Ramage's Trial

by Dudley Pope

  “Yes, I just wanted you to repeat all that. You don’t see what a madman (with all his witnesses terrorized, somehow or other) can make of that?”

  Ramage shook his head, puzzled at the tone in Yorke’s voice. “No – it seems natural enough that the Calypso should assume that any ship that fired a broadside at her must be enemy.”

  “That’s not what I mean. A madman (or anyone trying to hide a mistake for that matter) could claim that you were attacking one of the King’s ships. Deny the broadside and accuse you: any sane man covering up a mistake would say that. I hate to think what embellishments a madman could add.”

  Ramage offered Alexis a handkerchief but she shook her head, gathered up her skirts and left the cabin.

  “I’m sorry,” Ramage said lamely. “I’ve wrecked your day with my problems.”

  “On the contrary, I’m glad we were here to listen to them. You know that anything…”

  “Yes, I know,” Ramage said humbly, almost resenting that for the first time that he could remember he was in this position. “I’m sorry that Alexis had to be involved – and I’ve just upset her by offering a handkerchief. I was trying to help.”

  Yorke laughed unexpectedly, and it sounded to Ramage like a conspiratorial laugh; everyone in the room laughing at a family joke. “My dear Nicholas, there speaks an only child. Indeed, there speaks a man without a sister. So help me, there speaks a man who must have been spending his life with some very unusual women. Alexis, bless her heart, is not upset with you!”

  “Then why…?”

  “She was so completely engrossed in your story that she forgot she had been crying. When you offered her a handkerchief she suddenly realized her face was tearstained and that she probably looked more like an upset schoolgirl than the grande dame she would rather Captain Lord Ramage saw.”

  “Grandes dames frighten me. Anyway, Alexis would stop all the conversation in any salon merely by walking through the door.”

  “I know that because she’s been on my arm so many times when it’s happened. But you can’t convince her. She thinks the conversation stops because her dress is unsuitable, or she is wearing too many or too few jewels, or her hair is in the wrong style…there’s always some damned thing!”

  “I may have no sisters, but you sound like the eternal brother!”

  “When you have a sister as beautiful and vulnerable as she is, and both parents are dead, believe me, you are mother, father, chaperone, brother and trustee, with a few other roles thrown in from time to time.”

  “Like matchmaker!” Ramage said lightly.

  “I wouldn’t mind that,” Yorke said. “Unfortunately, I have to be just the opposite. When Alexis complains that someone’s attentions are becoming ‘tedious’ – the ultimate sin in her calendar – I have to warn him off.”

  “I can just imagine you being stern!”

  “Stern be damned. One young buck, a captain in a fashionable regiment and the heir to a barony and a fortune, wanted to call me out! Swore that it was lies, and I had Alexis locked up so that she could not see him. Gave me a choice of pistols or swords!”

  Intrigued at the picture Yorke had drawn, Ramage asked: “How did you get out of all that?”

  “Oh, I chose the coward’s way out. Rang the bell for a maid, sent her for Alexis, and told her that unless she gave this tradesman’s son his congé, I’d have to meet him at dawn and kill him, except that I had a strict rule against duelling with tradesmen’s sons.”

  “And that did it?”

  “As far as this dandified soldier was concerned, yes: he retreated with a red face. Alexis then nearly fought a duel with me!”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Oh, she felt sorry for the fellow (after I’d got rid of him) and said there was no need to throw ‘trade’ in his face just because his father owned half a dozen mills in Lancashire and recently bought a title.”

  “She had a point,” Ramage said sympathetically.

  “You’re as bad as she is,” Yorke complained. “I’m the innocent party carrying out his sister’s orders, and the damned soldier wants to spit me on the end of an épée or put a pistol ball in my gizzard. All because my sister gets too flirtatious and–”

  “–and what?” Alexis said from the door.

  “I was telling Nicholas about that wretched soldier who thought I’d locked you up and wanted me to get up at dawn and clang swords or pop pistols with him.”

  “Oh yes, you really did behave disgracefully towards that poor fellow,” she said.

  Yorke looked at Ramage and sighed. “Don’t encourage her,” he said, “otherwise she’ll expect me to send him a case of claret with an apologetic note.”

  She had changed into a close-fitting wine-red dress, so close-fitting that Ramage found himself wondering how she had got into it. Her hair was now swept up in a style which emphasized her profile, and she looked every inch the calm hostess: not a hint of a stifled sob, her eyes clear.

  Ramage suddenly realized that she was watching his eyes.

  “A good maid is worth a queen’s ransom,” she said and smiled. “Dinner is being served in five minutes.”

  Chapter Twelve

  In his cabin on board the Calypso, Ramage was sleepy from too large a dinner but otherwise clear-headed because he had refused all wine and the Yorkes had not pressed him. He waited for Bowen to make himself comfortable in the armchair; both Aitken and Southwick sat on the settee.

  Bowen had only just returned from the Jason: he had not waited to change his spray-spattered breeches, although his dry boots showed he had paused to get out of ones which had been sodden by the water in the bottom of the boat.

  “You mentioned a written report, sir,” Bowen began tentatively. “At least, I thought at first that you did. I now realize that I was completely mistaken: that all you really wanted was a verbal report on any conversation I might have with Captain Shirley.”

  Ramage sat back and considered carefully what Bowen had just said. He had told Bowen to go over and examine Captain Shirley, and return to write a very detailed report on the man’s condition which he should sign, with one of the Calypso’s officers witnessing his signature. Name, date and location. Now, Bowen is saying, in a roundabout way, that he did not hear him refer to a written report. Something has happened, or Bowen has discovered something (or not discovered it) that he does not want to put into writing and he is trying to avoid involving Aitken and Southwick in anything that can later be construed as conspiracy.

  “Yes, indeed, you were mistaken,” Ramage said. “Well, now we’re all together can I offer any of you gentlemen a drink?”

  They all shook their heads. “I was offered enough on board the Jason to have floated her out of a drydock,” Bowen said. “Those gunroom officers…” He shook his head at the memory. “The third lieutenant stuck his head in a bucket of sea water before going on watch.”

  “To make his hair curl, or does he find it puts him in the right mood for handling the ship?” Southwick inquired.

  “To sober himself up enough to walk comparatively straight. It’s not a bucket but a tub: they have one outside the gunroom door. One day someone is going to be so tipsy he falls in and drowns, unless the Marine sentry fishes him out.”

  “Come now, Mr Bowen,” Ramage said, assuming a suitably formal manner. “Tell us about your visit to the Jason. It must make a pleasant change for you to visit another of the King’s ships. I trust you were also able to deal with any medical matters arising since the death of the Jason’s surgeon.”

  “Yes, indeed, sir. Nothing like a dead surgeon for increasing the sick list. There’s not a man in that ship, from the captain downwards, who hasn’t got an ache or pain somewhere since the day they buried the surgeon. That is why I’ve been such a long time,” he explained to Ramage. “I’ve treated more men on board the Jason in an hour than I’ve had sick in the Calypso in six months.”

  Southwick sniffed and brushed his hands together in a dismissive movement.
“That’s easily explained,” he said. “Our chaps are scared stiff of you. Belly? Here, take this soap pill. Chest? Here, take this soap pill. Head? Ah yes, a soap pill is a sovereign remedy for afflictions of the head. You work miracles, you scoundrel. No matter what any of our fellows may contract, there’s nothing that doesn’t vanish the moment the sufferer thinks about one of your ‘sovereign remedies’.”

  Bowen looked carefully at the master. “Tell me, old friend, for how long have you been suffering with this acute pain in the back that almost cripples you on a cold, damp day? And those rheumy eyes – shouldn’t you be thinking of retiring? Perhaps we could get you a berth somewhere as ‘mine host’ – the landlord in a comfortable old hostelry with a blazing log fire, a lad to help roll the casks off the brewer’s dray when it calls once a month (and lift the kegs of brandy from the smugglers’ horses, too), and all you need to do is give a sharp tap to start the bung…”

  Southwick grinned, admitting that Bowen had won this round in the continual teasing between the two of them.

  “We were talking about the Jason,” Ramage said, “but somehow we became involved in finding Mr Southwick’s bung-starter…”

  “Ah yes. Well, sir, I went on board the Jason, as you know, and Captain Shirley was expecting me. He was wearing that black coat but was otherwise quite normal. He invited me down to his cabin and offered me rum, gin or wine: he made rather a point that those were the only choices. But I am afraid that was the only example of slightly strange behaviour, and even that is not very strange if he does not have much choice of drink in his locker.”

  “So what did you talk about?” Ramage asked.

  Bowen laughed quietly, as though enjoying a private joke. “Well, he told me about the surgeon dying, and how good a man he was, then described the size of his sick list and asked if I would examine some of the men. I agreed because it seemed it might give me a good chance of questioning them about other matters of more immediate interest to us. Then, very tactfully (by his standards, but rather like a particularly clumsy bull trying to cross a flower garden undetected), he started to ask me about you, sir.”

  “Me?” Ramage exclaimed. “What on earth did he want to know about me?”

  “He asked in a very roundabout way with about thirty very carefully phrased questions, but there was no doubt what he was asking.”

  “Bowen, stop grinning like a parson who has just received ten times as much as he expected from Queen Anne’s Bounty!”

  The more he thought about it, the funnier it seemed to Bowen. “The trouble was, sir, I didn’t know what answer to give. It all depended on one’s point of view.”

  “Oh do stop guffawing like a schoolboy. What was Captain Shirley trying to find out?”

  “If you were mad, sir.”

  Ramage joined in the laughter. “What point of view did you put forward, eh?”

  “I avoided committing myself,” Bowen said.

  “Oh, you did…well, you could have risked perjury and given a definite answer.”

  Bowen shook his head. “Remember, sir, I was trying to get Captain Shirley on my side. I told him I could not discuss the condition of a patient with anyone else and he agreed – forgetting that surgeons have to give daily reports on every man reporting sick. He wanted to know how long I had served with you, how often you had been wounded, and so on. He belongs to that school of medical thought (dating back about five hundred years) that believes all madness is the result of a blow on the head. Have you ever had a blow on the head, sir?” Bowen asked innocently.

  “No, only on my soup.”

  Bowen nodded. “I thought as much. Well, Captain Shirley and I talked, and he answered all my questions without hesitation. The only trouble is that when a man behaves quite sanely, it is very difficult (impossible, in fact) for a medical man to frame questions that would reveal insanity. You see, sanity or insanity is not like a fever, fractured limb, rash, sprained ligament or anything like that. I give you an example. Two men are sitting side by side, quietly daydreaming. One man is thinking how much he loves his wife. The other man has just murdered his wife and has her fortune in a leather bag beside his chair. One man is sane, the other insane. But looking at the two of them, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, by talking to them, there is nothing to distinguish the mad one.”

  Ramage sighed with relief. “That was the feeling that Aitken, Southwick and I had – that the man seemed sane even though he had just behaved like a madman. Been a madman, rather.”

  “That’s the problem, sir. I could take you to Moorfields and we could walk through the wards of Bethlehem Royal Hospital – better known perhaps as Bedlam – and men and women would come up to you and I defy you to distinguish whether they are inmates or visitors like yourself. Oh yes, there are many palpably insane – screaming, making faces, claiming to be Genghis Khan, and so on.”

  “They are the dangerous ones!” Ramage said.

  “Not always, sir. A screaming man who wants to take an axe to all piebald horses is probably less dangerous – because one sees at once that he is deranged. But those only rarely insane are usually not violent.”

  “You mean, they don’t get screaming mad?” Ramage asked. “They just go mad in a quiet way?”

  Bowen smiled and acknowledged: “Yes, sir, I admit I may have been simplifying a little too much!”

  “Anyway, you learned nothing about Captain Shirley. Very well, then what happened?”

  “I then held a sick parade, beginning in the gunroom. The gunner and the third lieutenant were both sick. I noticed that all of them were drunk, in varying degrees. And all of them seemed to be frightened of something. Apprehensive, in the way men would be if they’d been told the day the world would end, and it’s next Thursday but they have to keep it secret.”

  “Did you find out anything from the gunroom?”

  “Nothing, except that they’re all frightened and drunk. Then I saw about twenty of the rest of the ship’s company. Nothing serious: just the ‘illnesses’ you find in an unhappy ship.”

  Ramage realized that Bowen had made a shrewd observation that applied to just about every ship in the Navy. Unless there was something about the station (the West Indies and the black vomit, for example) then a glance at the surgeon’s journal, more formidably known officially as the Journal of Physical Transactions of the particular ship, probably told you all you needed to know about her captain – and her officers, too. In a well ordered ship there was no need to sham sickness. But the Jason’s copy was missing: Bowen had just confirmed that…

  Which did not get over the fact that Bowen had also confirmed that Shirley’s form of madness was easy to hide, and dam’ nearly impossible for anyone else to prove. And there was no clue to how (or why) Shirley was holding a whole ship’s company in silent terror.

  Looking on the bright side, he had another frigate to help escort the convoy. In fact by normal standards the convoy now had a strong escort – four frigates for just over seventy ships: almost unheard-of these days. Providing, of course, that the Jason was not entirely useless as a fighting ship: a mad captain and drunken officers did not inspire confidence, but it meant–

  “He’s senior to you on the Post List, but you command the convoy,” Southwick said.

  “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  Southwick nodded because finding himself and his captain thinking alike was nothing very new. “Mind you, sir, that’s not to say he has to obey any orders you give if he doesn’t want to.”

  “No, but it does mean he can’t use his seniority to take the command away from Mr Ramage,” Aitken interjected. “Mr Ramage has his orders in writing from Admiral Tewtin.”

  “Let’s not get too involved in that,” Ramage said. “All that concerns us is that if I give the Jason an order concerning the safety of the convoy it’s up to Shirley whether or not he obeys it. I think he will. He’s obeyed my orders up to now – that’s why the Jason is on our larboard beam.”

  “I dream o
f the day the Lizard comes in sight,” Southwick said.

  “I alternate,” Ramage admitted. “Sometimes I dream about the day we anchor at Plymouth; at other times I have nightmares about it.”

  “Have pleasant dreams,” Southwick advised. “There’s not a damned thing we can do until we get there, and you know my advice – don’t fret about something you can’t do anything about.”

  Ramage stood at the quarterdeck rail wishing he could ignore his own rule, that no one was allowed to lean on it with his arms. Evening was the pleasantest part of the day with the sun sinking on the larboard beam and taking with it the heat and glare of the Tropics that eventually seemed to bake and dazzle you into impatience sabotaged by listlessness. Each day the wind had veered a little more. As they left Barbados the Trade winds had blown briskly from the east, with never a touch of north in them, as though to emphasize what many sailors had long suspected, that the old geographers had been teasing when they called them the “North East” trades. Anyway, they had left the islands behind, islands which for the Yorkes and for Ramage had been or become part of life – Grenada, St Vincent, St Lucia and the Pitons, the almost unbelievable matching pair of sugarloaf hills which Nature had dumped on the southwestern corner…Martinique, Dominica with its cloak of thick cloud and heavy rain which made it a favourite island for the Spanish plate fleets to make a landfall if they were short of water…Guadeloupe which looked on the chart like the two wings of a butterfly, Antigua, parched and mosquito-ridden, then the tiny island of St Barts, and St Martin, the island split between the Dutch who owned the southern half (and called it Sint Maarten, reminding Ramage of a lamb bleating) and the French. Then low-lying Anguilla and beyond Sombrero, a barren rock which seemed to guard the entrance to this wide channel joining the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

  From there the convoy had really started its long voyage across the Atlantic and Ramage was thankful their luck had held: the wind had veered to the southeast a day past Sombrero and then held steady for a week so that they were able to steer for Bermuda.