by Dudley Pope
Pulling on silk clothing after a leisurely wash and shave … he was thankful he had enough money to afford it, though officers who wore silk shirts in the Tropics instead of the linen on which he insisted for himself were silly fellows: a hot evening meant that the silk stuck to the body like a coating of glue.
Finally he tied his stock and Silkin was ready with his frock coat, shoes, sword and hat, and the news that he had passed the word to the First Lieutenant that the Captain would be ready in five minutes. One of the advantages of being the Captain was that you were never kept waiting; by tradition the senior officer was the last in and first out of a boat.
Governor van Someren was in a cheerful mood, anxious to hear from Ramage the details of the capture of the privateers. He had sympathized with Aitken that the First Lieutenant had to stay on board during the operation, listened carefully when Ramage had Wagstaffe explain how he and his men had boarded over the stern of the Nuestra Señora, and been startled when Kenton gave a hilarious description of the cutter disintegrating.
Van Someren called over his wife and daughter and made Kenton repeat the story, and they laughed until Maria discovered men had been killed and wounded. Then she turned to Ramage and asked how they could laugh over such a tragic episode.
The question was completely unexpected and Ramage took a few moments to realize that she had misunderstood both Kenton and the attitude of all the Britons. “We are not laughing at the tragedy. We are laughing because at one moment Mr Kenton is sitting on a thwart—on a seat—in the boat, and the next moment he is sitting in the sea.”
“Yes—but some of his men were smashed to pieces. Why do you laugh at that?”
“We were not laughing at that; we knew them all very well.”
“Then that is far worse,” Maria persisted, tears beginning in her eyes. “You are so ruthless. Dead men cannot fight and cannot be of any more use to you, so you laugh, but they have mothers and wives and sweethearts who will weep for them.”
“We are not laughing at them, ma’am,” Kenton said, obviously very upset at her accusation. “We—well, as the Captain said, we were laughing at me!”
“But all round you in the sea was the blood of the dead and wounded …”
Ramage wanted to end the conversation: this kind of reasoning brought back memories which for years he had struggled to drive away: of friends, of men he liked, and even men he disliked, who had died round him in battle, lingeringly or instantly, bloodily or unmarked, silently or screaming in agony.
“Madam,” he said, making little effort to keep a chill out of his voice, “we laugh to avoid weeping. Today some of our men were killed. We knew them and we grieve, but inwardly. We don’t wail and tear our hair. Tomorrow fifty might be killed, and a hundred the day after. Are we to weep for every one of them? Are we to weep because fifty of us might be killed on the third day? I might be dead tomorrow, Kenton and Baker the day after, and then Aitken. If we thought too much about it we would never sleep, we’d never be able to look at each other without bursting into tears. But we have a war to fight so each of us hopes he is immortal, laughs when he can and mourns in his own way when he must.”
Maria was angry now, the hint of tears gone and the skin of her face tautening to give her a beauty which was absent when her features were in repose. “It is all very well for you to speak thus,” she snapped, “but you are the Captain! These young men risk their lives while you just give them their orders, and stay safely in your own ship.”
Ramage smiled in agreement and gave a slight bow which, he hoped, would end the conversation, but Aitken’s Scots voice said quietly: “I haven’t served with his Lordship long, ma’am, but he’s been wounded twice to my knowledge—look at the scars over his right eye—and has done things that make men like me tremble even to think about. And,” he added, giving the words the broadness that only the Scottish accent allowed, “today he was nearer death than any of us who lived.”
Maria stared at Aitken, obviously disbelieving him. “You defend your Captain—as indeed you should.”
“Aye, madam, because he won’t be bothered to defend himself against what—if you’ll forgive my presumption—is a very ill-informed attack. I’m a simple naval officer not used to Governors’ palaces, so I’m wrong in speaking out like this, but I canna stand here and listen to you talking about the Captain staying behind and giving orders.”
“But he does!” Maria snapped. “Mr Wagstaffe has just told us how he boarded the French schooner over the stern.”
Rennick grunted in protest and Wagstaffe had none of Aitken’s shyness. “Madam,” he said sharply, “the first person to board that schooner was the Captain. He climbed through a gun port at the bow. You probably don’t know what a gun port is but you know the fortresses here. It was as if he climbed the wall and went through one of the embrasures so that he was standing right in front of the muzzle of a gun which was just about to fire.”
“It didn’t though,” she said bitterly. “He’s alive but the other men are dead.”
“The gun did not fire because Mr Ramage had time to kill the gunner the moment before it fired.”
“So four men died today, not three!” she exclaimed.
Before anyone had time to react, Kenton, his cheeks flaming with anger, took a step towards her and said angrily: “Yes, and nearly five—Mr Ramage. Would that have satisfied you, ma’am? The French may be your allies, but they’re our enemies. They killed three of our men today, not Mr Ramage.”
He stopped and Ramage was just about to order his officers to change the subject when Wagstaffe said: “Madam—that schooner has a Spanish name, the Nuestra Señora de Antigua. You are sorry that Mr Ramage shot one of her seamen, but I can tell you that every man on board the Calypso would volunteer—aye, would be proud—to hang every Frenchman that normally serves in her. Hang them, or cut their throats. Some of them—and that includes me—would like to kill them even more slowly. Especially her Captain—I could take a week to kill him.”
Maria stared at Wagstaffe contemptuously. “So you are a—a hired assassin; that’s what you’ve just admitted!”
Wagstaffe turned to Ramage, a questioning look in his eye. “Can I tell her what I saw, sir?”
Ramage hesitated and glanced at van Someren, who was deliberately staying out of the argument, but before he could answer a white-faced and angry Wagstaffe turned back to the girl and described how the Calypso had found the Tranquil. He then told how they had found everyone on board had been murdered, including the women passengers.
“What has that to do with the Nuestra Señora de Antigua and Captain Brune?” she demanded, obviously horrified by the story.
“She was the privateer, he was the Captain,” Wagstaffe said quietly. “Captain Brune had all those people killed, unnecessarily and in cold blood. Now he threatens to burn down Amsterdam, your town. He,” Wagstaffe added with biting sarcasm and giving a slight bow, “has been your country’s ally for nearly ten years.”
Maria half turned to Ramage and collapsed at his feet. In the second before she fainted Ramage saw in her eyes such agony of mind that he found it hard to forgive himself for not having stopped the conversation many minutes earlier. He was the first to kneel beside the girl and half-turn her so she faced upwards. Her father did not move, and when Ramage glanced up to see if he was going to give any instructions he saw that the Governor’s face was rigid and that he had held up a hand to stop his wife going to the girl.
“She has fainted,” he said, “which seems a fitting end to insulting every one of my guests. I can only apologize and say that I do not agree with a word she said and hope you’ll forgive her—she is a young girl who has led a sheltered life.”
His wife nodded in agreement. Apart from an occasional glance down at her daughter—a glance combining irritation, exasperation, disdain and concern in equal proportions, each competing for a leading position but none winning—she seemed to consider that the kneeling Ramage was all the attention the girl
needed, and none of the other officers moved.
She recovered slowly and finally her eyes opened and focused on Ramage and as she recognized him he found he could not fathom her thoughts. Hate, contempt, distaste, horror? One of them, surely, but the blue eyes closed again before he could be sure.
He felt a tap on the shoulder and looked up to find her father standing beside him. “We’ll put her on the settee. It will soon pass.”
By the time she was sitting down and obeying Ramage’s instructions to breathe deeply, the colour was coming back to her face and her hands were exploring her hair, in case some strands had escaped. Aitken had walked the three lieutenants to a large painting on the wall which showed a group of people skating on a frozen lake, and now the four lieutenants, perspiring from both the tropical heat and the situation, examined the ice and the surrounding snow with great concentration.
Van Someren pointed to a door Ramage had not previously noticed. “To the balcony,” he said. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to take Maria outside, for some fresh air.”
Outside it was cool; darkness had fallen but there was still a gentle breeze from the south-east. A few hundred yards away the sea slapped lazily on the beach and over Waterfort the stars of Orion’s Belt waited for the Southern Cross to appear.
As Ramage shut the door she walked over to the elaborate tracery of the balcony rail and standing with her back to it faced Ramage as he came towards her. She was silhouetted against the millions of stars that can only be seen from the Tropics, and as Ramage approached she held out her hands. He walked into her arms and as he held her closely he was pleased that she followed the French fashion: the thin cloth of her dress hid her body from the eye but did nothing to conceal it from the touch.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I did not understand. Your officers—they seem so young …”
“They are,” Ramage said wryly. “Aitken is almost my age.”
“But to me—” she took his right hand. “This afternoon, only a few hours ago, this hand killed a man.”
“If it had not, that man would have blown me in half—here,” he said roughly, pressing her hand against his stomach. “That’s where the muzzle of his gun was.”
She shuddered and traced the shape of his hand with her fingers. “All this killing—it never ends.”
“There’s been very little of it out here,” Ramage said. His voice was low but harsh; he remembered only too well the guillotine he had seen in every town square during one brief foray into France; he knew only too well what “The Terror” had done to anyone disagreeing with the Revolution. “The islands have escaped up to now. You have no idea of the battles being fought in Europe.”
“Jules tells me,” she said.
“Jules?”
“My—last year my father announced my engagement to the First Lieutenant of the Delft frigate. He is due here. My father hoped his men would dispose of the rebels.”
“Why has he been delayed?”
“I don’t know. No explanation has come from the Netherlands.”
Ramage could not see her features clearly in the darkness, but she did not sound like an infatuated young woman grieving over her future husband’s absence, and “my father announced my engagement” was a curious phrase.
She kissed him again and then traced his features with her fingers, as though trying to learn his face by touch. “Lord Ramage,” she murmured. “And you are not yet married? So handsome, so brave—and, if you are a lord, no doubt so rich,” she added in a gently bantering voice which asked questions which Ramage had no intention of answering.
“The Navy leaves me no time to do anything but go to sea.”
“Ah—but you are in port now.”
“And you see what happens!”
They moved apart as they heard the door handle rasping, and then the Governor bustled out, followed by the lieutenants. “How are you now, my dear?” he asked the girl, and when she assured him she was recovered he said: “I think your mother would like to see you: some trouble with the kitchen staff I think.”
As soon as she left he said to Ramage: “Perhaps we should discuss plans before dinner; then we can enjoy our food without distraction.”
When Ramage agreed the Governor said: “Should we talk here? We run no risk of servants hearing too much, and I imagine you want your officers present.”
For the next fifteen minutes van Someren told them all he knew of the rebels’ activities, how far they had advanced, and how long—unless something was done quickly—before the rebels reached Amsterdam. At the end of the recital he asked Ramage: “So what do you propose doing?”
“Thinking about it at dinner, Your Excellency.”
“But you must have some idea, surely?”
Ramage shrugged his shoulders, and then realized that van Someren could not see him in the darkness. “There are many things we could try to do. But the fact is I have about one hundred and fifty seamen and forty Marines to deal with perhaps five hundred men who know the island well.”
“This I know, but surely …”
“I’m sorry, Your Excellency.”
“But—well, I must insist. I am the Governor of the island and I have surrendered it to you. I insist that you defend Amsterdam, and I insist on knowing—knowing now—how you propose to do it.”
Ramage did not feel particularly angry; in fact he more than understood the Governor’s concern. But like his daughter earlier, van Someren was talking without considering the facts.
“I think, Your Excellency, we ought to go down to dinner.”
“Captain Ramage,” van Someren said sharply, “I insist on knowing.” Clearly he was not going to move from the balcony, and the mosquitoes were beginning to trouble Ramage.
“Your Excellency,” Ramage said quietly, “yesterday you surrendered this island to me. We signed all the necessary documents. Since then I have continued to address you as “Your Excellency;” you have been treated as though you were the Governor …”
Would he need to say more? Van Someren was quick to answer: “But I am the Governor!”
“Forgive me,” Ramage said almost dreamily, “how can you, a Dutch subject, a citizen of the Batavian Republic, be the Governor of an island which, since yesterday afternoon, belonged to Britain?”
Van Someren was silent for several seconds and Ramage heard two or three of the lieutenants shuffle their feet as they realized the significance of what their Captain had said but were far from sure what van Someren was going to do.
“Again, I must apologize,” the Dutchman said. “You are of course quite correct. You are, I suppose, the new governor—and naval and military commander.”
“More important for the moment,” Ramage said dryly, “I am your guest for dinner, and I’m sure we all have a good appetite.”
C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N
LIEUTENANT Rennick looked at the map yet again. To the trained eye of a Marine officer, the island of Curaçao looked like a femur, or whatever the big thigh bone was called, long and narrow, thinner in the middle. More important than the shape, though, the Governor had sent out a mounted night patrol, at Captain Ramage’s request, to find out exactly where the rebels were.
The Governor had been sure they’d be split into three groups, one advancing on Amsterdam by the south coast, another along the road running the length of the island like a spine, and a third skirting the north coast—the island was less than seven miles wide where Amsterdam was built. In fact, though, the patrol had reported back just before the Calypso’s officers left Government House at two o’clock in the morning that the rebels were in no sort of formation; they were camped together for the night (and according to local people had spent the previous one there, too) at a place between Willebrordus, on the south coast near Bullen Bay, and the village of Daniel, on the centre road.
This put them ten miles from Amsterdam, which with trained troops would have been dangerously close, but because the rebels were a collection of undisciplined pri
vateersmen, wastrels and troublemakers, the Captain had suggested that for the rest of the night a dozen Dutch soldiers with a couple of horses for messengers should be stationed as sentries five miles from Amsterdam along the south coast, another dozen along the centre road level with them, and a third group on the north coast. That ruled out any surprise attack on the port for the rest of the night; a sentry on a horse galloping across this flat country would take very little time to reach Otrabanda.
All this, Rennick reflected, was not the way the Marines had been taught to conduct their business during their brief training at Chatham, but Mr Ramage obviously had some ideas of his own. But Rennick knew that his own father, now a lieutenant-colonel in the 1st Dragoons, would be startled to hear some of Mr Ramage’s views. Rennick grinned to himself: his father’s ideas about warfare had not changed from the principles drummed into him by his own father, who had also served in the 1st. In fact there had been three generations of Rennicks in the 1st (dating from the day it was first formed in 1683) and his father had expected him to be the fourth. Old Colonel Rennick was appalled (almost apoplectic, in fact) when his son had announced he wanted to go to sea; indeed, he had slammed down his brandy glass so hard that it broke, whereupon his wife had hysterics because it was one of a dozen inherited from her grandfather.
In his ignorance the would-be sailor did not know that eighteen years of age was much too late to begin a naval career, but a chance meeting with another youngblood who had made the same mistake put him on to the Marines. His father, finally accepting that his son was lost to the 1st Dragoons (thus saving himself several hundred pounds for a subaltern’s commission, with hundreds more for later promotions, since advancement depended on guineas, not glory), mentioned casually that George Villiers, the Member of Parliament for Warwick (the county in which the Rennicks were considerable landowners) was a friend of his.