by Dudley Pope
It was Southwick’s duty to mention such things; as Master of the Calypso, the navigation of the ship was his responsibility. But Ramage was angry with himself for reasons beyond his comprehension: certainly he had not been sure what he expected to find here in Amsterdam; he knew now only that those ten privateers, possibly all laid up, made nonsense of his orders. None of these privateers was going to put to sea with two British warships in the offing. And no British warship would get within a thousand yards of the harbour entrance by day or night without being smashed to kindling by the guns of those forts. No bluff or subterfuge could stop them firing.
However, Ramage thought ruefully, it is not a situation that William Foxe-Foote, Vice-Admiral of the Blue and one of the Members of Parliament for Bristol, as well as being “Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Ships and Vessels upon the Jamaica Station,” could visualize, understand or accept. Particularly understand, and especially accept …
Ramage gestured to Southwick to sit down in the armchair that was secured against the ship rolling by a light chain from the underside of the seat to an eyebolt in the deck planking. The Master put his hat down beside him and ran his fingers through his hair, which was now matted with perspiration, and the mark of the hatband across the top of his forehead gave him a curiously puzzled appearance.
“Southwick, have you any idea what these privateers are doing?” Ramage asked.
Southwick shrugged his shoulders and gave one of his prodigious sniffs. “With respect to Admiral Foxe-Foote, sir, all those privateers look just as if the owners have gone bankrupt. They look just like those old fishing smacks you see abandoned on the saltings along the bank of the Medway. Paint peeling, slack rigging, and one windy night the masts will go over the side. Not that I could see the rigging, of course; just the impression I had.”
Ramage nodded. “I don’t think many of them have been to sea for a month or more.”
“No, sir, at least that. And no one on board any of ‘em. I saw maybe two or three men. Shipkeepers? Three men for ten privateers is not many. No, there’s something damned odd about it all. Could there be more privateers at Bonaire, or perhaps Aruba?”
“Why?” Ramage asked. “Why would privateers be at islands where there is no decent harbour? At Bonaire they have to anchor on a sloping shelf. Why be there when Amsterdam is such a perfect harbour? Sheltered from the weather, defended by the forts, provisions and water available …”
“That’s why I’m so puzzled,” Southwick admitted. “I expected to see half a dozen privateers, perhaps even a dozen, but all ready to go to sea. Perhaps one repairing damage and perhaps another replacing her standing and running rigging—but not ten like that. It’s—well, almost ghostly, sir; as though yellow fever had killed every man on board as they were at anchor.”
For a moment Ramage thought of Amsterdam being in the grip of an epidemic of something like yellow fever, but plenty of people had been walking on the walls of the forts and in the few streets of Punda and Otrabanda when the Calypso passed. Southwick fluffed out his flowing white hair as it began to dry, making it look like a deck mop. “Your orders from the Admiral, sir. There’s not much you can do about them.”
“There are ten privateers in Amsterdam,” Ramage reminded him.
Southwick sat bolt upright. “But you’re not going to try to go in after them, are you, sir?”
Ramage grinned and waved to Southwick to relax in his chair. “Nor am I going to send in the boats at night: they probably have a chain boom across the entrance that they haul up at sunset. But it’s going to be difficult to convince the Admiral …”
“Those privateersmen can’t afford to eat, lying there at anchor,” Southwick pointed out. “They’re all on a share-of-the-prize basis. With no pay, time in port is money lost. The shopkeepers will start wanting cash …”
“I’ve considered all that,” Ramage said mildly, “but would you sail in one of those privateers with a British frigate and a schooner waiting outside?”
“I might try on a dark night, sir.”
“Come, come,” Ramage chided, “it’s never completely dark in the Tropics.”
“Hungry men get desperate!”
“The crew might, but don’t forget that every privateer has an owner; and he’s not going to lose his ship just because the men are hungry.”
“True, but I still don’t understand it,” Southwick muttered. “Why are these beggars laid up here when we know others—Spanish, anyway—are at sea? Think of all the prizes they’re missing.”
“That’s just what I have been thinking about,” Ramage said, “and the only sensible explanation is that all the privateersmen are on shore doing something as profitable as being at sea, privateering. It obviously isn’t selling fresh fruit in the market.”
Southwick slapped his knee, his face wrinkling into a broad grin. “I hadn’t thought of that, sir. I wonder what the devil they are doing?”
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “That’s where I’ve come to a stop. You can be sure they aren’t at a religious festival, nor are they sitting on the walls of the fort with fishing lines.”
“We can blockade the island for a week or two,” Southwick said. “Catch a few prizes ourselves. Question prisoners …”
“That’s what I’ve decided. We have to provoke them into doing something. By ‘them’ I mean the Dutch rather than the French. Capturing a Dutch merchantman as she arrives off Amsterdam could do the job, and stopping all trade between Curaçao and the Main might force the Governor to make the privateers sail to drive us off. As a squadron they might stand a chance in the dark, if the Governor puts on board as many soldiers as he can spare.”
Southwick was brightening: Ramage saw that the prospect of action was cheering him up, having the same effect as an alcoholic sighting a bottle of spirits. Yet sitting there he still looked like a rural bishop, except for his eyes, which took on the glint of the owner of a knacker’s yard. He reached for his hat. “I’ll be—” he broke off as, high above them, a masthead lookout hailed the deck, his voice too faint to penetrate the cabin. They heard Aitken answer, and both Ramage and Southwick made for the door. On deck Aitken, looking puzzled, walked quickly towards Ramage as he reached the top of the companion-way.
“The lookout reports a lot of smoke several miles inland and we think we can hear occasional musket shots, sir. Very faint, and it might be duckhunters or something. But we can’t see the smoke from down here—yet, anyway.”
“New smoke, or something that’s been burning for some time?”
Aitken looked crestfallen. “I forgot to ask, sir.”
He stepped back a few paces and put the speaking-trumpet to his mouth, bellowing: “Aloft, there!”
“Mainmast lookout, sir.”
“That smoke—is it a new fire just started or have you only just seen it?”
“‘Snew, sir: increasing now, like houses catching fire. White and black smoke.”
Ramage looked across at the land. The arid flatness of the eastern end of the island was beginning to merge into rolling hills getting higher and higher as they approached the big peak of Sint Christoffelberg, ever-increasing waves suddenly turned to stone as they lapped the base of a pinnacle.
He saw a fleck of smoke a moment before Southwick and Aitken pointed and exclaimed. Smoke was common enough among the Caribbean islands: most of them spent more than half the year tinder-dry; the sun’s rays concentrated by a broken bottle, a hunter’s carelessness with a campfire, the sparks from a charcoal burner’s crude furnace—all could, and frequently did, set a hillside ablaze in a fire that only died when the wind dropped at night, or mercifully backed or veered a few points to drive the flames back on themselves. But smoke and the sound of musket shots: that was a very different matter, and he was certain he could hear some distant popping, and Aitken now had the speaking-trumpet to his ear, using it intently so that the young First Lieutenant looked like a deaf seafarer straining to hear a mermaid singing a siren song from beneath
a palm tree on the beach.
The brisk Trade wind was dispersing the smoke; instead of billowing clouds it was more of a haze by the time Ramage could see it from his low vantage-point on the quarterdeck and Southwick lumbered over to crouch over the azimuth compass to take bearings. The entrance to Amsterdam, still in sight astern, the peak of Sint Christoffelberg, the next headland to the west, and the smoke. By plotting the first three he would be able to establish the ship’s exact position; then drawing in the bearing of the smoke, he would be able to tell Ramage approximately where the fire was burning.
He hurried below with the slate on which he had noted the bearings and was back again within four or five minutes to tell Ramage: “The smoke is coming from somewhere about half-way between the villages of Soto and a place called Sint Willebrordus. About eleven miles west of Amsterdam. Can it be cane fields burning?”
“There’s no sugar cane on this island. And cane doesn’t burn with a popping like muskets. It can only be houses.”
“Deck there! Foremasthead lookout!”
Startled, Ramage, Aitken and Southwick looked forward. The voice, almost disembodied, sounded excited, and Aitken answered: “Deck here.”
“Sail on the larboard bow, sir, and I think I can see land beyond it. Might be a cloud but the bearing stays the same.”
“What type of ship?”
“Can’t tell, sir; she’s still hull down below the horizon, but I think she’s steering towards us.”
Aitken looked round for Jackson, handed him the telescope and pointed aloft. Without a word the American made for the shrouds and began climbing the foremast.
Ramage said: “It can’t be land, but he may have seen a cloud hanging over Aruba.”
“What ship is it?” Southwick muttered to himself. “Probably a cutter from Jamaica with fresh orders from the Admiral. Convoy work, more than likely …”
“Beat to quarters,” Ramage told Aitken.
Jackson hailed the deck the moment the drummer stopped beating the ruffles.
“Her hull is only just lifting above the horizon but from the cut of her sails she’s a merchant ship. Could be American, sir.”
“Make a signal to Lacey,” Ramage said. “His lookouts are asleep.”
By the time the signal flags had been hoisted, acknowledged by La Créole and lowered again, Jackson was reporting from the foremasthead that the ship had just tacked, and was obviously bound for Curaçao. Aitken had just reported that the Calypso was at quarters when Jackson hailed once more to report that the strange sail was a merchant ship and almost certainly American.
American, and therefore wary of one of the King’s ships, because a meeting at sea usually resulted in being boarded and having a Royal Navy officer checking through the ship’s company for British subjects, who would be pressed immediately. Ramage pictured the American master groaning at the prospect of losing at least a couple of good seamen from a total of perhaps a dozen. On the other hand, masters of neutral ships were often good sources of information: they visited enemy ports, saw ships of war, and, because they were not taken as prizes, could talk about it afterwards. And the best way of making a master talk was to catch him in the moments of relief after he discovered that none of his men was going to be pressed …
The Calypso and the merchant ship were approaching each other fast; within minutes Ramage could see the American’s hull above the horizon. “Have the guns run out,” he said to Aitken, “we want to look fierce. Then come below. I have more orders for you.”
Down in his cabin he explained his intentions. “The master of that Jonathan is going to curse as soon as he sees the British flag—he’ll have identified us as a French-built frigate, and to him there’d be nothing out of the ordinary in a French frigate heading west after apparently sailing from Amsterdam. Then suddenly he’ll realize his mistake.
“So you’ll board him and examine his papers. He could have sailed from a port on the Main, Aruba or direct from somewhere in North America. If he has just left an enemy port, I want to know what ships he saw there and what ships he’s seen at sea, especially privateers. Dates, positions, courses being steered …”
Aitken looked worried. “These Jonathans usually don’t care to help us much, sir,” he said cautiously.
“No,” Ramage agreed, “because they’ve usually just had some of their prize seamen claimed as British and sent down into the boat. But you will make it clear that, providing he co-operates, you will not even ask to see the muster book …”
“And he’ll be so relieved …”
“Exactly,” Ramage said, “but of course, if he is truculent, you know what to do.”
Aitken nodded. “I hope I find a few Scotsmen; we’re outnumbered in the Calypso, sir.”
“I want quality, not quantity, Mr Aitken,” Ramage said ambiguously, laughing dryly.
“Aye, sir. I’ve heard say that the Admiralty tell commanders-in-chief that when they ask for more frigates.”
“I’m sure they do,” Ramage said, “that’s why we make sure of having enough by going out and capturing our own.”
The young Scot gave one of his rare laughs. “I’ve never thought of it like that, sir; I wonder how often a frigate and a schooner go out on patrol together manned by the people that captured them?”
“In a year or two we’ll have our own fleet. We’ll charter it to their Lordships on a share-of-the-prizes basis!”
An hour later Ramage and Southwick waited at the quarterdeck rail. The Calypso was hove-to half a mile to windward of the American ship, which was lying with her sails furled, broadside on to the swell waves and rolling violently. Clearly her master did not trust her spars, rigging and sails enough to risk heaving-to. Shipowners often insisted that once in the Tropics their master used old sails as an economy. It was not an economy, of course, because tropical squalls were more sudden and vicious than people living in temperate climates realized; but most shipowners were men who cheerfully spent a guinea to save four pennies and congratulated themselves on the bargain.
The Caroline of Charleston, South Carolina. The moment he had seen the port of registry he had ordered Jackson to join the boarding party, warning Aitken to tell the American seaman what they were trying to discover, and explaining to the puzzled First Lieutenant that Jackson had been born in Charleston.
The Caroline from South Carolina: it sounded like the beginning of some lullaby. If she was bound for Amsterdam (there could be little doubt about that) could he use her in some way, a Trojan horse that would get him among those damned privateers?
He could seize the ship and, putting his own men on board, send her into Amsterdam under her American flag. With his officers dressed in old clothes, they could pass themselves off as Americans and deal with all the paperwork with the Dutch authorities. They would, of course, anchor near the privateers. And soon after dark they would board them, set them all on fire, and then sail the Caroline of South Carolina out again, trusting that the Dutch would not fire on her, assuming she was getting clear of the flaming ships and never suspecting or guessing she was the cause.
Ramage shook his head. These were crazy thoughts: the diplomatic rumpus would be enormous; any British officer who used an American ship in this fashion would be court-martialled by the Admiralty and probably jailed; relations between Britain and North America were bad enough already; an incident like that could set off a war. Apart from all that, he thought ruefully, it was an excellent plan.
“Aitken and Jackson are getting ready to go down the ladder, sir,” Southwick reported. “Ah, that fellow with the wide-brimmed straw hat, he’ll be the master. He’s shaking hands with Aitken. And with Jackson, too.”
Ten minutes later the boat was alongside the Calypso, and the Caroline, letting fall her sails, was getting under way again to continue her tedious series of tacks to get up to Amsterdam. It was unusual to see a square-rigged ship of her size sailing under the American flag: most of the trade in the West Indies was done with schooners. She was
at least painted in the traditional dark green, the colour favoured by slave ships because it matched the mangroves which lined the banks of the rivers in the Gulf of Guinea where the slavers hid.
Aitken hurried over to Ramage, obviously excited, and Jackson, the next man up the side, was grinning broadly. Ramage saw the First Lieutenant glancing astern, towards Aruba, and then he was reporting, making an effort to speak clearly.
“It worked just as you expected, sir: I suspect half his men are British. He says a French frigate anchored off Aruba was due to leave for Curaçao a few hours after the Caroline weighed. He half expected her to be in sight by now.”
“Has he seen any privateers?”
“No, sir: he commented on it. Normally he sees three or four between the Windward Passage and the Main: they always board him to check his papers. But he did say he has seen more British warships: he wasn’t surprised when he saw us—or so he says. And Jackson was able to have a chat with some of the seamen.”
Ramage looked at the American. “Well, did you meet any old friends?”
Jackson grinned. “Not old friends, sir, but I knew one of the men; he was sweet on my sister—when they were both about five years old.”
“What else did you discover?”
“Quite a bit, sir, but it only confirms what Mr Aitken just said. They—the men in the Caroline—met some of the seamen from the French frigate on shore in Aruba. Said they were an undisciplined crowd; they didn’t pay much attention to their officers. Called each other ‘citizen.’ And they wouldn’t pay the Dutch shopkeepers the prices they asked: they just took what they wanted, paid half what was asked, and drew their swords when a crowd gathered.”
Even as Jackson talked Ramage was thinking of the small book in the drawer of his desk: the French signal book. He looked at Aitken. “You did very well with the Caroline.” He turned to Jackson. “You, too. Now make a signal to La Créole: I want Mr Lacey to come on board at once.”
An hour later, long after the men had run in the guns and secured them, put pikes, cutlasses, muskets and pistols back in the arms chests, and swabbed down the decks, Ramage looked round his cabin at the perspiring but eager faces of his officers. He had finished explaining his plan and said to Lacey: “Have you any questions?” The captain of La Créole had none.