Ramage's Prize

by Dudley Pope

  It would take half an hour or more to get the slashed rigging repaired, and—

  He jumped sideways, sword raised, startled by something overhead; something large which fluttered down out of the sky. Then he saw Farrell standing by the ensign halyard, cutlass in hand, watching the flag settling on the deck in an untidy heap in the classic signal of surrender.

  There was a stream of hoarse Italian and a moment later Rossi had flung Farrell to the deck, jumping on his stomach before pouncing on him with his hands round the Surgeon’s throat.

  “Tritons. Tritons, lay aft all you Tritons,” Ramage shouted, but Yorke was shaking his arm.

  “Wait a minute or two,” Yorke hissed, “let our chaps settle their accounts.”

  “I don’t want unnecessary bloodshed,” Ramage snapped, “we’ve enough trouble as it is.” Southwick came aft, driving a stumbling Stevens before him, followed by Jackson and Much. The Captain was holding his throat and breathing in hoarse, convulsive gasps; the mate was dusting the wet sand from his clothes. Ramage noticed that as the Tritons came aft, the packetsmen were grouping round the boatswain on the foredeck. A blood-curdling yell from just behind him made Ramage spin round. Rossi, sitting astride the Surgeon, had the blade of a knife pressed down on the Surgeon’s throat, and from the jumble of Italian Ramage realized the Surgeon was being given a few seconds to say his prayers before the blade cut down.

  “Rossi! Don’t kill him!” Ramage seized the seaman’s shoulder. “Leave him—he’ll swing from a gibbet before long.”

  As he stood up Ramage knew it was improbable. The privateer was now lying hove-to a hundred yards to windward of the crippled packet.

  “Any casualties?” he asked Southwick.

  “A packetsman lying dead by one of the guns, and one or two cut. Stevens here has a sore throat, sir, and—”

  “He’s lucky to be alive to enjoy it,” Much said angrily. “That man”—he pointed at Jackson—”stopped me finishing my job.”

  “There are a lot of unfinished jobs,” Ramage said, looking at Stevens and down at Farrell, “but we’ll all be prisoners in a few minutes.” He turned to the group of Tritons and gestured to include Much, Yorke and Wilson. “Thanks—but for our friends we’d have beaten our enemies!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE privateer was the Rossignol schooner of St Malo, armed with ten double-reinforced four-pounder guns, manned by 93 Bretons, and at sea for seventeen days. As wild-eyed and raggedly dressed men swarmed over the Lady Arabella’s bulwarks from three boats. Ramage was reminded of a horde of starving rats running into a granary.

  Few were seamen and most were drunk—that much was obvious the moment they jumped on deck—but they were highly skilled looters. They stripped the passengers’ and officers’ cabins of valuables in a matter of minutes. To begin with, Ramage did not understand the men’s haste in the cabins until he realized they were all from the leading boat.

  One of the first on board from the second boat was a man who hastily introduced himself as the Rossignol’s mate and, after formally taking possession of the Lady Arabella, he dashed below with four men following him, pistols in their hands.

  A minute or two later a shot was fired. Yorke and Ramage looked at each other in alarm. Was it Bowen? Southwick and Wilson were on deck. Then there was a second shot, and suddenly two dozen frightened privateersmen ran up on deck and went forward, where they stood like a group of naughty schoolboys.

  They were followed by the French mate, who immediately began shouting at them in a fury, his cutlass sending splinters flying as he slashed at the forebitts to emphasize each word.

  “What the deuce is he saying?” Yorke exclaimed. “His accent is too much for me!”

  “Breton,” said Ramage, and began translating. “He’s cursing the men for looting … Says they were forbidden to go below—no need for it since the prize surrendered … The dead man—he knows the dead man was the ringleader. They can regard that as punishment for them all … Next time the Captain will make examples and hang every fifth man.”

  “Hm, so the men are only just under control,” Yorke commented as the Frenchman finally stopped talking. “Thank goodness we have Jackson!”

  As soon as the privateer hove-to and hoisted out boats, Ramage had run below to Stevens’ cabin to find the private signals and destroy them, and the American seaman had joined him. “You’re all going to lose your watches and rings and everything for sure when they board, sir,” he said. “If you’d all like to give me your valuables, there might be a sporting chance of seeing them again, unless they transfer us.”

  Yorke and Southwick had already handed over their watches and rings without, as far as they could see, anyone noticing: all eyes were on the privateer. Jackson had slipped away as unobtrusively as he came, and now, looking at his left hand, Ramage wondered if the privateersmen would think of checking. His whole hand was suntanned, except for a thin band of white skin on the little finger where his signet ring had been.

  With the looters under control and remaining on the foredeck, the French officer went back to Stevens again. Ramage watched the Falmouth man tensely. What would he say? There was a dead packetsman lying on the foredeck, but as far as the French were concerned he could have been killed in the brief action with the privateer. The one or two packetsmen wounded by Tritons had their cuts bandaged by now. If Stevens had any sense he would keep his mouth shut and let the Frenchman assume it was a normal surrender.

  Ramage suddenly wondered if—as far as the Frenchman was concerned—it was a normal surrender. Stevens (and Farrell: he was sure of that now) had wanted to surrender without even trying to evade the privateer, which had ignored the Arabella’s stern-chasers. Would Stevens now explain to the French that the single broadside from the Arabella was due to an interfering naval officer? Did Stevens or Farrell know—or had they guessed—that Ramage was under Admiralty orders to investigate the losses?

  He would soon have the answer: if they knew, then Ramage was a threat to them, and a word to the privateer Captain would ensure that he had already seen his last sunset.

  The Frenchman gave Stevens a slight bow and smiled. “Forgive me,” he said in good English, “my men were overzealous. Now, Captain, your papers: certificate of registry, manifests—everything.”

  “We were carrying mails.”

  “That is all?”

  “Was all,” Stevens said significantly.

  The mate shook his head. “My Captain isn’t going to like that. I thought I saw you pushing bags through the ports. All that chasing after an empty ship! Have you a surgeon on board?” he asked suddenly.

  “Two,” Stevens said. “The ship’s Surgeon and a passenger.”

  “Good, one of our officers is ill. I’ll take the ship’s Surgeon back to the Rossignol. Now, get your papers and come as well. But first, tell your mate to start getting these sheets and braces repaired.” He waved at the yards swinging noisily overhead. “Tell them to make a good job of it—we have a long way to go.”

  Ten minutes later Stevens, still clutching his battered hat, and Farrell, his clothing torn from Rossi’s assault, were on their way to the Rossignol, which had remained hove-to up to windward. Ramage noticed the privateersmen on board the Lady Arabella stayed on the foredeck. Their officer’s threats had been effective. In the meantime Much set the men to work furling the sails before beginning the long and tedious job of splicing the sheets and braces.

  An hour later the boat returned with the mate and another Frenchman who sat on a thwart wrapped in a blanket, and who had to be helped on deck. After he had been taken below the French mate came back on deck to demand, “Who is Mr Much?” When the mate stepped forward he said, “Your Captain and the Surgeon are staying on board the Rossignol as prisoners. You are responsible for the Lady Arabella’s men. I see you’ve made a start on the repairs. Now, point out Mr Bowen.”

  “He’s below.”

  “Fetch him!”

  As soon as Much left, the Fren
chman turned to the group of passengers and then looked at a list in his hand.

  “Tell me your names.” As each of them spoke, he checked them against his list.

  “Ramage—which is Ramage? Ah—you know what your name means in French? The song of the birds, that is ‘ramage.’ No, perhaps ‘music’ is better. A suitable prisoner for the Rossignol, eh?” He laughed softly. “Well, Captain Stevens says you can speak for the passengers. You are prisoners, of course. You will stay on board this ship, which I am going to sail back to her new home port.”

  “Might we ask where that is?” Yorke asked.

  The Frenchman smiled: he was under thirty, small and well built, blue-eyed with curly black hair and the spare, strong face typical of a certain type of Frenchman.

  “St Malo, the home of the corsairs.”

  “The men of Dunkerque will argue about that,” Ramage said.

  “And Brest, too,” the Frenchman said, “but they are wrong! Alors, Mr Bowen?”

  The Surgeon stepped forward.

  “Your colleague Mr Farrell is incompetent, so you have a patient awaiting you in the saloon, Mr Bowen. He is our—how do you say—accountant. Not purser—almost an agent for the owner. He is very ill. He did not have confidence in Farrell. So now it is your responsibility that he reaches St Malo alive.”

  Bowen glared at the Frenchman. “I’m responsible only for the treatment, not the original sickness. If your friend is dying …”

  “The responsibility is yours. He must live. He is the armateur’s son.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Bowen snapped. “But as far as I’m concerned he gets the same treatment whether an able seaman, an admiral or the son of an amateur.”

  “Armateur,” the Frenchman corrected, “but I understand; you are a man of ethics. We too believe in equality. Indeed, you may have heard of our Revolution,” he added dryly.

  With that he looked round at them. “You are all officers, I see”—he waved his list—”and it’s up to you whether you complete your journey in comfort, or in irons. If you give me your parole … otherwise you will be locked up.”

  Ramage shook his head, and the others murmured, “No … no parole …”

  Again the Frenchman shrugged. “Then I regret, gentlemen, that I must assume you’ll try to recapture the ship, so you’ll be locked up as soon as I select suitable cabins. I’ll introduce myself: Jean Kerguelen. My brother Robert commands the Rossignol. Now, my men will finish the splicing and then we can get under way.”

  While he had been talking, the privateersmen had been herding the Lady Arabella’s crew below, searching each man carefully before he went down the hatch. Kerguelen called to one of the men, and said politely to the group of Britons, “You have refused your parole, so please submit to be searched.”

  Ramage felt the seaman’s nimble fingers and thought that they were more interested in finding valuables in pockets than pistols or knives. After much argument among their captors, they ended up in the passengers’ cabins: Kerguelen decided it was easier to guard them there than anywhere else, much to the annoyance of some of the privateersmen, who had obviously been looking forward to a comfortable voyage back to St Malo.

  Ramage and Yorke were locked in their original cabin but had Southwick and Bowen as well, so the four men would have to share the two bunks, two chairs and the cabin sole. As soon as Bowen joined them half an hour later, Ramage looked up expectantly.

  “An armateur,” Bowen said as the sentry slammed the door and locked it again, “is a backer, the man who puts up the money to finance a privateering voyage.”

  “I know that,” Ramage snapped and then, remembering Bowen had earlier mistaken the word for “amateur,” added, “He can also be the owner, or manager.”

  “Well,” Bowen said, “the sick man is his son.”

  “So Kerguelen said. What’s wrong with the fellow?”

  “It’s hard to say. A fever. He is very debilitated.”

  “You can cure him?” Ramage asked.

  “I don’t know, but Kerguelen’s silly threats don’t make a scrap of difference.”

  “I know that; I was just curious.”

  “There’s a strange attitude towards the agent,” Bowen said. “As though the men like him well enough, but are suspicious.”

  “The backer’s son and the accountant—a glorified purser,” Ramage said. “No ship’s company likes the purser. They probably think this fellow is the backer’s spy, put on board to make sure they don’t cheat.”

  “By the way, sir, I had to treat Much.”

  “Oh, what’s wrong?”

  “He had a quarrel with one of the Frenchmen. Ended up with a tap on the head from a pistol butt.”

  “Badly hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. With these cases, though, it’s sometimes difficult to be sure about damage to the cranium—often several hours pass before anything manifests itself.”

  “And then what?”

  “Collapses, pallor, heavy perspiration …”

  “Supposing that happened to Much: where would you nurse him?”

  “There’s nowhere,” Bowen said, “apart from the cabin he’s sharing with Wilson.”

  “It would be more convenient to have him in here, would it not?”

  Bowen saw Ramage wink and smiled: “Yes, sir. Much more. Do you want me to arrange it?”

  “I badly want to have a chat with our Mr Much. A suitable collapse and a request to Kerguelen should do the job.”

  Southwick was scratching his head and Ramage guessed that the locked door with an armed sentry outside was affecting the old Master, who asked, “What do you reckon our chances are of being recaptured, sir?”

  “Very slight, if these Frenchmen can handle her properly. Sounds as though they’ve finished the splicing. They’ll have her under way soon.”

  Breakfast next morning was a piece of bread—the Navy’s euphemism for tough biscuit—and a bowl of thin watery onion soup whose only merit was its temperature. Yorke was the first to finish his bowl. “I wish I’d soaked this bread a lot more: I’m sure they’ve chosen the hardest for us.”

  Ramage offered his bowl. “Pop it in there for a few minutes: that’ll soften it.”

  “I suppose what annoys me most is that we’re paying for their food.”

  There was a banging on the door and the key turned in the lock. “Here,” Ramage said to Yorke, “grab your bread; they’re probably collecting up the bowls.”

  But it was Kerguelen, who came into the cabin and said to Bowen, “Go with the seaman outside: that mate of yours has collapsed.”

  As the Surgeon left, Kerguelen sat down on the bunk.

  “You are comfortable?”

  Ramage smiled wryly. “Let’s say we appreciate you asking the question!”

  Kerguelen was tired: his sallow skin had the grey waxiness of strain and weariness.

  Yorke asked conversationally, “You and your brother are having a successful cruise?”

  The Frenchman made a face. “My comrades in other privateers seem to have cleared the game from the fields. You are only our second prize in more than two weeks.”

  “My condolences!” Yorke said ironically.

  The Frenchman gave a half bow and grinned. “Yes, and you were the more welcome.”

  “Why?”

  “The first was small—little more than a drogher—and gave us bad news.”

  “Might one ask … ?” Ramage said.

  “Your Channel Fleet is at sea. There seems a possibility of an attack on Brest.”

  Ramage felt there was more to it than that—at least as far as Kerguelen was concerned. “And so … ?”

  “And so we are going to have to stay out of the Channel and the Bay of Biscay for a while.”

  “You don’t mean …”

  “No, don’t worry, I won’t spend a month lying-to in the Atlantic! We haven’t enough provisions for that. No, I’m going to Lisbon. It’d be a pity to return to St Malo with empty holds, small as t
hey are in this wretched little ship. Thanks to your blockade, France is very short of just about everything needed to fit out ships. You saw the new rope in the Rossignol? That’s from our first prize. So a few tons of rope and canvas from Lisbon will be very welcome in St Malo. Fetch a high price, too.”

  “Also thanks to the British blockade,” Ramage said.

  “Ah, of course! But we won’t sell all of it: we’ll re-rig this ship, make a new suit of sails, and send her to sea privateering. She’s just fast enough—and your frigates will recognize her as a packet brig and who knows, perhaps they won’t be too inquisitive. Anyway, you’ll be able to spend a month or so looking at Lisbon—from the anchorage, of course.”

  “Why a month or so?” Yorke asked.

  “Until we hear your Fleet has returned to Plymouth. How long do you think it will stay at sea, Mr Ramage?”

  Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “Your guess is as good as mine, since neither of us knows what the Commander-in-Chief’s orders are.”

  “Alors, we’ll sample the hospitality of the Portuguese.”

  Lisbon, Ramage thought; the capital of the only neutral country on the Atlantic coast. He could just imagine the face of the Post Office agent there when he saw not the Lisbon packet from Falmouth coming up the river with the latest mails but the Jamaica packet flying a French Tricolour. Would there be a chance to escape? He pictured himself climbing over the side in the darkness and swimming through the murky water of the Tagus …

  One of the guards came into the cabin and whispered to Kerguelen, who stood up and excused himself. “This mate is apparently very ill—your Surgeon wants to see me. I would like to stay and talk, but …”

  When he had gone and the door was again locked, Southwick said, “Coincidence, that, sir. Almost as though Much had heard what you were saying last night.”

  “I’m just hoping he’s not badly hurt. A broken skull could be fatal.”