by Dudley Pope
“Very well,” Swan said. “Report if you sight more.” He turned to Ramage. “Well, sir, can’t be French and I don’t think they’re Spanish.”
“No, it’ll be the Channel Fleet coming out to blockade Brest again … Well, they’ve had eighteen months’ rest, but winter will soon be here.”
Phillips gave a dry laugh. “The equinoctial gales will be along … then they’ll dream of being ‘Close up with the Black Rocks with an easterly wind’!”
Both Ramage and Swan laughed, but both were thankful they were not serving in the blockading fleet. The Black Rocks … The description really stood for the twenty-five or thirty miles from the island of Ushant in the north to the Île de Sein in the south and, covering the entrance to Brest rather than the Rocks themselves, must make up the most iron-bound coast in the world: for almost every day of the year it was a lee shore wide open to the full fury of the Atlantic.
Yet by a quirk of nature the ships of the Royal Navy, forced to blockade Brest, were fortunate. The French fleet could leave Brest only with an easterly wind. A strong wind with much west in it left them unable to beat out of the Gullet and meant that they were also blockaded by nature.
The blockading British fleet’s line-of-battle ships could stay twenty, thirty or even forty miles out to sea, so that they had plenty of room when the westerly Atlantic gales turned into storms lasting a week … A captain with his ship under storm canvas could pull down his newly-tarred sou’wester and curse that he had ever chosen the navy, but apart from keeping station on the admiral if possible (it never was in a full storm) it was more miserable than dangerous.
As a precaution a line of frigates, each within sight of the other, linked the fleet with the French coast. But with west in the wind the admiral could be sure that nature was his ally, keeping the French penned in. France was in fact unlucky because the perfidious English had along their Channel coast large and sheltered harbours which they could enter whatever the weather—Plymouth, Dartmouth, Falmouth, Portsmouth and the area inside the Isle of Wight, Dover and the Thames estuary.
The French were plagued with much higher tides and all their main Channel harbours—Calais, Havre de Grâce, Cherbourg and Boulogne—were artificial. The first of any size which was natural was Brest—which, as the Admiralty stated it—was “outside Channel limits.”
So a west wind kept the French penned in; but the situation changed immediately the wind-vane on the church of St Louis de Brest swung round: an east wind tried to blow the blockading Royal Navy out to sea and gave the French a fair wind for slipping out of the Gullet while the blockaders beat back again to close the door.
Indeed, as Ramage knew from experience, that is why the blockading fleet had the frigates—as soon as the wind turned east the British frigates moved close up to the Black Rocks: close in with the Black Rocks, a couple of miles seaward of Pointe St Mathieu. They were, he reflected, a suitable name for rocks when you were commanding a frigate on a dark night in an easterly gale and peering with salt-sore and weary eyes for a sight of the white collars of breaking seas that would enable you to give hasty helm and sail orders to save the ship.
“Close up with the Black Rocks with an easterly wind”—words written on most midshipmen’s hearts, and worthy of being carved on many a captain’s tombstone, Ramage thought wryly. Still, it was worse for the admirals—they might have to spend a couple of years out here, shifting their flag from ship to ship while captains and seamen had a brief rest when they returned to Plymouth for water, provisions or repairs. The wear and tear on masts, spars and cordage keeping a close blockade off somewhere like Brest was beyond belief.
With her courses furled, the Murex was lying hove-to, her backed foretopsail trying to push her bow one way and maintopsail to turn it the other and the pair of them leaving the brig in a state of equilibrium, rising and falling on the swell waves like a resting seagull.
“The cutter is ready to be hoisted out, sir,” Swan reported. “Two of the Frenchmen, seeing how short-handed we are, volunteered as boat’s crew. Six men should be enough in this wind and sea.”
Ramage nodded. “Someone is standing by to help Bridges with the flags?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you can guess what the first signal will be.”
“I think so, sir,” Swan said with a grin.
The two frigates, one approaching from the north and the other from the north-east, were a fine sight: both had all plain sail set to the royals and Ramage guessed the one to the northeast was commanded by the senior of the two captains—the other was deliberately letting her reach the brig first.
Sarah, standing beside him and wearing her hastily repaired dress, said quietly as she watched the frigates: “Should I go below, out of sight?”
“Most certainly not!” Ramage said. “I’m anxious to show off my new bride! No,” he added, “we have no signal book and very few men, so we want these fellows to guess at once that something’s wrong. We don’t want them to rush past hoisting a string of flag signals giving silly orders we can’t read.”
“Can they give you orders?”
“Yes, if they are senior. If they were made post before me, in other words.”
“If their names are above yours in the List of the Navy? How will you know that, without looking them up in Mr Swan’s copy as soon as you are introduced?”
Ramage grinned complacently. “I know the names of the thirty or so lieutenants who were above me in my year, and all those in the two preceding years, so it’s not too difficult!”
“What do you think will happen now? I was just beginning to look forward to the idea of getting back to London.”
“I don’t know. It might be difficult to persuade the admiral that fifty French Royalists being transported have any importance.”
“Who will the admiral be?”
“I don’t know. Lord St Vincent commanded the Channel Fleet until the change of government saw him made First Lord. Now the war has started again, who knows …”
“Perhaps Lord Nelson. You know him, so it shouldn’t be too difficult …”
“Perhaps, but I doubt it. After Copenhagen, I don’t think the public—which means the politicians—would want to see him doing blockade duty. You don’t have to be a brilliant tactician to blockade Brest.”
“No, but you need to be a brilliant tactician if the French fleet sails from Brest and you have to stop it!”
She was sharp-witted and wide awake. Ramage had to admit that, and said: “You’re right, and from what we saw in Brest, that admiral over there”—he nodded towards the British ships of the line beating up towards Ushant—”will have to stay awake.”
The French coast was beginning to drop below the horizon: the coast of gaunt, high cliffs was now little more than a thick pencil line on the eastern horizon.
Sarah gestured towards it: “I think our honeymoon is officially at an end now. Have you enjoyed it, dearest?”
“If honeymoons are always as exciting as this, I think I will get married more often!”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I didn’t care much for the company, but I enjoyed seeing France.”
“Ah, yes, the French way of life. One of the most complex of life’s puzzles: how can such selfish people create such an interesting atmosphere? It must be a quirk of the weather,” he added teasingly. “Take away the wine and the cheese and what do you have left?”
“Lots of gendarmes at the barrières!”
Swan coughed as he approached. “The easternmost frigate, sir: she’s hoisted the Union at the mizen topmasthead and our pendant.”
“Very well, acknowledge and hoist out the cutter.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Swan paused a moment, looking embarrassed.
“Well?” Ramage said, eyebrows raised. “Say it!”
“I was wondering, sir, if you’d sooner wear breeches—I have a spare pair left which would fit.”
“No—they’ll have to put up with a sans-culottes. They’re good
French fisherman’s trousers, and this smock—why it smells more of potatoes than fish!”
A slatting of canvas made Ramage glance up to see the frigate tacking to the north-west. He guessed she would stand on for a mile or so, tack again until she was half a mile to windward of the Murex, and then heave-to.
“They’ve not heard about the mutiny,” Ramage said loudly and both Swan and Sarah swung round.
“They haven’t, sir? How can you be sure?”
“Guns,” Ramage said laconically. “Neither ship has her guns run out. Not the way you’d approach a mutinous ship.”
And probably all her captain wants to know, so he can make a signal to the admiral and show that he is awake, is what ships we have sighted recently in the area, because we look as though we are on a regular patrol.
The Murex’s cutter was hoisted out, Ramage was on board and the men bending their backs to the oars by the time the frigate had hove-to. At the last moment Swan had shouted down that she was the Blanche; that the lookout had been able to read her name on her transom and one of the seamen had recognized her.
Fifteen minutes later the cutter was alongside; the Blanche’s seamen caught the painter the first time it was thrown (by Auguste, Ramage noted) but missed the sternfast, but even before the officer of the deck began shouting Ramage had jumped for the battens and was scrambling up the side.
At the top, the moment he stepped on deck, a lieutenant stood in front of him.
“Stand aside, blast you: your captain is the first up!”
The senior officer was always the last in and the first out of a boat, and instead of the expected young lieutenant falling over his sword and with his hat awry, here was a man dressed more like a fisherman!
“I am the captain,” Ramage said quietly. “Before you—”
“Master-at-arms!” roared the lieutenant, “get this man out of my way!”
“—before you make a fool of yourself, Lieutenant,” Ramage repeated without changing the tone of his voice, “I suggest you listen because I shan’t tell you twice.”
The lieutenant, tall and plump but with a weak mouth and chin hinting at self-indulgence, paused a moment and for the first time looked at Ramage’s face. The deep-set eyes, the slightly hooked nose, the thick eyebrows …
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Ramage realized that this must be the frigate’s first lieutenant, and the captain would be down in his cabin.
“Most of the ship’s company of that brig mutinied last week and ran her into Brest. I and a few others recaptured her and sailed her out last night. Now, either fetch your captain or take me to him.”
“And who the devil do you think you are, to give me orders.”
“My name is Ramage.”
“Well, you can dam’ well—Ramage? Lord Ramage?”
The man in fisherman’s clothes just nodded his head.
“Oh my God, sir, I had no way—”
“I know that. Your captain … ?”
“Of course, sir, at once.”
“Who is he?”
“Captain Wells, sir. Captain John Wells.”
The man then ran the few steps to the companion-way, watched open-mouthed by the Blanche’s master and a lieutenant of Marines, who stood too far away to hear the conversation but had seen their first lieutenant move like a recoiling gun.
Wells … John Wells. No, that name was not in the last list of post captains that Ramage had seen, so he must have been made post after Ramage and therefore was junior to him. That was one hurdle cleared; there was nothing like a little seniority
… And it probably meant that he was senior to the other frigate captain, too. It should not be too difficult to get a dozen men to help sail the Murex.
“If you’ll come this way, sir …”
The lieutenant combined nervousness, doubt, uncertainty and embarrassment into an interesting melange which manifested itself in him taking off his hat, turning it round completely, and putting it on again.
“You did say ‘Lord Ramage,’ didn’t you, sir?”
“You said ‘Lord’: I merely said ‘Ramage.’ I don’t use my title in the Service.”
“No, quite, sir: I remember in the Gazette … It is simply that we did not expect …”
Ramage turned aft towards the companion-way, feeling smug at his self-control: the temptation of pointing at the unmanned guns and closed ports had been almost irresistible.
Captain Wells had been given post rank late in life: Ramage guessed he was well past fifty, and like his first lieutenant he was plump, and what would have otherwise been a pleasant face with sandy eyebrows was spoiled by eyes too close together.
Now he stood at the bottom of the companion-way staring up at the apparent fisherman coming down the steps with all the assurance of a Gascon. Not, Ramage thought to himself, that Captain Wells would know the meaning of “Gasconade” or its derivation. Nor did Wells know how he was going to get any proof of the extraordinary story that the first lieutenant had just gabbled out.
Wells gave himself time by saying: “Won’t you come in?”
Ramage remembered that his own cabin, couch and sleeping place in the Calypso frigate were larger: the French allowed their captains more room.
Wells gestured towards the single armchair and while Ramage sat down, seated himself at the desk and began taking the cap from an ink bottle.
“Ah … well now, perhaps you had better report to me in your own words and if you’ll speak slowly, I’ll write—”
“No reports, written or otherwise, to anyone except the commander-in-chief,” Ramage said flatly. “My name is Ramage, and I do not have my commission but you can confirm the date from your copy of Steel’s List, which I see you have on your desk. I was in France on my honeymoon—you have no doubt seen my wife on the Murex’s quarterdeck—when the war started again. We escaped arrest, saw the Murex being brought in with a French escort and discovered that most of her ship’s company had mutinied. The officers and a dozen or so loyal seamen were left on board and my wife and I”—Ramage decided Gilbert and the others would forgive the exaggeration—”with the help of four Frenchmen overpowered the guards, freed our men, and sailed the ship out of Brest. Then you came along.”
“But look here, I’ve no proof—”
“You don’t need any, Wells,” Ramage snapped. “Send a dozen of your men over to help those poor souls sail the Murex, and make a signal to the admiral. You’ll have fun with the Signal Book. I don’t recall anything which quite covers this situation.”
“But Ramage, I can’t—”
“Tell the admiral why you can’t, Wells, but I’ll tell you just one more thing, after which I want a dozen topmen sending down to my cutter and I’ll be off to join the fleet. Time, Wells, hours and minutes rather than days: I am desperate to save time.” With that Ramage was out through the door and halfway up the companion-way before Wells had time to draw a breath.
He was calling to the first lieutenant to have his boat ready when Wells came up the companion-way, took one more look (a despairing look, it seemed to Ramage) and seeing his first lieutenant busy, called to the master to send a dozen topmen down into the boat without waiting for them to collect their gear.
“You will let me have them back?” he called after Ramage, as anxious as any captain to keep prime seamen.
“Yes—as soon as we’re hove-to near the flagship. You can escort us down there!”
CHAPTER NINE
REGINALD Edward Clinton, knight, vice-admiral of the blue, was a bachelor and, Ramage decided at first sight, every child’s idea of what Father Christmas should look like. He was plump and round-faced, the red complexion contrasting with a pair of startlingly blue eyes, which rarely moved. The admiral had a habit of swivelling his whole head when he wanted to shift his gaze. The effect, Ramage decided, was like aiming a gun.
But Admiral Clinton was decisive. He listened to Ramage’s story without interruption and then asked a series of quest
ions, starting with those referring to the beginning of Ramage’s visit to France and ending with a request for the numbers and rates of the French ships anchored in Brest. After writing down the figures and the state of readiness of each of them, he put the cap back on the inkwell, wiped the tip of his quill pen with a piece of cloth and said casually: “You captured and then commanded the Calypso, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I still do—or did. She was being paid off and laid up at Chatham when I went on leave.”
“Hmm. Well, she wasn’t actually paid off—the war was started again. In fact I have her with me. Commanded by a fellow called Bullivant.”
“Edward Bullivant, sir, son of the Navy Board contractor?”
“The same one,” the admiral said, his voice flat. “What sort of officers did you have?”
“Not one I would change—indeed, sir, not one I would ever want to exchange.”
“Master?”
“A man called Southwick. He’d been with me from the time I was given my first command.”
“And the surgeon?” Clinton asked casually.
“A brilliant man. Used to have a practice in Wimpole Street.”
“Oh? Then why is he now simply a surgeon in a frigate?”
“Drink, sir. Lost all his patients. Came to sea.”
“That explains it all,” Clinton said, obviously relieved.
Ramage quickly decided to risk a snub. “May I ask what it explains, sir?”
“Well, had a dam’ strange signal from her at daybreak. Number 215 over her own pendant.”
Ramage thought for several moments. There were more than four hundred numbered signals in the book and 215 was not one he had ever seen hoisted or heard anyone refer to.
Clinton said: “Number 215 means: The physician of the Fleet is to come to the Admiral. But hoisted over the Calypso’s pendant numbers I assume she is trying to reverse it—asking for the physician of the fleet to go to the Calypso.”
Physician. Ramage realized the significance of the word. Most frigates and all ships of the line had surgeons, but physicians were different. There were between two and three hundred surgeons in the navy but only three physicians—Dr Harness (who had given his name to a special sort of cask), Dr Trotter (who was a friend of Lord St Vincent) and Dr Travis. One of them would be on board this flagship.