Ramage's Trial r-14

by Dudley Pope

  "But you didn't, though," Price said slyly and for a momen 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. Then 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."

  Shirley shook his head sorrowfully, and Ramage thought that being the possessor of such a sad, long face would make Shirley an excellent professional mourner: all he needed was a tall hat with a thick ribbon of black silk round it, and a pair of black silk gloves: he already had the long black coat.

  "Ah yes, a sad business. Died very suddenly - just off Barbados. We don't know what it was, since we have no medical knowledge -" he permitted himself a slight smile, "- but we all agreed that it was something in the nature of a stroke. Yes, a stroke; that's what we agreed to enter in the log and I put it in my journal. A moving funeral because he was a popular man. Not as well qualified medically as your fellow, I imagine, but widely experienced, especially in the diseases of the East. He had served in John Company ships as a surgeon's mate, I think."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ramage leaned forward over his desk, finding his chair hard, and he was tired of the sound of his own voice. He looked round at Aitken, Bowen and Southwick and said: "There you have it. That was all the information that a morning's work yielded us. I haven't forgotten anything, have I?" he asked the first lieutenant.

  "No sir, except the strange feeling you had about Captain Shirley and the men." When Ramage looked puzzled, Aitken reminded him: "You did mention about Voodoo, sir - some experience you had in Grenada?"

  "Voodoo?" Southwick exclaimed, startled. "Don't say . . ."

  "Mr Southwick was with me at the time in Grenada," Ramage explained to Aitken. "And so was Mr Bowen."

  "Tell us about it, sir," Bowen said anxiously. "Don't say that Captain Shirley is mixed up with Voodoo!"

  "No, no, no!" Ramage said emphatically. "I was just describing its effect to explain to Aitken and Wagstaffe what the atmosphere reminded me of - there was no sign of Voodoo as such."

  Southwick looked at Bowen and nodded his head. "The captain is right. When we talked to them on board the Jason yesterday I couldn't put my finger on it then, but now I've got it. It's the same as going down into a crypt - no reason why you should feel uneasy, but you do. You know about the coffins, you know the stonework makes the atmosphere cold, you expect the air to be stuffy because the door has been shut. . . but you can still get a strange feeling: the hair on the back of your neck wants to stand up. There's no reason, but it just does."

  "And talking to the witch doctor and his victims," Bowen added, "you feel they're hiding behind a pane of glass; you can see and hear them but if you reached out you'd never touch them."

  Ramage tapped the desk top. "Now th
en, let's not attach too much importance to that. I'm more interested in knowing how Captain Shirley makes his whole ship's company deny everything."

  "Well, they're not exactly denying everything, sir," Aitken said. "I noticed that more often than not they told us to ask Captain Shirley about it. They shifted the responsibility for an answer on to him."

  Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Yes - which is the same as them dodging the responsibility."

  "I'm more interested in the death of the surgeon," Bowen said. "Most unfortunate that they don't have a surgeon on board. His views would have been very significant."

  Aitken waved a deprecating hand. "Don't you believe it. If he knew anything of the slightest use, he'd have bleated about medical ethics. But he wouldn't have noticed anything - he was one of those bleed-and-purge chaps. Started as a surgeon's mate in a John Company ship."

  "Probably knew some sovereign remedies for belly aches brought on by too much curry," Southwick said, unable to resist teasing Bowen. "Anyway, as far as a court-martial in Plymouth is concerned," he said, a practical note in his voice, "all we know is that the Jasons deny firing at us, and we heard the shot whistling over our heads, and we had some holes, since patched, in our sails and some rigging cut, all of it since replaced."

  "That's it," Ramage said. "So it's up to you now, Bowen."

  "Don't expect too much from my report, sir," Bowen warned. "A walk across Parliament Square or down Whitehall is enough to prove that there are more madmen walking around than sane ones, simply because the mad are usually very cunning."

  Sidney Yorke shook Ramage by the hand. "Alexis wanted to invite you to dinner again but I told her we must observe the formalities. Now, Jackson knows -" He watched as the cutter's painter was led aft, so that the boat trailed astern like a dog on a lead. "Ah yes, he knows," he said with a smile as the American led the boat's crew forward. "I told the cook to make them up something with cold cuts."

  "That's why they like coming over," Ramage said. "All the food is boiled in the King's ships. You look well. How is Alexis?"

  "Come below now and see her or she'll get impatient. Is everything arranged to your satisfaction?" he inquired ironically, waving towards the Calypso, which was now stretching along a couple of cables to windward of the Emerald. "It's a good idea of yours to take a turn round the convoy occasionally: I've never seen such good station-keeping. You scared them at the convoy conference!"

  Alexis, wearing a high-waisted morning dress of white cambric, sprigged muslin and yellow morocco slippers, was sitting in Yorke's day cabin, and when Ramage kissed her hand she smiled up from the settee. "I thought you'd decided to leave us when you suddenly headed for Africa! And then that frigate began shooting at you, although she seems to be on our side!"

  "We needed the exercise," Ramage said teasingly. "I for one was feeling quite jaded."

  "You should come over and see us, then," Yorke said, "and bring any of your officers who can be spared."

  He pushed forward an armchair for Ramage. "It's a hot day. Rum punch or lemonade - or lime, or orange?"

  "Lemonade, please," Ramage said and Alexis commented: "I thought you'd prefer a rum punch."

  She blushed as first Yorke and then Ramage laughed, and Ramage quickly explained: "It's an old joke between your brother and me: he knows I hate rum."

  "Alexis hates it too," Yorke said. "She nearly faints away when a planter leers at her and then whispers sweet nothings through a smokescreen of rum fumes."

  "You certainly know how to put our guests at ease," Alexis told him crossly. "Now the poor man is worried in case I don't like the smell of lemons!"

  "I doubt it," Yorke said. "He's not about to give you a planter's leer."

  Seeing Ramage's eyebrows raised questioningly, Alexis laughed and explained: "And that's an old joke between Sidney and myself. The ladies out in the islands - wives of the planters, merchants and soldiers - tend to have shrivelled up minds and figures, so that . . ."

  She broke off in embarrassment, having started off on an explanation without considering where it might lead her.

  Yorke rang a small silver bell for the steward as he finished her sentence. "So that the husbands, bored and boring, flock round a beautiful woman like moths round a candle and singe their wings with what they think is wit but is simply bawdy, almost barrack-room humour."

  "Actually the wives are worse," Alexis said unexpectedly. "You men never notice it but they're so jealous they're very, very polite, yet everything they say has hidden implications."

  "Implications?" Yorke exclaimed. "What implications? Most of them are so stupid they couldn't distinguish an implication from an imprecation!"

  "Oh, they imply that I'm trying to run off with their husband or have come out to the islands looking for a husband."

  "Wasn't that the idea?" Yorke asked with feigned innocence. "A handsome husband, ten thousand a year and 20,000 acres no further north than the Trent?"

  "It might have been your idea, so that you could get rid of me, but it wasn't mine. I must admit," she added sharply, "I was looking for a wife for you: it's high time you married. Nicholas -"

  She broke off, her face flushed with embarrassment as she realized what she was about to say.

  "You are quite right," Ramage said quickly, "it's high time he married. I have just the sort of woman in mind. I can recommend some names."

  Alexis was clearly intrigued. "What sort of woman?"

  Yorke shook his head: he had known Ramage too many years to have much doubt about the well-cushioned little trap into which Alexis was walking.

  "Well, first one has to assess what Sidney has to offer. He's wealthy, and even if he proves an incompetent shipowner, you'll be there to keep an eye on him. He's not very handsome - but his fortune compensates for what his features lack. A poor card player - that's a great advantage because wives can get very resentful if their husbands constantly beat them at quadrille. He's hopeless at backgammon, which makes him an even better prospect. He has good taste - he's always in the company of one beautiful woman, his sister..."

  "Oh, do go on," Alexis urged, laughing at Sidney.

  "Well, this woman should be a widow, because while a widow understands marriage, I'm not at all sure that Sidney does. A mature widow, and preferably the late husband should have been a dull fellow who left her verging on debt, so that Sidney dazzles her with his wealth. You see," Ramage explained to Alexis, hard put to keep a straight face because she was concentrating on every word, "his money can make up for some of his shortcomings."

  Alexis was nodding in agreement. "Yes, but did you see anyone suitable in Barbados, for instance?"

  "No, I didn't go on shore. But London - I know of several in London. The advantage there is that their tipple is likely to be gin, not rum, so their breath won't trouble you."

  At that she glanced up warily, saw Yorke grinning and told Ramage crossly: "You are an unfeeling brute: I thought for a moment that you really cared about Sidney's happiness."

  "I do," Ramage assured her. "I care enough not to interfere. One day he'll meet the right person and he'll recognize her, and it won't be someone we've discreetly introduced into the family circle."

  "You seem very certain. Anyway, it won't be anyone we approve," she said, with a trace of bitterness in her voice. "But it hasn't happened yet."

  "Sidney and I are the same age," Ramage said gently. "I married only a few months ago and I met my wife on board a John Company ship anchored off a tiny island in the South Atlantic that few charts even show. Until fairly recently, everyone expected me to marry a woman I met in Italy."

  "The beautiful Marchesa whom you rescued?" she asked softly.

  "Yes, la bella marchesa. But I finally met my wife a quarter of a world away."

  Yorke said: "I'm flattered at the attention of two such experienced marriage-brokers, but when are you going to tell us what happened yesterday, Nicholas?"

  "Yes," Alexis said. "What did you do to make that poor frigate fire at yo
u?"

  "That 'poor frigate' should not have fired at us," Ramage said mildly, "so have a care where you scatter your sympathy!"

  For several moments both Yorkes were silent: both knew enough of ships and the sea to know that something had gone dreadfully wrong.

  "From here it seemed that she fired her starboard broadside at you," Yorke said. "We saw the smoke between you."

  "The frigate is the Jason. The smoke you saw was from her starboard broadside: she suddenly cut across our bow and raked us. Fortunately without doing much harm."

  "But why?" Alexis exclaimed. "She's British, and you must have been flying all the right flags."

  "We were, but I don't know why she did it." Ramage stopped talking while the steward came into the cabin and set down the glasses, putting the jug and sugar bowl in front of Alexis. "Shall I pour, madam?" Alexis shook her head, obviously preoccupied with what Ramage had just said, and the steward left the cabin.

  "Sidney always tells me I mustn't interfere in men's business - but can you tell us any more? It is most intriguing. No, alarming. I have visions of a British frigate suddenly sailing across our bow and raking us. Surely, if one rakes you, then another might attack us?"

  Ramage gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "I have a hundred questions of my own, but no answers. In fact," he admitted, "I'm here as a refugee. I've discussed it so much on board the Calypso that my brain is overflowing. I was hoping you two might have some fresh ideas."

  "It is sweet of you to include me," Alexis said, "but what can a woman know about naval matters?"

  "This doesn't concern naval matters," Ramage said grimly, sipping his lemonade. "It concerns a madman, and I think we all know as much as each other about madmen. This one seems to be straight out of Bedlam, although who unlocked the door and gave him the King's commission I don't know."

  "It's the captain, is it?" Yorke asked.

  Ramage nodded. "This is what happened," he began, and finished half an hour later, during which time Sidney Yorke and Alexis listened with all the concentration of children hearing a thrilling fairy story, asking only an occasional question.