Minister or the Admiral that showed them to you?’

  Ramage ignored him, taking from his pocket the copy of the orders he had made in the gardener’s hut, and his translation.

  ‘You have a copy?’ Sir John asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes sir – this is the one I made from the original order to Admiral Cordoba, but I’ve also written a translation. I didn’t have time to copy out all the polite phrases at the beginning, and the end,’ he added, handing the translation to Sir John, who opened it unhurriedly and read it through a couple of times before passing it to Calder.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you were doing in Cartagena. When did you leave?’

  ‘On the night of 30th January, sir.’

  ‘Do you think the Fleet was able to sail by the first?’

  ‘Yes sir – it was as ready as any Spanish Fleet would ever be.’ ‘What did you do on leaving Cartagena?’

  ‘I made for Gibraltar and arrived on the third. The Kathleen had been recaptured and was the only ship there and the Commissioner – he was the senior officer present, apart from the Governor – put me back in command of her with orders to look for you. We had a Levanter coming through the Strait and had to run before it, and then heave-to, so I was delayed making up for the rendezvous.’