by Dudley Pope
A few minutes ago Ramage had listened to Goddard distorting everything so that the blame fell on the Triton; now Yorke was outlining the same facts so that all the blame was back on Goddard’s shoulders, and with it the implication that there might be treachery involved in the Peacock’s presence in the convoy.
Goddard waved a helpless hand, physically as well as mentally beaten. Croucher looked away and Ramage wondered whether the wretched man was finally disgusted by his patron. With exquisite politeness, giving the impression that he had no idea the effect his words had already had on Goddard, Yorke said: “However, Admiral, there is one piece of good news that it will be an honour to give you.”
Goddard’s eyes lifted hopefully and Croucher turned back to look at Yorke.
“There is a second letter for Lord Grenville.”
“Indeed, and what does that one say?” Goddard was trying to hide the hopeful note in his voice by being jocular.
“It will recommend to the Secretary of State that Lieutenant Lord Ramage be given ‘signal recognition of his valour and alertness’—I am quoting the exact phrase in the letter—and asking Lord Grenville that the King should be informed. Our own King, I mean, of course.”
Goddard glanced sourly at Ramage. “I am very flattered that this should happen to one of my young officers,” he said heavily. “Naturally such recognition reflects on all the King’s ships. May I be the first to congratulate you, Ramage? We are all very proud.”
As Ramage clattered down the companion-way to his cabin on board the Triton, acknowledged the Marine sentry’s salute and ducked his head to avoid the low deck beams, he felt almost hysterically cheerful. He flung his hat onto the swinging cot and unbuckled his sword. Southwick followed him into the cabin and was waved to a chair as Ramage loosened his stock, sat at the desk and turned to the Master.
“Unbelievable, quite unbelievable.”
Southwick grinned. “I thought as much, sir; I hadn’t expected to see you quite as cheerful.”
Ramage gave him an edited account of what had happened in the Admiral’s cabin.
“Saw the Topaz go down to the flagship,” Southwick said. “Must admit I thought the same as you: that Mr Yorke might try to lodge a complaint.”
“Apart from us, the only one that comes out fairly well is the Raisonnable. The Admiral gave us the details of how she captured the second ship. I think what happened was that months ago the French heard the Lion would be carrying some very important passengers—people the Directory would like to get their hands on and silence forever. Unexpectedly, the passengers transferred to the Topaz—much more vulnerable than the Lion—before the convoy left Cork, and the French managed to send the Peacock to catch up with the convoy in Barbados, and join it.
“She had a couple of hundred extra men on board. Being in ballast she could carry plenty of water and provisions and they reckoned two hundred men would be enough to board the Topaz in the darkness, murder the passengers and escape again.
“In Barbados they found that joining the convoy was easy. The Peacock’s skipper is a renegade Englishman, by the way, and he called on the Admiral with false papers. Later he decided to improve on his orders and capture the Topaz as well, taking the prisoners into Guadeloupe alive as hostages. He’d have been richer by a good prize and seems to be a greedy man. He decided to change his tactics with the new plan. The night before last he ranged up alongside the next ahead in the convoy and put a hundred men aboard her—that’s when we saw the two ships alongside each other. There weren’t six men on deck so he captured her without a shout, let alone a shot.
“Now he had half his men in this ship—the Harold and Marjorie—and half in the Peacock, ready to take the Topaz. He reckoned he’d come up the outside of the column with the Harold and Marjorie on the inside, so he could board the Topaz from both sides.”
“How the devil did he expect to get away with it?”
“Come, come!” Ramage chided. “He nearly did, and if you’d been him you’d have expected to get away with it too. He probably decided he had to do it last night or tonight because Guadeloupe is so near. And I suspect he was worrying about this swell. So out of the column they come, and in a very short time they’re alongside. Or should have been.
“I think he reckoned the only real risk was the Greyhound. He didn’t think we’d spot him against the masts and sails of the rest of the convoy, and even if we did he knew he could board us. Don’t forget, he was counting on a hundred men and surprise: if we did go down to investigate, his men could suddenly leap up from behind the bulwarks and swarm on board—as indeed they did.”
“But the Greyhound …”
“Say the Greyhound spotted him as soon as he let fall his courses and hauled his wind out of the column, he could claim to have seen a French privateer astern. A ship out of position in a convoy is irritating—but not usually a cause for suspicion … Once he knew the Greyhound hadn’t spotted him, the Harold and Marjorie also left the convoy.”
Southwick slapped his knee and said cheerfully: “But the Peacock didn’t reckon on us pulling his tail feathers.”
“The rest of the Peacock story is as we guessed it. The Greyhound seems to have been keeping station on us, instead of watching the convoy, so she wasn’t too far away when we suddenly went down to the Peacock. The firing woke her up and she came down to help.”
“What about the Harold and Marjorie?”
“The Raisonnable on the larboard quarter of the convoy saw the firing over this side and immediately cut diagonally across the convoy to get to it. Against the lighter northern sky she saw the Harold and Marjorie turning away southwards and obviously up to no good. The Raisonnable herself was against the dark cloud to the south—you remember how hard it was to see the convoy against it? Anyway, the Harold and Marjorie didn’t see her until it was too late to dodge, and didn’t realize she was a frigate. She opened fire—and that was all the Raisonnable wanted to know: no need for any more questions. She raked her a couple of times and the Frenchman had had enough.”
“What about the renegade Englishman?”
“They can’t find him on board the Peacock. He may have committed suicide—he must have known if he was captured he’d hang. But the French mate wanted someone to blame for the fiasco, so he has talked.”
“D’you think the Admiral is going to leave us in peace now, sir?”
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows … ?” Southwick stood up. “I’d best be getting on deck. This swell is increasing quickly now …”
“I’ll come with you. I want to time it. The trip in the gig gave me a chance to measure the height.”
“Doesn’t look too good,” Southwick said gloomily as he led the way out of the cabin. “This high, wispy cloud to the east, and no Trade wind clouds. If it falls calm this afternoon …”
Ramage took out his watch and looked astern. The wind was light and made little more than wavelets; but beneath them, like large muscles rippling under the skin, were the swell waves. The crests were widely spaced and still fairly low; but they weren’t as low as they had been yesterday. Whatever caused them was moving closer. Closer, but not necessarily towards them. It could move still closer without being a threat, just as one might pass a man on a road without bumping into him.
He looked down over the taffrail and the sun scorched through his clothes. The rudder post creaked gently as the man at the wheel kept the brig on course; the water was dark-blue and as he stared down at it, he had a feeling that it was bottomless: that it went down and down for scores of thousands of fathoms. Within a minute or two he had the rhythm of the swell waves, and he started to time the interval between each of a series of crests.
He shut the lid of the case and slipped the watch back into his pocket.
Southwick caught his eye and said quietly: “For what we are about to receive?”
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “Keep your money in your pocket until you see if the wind drops later.”
He w
ent over to the binnacle box and picked up the biggest telescope, adjusted the eyepiece to a particular scratchmark that showed the correct focus for his eyes, and looked around the horizon.
Over on the starboard side, to the eastward, what were low dark smudges to the naked eye showed as high land with a few clouds. Guadeloupe and, on the quarter, Dominica. The small northern islands were still out of sight over the starboard bow—indication enough of the convoy’s slow progress.
Light winds certainly made a convoy commander’s task easier in one respect since it gave the masters of the merchantmen less reason for reducing sail, and there was nothing like an unexpected night attack for improving station-keeping! Southwick had already commented on the fact that by dawn several merchantmen had shaken out reefs during the night, a sure sign that the fireworks had bothered them. It’s an ill wind, Ramage thought to himself.
He went down to his cabin again, found he’d forgotten to collect the master’s log and sent his steward for it. Irritating how much paperwork was needed to keep a ship afloat, but at least the log served an obviously useful purpose. Every two months a parcel of documents had to be prepared for despatch to the Admiralty and the Navy Board, and in every third parcel, among many other lists and reports, were the captain’s journal and the master’s log.
They were usually almost identical, which was hardly surprising since they were both based on the same source: the large slate kept in the binnacle box, and which was used to record wind direction, courses steered and speed and distances made good, either every hour or when any of them changed. An hourly diary of the ship’s life, in fact.
Southwick took the slate down to his cabin every day, copied the details into his log and added other items of information concerning the ship and her crew, wiped the slate clean, and returned it to the binnacle box, where the quartermaster could reach it easily. Every day Ramage, like every other captain of a King’s ship, took the master’s log as the basis for his journal entry, adding any other information likely to be needed for reference or required by regulations.
Since anything of major importance was the subject of a separate report, the entries tended to be brief. Ramage opened the drawer, took out his journal, glanced through Southwick’s log, and then began writing, bringing the journal up to date from the last entry the previous afternoon.
“PM 3 wind SE by E, light, swell from E, ship’s company employed a.t.s.r., convoy making 4 knots …” He hated abbreviations, but the phrase “as the service required” was used so often there was no choice. “Opened cask of salt beef, marked 54 pieces, contained 51,” a common indication of the dishonesty of contractors. Then he settled down to the previous evening’s events.
“7.45 sighted number 78 (Peacock) leave her position, subsequently opened fire on her to prevent attack on 71 (Topaz), 10.20 resumed original position, wind ESE, light …”
He read it over again. It was as brief as he dare make it, but there was almost bound to be a court martial, and as far as he could see it would be a matter of luck who would be accused. If Goddard had his way, it would be Lieutenant Ramage: if Sir Pilcher Skinner was intelligent and impartial, it would be Rear-Admiral Goddard.
Ramage was beginning to realize that the Topaz carried one of the most powerful of the French families in exile. A wise commander-in-chief would sacrifice a rear-admiral to placate such influential people, but from all accounts Sir Pilcher was not intelligent; he would probably agree with Goddard that a lieutenant was a more suitable sacrifice.
Ramage shut the journal, screwed the cap on the ink bottle and wiped the nib of his pen. If there was a court martial, his journal would be needed as evidence. All the previous entries were taciturn or lazily brief, depending on one’s point of view. The words he had just written gave nothing away, but did not reveal too obviously that they’d been written with the possibility of a court martial in mind.
He found himself staring at the column of mercury in the weather glass. It had dropped slightly for the third day running. No longer was there the slight, twice daily rise and fall; now there was only the fall.
Within a few hours the whole sky was covered in a high haze which left the sun looking like a whorl of red paint made by the thumb of a violent and insane artist, and long high streaks of cloud started moving in from the east. The surface of the sea seemed oily and heavy with menace. The wind had died away fitfully until finally every ship in the convoy was lying lifeless, each ship’s bow pointing in a different direction. Lifeless but not still: the swell waves persisted after the wind waves died away, still not high but long, measured from crest to crest. Ships lying west and east pitched heavily as the crests passed under them from stern to bow, or bow to stern; but ships lying north and south rolled violently without the wind pressing in the sails.
In every master’s mind was the danger of his ship rolling her masts out; the whiplash movement of a ship swinging violently like an inverted pendulum put an enormous strain not only on the masts but on the long yards. The thick rope of the rigging vibrated as the loading alternated with the rolling.
Ramage sent for Southwick to come to his cabin and, when the Master arrived, looked up from the seat at the desk.
“I was just setting the men to overhauling tackles,” Southwick said. “I don’t think we’ve a lot of time left.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about. As we are part of the escort I can’t do anything until the Admiral hoists a signal. The signal might be later than we’d like so we’re likely to have a number of things to do in a hurry.
“First will be small sails out of the tops. Then down t’gallant yards and masts. I want them properly lashed down on deck: assume a sea might sweep us clean. Studding sail booms down off the yards … spanker boom and gaff—down and well lashed below the bulwarks. Preventer braces on the yards … relieving tackle on the tiller, and make sure the spare tiller is where we can get at it … all the axes available. Issue tomahawks: they’ll serve as small axes … Can you think of anything else?”
Southwick had been counting off the items on his fingers and shook his head. “No, but I wish we’d worked out something for the boats.”
The boats, stowed over the hatchways, were hoisted in and out by tackles on the main yard. Ramage and Southwick had tried to devise a safe way of dumping them over the side in an emergency, but had been unable to think of anything.
“It shouldn’t be too difficult to relieve ourselves of the carronades.”
Southwick grimaced. “Hope we don’t get as far as doing that: I reckon that’s about the last goodbye to mother.”
“Our fore and main trysails—I hope they’re not as mildewed as those in most ships.”
“The bosun’s mate is going over them now. Material is sound enough; he’s checking over the stitching and reef points. He’s strengthening wherever he can.”
“It’s not being left to him to decide?”
“No, sir—I’ve just gone over both sails with him. We’re laying a few more cloths on the tabling. Doubtful whether it’ll do any good: just making tack, clew and head stronger than the rest of the sail.”
“Well, if the roping holds, it makes it easier to mend. Just panels going!”
“Just panels.” Southwick sniffed. “Finest and heaviest flax there is!”
“It might never blow, Mr Southwick, in which case we’ll never know.”
“I’d be happy to die of old age completely ignorant of hurricanes.”
“Me too, but the longer we stay at sea, the more the odds turn against us.”
Ramage picked up his hat and the two men walked back up on deck.
The sky to the west was a cold, coppery colour—a colour so unlike anything normally occurring in nature that its very strangeness was frightening. The reflection of the sky gave everything a coppery hue: the flax sails, normally raw umber with a touch of burnt sienna, the bare wood of the decks, the brass-work of fittings. Even the bright red, royal blue and gilt of the small carved crown on top of the capst
an was distorted by the sun’s strange lacquering.
Southwick sucked his teeth and shuddered. “Horrible. You can almost taste it. Like sucking a penny.”
That’s about it, Ramage thought, a colour that gives the impression of taste; a physical presence, like cold, only instead of chilling it frightened. There was a curious tension on board the Triton—something he’d never really seen before in a ship of war—it was not the same when they went into action. There was a slight rounding of men’s shoulders as they walked the deck doing various jobs. They hadn’t the jauntiness that was normally so obvious. Each man seemed in the grip of a private fear.
Up on the fo’c’s’le, Jackson was working with Rossi, Stafford and six other seamen, stitching reinforcing patches into the fore trysail. The men were sitting on the deck, their legs under the sail, looking like old women mending nets on a beach. Each had a heavy leather palm strapped to his right hand to help drive the needle through the cloth.
Jackson leaned back and groaned. “My back … I feel like an old man.”
“It’s not me back; it’s me ‘and,” Stafford grumbled. “This ‘ere palm ‘as blistered me ‘and.”
“Don’t tell the bosun,” Rossi said. “It is the proof you never do any work.”
Stafford sniffed. “Ever been through an ‘urricane, Jacko?”
When the American shook his head, another seaman said, “What d’you think it’s like?”
“Windy,” Stafford interrupted as he dug the sail needle into the material.
“Not in the middle,” Jackson said. “They say it’s flat calm in the eye and the sun shines.”
“Ho yus,” Stafford exclaimed. “An’ all the women ‘anging their washin’ up ter dry, no doubt.”
“Well, you’ll soon meet one …”
“‘Ere, Jacko, you reckon—reely?”
Jackson nodded. “Yes—you’ll see, it blows like the devil until you’re in the middle; then the wind drops, it stops raining, the sun comes out and everything’s lovely.”