by Dudley Pope
“Poachers?” Stafford exclaimed.
“No—troachers. They’re the old women who take our stuff to sell out in the villages. They go from house to house. Probably get a shillun each for nutmegs.” He fondled the bag lovingly. “Troachers is best for things like spices. The profit comes in selling ‘em one at a time.”
“What about rum?” Jackson asked.
“Oh, merchants is best for likker.”
“Why’s that? Why not house to house?”
“Merchants are more used to arrangin’,” the seaman said vaguely.
“Arranging?”
“With the Customs, an’ all that sort of thing.”
“All helps pay the rent,” Jackson said. “Must double your pay.”
“Double it?” the seaman exclaimed indignantly. “You’ve got a pretty daft idea of how much we get paid! That lot there”—he waved at the bags of spices—”and me drop of rum will make the same as five years’ pay. An’ me outward freight’s already made me that—with the money coming home safe in the next convoy from Jamaica.”
“Supposing the Arabella is taken?” Jackson asked.
“Don’t matter,” the seaman said airily. “All this is insured.”
“You say a packetsman’s pay is bad?” Stafford asked.
“Well—t’aint as bad as what you chaps get, but it’s bad enough. The Captain gets only eight pounds a month.”
“Pore fellah,” Stafford said sarcastically. “But a couple of ‘undred pounds of ventures will help—he carries ventures, I suppose?”
The seaman nodded. “And we carry passengers, too. You’ve seen ‘em. Fifty guineas each—that’s what they’ve paid the Captain. Clear profit for the skipper—stands to reason!”
“My ‘eart bleeds for you pore men,” Stafford said sourly, trying to provoke the seaman.
“We take risks, though,” the seaman said defensively. “Look how many packets have been lost in the last year.”
“Think how many of the King’s ships have been lost, too,” Jackson said, “and they have to stand and fight.”
“Well, we have to run from the Frenchies—that’s orders from Lombard Street,” the seaman said angrily. “We’re just carrying the mails: we ain’t men-o’-war—neither us nor the packets.”
“Easy now,” Jackson said soothingly, “no one’s blaming you; we’re just talking. Come on, I’ll help you pack up these spices again. Thanks for showing us. We don’t have to worry about the strange smell now!”
That night, Jackson slid into Ramage’s cabin and reported the conversation.
“Making a profit equal to five years’ pay?” Ramage repeated incredulously.
“That’s what he said, sir. And that’s on this venture alone. He’s already made that on the one he took out, and the money goes home on the next convoy.”
“But what does he get paid? More than our seamen, anyway. Say a pound a month. Five years’ pay is—”
“Sixty pounds,” Yorke said in the darkness. “So his profit is 120 on a round trip—providing he gets the inward-bound venture back safely.”
“Doesn’t matter, sir,” Jackson said. “It’s insured.”
“The venture is?” Yorke asked sharply.
“So the fellow said.”
“Is this seaman the same chap that told you about making four voyages a year?”
“The same, sir.”
Yorke sighed. “And I don’t suppose he can read or write.”
“He can’t,” Jackson said glumly, guessing the point Yorke was going to make.
“He can’t, eh? Well, let’s not forget he’s making £480 a year … How does that compare with the Royal Navy, Nicholas?”
Ramage thought for a moment. “A third less than the captain of a first-rate like the Victory or the Ville de Paris, and twice as much as the master,” he said. “Exactly five times as much as Southwick was paid as Master of the Triton brig,” he added bitterly.
“Not bad for a man who can’t read or write,” Yorke said ironically.
“Well, sir,” Jackson said, “I’d better be getting back before anyone spots my hammock is empty.”
After the American left the cabin, Yorke said softly to himself, “An assured market, free freight and no risk: a merchant’s dream, my dear Nicholas, and one that comes true only for seamen in a Post Office packet!”
“Not just the seamen,” Ramage said. “What about the mate and the Captain? I wonder how much they venture?”
“Well, the Captain gets paid eight times as much as a seaman—that’s about the figure, I think—and we can be sure he ventures in proportion, although he only makes three voyages a year. Eight times the seaman’s £480—hmm, that’s £3,840, which is only £160 less than the Prime Minister is paid.”
“And £840 a year more than the First Lord of the Admiralty,” Ramage added.
“And no risk!” Yorke said. “That’s the beauty of it.”
“You’re envious of the insurance,” Ramage said lightly, trying to erase the bitterness in his mind.
“I most certainly am! These packetsmen are backing a horse so that they win whether the horse wins, loses or drops dead.”
Suddenly Ramage felt goose-pimples spreading over his body in the darkness. The water was swilling past outside the hull; the whole ship was creaking, as it had done since it rounded the east end of Jamaica. But, for the first time, he did not hear it. He heard only his heart beating, and the faint echo of Yorke’s voice saying: “… whether the horse wins, loses or drops dead.”
It was absurd, but it had all the beauty of a simple plan. After a few minutes he relaxed and began to feel sleepy.
Next morning Ramage went up on deck to find seamen checking over the Lady Arabella’s storm canvas, and was reminded that in Europe it was now halfway between autumn and winter. Curious how one never referred to winter and summer in the Tropics, only the hurricane and the dry season. Hurricane season if you were a sailor, rainy season if a soldier.
He shivered. The temperature was still dropping steadily, like water from a leaking roof: the days when the thermometer moved leisurely between eighty and eighty-five degrees were memories. In a week he would be thankful if it went above sixty-five. Sixty-five! In the Caribbean the water temperature rarely dropped below eighty …
Yorke joined him standing aft at the taffrail, watching the Lady Arabella’s wake as she dipped and lifted her way over the swell waves. The sky was overcast and Stevens had not been able to get a sight the previous day. With the ship close-hauled there was enough wind to ensure that the helmsmen could not overhear their conversation.
Yorke prodded one of the two brass nine-pounder stern-chase guns with all the hard-bitten contempt of a horse coper. “We need a lot more of these ‘Post Office guns’!”
“Instead we have those miserable four-pounders …” Ramage gestured to the two guns each side. “Punt guns at best. Useful against wild duck.”
“How can we fight?” Yorke asked. “Judging by the losses, we aren’t fast enough to run, so the point is of more than academic interest now!”
“If we fight,” and Ramage purposely emphasized the first word, “we just keep steering away from a privateer: keep her astern and bang away with these nine-pounders. They should carry farther than a privateer’s bow-chasers. And we’d hope she hadn’t any long nine-pounders on her broadside.”
“It’d be suicide to let her get a broadside into us,” Yorke commented.
Ramage nodded. “Calls for some smart tacking and wearing! Still, there might be a heavy sea running.”
Yet like most events at sea, Ramage mused, it was impossible to dogmatize. Firing a broadside from a heavily rolling ship could be like shooting at snipe from the back of a runaway horse, yet a well-trained and cool gun’s crew firing on the broadside would probably do more damage than a badly trained, excitable crew firing a stern-chase gun in the same conditions.
But for all that a couple of well-served stern-chase guns—particularly these long-barrell
ed “Post Office guns”—were like a kick from a mule’s hind legs: very effective as long as the ship could keep stern-on to the enemy target. And that in turn meant the enemy (unless she had a good margin of speed) could only approach bow-on, and none of her broadside guns could be brought to bear.
If the enemy had a good margin of speed she could of course approach from astern and then range alongside; if only a slight margin she could suddenly turn away at the last moment, firing her broadside guns in turn as they bore. He knew that was what a large privateer would probably try to do to the Lady Arabella. It required skilful gunnery: the enemy gunners would see the target in their sights for only a second or two as their ship swung. On the other hand, every shot that hit was potentially more effective because a ship’s transom and bow were very vulnerable compared with her sides: a shot smashing through it could sweep the whole length of the ship below deck, possibly damaging the rudder, steering gear or the masts below deck. Raking a ship, firing into her end-on, whether through the transom or bow, was the most destructive method of attack.
Presumably that was why the Post Office equipped each packet with two nine-pounders as stern-chase guns: given the “turn and run” instructions, they were the best defence for a fleeing packet, since she could rake her pursuer.
Although the long barrels of the nine-pounders gave them the extra range, their very length and weight made them less useful as broadside guns because they were more difficult to handle: apart from the extra weight, they had to be run in farther so the men could get to the muzzle for sponging and loading. That in turn meant more room was needed, and the gun had to be hauled farther to run it out again ready to fire. All this meant more time.
Ramage guessed that in specifying long guns for stern-chase, the Post Office was gambling that any ship attacking a packet was likely to be a privateer, and the average privateer (they hoped) would be slower and armed with more but smaller guns, since privateers favoured close-range action. Smaller guns with shorter barrels certainly meant much less range, but they also meant easier handling, a higher rate of fire and more grape and canister shot fired into the victim. For the weight of one of the long nine-pounders, a privateer could probably fit a couple of four-pounders. More than double the rate of fire but perhaps half the range … That was why a highwayman preferred a brace of pistols, with a range of only a few paces, rather than a musket that could bowl a horse over at fifty yards: the highwayman’s potential victim would be in a carriage only a few feet away.
Ramage knew only too well that privateer tactics were completely different from usual ship-to-ship actions: two line-of-battle-ships or frigates would fight it out with broadsides, and usually one would try to board the other only after she was badly damaged.
But privateers carried very large crews: one the size of the Lady Arabella would have more than a hundred men on board. Nor were they ordinary men: instead of being paid wages they were usually on a “share-of-the-profits” basis. At worst they were licensed pirates, regarding prisoners as an inconvenient nuisance. At best—well, little better than pirates.
All too often one heard of a privateer running up the “bloody flag,” the red flag that meant they would give no quarter; no prisoners would be taken, and the wounded would be slaughtered and tossed over the side with the men already killed. Few ships of war showed any mercy to a privateer: to avoid one escaping, a ship of war would not hesitate to “give her the stem,” ramming the vessel to make sure of sinking her.
“Do you think Stevens ever exercises his guns’ crews?” Yorke asked quietly.
Ramage shook his head. “We know he hasn’t this voyage. I’ll tell Jackson to find out.”
That night, as the two men sat in their cabin after supper, Yorke came back to the subject. “If we meet a privateer … ?”
Ramage sighed: it was a question he had been turning over in his mind since before they left Kingston, and Yorke had not missed the significance of his earlier reference to “If we fight … Still, there was no point in keeping his thoughts secret. “I can’t decide.”
“You mean you won’t fight?”
“Well,” said Ramage carefully, “I’m trying to leave the welfare and safety of you and our splendid soldier friend out of the calculation …”
“Agreed, and no ill feelings.”
“Thanks,” Ramage said wryly. “The reason is simply that my orders are to find the cause and halt the losses.”
“I know that!” Yorke did not try to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“Well, can you tell me the point at which I’ll find the ‘cause?’ What happens on board when a packet is attacked by a privateer—”
“She surrenders,” Yorke interrupted. “Even the Post Office knows that much!”
“Maybe she does. Maybe she tries to escape. Maybe she’s boarded. Maybe the privateers shoot the rigging away. We don’t know for sure.”
“There are the reports of the commanders who were captured and exchanged.”
“Oh yes—but were they speaking the truth? Although we haven’t seen any of the reports, we’ve no reason to think they weren’t—but we don’t know for sure.”
“What’s all this to do with whether or not we fight?” Yorke demanded impatiently.
“The short answer is, the other packets didn’t have three extra officers—five if we include you and the gallant Captain Wilson—and a dozen well-trained seamen from one of the King’s ships.”
“Perhaps that’s why they were captured!”
“Exactly. And that’s why I’m damned if I know whether we’ll fight or not. If we drive off a privateer, what will we find out about the ‘cause?’ We might get a completely distorted picture. So far we can only guess at what’s involved—you once said it must be magic! Well, our very presence—helping with the fighting, I mean—might stop the magic working.”
“It might also stop the Arabella being captured—I’ve no wish to have my throat cut by a privateersman.”
“Leaving aside the sanctity of your throat for a moment, isn’t that the point? If I’m going to find the answer, wouldn’t it be best to let Stevens do what he’d do if we weren’t here? And we watch?”
“Who,” Yorke said with heavy sarcasm, “reports your finding to My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty after the privateersmen have cut your throat?”
“They haven’t cut packetsmen’s throats, but anyway I’ve gone over all that so many times—lying here early in the morning, while you snore in your bunk …”
“Do you want my advice?”
“No,” Ramage said emphatically. “Most certainly not; your advice would coincide with what I’d like to do. And what I’d like to do would probably stop me carrying out my orders.”
“You think I’m going to advise fighting?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No. I speak with all the wisdom culled from forebears who have spent a thousand years soaking up good whisky and eating tons of porridge.”
“Speak before those ancient Scots turn in their graves!”
“My advice coincides with what you’ve decided without realizing it: not to make up your mind until we meet a privateer. Her size, the weather, her position, the way Stevens and his men react: all these will affect the issue.”
Ramage nodded. “I’ve been telling myself I’m afraid of a definite decision, but—”
“That is making a definite decision,” Yorke interrupted. “You have decided that the proper decision can’t be made until the situation occurs. Until a privateer attacks, in other words. That’s definite enough!”
“I’m blaming myself for letting you risk your neck. You should have waited for the convoy.”
“Thanks,” Yorke said sourly. “I get scared from time to time, but the fact is I came in the hope of seeing some action. Can you imagine how boring it is commanding a merchantman in a convoy? Leading ship in the fifth column … two cables from the ship on either side, one cable from the next astern … week after week … And planters and t
heir wives as passengers, the men sodden with rum and quarrelsome by suppertime and the women frozen in embarrassment …”
“At least you have the company of frozen women. In a ship of war …” Ramage said unsympathetically.
“What have you told Southwick and Bowen?”
“About an attack? Nothing so far.”
“Supposing it doesn’t happen?” Yorke asked, beginning to undress and pulling his nightshirt from under the pillow. “Just to cheer ourselves up!”
“Well, when we get to Falmouth I see you into the London carriage, and sail again in the next packet for Jamaica.”
“Stevens seems fairly cheerful,” Yorke said casually. “At least, he isn’t as worried as I’d have expected.”
“No. I’d be happier if he was more worried.” And that, Ramage thought, is something I’ve only just realized. All the packetsmen on board the Lady Arabella know the odds are heavily against them reaching Falmouth safely, yet only Much seems at all worried. And only Much is unpopular … Impossible to think why there should be any relationship between the two facts, yet the Lady Arabella seems to be a ship full of contradictions.
“I’m sleepy!” said Yorke. “If this weather holds, we should be in Falmouth a week from today.”
“Or St Malo,” Ramage said soberly. “It might be an idea to sew some guineas into the padding of our coats—just in case. Living out on parole is probably expensive …”
“Parole!” Yorke sniffed. “They’ll never allow you parole! For all the trouble you’ve caused the French so far, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve put a price on your head!”
CHAPTER TEN
ON the following Sunday, when Stevens told the passengers in his usual abrupt manner that there would be Divine Service at eleven o’clock, Ramage had the impression that Sundays would be ignored if Stevens had his way, but that the mate forced him to conform.
Certainly at the services on the previous Sundays, Mr Fred Much had read the lesson with all the fervour of a revivalist preacher and sung the hymns with a loud and surprisingly good tenor voice. Our Ned also had a good voice, but after watching the mate’s son for a few minutes at the first service, Ramage was reminded of the word unctuous.