by Dudley Pope
Father and son had then paid a visit to the Honourable George Villiers at his town house in Portman Square, and there the man who was also paymaster of the Marines (as well as being the youngest brother of the Earl of Clarendon) seemed glad to see Colonel Rennick and sympathetic towards his son’s wish to be a sea soldier. Anyway, a week later a messenger had brought Colonel Rennick an official letter from the Honourable George, and a month later Second Lieutenant Rennick, footsore, shoulders bruised from musketry drill, wrist aching from sword drill, heels blistered from marching, brain weary from (admittedly cursory) lessons in tactics, back weary from drill at the great guns, went to bed at night and if he dreamed it was of commanding his own detachment of Marines in a ship of war.
Now, four years later, it had happened: he commanded his own Marine company of one sergeant, two corporals and forty privates; more important, he commanded them in a frigate which was in turn commanded by the Navy’s most brilliant young Captain. Others might disagree—if they did you could probably put it down to jealousy—but Captain Ramage had two rare abilities, and you needed to serve with him and to share in the planning and the operations fully to appreciate them.
The two abilities were in many ways contradictory. Rennick had already discovered that the Captain was contemptuous of gamblers—both the crazy fellows who wagered small fortunes at the London gambling tables and the captains who just shut their eyes and took their ships into action hoping for the best. Yet Rennick had seen on several occasions that no man was a better gambler than the Captain: he would see what ought—or had—to be done, then he would work out the odds, quite cold-bloodedly.
He did not put it into as many words, of course, but in the convoy action off Diamond Rock, for instance, and cutting out the Jocasta at Santa Cruz, the odds were (on paper) so much against him that no sane man would accept them. But Captain Ramage did and, Rennick realized later, it was because the Captain read figures on paper differently from most people. There were times when he calculated that one of his own men was worth, say, two Frenchmen or three Spaniards. At other times he doubled those figures. In the Jocasta business he must have quadrupled them! Yet he knew his men; he never asked for more than they could give (it had taken Rennick a long time to realize that), and he had this ability to lead the men so that they gave it. Rennick still shivered when he thought of how his Marines had captured and blown up the castles at Santa Cruz: it had seemed impossible in prospect, but in retrospect it seemed easy. Which meant, of course, that Mr Ramage had this knack of seeing a problem simultaneously in prospect and, it seemed, in retrospect.
The second ability, of course, was that he took a decision apparently without a moment’s doubt, although he was as likely to refuse a particular operation because the odds were wrong as he was to attempt something else. Nor did he give a damn what anyone thought of him; that was what it all meant in the end. He received his orders, did what he thought was right, and damned the consequences. So far the Admiralty and the various admirals had been forced to congratulate him (Rennick gathered much of this from people like Southwick), but if Captain the Lord Ramage ever put a foot wrong then they’d crucify him. They’d put him on the beach on half-pay and leave the crabs to chew his uniform and boots (and try to forget the despatches they’d been only too pleased at the time to print in the Gazette).
Indeed, Rennick’s own father had written a long letter to this effect quite recently—after the Diamond Rock convoy affair, although before Santa Cruz—warning him that he had reaped enough glory and should at once get transferred to another ship, one commanded by a more conservative captain. The feeling in London, the old Colonel wrote, was that Captain Ramage’s luck had held for several years but was bound to change. To be fair, he also mentioned a story from Mr Villiers that the King had been heard to tell the First Lord that had Captain Ramage not had a title in his own right he should have received a knighthood for Diamond Rock and a baronetcy for Santa Cruz, and that the First Lord’s reactions had been mixed. So, the Colonel had written: “Your Captain stands well with the King, but do not forget that their Lordships are the ones who give the orders and read the reports and pass despatches for publication in the London Gazette.”
For all that, Curaçao looked like a femur, and he could learn nothing more from the map. The Dutch for saint was sint, a bay was a baai, and a point was punda. That much he had learned from the map, but it seemed little more than a chart with roads and villages marked on it. He folded it and left the gunroom to see the Captain.
The Captain’s steward, Silkin, who was blessed with the ability to move without noise or effort, was just clearing away the breakfast table and the Captain seemed in a cheerful mood. This, Rennick knew well enough, was lucky; until at least an hour after breakfast the Captain often seemed to walk around in the shadow of his own black stormcloud.
“Rennick; you have the plans for the Battle of Amsterdam?”
The Marine Lieutenant grinned and put the map on the desk. “My only plan, sir—suggestion, rather—is that we take good care not to fight for this side of the city.”
To Rennick’s surprise, Ramage nodded in agreement. “That was my impression, but I’m no soldier. Risk of them turning our flank?”
Rennick nodded. “We could start off holding the Punda side of the channel, sir—in fact the channel forms a moat in front—but it runs into the lake, Schottegat. We haven’t nearly enough men to form a line from the other side of the lake—the far side from here—to the north coast of the island. The rebels could pour through there and come round to attack the eastern side of Amsterdam, Punda, taking us in the rear.”
“Soldiers always design the defences of ports as though they’ll only ever be attacked from seaward,” Ramage commented sourly. “English Harbour, Cartagena, Havana, San Juan in Puerto Rico, Fort Royal in Martinique …”
“They should leave it to the Marines, sir.”
“Let them lay bricks, instead of dropping them, eh? Well, what do you suggest?”
“The only way we can’t be outflanked or taken in the rear, sir, is to forget the Punda side altogether, simply abandon it, and form a line facing west on the Otrabanda side, with the sea on our left, the channel behind us, and Schottegat, or whatever that lake is called, on our right. If we have to retreat we can get back on board the Calypso.”
“We can leave boats ready for us along the Otrabanda quay, you mean. Even shift the privateers alongside.”
Rennick nodded. “We could evacuate the Governor and his family, and a hundred or so other people.” Even as he spoke he realized that the Captain was shaking his head. Rennick was not surprised: the place was indefensible, a fact which, added to their being heavily outnumbered, meant they were better off staying in the Calypso. Sailors always got into trouble the moment they set foot on land …
“I wasn’t thinking of defending Amsterdam, Mr Rennick.” The Captain was speaking quietly, and Rennick was relieved to hear the news. It confirmed his own view that it was an impossible task with their force—a hundred Dutchmen, forty Marines and at most a hundred and fifty seamen. Then he realized that there had been a faint emphasis on one of the words which completely changed the meaning of the whole sentence.
“As you quite rightly point out, Mr Rennick, we can’t defend Amsterdam, and even if we could—if we had enough men—I’m not sure that would be the right thing to do. I think we should take your Marines and what seamen we can spare, and attack these rebels. Take them by surprise, if possible. And we’ll leave the Dutch troops where they are, here in Amsterdam, unless their officers speak English.”
“But sir, there are five hundred rebels and privateersmen …”
“And a hundred and fifty or so of us.”
“Exactly, sir, so—”
“You’re not suggesting that rebels and privateersmen are better trained than our seamen and Marines?”
“Well, no, sir.” Rennick was wary. All too often the Captain’s questions-and-answers ended up with some conclusion he co
uld not refute, but for the moment he failed to see the trend of the Captain’s argument. “Not better disciplined, anyway.”
“And the odds our men usually reckon against the French?” “Well, sir, three to one …”
“Mr Rennick,” Ramage said in the same quiet voice, “my mathematics are not particularly good, but if we have one hundred and fifty and they have five hundred, surely the odds are close to three to one?”
Rennick seized the only argument left. “They’re not all French, sir.”
Ramage laughed. “No, but don’t press the point. The French are the privateersmen and will be better trained: they are used to using muskets and pistols. Your Dutchmen, the rebels, will have no training and even less discipline: they’ll be the ‘philosophers,’ waving their arms in the air and talking loudly of freedom and equality while the privateersmen fire off a dozen rounds each.”
Suddenly Rennick realized that he had given the wrong impression. From the start, for a reason he could no longer fathom, he had thought in terms of defending Amsterdam, although the Captain had not made a point of it. He, the Marine officer, was the one who should be arguing that the Calypso’s role was to fight out in the open, where they could attack suddenly and retreat, strike again from another direction and vanish, swoop on the enemy when they had bivouacked for the night and then disappear into the darkness. When you had by far the smallest force it was fatal to get trapped in a defensive position.
He glanced up to see the Captain watching him and knew those brown eyes had seen and understood his thoughts. The Captain’s look was friendly. “Always look all round the horizon first, Rennick; it’s very easy to start walking in the wrong direction.”
“I can see that, sir—now!”
“Very well, give me your opinion on these proposals. Don’t be afraid to speak out if you disagree. Now, we’ll use one hundred and fifty seamen and your forty or so Marines. I think it would be a mistake to mix them: the Marines are the trained soldiers; I see them as the sword, while the seamen are the club. But that being so, aren’t forty Marines a little unwieldy?”
Rennick cursed the fact that the Calypso did not have the junior Marine lieutenant to which she was entitled, although his sergeant was a reliable man. “Yes, sir. You remember that at Santa Cruz we put half under the sergeant while I had the other half. That worked out very well.”
“But the seamen,” Ramage said, “a group of twenty seamen aren’t going to be nearly as effective as twenty Marines.”
“Companies of thirty seamen, if you want my opinion. More if you’re using fewer officers.”
“There’ll be five of us and you and the sergeant. Seven companies, or platoons, or whatever you care to call them. So five companies each of thirty men will take care of the seamen.”
The seamen were light-footed and would be excellent for night work, Rennick realized, providing they did not go blundering into farmyards and set the dogs barking. But none of the deck officers, including Ramage, had the slightest idea about flanking operations or—then he remembered that Captain Ramage was the first to see that Amsterdam could be outflanked from the north and was indefensible. And the First Lieutenant, Aitken, came from the Highlands, and there was no telling what tricks he had picked up while hunting (or poaching) deer, when one had to attack silently to windward: deer were too sharp-nosed and sharp-eyed to allow a leeward approach. Wagstaffe came from London, so he wouldn’t know the difference between a left wheel and a pink flamingo (of which the island had hundreds, he had heard). The Third Lieutenant came from Suffolk, so Baker might know a little fieldcraft—it was surprising what one could pick up as a boy while poaching partridges over a neighbour’s fields. Kenton was the son of a half-pay captain, so he could not be trusted to walk across an open field at night without bumping into the only bull it contained. That left Captain Ramage, and at that point Rennick stopped speculating: one could never be sure what the Captain knew—some of his exploits in Italy with his coxswain, that American fellow Jackson, would be unbelievable if it had not been other people telling the tales.
“Seven groups, then,” Ramage said. “They can operate as a single force or be divided up. We’ll spend today sorting out the seamen, and you can give them instructions in the rudiments of fieldcraft.”
Rennick tried to hide his disappointment but failed. “We’re not moving off today, sir?”
“No,” Ramage said crisply, shaking his head. “If we move on the rebels in daylight they’ll be fully prepared. They seem to camp for the night; get settled in early, no doubt, with a bottle of wine each. Maybe a dozen sentries … We want to achieve enough surprise to make up for the odds.”
Rennick knew his Captain well enough to make criticisms now, not later. “Night fighting on land is a very uncertain business, sir.”
“I know,” Ramage said soberly. “Jackson and I once had some experience of it in Italy against cavalry. And it struck me then that the French cavalrymen could see as little as we could and because there were so many they fell over each other. Darkness puts everyone on the same level. Like death, it’s the great leveller!”
“The Marines, sir,” Rennick was quick to point out. “We lose the advantage of their specialized training.”
“Not their discipline, though, and they’re only a quarter of our force. Darkness, Rennick, is like the invention of the gun. Until the gun came along, a skilled swordsman would be sure to kill an unskilled one, but the gun made them both equal. With a pistol, the smallest man can fight and beat a giant. We haven’t invented darkness, but we can make use of it. Your Marines should be able to fire three aimed musket shots for everybody else’s one.”
Rennick grinned happily as he thought of it. “We’ll be wide awake, too, and the rebels half asleep—except for the sentries.”
“They’ll be half asleep and with some luck half drunk, too, providing we take them by surprise. Now, we have to arrange with the Governor to keep Dutch patrols out for a few more hours, so we know exactly where the rebels are all day, and where they camp. So we’ll make a start issuing and checking pistols and muskets, and get the grindstone up on deck to sharpen cutlasses and pikes. A boarding-pike is going to be more useful in the darkness than a pistol. You might emphasize that to the men. Remember a boarding-pike is seven and a half feet long—that’s the closest the enemy need get to you!”
Lacey brought the schooner La Créole into the harbour exactly at noon. Ramage’s arrangement with the Governor concerning the seaward lookouts at Waterfort and Riffort had worked perfectly, except that he had forgotten to tell anyone in the Calypso about it, so when Aitken heard the sound of ten evenly-spaced musket shots fired at five-second intervals coming up the channel from the entrance he had the Marine drummer beat to quarters while the word was being passed for the Captain, who was in his cabin.
As Ramage came up the companion-way he guessed what had happened, but the musket shots could also be a warning of an enemy ship. He explained to Aitken the arrangement he had made with the Governor, and the two men watched the British flags which were now flying from the two forts and Government House without the white flags of truce. Then they had seen La Créole tacking cautiously across the entrance, at first a good mile out, and then closer as Lacey found the batteries did not open fire.
Ramage did not envy Lacey; the situation was a good test of the young lieutenant. The last time he had seen the Calypso she had been off the north-west coast of the island, which was well and truly Dutch-owned. When he returned from escorting La Perle, the Calypso was at anchor in Amsterdam, apparently undamaged and still under a British flag, while British flags flew from the forts. Yet Lacey had seen what could be done with flags.
It might reassure Lacey if the Calypso made some signals, but the Lieutenant already knew how La Perle had been captured because of a captured French signal book, and he might suspect the Dutch had played the same trick. Paolo Orsini was waiting and Ramage ordered: “Hoist La Créole’s pendant number, and then 243, 63 and 371.”
“Correct, Orsini, and then, when she has anchored, the signal for the Captain to come on board.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Aitken wore a broad grin. “That first one should convince Lacey, sir. No Dutchman, even if he knew about La Perle and had the signal book, would think of that. And the harbour must seem full of ‘strange ships’ from his position: he can see the masts of those privateers beyond us!”
Within fifteen minutes of the signal flags being hoisted the schooner was close-reaching through the harbour entrance, guns run out and men with telescopes up the masts: the wary Lacey had obviously not ruled out the chance of a trap and, keeping over to the windward side of the channel, was giving himself room to wear round and get out again.
An hour later Lacey was sitting down opposite Ramage as Silkin served the first course of the midday meal.
“I trust that you like callalou soup,” Ramage said.
“I’ve never tried it, sir,” Lacey admitted.
“Callalou is a sort of local spinach. Silkin is convinced it does me good.”
Lacey, still unused to being treated as a commanding officer, raised his spoon and sipped cautiously, obviously expecting it to be hot. Finding it was being served cold he tackled it boldly and nodded his appreciation.
“Now,” Ramage said, “tell me the details of the La Perle business.”