Ramage's Signal r-11

by Dudley Pope

  Obviously Aitken was waiting for the smoke to clear, and Paolo saw Martin glance up at flag number sixteen, still hoisted at the peak of the Passe Partout's lateen yard. Ramage saw the glance and knew what thoughts must be passing through Martin's mind.

  'You must understand', he said harshly, 'that killing, robbing and raping are a religion to these men. You can't train a fox not to kill hens; you can't stop Algerines killing everyone who won't bow before Allah. If you lowered a boat and rescued one of them now, the moment you dragged him on board he would pull out a dagger and kill you.'

  'Aye aye, sir', Martin said. 'So Orsini told me.'

  At that moment the Magpie disappeared, sinking evenly as though lowered below the waves by some mechanical contrivance.

  Ramage said: 'Mr Martin, would you be kind enough to signal for a boat so that I can return to my ship. You will remain in command of the Passe Partout until Mr Orsini feels confident enough to take over. In the meantime I presume you do not intend to keep number sixteen hoisted any longer.'

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Calypso and the Passe Partout sailed back through the convoy and received a hero's welcome: all the merchant ships cheered as they passed, three or four of them even firing salutes. Ramage thought of Chesneau, now a prisoner below in the Calypso along with the garrison of the semaphore station. Chesneau would hear the salutes and appreciate the joke; in fact Ramage decided to have him to dinner one day with Southwick, Aitken and young Martin. Orsini could come as well to help with the translation and enjoy a few hours' rest from the Passe Partout.

  It was good to be back in the Calypso. Neither Aitken nor Southwick discussed his precipitate departure; in fact both took it as a matter of course, Southwick commenting that whether the Magpie had proved to be British or Algerine, he would have had to be there to make decisions.

  One fortunate effect was that the merchant ships now kept better station, and Martin, after the Passe Partout's welcome by the convoy, was sent to the rear with orders to chase up any laggards.

  'When can we expect Martin back, sir?' Southwick asked that evening.

  Ramage told him what he had said to Martin and Orsini, and Southwick gave a rumbling laugh. 'That'll be the first time young Orsini ever badgered someone to teach him more mathematics!'

  'It should have an effect on both of them: Martin will have to keep on his toes and dredge his memory in order to run the ship, and Orsini will be prodding him - I hope.'

  Ramage went down to his cabin, telling Southwick to send down the master's log. Sitting at his desk he saw the noon position noted down and the usual routine entries about winds, courses, distances and sail carried. Today's entries recorded how much fresh water remained, that the ship's company were employed 'A.S.R.' - the abbreviation for 'As the Service Required' - and that a cask of salt beef just opened and marked as containing 137 pieces in fact contained only 128. The contractor's number stencilled on the cask was given and it was now up to the purser to try to get a refund from him. Like every other purser in one of the King's ships, the Calypso's would no doubt try, but government contractors thousands of miles away - indeed, even just down the road - had little to learn from the Algerines about robbery, and the Navy Board took no notice: commissioners of dockyards, notably ones like Sir Isaac Coffin, once a brave officer, were now rich men because of the bribes the contractors regularly paid them to look the other way. The contractor was paid by the Government for the amount of meat stencilled on the cask and the commissioner was paid off by the contractor, and the only ones who went short were the seamen ...

  The noon position. The convoy was moving slowly. He took down a chart and unrolled it, put a finger on the position and looked across at their destination. Well, they would probably make better time after today's scare, and with the Passe Partout cutting in and out, none of these mulish merchant ships would be reducing sail tonight. It was a habit of all shipmasters and no doubt forced on them by penny-pinching owners who did not want to give them big enough crews to reef and furl in the darkness if a squall came up. For the escorts, however, it was a wretched business because over most of the world's oceans the wind usually dropped at night, not increased, and some of the big West Indian convoys would, no matter what the escorts did, make hardly any progress between dusk and dawn; indeed if there was a foul current, they would often lose ground.

  Most frigate captains - all frigate captains, he corrected himself - did everything they could to avoid convoy duty. In the West Indies, being ordered to escort a homeward-bound convoy was a sure sign that the captain was out of favour with the admiral. Favoured captains were sent off cruising, searching among the islands and along the Main for enemy ships, capturing prizes, making plenty of prize money - in which the admiral shared, of course.

  Now consider the case of Captain Ramage who by now, thanks no doubt to a few deaths among the hundreds of captains senior to him, and the fact that a few deserving lieutenants had recently been made post and thus joined the list below him to push him up a few places, had achieved a little seniority. At least, he was no longer the most junior.

  Captain Ramage had received orders from the Admiralty which many of his rivals would claim he did not deserve; to water and provision the Calypso for four months and then enter the Mediterranean and sink, burn or capture any enemy ships that he could and generally irritate and inconvenience the French.

  Wonderful orders, he had to admit. So what did Captain Ramage do? He deliberately arranged a convoy for himself! Not a British convoy, mind you, but a French one. And where was it sailing? Not in the West Indies or westward across the Atlantic, where one could usually rely on brisk Trade winds during the day, but the Mediterranean, where in twenty-four hours the wind, at this time of the year, could blow from nineteen different directions and vanish completely for the other five hours, leaving ships rolling and pitching, booms slamming, yards creaking, masts straining first the shrouds on one side and then the other, stretching so that the lanyards would have to be set up again at the first opportunity, and reducing men's movements along the deck to a series of hurried lurches.

  Blackstrapped with a French convoy! Well, it would make an amusing story when told in the Green Room at Plymouth or by the naval members of Boodle's or White's, but for the moment he could only hope that Orsini knew the finer shades of French obscenities and Martin would not hesitate to let drive across a laggard's bow or stern with one of those swivels.

  He opened a drawer and looked for the list of French and Spanish ships drawn up by Orsini. Fifteen ships in all, and the Passe Partout by far the smallest, so crossing out her original crew made little difference. Fourteen ships, then. Slowly he added up the masters, officers and seamen, sometimes pausing to make sure of one of Orsini's hurriedly written figures. Yes, the fourteen ships had at least two hundred men by the time you added in the extras, because Orsini had noted down only the men he had actually seen (and one could be sure there were always several more below), plus the forty or so from the garrison of the semaphore station and the Passe Partout already on board the Calypso.

  He would need fifty men to guard 250 or so prisoners, and none of these could be topmen or idlers. That also meant fifty fewer available as prize crews. No, he had been right the first time; right when he had sent the signal from Foix. He could understand why Aitken, Kenton and Southwick were puzzled.

  He put the parallel rulers down on the chart with the top edge passing through Southwick's noon position and then moved them crabwise across to the destination. If only this wind direction would hold. It was increasing nicely - not enough to scare the timid masters into premature reefing and furling, but giving signs of settling in for the night.

  Ramage was vaguely conscious of boots clattering down the companionway, and a few moments later the sentry knocked on the door and called: 'Mr Southwick, sir.'

  'Send him in', Ramage answered, removing the weights and letting the chart roll up. He put the parallel rulers away, and while Southwick acknowledged his ges
ture and sat down on the settee, Ramage closed the log.

  'Well, Mr Southwick?' Ramage knew the old master had come down just for a chat, but he always had an excuse and Ramage waited to see what it was.

  Southwick fished a piece of paper from his pocket. 'The log, sir, I'm afraid it's not up to date: the expenditure of powder and shot was not entered. I have the figures here.'

  Ramage took the paper. 'Nor was the departure in a French tartane of the captain, acting third lieutenant, midshipman and five seamen, and the captain's subsequent return.'

  Southwick grinned and admitted: 'I wasn't sure how you wanted to deal with that, sir. It so happens, if you'll look just below the reference to the shortage of salt beef in that cask, there is space enough to enter the departure, and the captain's return would be the last entry, after this one about expenditure of powder and shot.'

  'You'd better enter it all', Ramage said. 'Their Lordships may raise their eyebrows at my brief absence, but it was in a good cause!'

  Southwick scratched his head in a gesture Ramage knew so well that he could guess what the old man was going to say.

  'Beats me how you knew that privateer schooner, the Magpie, was going to turn out to be sailed by Algerines.'

  'I didn't', Ramage said, surprised.

  'Then why did you go in the Passe Partout, sir?'

  'I didn't have time to tell Martin how to negotiate with a British privateer - it meant persuading them to let several prizes sail away.'

  'Martin could have gone on board and torn up the letter of marque', Southwick said grimly.

  'That wouldn't have helped. There are not many British ships of war to inspect it, and if the French catch a British privateer I doubt that they care much about letters of marque.'

  'But you could have let Aitken go off in the Passe Partout, the master persisted.

  'I could, but he learned more by being left in command of the Calypso. He handled her very well.'

  Southwick nodded. 'Especially the way he sank the Magpie. But he worries too much.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'Well, when you hoisted number sixteen, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to tack up to you in time.'

  'So was I', Ramage said grimly. 'In fact, if the Magpie hadn't had her masts go by the board...'

  'But she did: I was telling Aitken that you'd do something, and you did.'

  Ramage sighed at the thought of the thin line by which his life was at times suspended: a thin line of faith that he could perform miracles. 'Don't depend on it. We were lucky this time, but if those Algerines had been sailing the ship for another couple of months it would have been a different story.'

  'Yes, sir', Southwick said comfortably, 'and we are all thankful they weren't. How long before you'll give young Orsini command of the Passe Partout?'

  'I was going to leave Martin with him tonight, to hold his hand if necessary in the dark, and launch him off on his own tomorrow.'

  'I'll pack up his quadrant, tables and glass: he didn't have time to take them with him.'

  'It seems unfair to Martin', Ramage said, having second thoughts.

  Southwick's eyes twinkled as he said casually, 'I don't expect she'll be the only prize we'll take. I'd have thought that a tartane rated a midshipman's command, not a lieutenant's!'

  'It sounds to me as though you are trying to exercise patronage on behalf of the Marchesa.'

  Southwick gave a bellow of laughter. 'That's about it! Anyway, I'd like to be. She'd have enjoyed watching the Magpie business.'

  'From the Calypso.'

  'No, sir, from the Passe Partout', Southwick corrected him with mock severity. 'You haven't seen her for so long you've forgotten what she's like when there's a whiff of action in the air.'

  Ramage had not forgotten, but it had been so long since he had seen her that now memories brought pain rather than pleasure.

  Southwick pointed at the chart which was still lying curled up on Ramage's desk. 'If this wind holds, we should sight land before noon the day after tomorrow, sir.'

  'That's some "if". When does the wind stay in the same direction for more than a few hours in this part of the world?'

  'When it's blowing a mistral or Levanter', Southwick reminded him.

  Next day the Passe Partout came close to the Calypso and one of the frigate's boats took off Martin and brought Paolo on board the Calypso to receive his orders and collect his navigational equipment. Before he was taken back to the tartane Ramage sent for him and gave him his official orders. They were brief and written in the stylized form laid down by the Admiralty.

  By Nicholas Ramage, Captain and commanding officer of His Majesty's frigate Calypso

  To Paolo Orsini, midshipman, hereby appointed to the Passe Partout, prize to the Calypso frigate.

  By virtue of the power and authority to me given, I do hereby constitute and appoint you midshipman in command of the tartane Passe Partout, prize to His Majesty's frigate Calypso; willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board, and take upon you the charge and command of her accordingly; strictly charging and commanding all the petty officers and company... to behave themselves jointly and severally ... And you likewise to observe and execute as well the General Printed Instructions, and such orders and directions you shall from time to time receive from your captain ... hereof nor you nor any of you may fail, as you will answer the contrary at your Peril; and for so doing this shall be your warrant.

  The document was then dated, Ramage's seal impressed on it, and his signature added, and for the first time in his life Paolo commanded a ship and was responsible for the behaviour of every man on board.

  When the captain gave it to him, Paolo read it and found no difficulty in understanding the neat handwriting of the captain's clerk, but was intimidated by the wording. He read the last paragraph yet again, this time aloud - 'hereof nor you nor any of you may fail, as you will answer to the contrary at your Peril ...'

  He looked at Ramage, not realizing that this was standard wording. 'But, sir, this last part ...' It seemed very unreasonable of the captain to be so hard on him - presumably because ... Well, he was not sure quite why.

  '"At your Peril", eh? That frightens you, I expect.'

  'Yes, sir; after all ...'

  'Well, you are in good company, my lad; every naval officer given command of anything has that in his orders. Commanders-in-chief, commodores, captains, lieutenants - even midshipmen in command of captured tartanes.'

  'You mean, sir, your orders say the same?'

  'The same and a lot more.'

  At that moment Paolo understood why the commanding officer was always such a remote figure; why the attitude of the seamen, for instance, had been different where Martin was concerned on board the Passe Partout: they were more reserved, keeping a distance between them. Now, Paolo realized, he had - however temporarily - crossed the line separating carefree midshipmen skylarking on board without any papers or passing any examinations from officers who must not fail without 'answering to the contrary'.

  He saw Ramage was watching him.

  'Nothing has changed', Ramage said quietly. 'Always do what you think is right, be just, don't give an order you would not carry out yourself and you won't fail. And once you've made up your mind, do it. Hesitation and indecision loses battles - and reputations.'

  'Like you did not hesitate when you jumped on board the Passe Partout', Paolo said eagerly.

  Ramage winced at such a recent memory. 'That's not a very good example, but just do your best. And remember, your men have to do their best as well.'

  He motioned Paolo to put the order in his pocket. 'Now, we should be arriving at our destination tomorrow afternoon if the wind holds. For various reasons I don't want the whole convoy arriving at the same time, so from sunset tonight don't chase up the laggards. Let them lag. Ideally, I'd like half a dozen ships to arrive in the first hour or so, three or four an hour later, and the last of them at dusk ...'

  'Aye aye, sir.'

  'And there's
one more thing. You can keep Stafford and Rossi, but I need Jackson back. You can pick a good man to replace him. Now, listen carefully; this is what you will do when the convoy arrives.'

  Paolo listened for four minutes, nodded, was reprimanded for not saying 'Aye aye, sir' to acknowledge the orders, and then left the cabin and climbed down to the waiting boat in a haze of excitement: he commanded a ship of war and had a document to prove it. Suddenly he found the prospect and responsibility did not frighten him. At least, not very much.

  The Calypso's lookouts first sighted land lying low on the horizon to the east two hours before noon, but apart from there being cliffs along the coast no one, apart from Southwick, was sure that they were on course for their destination.

  The advantage of the destination lying on a coast that ran northwest and southeast was that a noon sight gave the latitude, which ran almost at right-angles through the coastline. If the latitude from the sight was greater than the latitude of the destination, they had to turn south, if less then north.

  With fifteen ships following the Calypso, Southwick knew that his navigation was important, but as the sun climbed higher towards its zenith in a cloudless sky the master only grinned when Ramage and Aitken teased him.

  The effect of the Passe Partout lying out on one wing of the convoy and not swooping down to make a laggard set more sail to catch up was very apparent. The Sarazine was still the closest to the Calypso, but she was now a good two miles astern, with the Spanish Golondrina abeam. After those two ships, the other thirteen were spread out to the westward so that four of them had almost dropped below the horizon, all but their topgallants hidden below the curvature of the earth.