Ramage's Trial r-14

by Dudley Pope

  The day began with a typical tropical dawn: the first hint of daylight showed a low bank of cloud on the eastern horizon looking more like a mourning band worn round a hat, with none of the jagged lines associated with squalls or thunderstorms.

  The Calypso was alive with excitement and bustle, as though the frigate herself was excited at the prospect of sailing. Southwick strode the decks with the bounce of a suffragan bishop about to hold an unexpectedly large confirmation; Aitken had the firm walk of a landowner in the Highlands setting off on the ten-mile walk that would bring a prime stag in front of his musket. Young Paolo, with a telescope tucked under his arm, was watching the flagship for signals (not that any were expected, but one should never trust flagships) but more important watching every one of the anchored merchant ships: now was the time for them to start signalling all their defects, all the reasons why they could not weigh anchor (too few seamen), hoist sails (same excuse), sheet them home or brace them up (they needed new cordage or had sprung a yard), and why they had run short of water (having been too lazy or too cunning to send their men on shore to fill casks, they now hoped the Navy would send men and boats, in order to get the convoy moving). Or, as Southwick had commented bitterly, the kind of cunning excuses invented by sly men to get something for nothing.

  Just as Paolo (the slight accent in his voice suddenly reminding Ramage of Gianna) reported that a merchant ship called the Beatrice had hoisted a wheft from the foretopmast, showing that she wanted to communicate with the commander. Ramage said briskly: "Loose the foretopsail and fire one gun . . ."

  Aitken gave a bellow that sent a dozen men up the foremast and out along the yard: Southwick shouted an order to the gunner while having the men on the fo'c'sle heave a few more turns on the capstan and haul up more of the anchor cable, which had already been taken in to "short stay", the last position before Southwick would report "Anchor aweigh . . , up and down."

  "The Beatrice, sir?" Paolo asked.

  "Take a turn round the foredeck and then report it to me," Ramage said and Paolo grinned and walked forward.

  Ramage sighed: none of the mules seemed to be making a move towards weighing, and from the look of the bedraggled ship with the wheft, the Beatrice, she probably needed everything, including men to man the pump . . . Well, this damned convoy was going to be sailed to England "by the book". Ramage had his orders from Tewtin to take the convoy to England: the SIGNALS and INSTRUCTIONS gave the mules their orders; his own conduct was governed by the large volume of the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, and the very slim volume comprising the Articles of War; and that was that. Any mule wanting anything was going to be charged at the rate set down; those that did not keep up with the convoy without a good reason would get a tow to frighten them; after that they would be left to disappear astern, prey for French privateers.

  Captain Ramage in the Calypso and the Count of Rennes in a large merchantman each had their own reasons for getting to England in a hurry, and Ramage had decided that the urgency of him getting news of Sarah more than justified sticking to the rules: there was no regulation saying that the King's ships were responsible for getting merchant ships under way or keeping them afloat: this had become a habit because most convoy commanders were (quite reasonably) frightened of the effect it could have on their career if some wretched master of a merchant ship complained to his owners, telling a self-serving story, and they in turn complained to Their Lordships, naming the captain and listing his alleged misdeeds.

  As too many frigate captains had found to their cost, it was harder to answer allegations than to make them, and Lloyd's wielded influence far greater than most officers expected. And, of course, masters trying to justify their own conduct or shortcomings or that of their owners, did not always pay strict attention to the truth. However, frigate commanders understood one thing – Their Lordships appeared to fawn over Lloyd's, and a frigate captain found he was never employed again after a collision with them. There was a desperate shortage of frigates; there was a glut of post-captains to command them.

  Ramage looked round the great bay. It was a good many years (a couple of centuries in fact) since it was named after Lord Carlisle, who had been made, as though by a whim, "Lord Proprietor of the English Caribbee Islands" by Charles I. Since then a good many thousand merchant ships had anchored in the Bay at the beginning or end of the long voyage to or from Europe. Once again another convoy was preparing to sail - though, he admitted sourly, at the moment there was little sign of it. The Calypso's foretopsail hung down like a curtain, slatting in the breeze; she had fired a gun, and the very first of the Signals from the Commander of the Convoy gave the explanation: Foretopsail loose . . . One gun. To prepare for sailing.

  Both the other frigates were under way, and Ramage was pleasantly surprised at the men Tewtin had put in command.

  But it was now time for the second signal from the convoy commander listed in the SIGNALS and INSTRUCTIONS: Maintopsail loose . . . One gun. To unmoor.

  Ramage waved at Aitken, who was standing at the other side of the quarterdeck rail, and the first lieutenant lifted the speaking trumpet to his mouth, shouting an order which sent men racing up the ratlines and then out along the maintopsail yard. The sail billowed down as another spurt of smoke tried to race the echoing crash of the signal gun.

  Pulling out the tube of his telescope, Ramage began inspecting the merchant ships and was reminded of a herd of cattle spread across a meadow. Left alone they would slowly chew the cud, clumsily rising every few hours, and if the wind got up or it began to rain, turning to face away from it. But the Calypso was now the barking dog coming into the meadow (not rushing, but slowly, like a well-trained animal) to disturb not just a few but every one of them.

  The circular image in the glass revealed desultory movement on the fo'c'sle of two-thirds of the ships. But the only thing moving on board the Beatrice was the wheft, the knotted flag flapping at the foretopmasthead. Sidney Yorke's Emerald, by far the smartest in the anchorage, with hull and spars newly painted, the cordage showing the golden colour of new hemp, already had her anchor apeak and, with a foretopsail set, the ship was about to thread her way to leeward, away from the rest of the anchored ships and to the area well clear of the anchorage and off the town where the convoy was to form up. Form up. Ramage thought bitterly . . . easier to teach cows the quadrille than get these mules into their proper positions without broken bowsprits, ripped out jibbooms or, the more usual, having at least one ship locked in tight embrace with another, its jibboom and bowsprit stuck through the other's rigging, its bow locked amidships by torn planking . . .

  Now Paolo was back. "Are you ready for my report, sir?" he asked with a grin.

  "Yes - tell me, Mr Orsini, have you seen if any of the merchant ships have made me a signal?"

  "Why yes, sir: I've just seen that one of them, the Beatrice, has a wheft flying at her foretopmasthead: I assume she wishes to communicate with you, sir."

  "Very well, acknowledge it. If I remember rightly, hoisting a blue, white and red at the mizentopmasthead merely says: 'The Commander of the convoy sees the signal that is made to him'."

  "Yes, sir, it doesn't specify which signal or who is making it," Paolo said, enjoying the game.

  Ramage nodded and then, still looking through his glass, he groaned. "That horse won't start - the Beatrice is hoisting out a boat. We'll have the master on board in a few minutes with a list of requests ..."

  " 'Bout time for the next gun, sir," Aitken reminded him, overhearing the conversation with Orsini and looking across at the Beatrice, a ship which was of no colour: her paint was worn off the hull by the combined attacks of sea and sea air, time and the wind. Time had turned the bare wood grey, so that she looked as if she had been built of driftwood. "The boat they've just hoisted out doesn't look as though she'll swim this far!" Aitken added.

  And Ramage saw that the first couple of men who had climbed down into the boat were now busy bailing: obviously the planking
of the boat, stowed on deck without a cover to protect the wood from the scorching sun, had split as the wood shrunk: "shakes", like the wrinkles on an old man's neck, would let the water leak through. It would take hours of soaking for the wood to swell up and staunch the leaks enough for the boat to be usable. Stowing the boat with water in it would have saved them a lot of trouble because the rolling of the ship would have kept the water swilling round.

  "Very well, Mr Aitken, the last signal!"

  The first lieutenant, after checking with Southwick that the anchor was off the ground, gave the order for the topsails to be sheeted home, and another gun to be fired. That was the final order to get the convoy under way and given in the SIGNALS and INSTRUCTIONS as To Weigh, the outward and leeward ships first.

  "Let's get out to seaward of them," Ramage said. "If we stay here, one of them is sure to hit us."

  "The Beatrice, sir," Orsini reminded him.

  "You are the Keeper of the Captain's Conscience, eh?" Ramage teased him. "They've signalled that they want to communicate - and we're waiting for them."

  "She's in sight of the flagship, sir," Paolo pointed out.

  Indeed, the Queen was perfectly placed to see all that was going on, and if the Calypso left the anchorage without attending to the blasted Beatrice there would be plenty of sycophantic lieutenants on board the flagship only too anxious to make sure that the admiral was kept well informed.

  He was going to have to do something about the damned ship sooner or later, but in the meantime it would not hurt to scare the Beatrice's master. "We'll circle the anchorage a few times while these mules get under way," he told Aitken. "Once we've got the leaders of the columns in position, Orsini can take a boat over to the Beatrice. I'm more concerned with seeing how these two frigates are handled . . . They'll all be nervous for the first few days, let alone the first few hours."

  And he had made a few more hours slide by without thinking of Sarah. Plenty of work, plenty of bustle, plenty of alarms and emergencies... It was a good theory, but in practice it was going to be days and weeks and perhaps months of boredom, watching these mules making no attempt to keep position and knowing there was nothing he could do about it, except tow one or two - and leave some behind if necessary.

  Ramage had chosen a convoy formation which gave him a broad front: the seventy-two ships were formed up in eight columns, each of nine ships. There were almost endless variations - some commanders preferred a long thin column of ships, claiming it was easier to control them. That might be so, but it was almost impossible to defend them: even a single privateer, let alone a couple of enemy frigates, could cut the convoy in half.

  Having the ships advancing in a broad box-shaped formation meant that escorts could patrol ahead and astern, whence attacks were most likely to come, and since the box had narrower sides there was less room for a stray privateer to sneak in. But the real advantage, from Ramage's point of view, was that the mules had less chance to dally and drop astern.

  With the convoy now formed up and heading northwards along the west coast of Barbados, the sun dipping low on the larboard beam. Ramage was weary but satisfied: getting under way could have been a lot worse. Even the abominable Beatrice was in position after Paolo had taken over half a dozen men to help the fools to weigh their anchor. Because of some tedious dispute about pay owing to some of her men, four of her six seamen had deserted last night in Barbados, swearing they would kill the master rather than sail with him again (and Paolo reported that he would not blame them). Four men short meant they could not turn the windlass to weigh the anchor, hence the wheft at the foretopmasthead.

  As every drill sergeant knew, the most important man on a parade was the "right marker", the man against whom all the other files positioned themselves. Ramage realized how lucky he was in having Yorke and the Emerald as his right marker. But by giving Yorke the position of leading ship in the starboard column (and thus the pivot on which most convoy movements would be made) he had put the Emerald in the most vulnerable position of all if the French attacked with a squadron. However, in war there was always risk, and Yorke would be the last to complain. Yet he was not thinking of Sidney Yorke: if he was honest with himself. Ramage was worrying about Sarah, who had been caught up in the war by accident: she had gone off on a peacetime honeymoon with her new husband and the war had started again to wrench her away. To what, he dare not think.

  At least the two former prize frigates were turning out well. John Mead, the young lieutenant just made post and given command of L'Espoir, seemed a good shiphandler and had imagination. The sail handling was taking too long, but obviously during the next few days Mead would have his men working against a watch. Sail handling was second nature with most captains; but less popular was gunnery exercise. Guns firing meant scorched paint. There was always a spurt of flame upwards from the touchhole and there was the muzzle blast, a mixture of smoke, unburnt powder and powdered rust from the shot. No matter how carefully shot was hammered and given a coat of blacking, there were always rust scales, and gunnery exercises (or a bout of action) always left the first lieutenant's scrubbed and holystoned decks stained and greasy - and badly marked by the wooden trucks of the carriages. There was no way that four wheels supporting a gun weighing a ton and a half being flung back in recoil were going to avoid scarring the deck planking, even if it was already grooved from previous years. Carpenters could plane and seamen scrub with holystones, but the marks were there, like cart tracks on a country lane, and a couple of hours' shooting worked the soot and rust powder well into the grain so that it looked like a chimney sweep's neck. Anyway, that was the problem for L'Espoir's new captain: Ramage's only concern was that he carried out gunnery exercises.

  Summers, commanding La Robuste, was a completely different man: where Mead was lively and talkative, full of ideas which Ramage noticed he sometimes expressed without sufficient thought, Summers was dour; he gave the impression of never speaking a word (expelling it, almost) without chewing it ten or twenty times. It was not the hesitation preceding deep thought, of that Ramage was sure; the dourness came from a brain which turned over slowly, like a roasting pig revolving on a spit. Would Summers be as slow in reacting to an emergency - when a privateer rushed out of the darkness to cut off one of the convoy? Why had the admiral put Summers in command of La Robuste? If he had been an unsatisfactory first lieutenant in one of Tewtin's ships, it was of course a convenient way of getting rid of him. It wasted an opportunity to promote a favourite, but there must be times for flag officers when the need to get rid of a really incompetent (or irritating) subordinate overcame the demands of favouritism.

  Summers, then, was the question mark; the convoy was sufficiently large and the escort of three frigates (one, L'Espoir, armed en flûte, so that virtually she carried no guns) was pathetically small: it averaged out at twenty-four merchant ships for each frigate. The escort was just large enough for Tewtin to avoid criticism from the Admiralty - unless it was heavily attacked and suffered disastrous losses. In that case Tewtin would probably be agile enough to make sure all the blame rested on the shoulders of the convoy commander . . . after all, admirals could not be everywhere, and had to rely on subordinates . . .

  Still, it was a beautiful evening and Barbados was drawing astern on the starboard quarter, or rather the Calypso and the convoy appeared to be stationary on the sea, like small ornaments on a polished table, while the island itself seemed to be moving slowly away, distance softening the low outlines and turning the pale greys into misty and distant blues that would challenge a water-colourist.

  What was Sidney Yorke (and his sister Alexis, for that matter) thinking about as they passed this northwestern coast of Barbados? It was out here, in the time of Cromwell, that one of Yorke's Royalist forebears had to escape from the island just a few yards ahead of the Roundheads and, according to Sidney, taking with him a French mistress, wife of some besotted Roundhead planter. He must ask Yorke to tell the story of that particular forebear, because
he ended up in Jamaica as the leader of the Buccaneers, and the estates he then acquired now belonged to the Yorkes, though Ramage was far from sure that it was Sidney Yorke's branch of the family. It must be strange, though, looking across at an island and knowing that one and a half centuries ago, or whenever it was, all that parcel of land belonged to your family and, but for Cromwell's antics, would now belong to you.

  Ramage realized that Southwick was standing nearby, obviously anxious to say something but unwilling to interrupt. Southwick always knew when he was away in another country and often another century.

  "Ah, Southwick, this is probably the last time we'll ever see these mules in such good order!"

  Southwick laughed and dismissed them with a-wave of his hand. "I was watching those masters at the conference: that question you put Mr Yorke up to asking had an effect! You looked so fierce that every one of them could see the Calypso towing them under. Worth five dozen warning shots, that bit o' play-acting."

  "I hope no one got the wrong idea," Ramage said. "I'll tow when needed, but I'll also leave 'em behind if they keep dropping astern at night."

  "I heard you threaten that, sir, but you wouldn't really, would you?" Southwick's doubt was quite clear.

  "They'll get a couple of warnings, maybe three, but after that I'm not keeping the convoy jilling around until after noon. Otherwise it means we get only six hours or so's sailing out of twenty-four. We have to heave-to at daylight, say five thirty am, and the mule finally gets into position by noon. By six or seven o'clock at night he's reefing or furling again and snugging down for the night - and we've had the pleasure of his company for six or seven hours, making perhaps five knots. So in the twenty-four hours the convoy's covered thirty-five or forty miles, plus a bit for current if we're lucky. Remember, Southwick, we've got to sail 3,500 miles before we reach the Chops of the Channel. Does a hundred-day passage appeal to you? I'm damned if any of these mules are going to make me wait a hundred days for news of my wife."