by Dudley Pope
“Ah yes,” Shirley said jovially, “you fellows with titles don’t have so much writing to do as we more common folk.”
Ramage smiled. “Our tailors charge us twice as much, so in the long run I’m sure you gain.”
“Ah yes, innkeepers too, no doubt,” Shirley said sympathetically. “Even ostlers would expect half a guinea tip from a lord, whereas an impoverished post-captain like me in the lower half of the list gets away with a shilling.”
Yes, Ramage thought to himself, you look the sort of fellow who would tip a shilling when half a guinea was appropriate: no doubt you would also take mustard with mutton.
“Well, is that all?” Shirley inquired.
“You are so obliging,” Ramage said hypocritically and hating himself for it, “that there are two other things I’d like to get cleared up while we’re at it. Three things, actually.”
“You have only to ask,” Shirley said expansively.
“Your orders, what are they?”
“You have no right to ask, of course, but as there is nothing particularly secret about them, I’ve no objection to telling you. I am taking despatches to the Admiralty from the commanders-in-chief at Barbados and Jamaica.”
How the devil could one dislike a man like this? Ramage asked himself. He was not a man one liked in the sense of making him a friend, but he was thoughtful and courteous (when he was not raking you: do not forget that).
Ramage nodded his thanks as Shirley said: “And the second thing? You mentioned three, if I remember correctly.”
“Yes. I would like my surgeon to examine you. I presume you would have no objection to that?”
“Ah, back we go to removing a captain from the command of his ship. You know it can only be done on medical grounds, so it follows your sawbones has to make an appearance.”
“Yes, but my surgeon is far from being a ‘sawbones’ – he was in a practice in Wimpole Street before entering the King’s Service.”
“He must have done something very dreadful to cause the change, then,” Shirley commented. “Still, I’ll agree – as long as he doesn’t bleed me. I won’t be bled. Achieves nothing, bleeding a sick man; just drains the life from him. Remember Ramage, if you want to kill something you cut its throat to let the blood run out. Yet these doctors try to say it does human beings good. Rubbish, sheer rubbish! Hold on to your blood, never know when you’ll need it. Very well, now what’s the third on your list?”
“I would like to leave Lieutenant Wagstaffe on board with you.”
“I’ll be glad to have him on board. I’m sure he’ll find the experience invaluable. Experience – it’s everything for the young naval officer. Battles, boarding parties, hurricanes, wooding and watering – everything!”
Ramage glanced at Wagstaffe who, red-faced but apparently more amused than angry, was writing with great concentration.
“Speaking of surgeons,” Shirley said, “always remember one thing.” His voice was solemn and Ramage expected he was about to go back on his agreement to be examined by Bowen. “Two things, rather, and stand by them no matter what the surgeons might say. Three things, in fact. There are only three sovereign remedies. Just three. Mind you, the sawbones don’t like to admit it because knowing the three sovereign remedies puts them out of business. Would you care to know them?”
Anything, Ramage thought, which throws any light on what is going on in your head and keeps you agreeable to Bowen’s examination. “I would regard it as a favour on your part,” he said.
Shirley nodded agreeably. “Yes, well, for any common distemper – upset of the bowels, for example, then rhubarb. I carry a good supply of dried sticks and use it ground up and dissolved in water. In wine, if you prefer it. For headaches, general malaise, muscular pains – brimstone and molasses. Fresh mixed and well stirred, a large spoon four times a day. And last, for any agues, feverishness, or trembling of the extremities, then the bark. I know that many surgeons use the bark. I expect they have heard of my success with it.”
Shirley ran his thumbs under the collar of his coat, as if he was going to turn it up because of a chill wind, but then Ramage realized he had done it several times and it was a nervous gesture, the only thing that Shirley did that was not absolutely normal.
“Thank you,” Ramage said politely, “I’ll make sure my surgeon has supplies of those items. Now,” he said as he stood up, “we’ll leave you in your cabin while I have a chat with your officers.”
“Ah yes, indeed,” Shirley said with unexpected heartiness. “You don’t need my inhibiting presence, do you!”
“No,” Ramage agreed because there was no point in disguising the fact that no one in the ship would dare say more than “Good day” with that black-coated figure pacing up and down, like a crow on the lawn presaging a death in the family.
It was humid and almost dark down in the Jason’s gunroom, which reeked of the sickly-sweet smell of bilges that needed pumping. The officers and warrant officers, Ramage quickly realized, were still sulking from yesterday, although at first it was not obvious whether their resentment was directed at Shirley or against Ramage, who had freed them from their arrest and put them back on normal watches.
The atmosphere, Ramage decided, was not ripe for either comfort or the exchange of confidences. “Join me on the fo’c’sle,” he told Ridley, noting that the man still had not shaved.
The Jason’s bow lifted and fell as she stretched along astern of the convoy under topsails only. The wind was light and she needed little canvas set to keep up with the merchant ships, which were jogging along under all plain sail and, Ramage noted, in good formation.
Ramage found some shade made by the fortopsail and waited with Aitken and Wagstaffe.
“What do you make of this Ridley fellow, sir?” Wagstaffe asked.
“Scared stiff of something,” Ramage said. “Reminds me of an animal trapped in a cage. Eyes flicking from side to side, looking for a way out. Apart from that, he looks intelligent…or, rather, not too stupid.”
Wagstaffe laughed as he saw the man coming up the ladder. “I’m glad you qualified that, sir; I was thinking he got this job because his father knows Captain Shirley.”
“His tailor, perhaps,” Aitken said, and the other two laughed. It was one of the oldest jokes in the Navy that a certain type of captain would pay for his uniforms, shirts and hose by taking the tailor’s son or nephew to sea as a midshipman (officially a captain’s servant) – a gesture which cost him nothing since he was allowed to take a certain number and he did not pay them, nor did they act as servants.
Ridley walked up and stopped in front of Ramage, saluting with a listless gesture, as though all spirit and energy had been drained out of him.
Ramage looked him up and down carefully, noting the unshaven face, uncombed hair, creased breeches and jacket, soiled stock.
“Is that your usual rig? Do you always sleep in full uniform and has the carpenter borrowed your razor to split wood? Is there a shortage of soap in the ship?”
Ramage spoke quietly but contemptuously, his voice intended deliberately to provoke the man, who straightened his shoulders and sighed. Ramage recognized it as a sigh of despair and ignored it.
“I’m sorry sir. I didn’t expect you, otherwise I’d have tidied myself up.”
Ramage took the watch from his fob pocket, looked at it and slowly put it back. “Is the Jason’s first lieutenant usually still en déshabillé at this time of the day?”
“Sir, these are not normal times for the Jason’s officers,” Ridley muttered plaintively, as though that sentence alone explained his appearance.
“In what way?” Ramage said, encouragingly.
Ridley shook his head. “I can’t explain, sir; but I’d be grateful if you’d just take my word for it.”
“Ridley,” Ramage said sharply, “your ship opened fire on the Calypso. I’m trying to find out why.”
Ridley shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, I know nothing about it. You must ask Captain Shi
rley.”
“Have you and the other officers been threatened?”
“I’m sure the captain can tell you all you need to know, sir. I’m only the first lieutenant,” Ridley said doggedly.
“Which means you are the second-in-command and take command if anything happens to the captain.”
Ridley stared at the deck and said, almost absently: “But nothing has happened to the captain…”
“Listen,” Ramage said quietly, “tell me in confidence what has happened. I’ll tell these two officers to move out of earshot so there will be no witnesses to whatever you say.”
“It’s no good,” Ridley said miserably, “there’s nothing to say, witnesses or no witnesses.”
Very well, Ramage decided, persuasion will not work so it has to be a threat. “You realize there will be courts of inquiry and courts-martial when we reach England. You are going to be asked about the Jason’s guns firing. You are going to have to give your evidence on oath. Your word against mine. Your word against that of all my officers and men. Can you guess which the court will accept?”
“You must ask Captain Shirley, sir,” Ridley said woodenly. “I know nothing about courts and oaths.” He looked at Wagstaffe as he asked Ramage: “If you have no further questions, it’s my watch in a few minutes.”
“Run along,” Ramage said sarcastically, “you don’t realize the depth of the water you’re standing in. Send up Mr Price.”
As Ridley went down the ladder, Ramage shook his head wonderingly. “I’ve got it!” he exclaimed. “There was something about these men that seemed familiar, and I’ve just realized what it is. Two things, in fact. One concerns the officers, warrant officers and men; the other Captain Shirley.”
Aitken and Wagstaffe waited expectantly but after a minute or two Aitken realized his captain’s thoughts were miles away.
“What’s familiar, sir?”
“Voodoo! I last saw this sort of thing in Grenada. The witch doctor had a spell put on the local people. He threatened terrible things if they didn’t keep a secret, so when they were questioned they denied everything in the same way, as though their minds were not in their bodies. And the witch doctor (of course he denied he was one or that he had anything to do with Voodoo) was just like Captain Shirley: friendly, polite, apparently willing to answer questions – yet for all that remote, as though the real man was hidden behind a pane of glass.”
“I’ve a slight idea of what you mean, sir,” Aitken said. “Not from having had anything to do with Voodoo, but in the Highlands there are some very odd happenings: people with strange gifts and strange powers…”
He broke off as the Jason’s master, Price, came up to Ramage and saluted.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Yes, and you can guess what it is about because Southwick mentioned it yesterday.”
Price shook his head and glanced aft at the quarterdeck.
“The captain is down in his cabin,” Ramage said. “You can talk in absolute safety.”
“What’s there to talk about?” the man said insolently. “I’m sure Captain Shirley or the first lieutenant can answer all your questions.”
“Different men give different answers,” Ramage said carefully, deciding to accept the man’s insolence for a few more minutes in the hope that his attitude would change. “There are just a few questions.”
Price shrugged his narrow shoulders indifferently.
“Tell me Price, why do you think the Jason fired at the Calypso yesterday? Was it an accident?”
The Jason’s master ignored the suggested excuse. “I never heard tell of ships firing at each other yesterday,” he said. “Leastways, nothing until Southwick asked me, and you too.”
“Sir.”
“You too, sir,” Price amended. “You’d better ask the captain.”
“Price,” Ramage said slowly, “Southwick speaks highly of you, and you know as well as I do that when we reach England there’ll be a court of inquiry and courts-martial. Obviously if you help us now, I will speak up for you.”
“You want me to turn King’s evidence, eh?” Price sneered.
“Don’t be absurd. Just look at it from my point of view: my ship comes up to greet another of the King’s ships, and gets raked. I could have had masts sent by the board and dozens of men killed.”
“But you didn’t, though,” Price said slyly and for a moment Ramage thought the man would reveal more, but he simply waved an arm towards the Calypso. “I see she has a full complement of masts…”
“Price, I’m giving you a last chance. I’m not threatening you. But you know the danger you’re in. You know my offer to speak on your behalf is your only chance–”
“No one’s got a chance,” Price interrupted angrily. “We had one chance but we lost, and that’s that.”
“A chance to do what?”
“Forget I ever said that,” Price said, suddenly nervous. “I said too much. S’more than a man can stand being up here on the fo’c’sle and ’terrogated like this by strangers. If you’ve got questions, ask Captain Shirley, don’t pick on us – sir. And don’t go telling Captain Shirley we said anything, ’cos we didn’t.” With that Price quickly saluted, turned and bolted down the ladder, hurrying along the main deck back to the gunroom.
“They ‘had one chance, but we lost’,” Ramage murmured to himself. “Who are ‘we’? The gunroom officers? Everyone on board the Jason? Is Captain Shirley included or excluded?”
“I think we’d be better off if Price hadn’t said that,” Aitken said bitterly. “It’s just tantalizing, and no one is going to tell us any more.”
Ramage nodded in agreement. “I had the impression that ‘we’ probably referred to the gunroom officers. I don’t think the men were involved.”
Both Aitken and Wagstaffe reminded Ramage that the guns’ crews denied the guns had been fired, but Ramage said: “No, I’m not talking about the whole business. I think the ‘chance’ is one thing and the attack on the Calypso is another.”
Aitken agreed. “I’m thinking about the way everybody seems…”
He paused, and Ramage finished his sentence: “Wrapped in fear and apprehension.”
“That’s it, sir; like schoolboys who have been told to see the headmaster in the morning, and not sure whether they’re going to get a good beating or not.”
“Well, we’re only getting ourselves more puzzled by staying on board here. Keep an eye open,” he told Wagstaffe, “and sleep with a pistol to hand.”
“Sir,” Wagstaffe began tentatively, “supposing Captain Shirley starts doing something that is, well…sort of…”
“You’ll have to decide whether or not what he’s doing (or proposing to do) is prejudicial to the King’s Service. If it is, you have to do whatever you think fit. I can’t give you orders to cover everything, but I’ll back whatever you do.”
“Supposing one of the officers refuses to carry out an order…”
“Look, Wagstaffe, what we’re doing is by way of being a bluff: I am trying to get the Jason back to England without Captain Shirley attacking some other ship. Unless Bowen gives me a report tomorrow showing that Captain Shirley is mad, there’s nothing I can do about him, officially. Putting you on board, sending Bowen to examine him, questioning the officers, questioning Shirley himself – all this lays me open to various charges, I expect, if we can’t prove that Shirley attacked us without cause and that he’s crazy.”
Ramage warned both men: “Don’t forget that at the moment we’re safe as long as we can prove that the Jason raked us, and we have all our own people as witnesses. Shirley, on the other hand, can produce witness for witness to deny everything. So it depends who the members of a court want to believe. However, I think Shirley’s missed his most plausible defence.”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir,” Aitken muttered. “What would that be?”
“Shirley would have had a good defence for raking us if he’d sworn he never saw the convoy in the distance. The
n he could claim that because the Calypso has French lines, he assumed she was French, flying British colours as a ruse de guerre.”
Wagstaffe said: “He could have claimed he thought we were about to attack the convoy and that he arrived just in time to save it.”
“That’s true, but keep the thought to yourself,” Ramage said dryly. “I haven’t even thought of it in Shirley’s company in case he has the same powers as some of those old biddies in the Highlands, and reads my mind.”
“He’s got some weeks to think of it,” Aitken pointed out. “They say there’s nothing like a sea voyage to clear the mind.”
“No,” Ramage agreed, “but he denies firing a gun, so he’d have to change everything to use that defence.”
“You’ll have to tell Bowen to think of some vile disease that Shirley has, sir,” Wagstaffe said. “Something that’ll keep his mind occupied, worrying!”
“They get damned ethical, these medical men,” Aitken grumbled. “At least, ones like Bowen do. He’d faint if you suggested he prescribe a dram of brandy on a cold night ‘for medicinal purposes’.”
“Damnation take it!” Ramage swore. “The Jason’s surgeon! We haven’t questioned him.”
“Haven’t seen him,” Aitken said. “And I remember that when we were down in the gunroom yesterday, winkling out the officers from their cabins, I noticed the only open door and empty cabin had ‘Surgeon’ painted over it.”
Ramage was already hurrying down the ladder to the maindeck and a couple of minutes later the Marine sentry was announcing him at the door of Captain Shirley’s cabin.
Shirley was sitting back on his settee with his feet up reading a book. He closed it and swung his feet down, but Ramage waved him to remain seated. “Please don’t get up. I’m sorry to interrupt your reading.”
“My dear Ramage, you are always welcome, as I continually tell you. I am beginning to think you have a poor opinion of yourself!”
“Certainly you make me a welcome guest. There was just one question I forgot to ask you. Your surgeon. I have not seen him.”