by Dudley Pope
Ramage had time only to glance at the men and notice that one of the women was young before Yorke completed the introductions: “M’sieur and Madame St Brieuc, their daughter Madame de Dinan, and M’sieur St Cast.”
“We are honoured,” St Brieuc said as they shook hands and Ramage kissed the ladies’ hands. “Surely you are the young man who captured the privateers near here? Mr Yorke has been telling us about it.”
As he spoke, in almost perfect English with an accent that only hinted at his French nationality, Ramage tried to think why the names had a curious—even spurious—ring about them.
Yorke answered St Brieuc’s question. “The very man.”
To Ramage he said gaily, “You might as well know you’re going to have to sing for your supper!”
“Sing for your supper?”
The daughter looked puzzled as she repeated the words to herself, lowering the fan which had been hiding most of her face since her eyes had first met Ramage’s a few moments earlier.
Her voice was little more than a deep murmur with a heavy French accent; to Ramage it seemed he sensed her words rather than heard them; an intimate voice that brought a tightening in his thighs.
He was brought back to the reality of the saloon by Yorke. “An expression, ma’am—it means …”
“That instead of paying for my dinner with money, I perform some service instead,” Ramage completed the sentence, embarrassed that his brief reverie might have been noticed. “Entertain you with a song, for instance.”
“Or stand on his head, or juggle with a dozen wine glasses,” Yorke added.
Ramage saw the joking had misfired because the girl was now looking embarrassed and said: “The juggling—I do not understand why …”
“My dear,” her father said, “Mr Yorke was simply telling his lordship that we hope he’ll tell us of his adventures. A warning, as it were!”
Madame de Dinan had large brown eyes set in a small oval face. She was about five feet tall, and her almost classic French beauty was saved from the coldness of statuesque perfection by the warm brown eyes and the wide, sensual mouth. She’s married, Ramage thought sadly; all that store of love and passion reserved for someone else …
Suddenly he remembered that St Cast and St Brieuc were tiny fishing villages tucked behind the rocks and reefs of the Breton coast, not far from St Malo and south of the Channel Islands. They were only a few miles from each other and he could picture that section of the chart, with Dinan a few miles inland. So these people were probably travelling under assumed names, which was hardly surprising since they were obviously Royalist refugees.
St Cast spoke for the first time. A large, florid man with white hair and heavy features which could be friendly or haughty with little change of expression, he had an unexpectedly high-pitched voice, but he enunciated every word precisely, not through pedantry but as though accustomed to giving instructions.
“Are you coming to Jamaica with us?”
When Ramage said he was, Yorke took the opportunity of asking: “What was all that nonsense with the Admiral?”
“I don’t think I’m one of his favourites.”
“I’d guessed that much. Hope I did the right thing, dragging you from the cabin like that.”
“Not only was it the right thing to do, but you timed it perfectly!”
“They looked like two cats deprived of their mouse,” Yorke said. “A fat cat, a thin cat and a choice mouse.”
Ramage laughed and then, before he could stop himself, commented bitterly, “But only a temporary deprivation.”
Yorke turned to his guests and said, with what Ramage thought was unnecessary gaiety, “While I was on board the flagship I saw that the Lieutenant was also out of favour with Admiral Goddard. I’m not betraying naval secrets because about fifty other masters noticed the same thing!”
While Ramage puzzled over the “also,” St Brieuc—a small man with the profile of a thinner Julius Caesar—was inspecting his nails. “A temporary affair, I trust,” he said politely. “A temporary fall from grace … perhaps a passing cloud?”
Ramage saw that everyone was curious. Well, there was no need to keep secret something of which the whole Navy was aware.
“No, hardly a passing cloud; it’s as permanent as—as the Minquiers.”
St Cast’s heavy features froze. He glanced at St Brieuc, as if asking a question, and received an almost imperceptible nod in reply.
“I see you have guessed that we are travelling incognito. I—”
Ramage flushed and held up his hand. “M’sieur—the allusion was quite accidental. Your names—the villages are familiar because I’ve served in a ship based on the Channel Islands. They must have been in the back of my mind when I tried to think of some—some symbol of permanence, like the Minquiers Shoal.”
“No harm is done,” St Cast assured him. “We simply—”
Again Ramage held up his hand to silence him, embarrassed but assured.
“If you are travelling incognito I am sure there’s a good reason, and in wartime the less one knows the less one can be forced to reveal if captured …”
The girl shuddered and her mother reached out to touch her arm with a reassuring gesture. Ramage and Yorke tactfully glanced away but St Brieuc, standing more erect, said with quiet pride: “Maxine has reason to know what you mean: the men of the Revolutionary Tribunal tortured her for three days to force her to reveal where in Brittany we were hiding.”
Ramage said quickly, “Your presence here proves that they failed.”
“Yes,” her father said simply, “but she’ll carry the scars of their handiwork to her grave.”
The girl suddenly glanced up with a smile, snapped her fan shut and, pointing it at Ramage, said gaily, “You have to sing for your supper!”
Grasping the chance to brighten the atmosphere, Ramage gave a sweeping bow. “Madame has only to name the song, and you’ll hear singing that will make a frog envious!”
“The song of the Triton.”
“I think, indeed I hope,” her father said slowly, “that that song is long and fascinating, and best sung later at dinner. For the moment I wonder—if I’m not being indiscreet, and Mr Yorke will warn me if I am—if we might hear something of your fall from Admiral Goddard’s grace: I—we, rather—have a particular reason for being curious.”
“You certainly have!” Yorke exclaimed. “May I explain to the Lieutenant?”
St Brieuc smiled and nodded.
“My passengers—a clumsy word for such company—originally began their voyage from Portsmouth to Jamaica on board the Lion, with Admiral Goddard as their host,” Yorke told Ramage. “They count themselves fortunate that the Lion and the convoy had to call at Cork to collect the Irish and Scottish ships, because it gave them an opportunity to leave the Lion …”
“A horrible man!” the daughter said with a shudder, and Ramage felt she had as much contempt as dislike for Goddard.
“He is not a gentlemen,” St Cast said, his jowls quivering. “Despite—”
St Brieuc interrupted so smoothly that it took Ramage a few seconds to realize that the Frenchman was unsure what St Cast was going to say, and for reasons difficult yet to understand, St Brieuc was the one who made the decisions.
“Because of the Admiral’s—ah, activities—I had no difficulty in persuading him that despite the Admiralty’s orders making us his guests, we would prefer to travel in another ship.”
Tactfully put, Ramage acknowledged, and I’d back my guess as to what happened with guineas: the gallant Admiral made advances to Madame de Dinan … and in all fairness I can’t blame him.
“I was able to offer them the hospitality of the Topaz,” Yorke said, and Ramage guessed that the original passengers had been given suitable compensation to postpone their voyage or travel in another ship.
These people must be influential enough for Goddard to be worried because they were not travelling in the Lion. The Admiralty would want explanations. That accoun
ted for Goddard’s anxiety about the convoy: these people were the “important cargo” and that explained why Yorke hadn’t bothered to look round at the rest of the masters …
But who were they and why were they going to Jamaica? St Cast seemed to be an aide or major-domo of some description; the small and birdlike St Brieuc was the man that mattered. But where was his daughter’s husband? Already Ramage disliked him because no one could deserve such a wife, and he was jealous—of a husband he had never seen of a woman he had met for the first time ten minutes before. It’s been an unusual sort of morning, he thought sourly to himself.
“My own story goes back a little further,” Ramage said, “but it’s a boring one of jealousy, vindictiveness and obsession.”
“We have some experience of all that … It’s almost a relief to know we’re not alone in our misery,” St Brieuc said quietly.
“Please,” the girl pleaded, “tell us, if you can.”
“Say the word and we drop the subject,” Yorke said, “but …”
Ramage laughed and reassured them, but they saw he was rubbing the older of the two scars above his right eyebrow. Yorke remembered seeing him do the same thing at the convoy conference when Goddard ignored him and introduced the other officers. It was obviously a habit when he was tense or concentrating. Yorke watched him snatch his hand away when he saw they had noticed.
“The story starts with my father. He’s an admiral, but not serving now.”
“Not an old man, though, surely?” St Cast asked.
“No—simply out of favour.”
St Brieuc snorted with contempt. “Politics, always politics!”
Ramage nodded. “Politics, yes; but in a roundabout way because he isn’t attached to any particular party. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant admirals of his day, but, he had—and still has—many faults. He is impatient, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly and he is a very decisive sort of man. He hates indecisive people.”
“Hardly faults!” St Cast protested, almost to himself.
“No, but he also had strong and very advanced views on new tactics and signalling which would have revolutionized sea warfare—”
“No wonder he was unpopular,” Yorke said wryly. “Pity all those other admirals. After spending a lifetime learning and practising the old-style tactics, along comes a bright new admiral wanting to change everything. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks—and the old dogs know it!”
“There is something in that,” Ramage admitted, “but then politics came into it.”
“Ah,” said St Brieuc, as if Ramage’s story had reached a point he could fully understand.
“No, not what you think, M’sieur; just the opposite. My family are Cornish, but we have kept out of politics since Cromwell’s time, or since the Restoration, anyway. We learned then not to put our trust in princes.”
“The Cornish—they are like we Bretons,” said the daughter, missing the significance of Ramage’s last remark.
“Yes—even the place-names are similar.”
“We keep interrupting,” St Brieuc said. “Do please continue.”
“Halfway through the last war, word reached England that a French fleet had sailed from Brest for an attack on the West Indies. The government had been warned months earlier that it was being prepared, but did nothing about it.”
“I remember,” St Brieuc murmured.
“The Admiralty could scrape up only a small squadron but they put my father in command and rushed it to sea. Even before sailing my father knew that, outnumbered three to one, his only chance of avoiding a disastrous defeat was to use new tactics.”
“To achieve surprise,” St Brieuc murmured, “not to use some routine tactic the French admiral would know and be able to counter.”
“Exactly,” Ramage said, “but it failed.”
Both Yorke and the girl said, “Why?”
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “The manoeuvre was revolutionary, and halfway through it the wind dropped, so only a third of his ships got into action.”
“I begin to remember,” Yorke said. “I was only a boy. The Earl of Blazey must be your father?” Ramage nodded, and Yorke continued, as if talking to himself. “Didn’t lose any ships, by a miracle, but naturally the French escaped. Great row in Parliament … The government shaky … Admiral blamed and court-martialled … The government saved … The row split the Navy … Something to do with the Fighting Instructions, wasn’t it?”
Ramage nodded. “Your memory is good. The two main factors were the old story of sending too few ships too late, and the Fighting Instructions.”
“Fighting Instructions?” repeated St Cast. “Are they what they sound like? Orders about how to fight a particular battle?”
“Not quite; not a particular battle, but a set of rules for fighting all battles.”
“Like the rules of chess?” asked St Brieuc.
Ramage thought for a moment and then nodded. “Almost, but they don’t set down the actual moves each individual ship—or chessman—can make: instead they give the admiral the sequence of moves all the pieces must make together in various circumstances.”
“Do you mean, keeping to the chess analogy,” Yorke asked, “they set down the moves for the whole game? Once the admiral chooses a particular sequence, he’s committed to make every successive move?”
“Yes. Of course they give you various alternative sequences, allowing for differences in the wind, the relative positions of your ships and the enemy’s, and so on.”
“But,” protested Yorke, as if certain he had misunderstood Ramage, “it leaves the admiral no initiative! If the orchestra plays this tune, you dance these steps; if that tune, then those steps.”
“Exactly,” Ramage said.
“But surely there are dozens—if not scores and hundreds—of situations an admiral might meet. Surely they’re not all covered?”
“There are scores of situations, but the manoeuvres listed have to be used to cover them,” Ramage said in a deliberately neutral voice.
“So what happens …”
“If you’re my father, you ignore them, decide on your own tactics, trust to the limited vocabulary of the Signal Book, and attack …”
“And if the wind drops, my lord?” St Brieuc asked quietly.
“If the wind drops and the government needs a scapegoat to save its own skin …”
St Brieuc nodded, deep in thought. “Yes, I see … In politics it is simple: proving the admiral guilty automatically proves the government innocent. The mob are too stupid to realize that finding an admiral guilty of disobeying the Fighting Instructions—however outdated and absurd they are—doesn’t make a government innocent of stupidity, neglect and acting too late…. Pamphleteers, rumours, lies and accusations circulated as gossip…. The methods don’t change with the centuries or the countries.”
“The vendetta with this Admiral Goddard,” St Cast asked—a wealth of meaning in the way he said “this”—”how did that begin?”
“My father’s trial split the Navy. Most of the old admirals—those supporting the government—were against him, while the young officers were on his side because they wanted to change the old tactics.”
“But the vendetta?”
“It’s complicated! The officers forming the court martial … well, they were senior, and they knew the government could fall …”
“If they found him not guilty,” Yorke commented, “they could say goodbye to further promotion.”
Again Ramage shrugged. It was true; it was obvious; men as sophisticated as these three needed nothing spelled out.
“He was found guilty and dismissed the Service. The young officers protested, petitioned the King, fought the verdict—or, rather, the significance of the verdict—in Parliament, but to no purpose. There were five admirals and one captain forming the court. The captain was comparatively young but he had plenty of ‘interest’—patronage in other words. His wife is a distant relative of the King …
&nb
sp; “For reasons no one has ever understood,” Ramage continued, “long after the trial was over, long after the government was saved and new elections had put them back in power and when the affair of Admiral the Earl of Blazey was a matter of history, this captain continued to attack my family in every way he could.”
“And his name,” Yorke said, “is Goddard.”
St Cast’s fingers tapped the arm of his chair. “Motives … surely he must have reasons … why?”
St Brieuc glanced up. “Pourquoi? I will tell you. First, he did what he thought would gain him favour. Afterwards it became a habit and later an obsession…. Such men always become obsessed by something: religion, gambling, the mathematics of chance…. It gives them a purpose in life—something they previously lacked. In politics, certain insignificant cretins spend their lives constantly attacking a great man. When he falls—as he will, though not because of their efforts—they hope to reap a harvest. Do you agree?”
Ramage nodded slowly. “M’sieur … I’d never thought of it as a habit or an obsession, but I think you are right.”
St Brieuc also nodded, but Ramage had the feeling he had merely read his thoughts because he continued: “A vendetta is never more than a habit. Its victims, whichever side they’re on, inherit it like an estate. The Montagues and the Capulets. Each family had an entailed legacy—a hatred for the other. Hatred or obsession is the easiest emotion to sustain because it feeds its own flames.”
“Is it against your brothers, too?” asked Maxine.
“I am the only child.”
“Against you alone, then.”
“Against my father, through me.”
“Have you no patrons?” her father asked.
“No, but a commodore—”
“A commodore!” exclaimed Yorke. “Why, you need at least a vice-admiral.”
“As many as possible,” Ramage said dryly, “but anyway, this commodore helps bring my story up to date.”
“Ah, I can guess,” Yorke exclaimed. “I take back what I said about commodores if this one’s called Nelson.”
“He is, but this was before the battle of Cape St Vincent.”
“Come on,” Yorke said impatiently, “the plot thickens!”