by Dudley Pope
“Beat to quarters, Mr Wagstaffe.”
Already the deck was clearing of men: they had heard the lookouts’ hail and were snatching up their pieces of cloth and rousing their sleeping mates and making their way to their quarters for action. The gunner was running up from below to ask for the key to the magazine and Bowen, the Surgeon, who had apparently been dozing on the fo’c’s’le, was hurrying below to set out his instruments.
Ramage looked out over the larboard bow, balancing himself on the breech of the aftermost twelve-pounder gun. It took a few moments to spot the fleck again. Flecks, rather, because there were definitely two ships, though they’d seemed closer together when first he saw them.
And whatever they were, it was important to keep up to windward.
“Mr Wagstaffe, steer hard on the wind; man the lee braces and tend the weather ones … get those fore-tacks close down … Let’s have those yards braced sharp up!”
Ramage stopped himself: there were plenty more instructions for getting the Calypso steering as fast and as close to the wind as possible, to cut off the distant ships’ escape if they were enemy, but Wagstaffe knew them all, and any moment Aitken would be on deck.
Ah, there was the Marine drummer striding up and down, whirling his drumsticks with a flourish that sent men to quarters, and already several had anticipated the order and were rigging head pumps and running up on deck with buckets of sand while others were casting loose the guns.
“Mr Wagstaffe, make to the Créole ‘Sail in sight’ and give the bearing.”
Southwick gestured astern, and Ramage saw La Créole was already hauling her wind to get into the Calypso’s wake, and at that moment three hoists of signal flags broke out.
“Never trust young lieutenants with the signal book,” Southwick muttered, “and Lacey must have seen Orsini going aloft!”
Wagstaffe had his telescope to his eye and began reading off the signals. “350—I have discovered a strange fleet … 366—The strange ships lye-by, and 315—The ship is ready for action.”
“Acknowledge,” Ramage said, and winked at Southwick. “He trumped our ace, don’t you think?”
Southwick grinned ruefully. “It’s the way you’ve trained him, sir. He’s picked up some of your habits. A rod for your own back!”
By now the lookout at the mainmasthead was hailing again, passing on Orsini’s reports. “Deck there … two ships, sir, both lying-to. One—the nearest, Mr Orsini says—is a merchant ship. The other is smaller … fore- and aft-rigged … much less free-board, big sweep to her sheer …”
Wagstaffe acknowledged, but a few moments later the lookout was hailing again. “Deck there … the smaller ship’s a schooner and she’s getting under way. The merchant ship’s backing and filling as though there’s no one at the helm, so Mr Orsini says, sir.”
From the moment the lookout had shouted down “… both lying-to …” Ramage had known what was going to follow, and he turned to Aitken, who had just hurried up, buckling on his sword, and told him: “Fine on the larboard bow, a privateer schooner has caught a merchant ship. She sighted us just as we saw her, and now she’s getting under way.”
The masthead lookout hailed again: “Deck there! Schooner’s steering a couple of points to starboard of our course, sir, but the merchant ship’s swung so everything’s aback.”
Ramage saw Baker and Kenton hurry up to the quarterdeck and report to Aitken, who came up and said formally: “The ship’s company at quarters, sir: do you want the guns loaded and run out?”
“Not for the time being.”
And here was Jackson with his sword and a pistol. Ramage turned while Jackson clipped on the slings of the scabbard, and then took the pistol and clipped it into his waistbelt.
Now Southwick was reporting the wind freshening, and yet another glance showed La Créole was in the same position in the frigate’s wake, heeling more now. There was no chance, Ramage realized bitterly, of her overhauling that privateer schooner out ahead of them. It would be dark in six hours, and the old saying that “a stern chase is a long chase” was very true. And he was not going to risk splitting his tiny force at this stage.
Yet such was the contradictory nature of men, if he had told them that they would soon be going into action, with the inevitable corollary that some of them would be killed and others would be badly wounded and maimed for life, so that Bowen would have to saw off limbs with the patients biting a piece of wood and befuddled with rum to help them bear the pain, they would have cheered him. Instead he would soon be telling them that unless something entirely unforeseen happened, there would be no action today, and they would groan with genuine disappointment.
“Deck there! The schooner has tacked up to the nor’-east, sir.”
And in half an hour, Ramage thought bitterly, she’ll tack again, gradually working herself well up to windward, knowing no square-rigged ship like a frigate could get near her and sure that no schooner so far to leeward would ever catch her up. By nightfall she’ll be out of sight, and the Calypso’s log will note that she was “last seen in the south-east quadrant.”
By now, as the Calypso worked her way to windward, occasional spray flying over the fo’c’s’le like a heavy shower of rain, the merchant ship’s hull was beginning to lift over the curvature of the earth, the line of her deck just now visible in the telescope but the rest of her hull still below the horizon. Ramage saw that she was heading eastward, all her sails aback; and even as he watched she began to pay off and swing round, the wind pressing on backed jibs.
Had the schooner taken everyone on board prisoner? Was the ship abandoned? Curious that no one was attempting to trim her sails or furl them. Now she was making a stern board, one which risked wrenching off her rudder if the men at the wheel did not stop it spinning. There was, of course, another explanation, and he tried to avoid thinking about it; he would soon know.
“Mr Aitken, we’ll need one boat, possibly two, so have them ready for hoisting out. Six Marines for each boat and a dozen extra seamen. And tell Mr Bowen to be ready with a bag of instruments, because he’ll be going over.”
The First Lieutenant stared at him, and then realized the significance of the reference to Bowen, because it was unlikely the merchant ship had been in action against the privateer. As he gave the orders he watched the distant merchant ship slowly turning, like a swan’s feather on a pond, turning and drifting in the breeze.
Now Rennick was giving orders to his Marines while men ran to prepare the boats for hoisting out, and Jackson said to Ramage: “Shall I get your boat-cloak, sir?”
He had a light cloak, intended only for use in the Tropics, to keep the spray off his uniform, and there was enough of a sea to ensure a wet row to the merchant ship. He shook his head. “I shan’t be going over.”
The American coxswain’s face fell. A visit to a merchant ship just out from England usually meant the gift of newspapers and often some tasty snacks like cheeses. Ramage said: “You had better take Mr Baker.”
Aitken, overhearing the conversation, turned expectantly, but Ramage said: “Send Kenton with one boat and Baker with the other and Rennick had better divide his Marines. And make sure the surgeon’s mate goes with Bowen.”
“You think it will be as bad as that, sir?”
Ramage watched the merchant ship’s sails fill for a few moments as she turned slowly in the wind. “Yes, it’ll be as bad as that.”
It was, in fact, far worse. As the Calypso approached Ramage saw that the merchant ship was low in the water and obviously settling, and Ramage wasted no time in bringing the frigate up to windward, backing the foretopsail and hoisting out the two boats, giving Baker orders that he was to board first and give any necessary orders to Kenton in the second boat.
Ramage had watched through the telescope as Baker boarded with Jackson, swarming up a rope ladder hanging over the merchant ship’s quarter. He had paused on the poop, then walked forward, finally going below. He had emerged briefly to signal Kenton to com
e on board, and Bowen had gone up the ladder as well as Rennick and his sergeant. Then, as far as Ramage could see, they had systematically searched the ship’s accommodation, although it was clear that the hatches were still battened down, the covers, battens and wedges still in place, showing that no one had been down into the cargo holds.
Half an hour later, with the ship settling so deeply that she was becoming unstable, liable to capsize unexpectedly, Ramage had fired a gun to signal the boats to return, and when they were back on board Baker, Kenton, Rennick and Bowen had come to the quarterdeck to report, all of them white-faced and obviously distressed at what they had seen.
“You saw the name on the stern, sir, the Tranquil of London, but there are no ship’s papers on board. The captain’s cabin has been looted, his desk smashed up, every drawer emptied out,” Baker said.
He held up a bundle of papers. “We shall be able to identify most of the bodies of the passengers from these letters, sir, and some of the crew too, I expect. There were some packages addressed to people in Jamaica. They’re in the boat and I’ll have them brought up.”
Ramage knew he was trying to avoid asking the question just as Baker was avoiding referring to it, but finally he said: “How many?”
“Fifteen in the ship’s company, sir, and nine passengers, five of them women.”
“All dead?”
“Three were still alive when I found them. One died before Bowen could get on board, and the others—both women—died before he could do anything. The women were raped and then shot or butchered. But the strange thing is none of them seem to have tried to run away.”
“Could they have been standing there, expecting to be taken over to the schooner as prisoners, but suddenly murdered by their guards?” Ramage asked.
Baker nodded miserably. “I think that’s what must have happened. When the privateer sighted us, sir?”
“Yes. The boarding party were probably about to secure the prisoners—or perhaps choosing those likely to be worth ransoming—and preparing to put a prize crew on board and get under way just as we came in sight.”
If I’d waited another hour before tacking, Ramage told himself, the privateer would never have seen us. Working beyond the rim of the horizon, she would have sent her prize off, and those people would still be alive, even though prisoners. As it was, there had been a senseless massacre. The ship was sinking anyway, scuttled with her boats still secured, so why kill everyone? Why not let them take their chance in the boats? It would have cost the privateer nothing. “The quality of mercy …”
“Why was she sinking?”
“She carried two 6-pounders,” Baker said. “Little more than boat guns, but the privateersman trained one down the companion-way and fired a shot through the bottom.”
“And there’s no indication of the name of the privateer?”
“No, sir, but she was French,” Baker said, motioning to Kenton, who opened the drawstring of a canvas bag and pulled out a handful of blue, white and red cloth. “They had this flag ready to bend on her, but they left it behind in the rush.”
For a moment Ramage pictured the scene: women screaming as pistols and muskets fired, men begging for mercy as cutlasses slashed at them, and somewhere there, watching, the man who had ordered it all: the privateer captain who was not content with leaving all these people to take their chance in a sinking ship. No, he wanted the satisfaction of murdering them, 24 murders which did not put another penny in his pocket nor make his life any safer, because none of the victims could possibly have known his name.
Kenton held the hoist of the flag so the cloth unrolled like a sheet. He looked up at Ramage. “It was a terrible sight, sir. Not like battle, where you expect to see bodies and men badly wounded. It was like a slaughterhouse.”
Ramage took the bundle of papers from Baker, and knew that for the next few hours he would have to read through many private letters, so that he could identify as many victims as possible. It was nothing compared with what the young lieutenants had just gone through. As Kenton had said, it wasn’t like battle. Yet war wasn’t made up only of battles which was why he had sent these youngsters over to the merchant ship. Southwick, Aitken, Wagstaffe … they might not have seen this sort of thing before although they expected it, but for Baker and Kenton and probably Rennick, it was a side of war of which they had not yet even dreamed. And Ramage knew that in future they would understand if the captain of the ship in which they were serving refused to show any mercy towards a privateer or privateersmen.
“Look,” Southwick suddenly called, “there she goes.”
Air trapped in the merchant ship’s hull was bursting the hatches, hurling up the planks in showers of spray as canvas covers, battens and wedges tore free. Sacks and crates floated away as the ship began to heel, yards slewing and dropping as the lifts broke. She heeled towards the Calypso and for a minute they were all looking down on her, a gull’s eye view, and then she capsized, fat-bilged and ungainly. The bottom was greenish-brown from the copper sheathing, but here and there small, rectangular black patches showed where sheets of the copper had ripped off. There was a swirling in the water, as though a great whale was submerging, and then she was gone, a few air bubbles making the floating wreckage, planks and sacks, bob and twist.
Ramage looked towards the eastern horizon. The privateer was now a mere speck several miles to windward, an anonymous killer sneaking into the haze. Astern La Créole was lying hove-to and like the Calypso her gun ports were open. Chasing the privateer was a waste of time; she would vanish in the night long before the Calypso or La Créole could ever get close.
Aitken looked questioningly at Ramage, who nodded, and a few moments later the men were bracing round the fore-topsail yard while others unscrewed the locks from the guns and coiled up the trigger lines. Cartridges were returned to the magazine, cutlasses and pistols put back in chests. The sand had been washed from the decks and the hot sun had dried the wood in two or three minutes. Ten minutes later the Calypso’s off-watch men were back doing whatever they had been doing when the privateer and her victim had been sighted.
Ramage took one last look round the horizon and went down to his cabin with the handful of papers. It was cool and dark, and he was thankful to be out of the glare of the sun. Watching the funeral of a ship and 24 innocent people left him feeling shaky. Should he have read a funeral service as the Tranquil sank? He had not thought of it, because he preferred to mourn in his own way, in a quiet and dark place. He hated the pomp and ritual of church funerals, but he knew the ship’s company were great sticklers for ritual. Not for ritual, perhaps, but for “doing the right thing.” They had a healthy attitude towards the death of one of their shipmates, and their wish to give him what they called a “proper funeral” was perhaps more because they wanted to please him; to give him the kind of funeral they thought he would like—which in turn, Ramage supposed, meant the kind of funeral each man wanted for himself: a time when everyone, from the youngest boy on board to the captain, paid their respects.
The people represented by the handful of papers now on his desk had not been given a farewell wave. Yet he was sure that no one else had thought of it: Southwick would have been the first to whisper a hint; Jackson had heard Baker’s report, and he had said nothing, and the American was not one for keeping his thoughts to himself if the Captain’s reputation was at stake. No, those who knew what that sinking ship contained had been too shocked to think of anything, and the Tranquil had gone down on her own with a quiet dignity and taken her people with her.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
RAMAGE took up his pen and inspected the point. The quill was blunt but he could not be bothered to sharpen it. It was a miserable feather, taken from a moulting goose no doubt. At least it was from the left wing, for a right-handed writer. After unscrewing the cap of the inkwell he took his Journal from a drawer and made a brief entry recording the encounter with the Tranquil. Then he took out a blank sheet of paper and began the draft of a
report to the Admiral. Be brief, he told himself; old Foxey-Foote will examine every word, looking for trouble (an admiral’s privilege, of course), and the fewer the sentences the fewer the loopholes. The obvious criticism from such an inexperienced admiral was going to be that he did not pursue the privateer, and the equally obvious answer was that in twelve hours of darkness the privateer could be anywhere, and Ramage knew he would be wise to point out that he was acting under the Admiral’s orders to proceed to Curaçao. He read the draft through again. Less than a full page—that would please the clerk when he came to make the fair copy and also copy it into the letter book.
He took a piece of cloth from the top drawer and carefully wiped the pen dry of ink, then screwed the cap back on the inkwell and put it away. Then he knew he was deliberately putting off looking at those letters.
The first was from the Tranquil’s master to his owners, intended to be posted in Jamaica, because the Post Office packet would arrive in England weeks before the convoy with his ship. He was reporting that the weather had been fair for the whole voyage so that instead of anchoring at Barbados with the rest of the convoy he had sailed on alone. He had stopped at Nevis only to buy fresh vegetables for the passengers and then left for Jamaica. He explained that with so many ships calling at Barbados, the price of fruit and vegetables there was often three or four times that in Nevis. A piece of economy, Ramage realized, which had taken the ship out of the convoy and put her some fifty miles farther north than she would have been if she had remained in the convoy when it sailed from Barbados. The reason the ship had gone to Nevis and then come in sight of the privateer had been the high price of fruit and vegetables in Barbados; the reason the Calypso had tacked an hour early—and thus panicked the privateer—had been Captain Ramage’s trick on La Créole …
The wife of a major in the 79th Foot was visiting her parents, who obviously owned a plantation in Jamaica. She had written a letter to her husband in the form of a diary, the last entry being the day before. Ramage pencilled in the two names on another sheet of paper, beneath the name of the master and the name and address of the owners of the ship.