Ramage's Trial r-14

by Dudley Pope

  "Indeed, sir," Hill said disdainfully, "how interesting."

  "Yes, interesting because -" A sudden thought struck Ramage. "Tell me, lieutenant, have you ever had a shot fired at you by the enemy - cannon, musket or pistol?"

  "Well, not exactly, sir."

  "Have you ever been in action?"

  "Well, no, sir."

  "Then don't ever sneer at those that have," Ramage said sourly, realizing he was hardly being fair to the wretched lieutenant. "You can see the Salvador and San Joseph. The two ships not here are the San Ysidro and San Nicolas. They were leading the enemy fleet, and both ships were captured by Commodore (as he then was) Nelson."

  "I know that, sir," Hill said petulantly.

  "But do you know how the commodore caught up with the two Dons who were trying to escape?"

  "Well, no sir, I don't know all the details of the battle."

  "You ought to ask the seaman holding the tiller of this cutter."

  "Sir, I can hardly -"

  "Or any of the first six men at the oars."

  "Oh, sir -"

  "Or this gentleman sitting here," Ramage said relentlessly, indicating Southwick.

  Southwick sniffed and said loudly: "You might even ask Mr Ramage, because if it hadn't been for him none of the ships would have been taken and Sir John Jervis would never have got his earldom!"

  By now Hill's embarrassment and annoyance had gone: instead his curiosity was aroused. He was cautious enough to ask Southwick, rather than risk an encounter with Ramage. "Tell me, then, what happened?"

  "Mr Ramage was a lieutenant then, with about as much seniority as you've got and from the looks of it a lot younger, and he commanded the Kathleen cutter, and to stop the four Dons escaping -"

  "He ran his cutter across the bows of the leading one!" Hill interrupted. "I remember now! I'd forgotten the name of that lieutenant," he said apologetically to Ramage. "And I've just remembered a Gazette I read: in the West Indies you captured that frigate you command: I forget her French name but she was renamed Calypso."

  Ramage pulled his sword and scabbard out from beneath the tarpaulin. "You'd better take this."

  The significance of an officer about to be tried handing over his sword had never been cleared up. Something to do with surrendering a badge of office, perhaps. Anyway, the sword was put on the table during the trial, and if after the court considered its verdict the accused came back into the courtroom and found the point of the sword towards him, he knew he was guilty.

  Ramage could see that Hill was a very puzzled young man. He was glancing covertly at Ramage, Southwick and Jackson and - probably much to his surprise - finding that none of them had tails like the pictures of Satan. Ramage realized that the wretched youngster was finding it impossible to reconcile what he had been hearing about Captain Ramage for the past few days with what he had just learned in the last few minutes.

  "Sir," Hill whispered, "this Captain Shirley says you are mad. It's in the charge and he talks about it to anyone who will listen -"

  "Mr Hill, you are the 'provost marshal upon the occasion' and I am under arrest in your custody," Ramage said in a low voice. "Any discussion of the case is most improper - you must realize that."

  Hill nodded, although it was obvious that his thoughts were far away. "Is there any chance after the trial," he asked diffidently, "that you'll have a vacancy for a lieutenant in the Calypso, sir?"

  Ramage smiled to make sure that Hill realized his proffered olive branch had been accepted. "Is there any chance after the trial that I'll still command the Calypso?"

  Ramage was startled when Southwick and the other two began folding up their pieces of tarpaulin and glanced up to see that the great hull of the Salvador del Mundo was alongside them like a cliff face. Jackson was bringing the cutter alongside an elaborate entryport at which a sentry with a musket stood on guard. As two seamen hooked on with boathooks and held the boat alongside, Ramage climbed on board but before he had time to glance around him a voice in the gloom said sharply: "All boats must be secured at the boat boom." By the time the man had finished the sentence Ramage could just distinguish him: a lieutenant perfectly dressed and wearing a sword. At that moment Ramage felt a flush of temper surge through him, as though someone had opened a furnace door. Everyone, it seemed, was setting out to bait Captain Ramage, but since Captain Ramage had spent most of the last ten years serving at sea in the Mediterranean or West Indies, none of these Channel Fleet people could know him, so their malice was being led or inspired by someone else.

  "Oh, I beg your pardon," Ramage said politely, turning round and ushering Hill back into the boat and following him. To Jackson, just waiting for the last of the officers to board the Salvador del Mundo before moving out to secure the cutter from the great boom which stuck out from the ship's side and from which boats were streamed, like horses tied to a rail outside an inn while their owners were inside having a pint of ale, Ramage said: "Carry on, Jackson, get a painter made up on the boom."

  Jackson had served with Ramage too long to hesitate: seeing his captain coming back into the cutter was enough to warn him that something unusual was happening, and he snapped an order which had the seamen pushing off the cutter.

  The gap between the cutter and the ship had grown to six feet when a lieutenant appeared at the entryport shouting: "Hey you! You have to come on board!"

  "Ask him to whom he's shouting," Ramage said to Hill.

  Hill, now a different man and realizing that even if he was under arrest, Ramage was still a post-captain - and a distinguished one - knew that lieutenants bellowing like that were asking for trouble.

  But the lieutenant was a friend of Hill's, and Hill knew the reason for the behaviour, and thinking quickly he stood up and shouted back angrily: "Don't yell at me like that. There's a trial due to start in less than two hours' time. Do you expect us to swing under the boatboom like bumboatmen?"

  The Salvador's lieutenant stood, jaw dropped. "Come on, man!" Hill snapped. "You'll have a dozen captains alongside you within the hour - as long as you remember to hoist the court-martial flag."

  "Very well then, bring your prisoner on board. But the cutter can return to its own ship."

  "Most of the men on board, including those at the oars, are witnesses,'' Ramage murmured."If this sort of thing goes on, I shall have a long list of protests to make to the president of the court, with a copy sent to the commander-in-chief."

  "And I wouldn't blame you, sir. Could you ask your coxswain to put us alongside again, sir? This fellow is a fool."

  This time Hill was the first out of the boat, holding the scabbard of his own sword with his left hand, and with Ramage's sword tucked firmly under his left arm.

  "The provost marshal upon the occasion and his prisoner, Captain Ramage," he said briskly. "Bring your men to attention!"

  The Marine had already recognized Ramage and stamped to attention. The lieutenant was now examining a list with great concentration, but by now Hill had learned that Captain Ramage was usually several steps ahead of such games and beckoned Ramage to accompany him, making sure the witnesses followed.

  "There's a cabin set aside for you, sir," Hill explained, "and another for the witnesses."

  "I'd sooner walk round up on deck," Ramage said. "It's a glorious day and this ship interests me."

  "Of course it does, sir!" Hill said. "This is the first ... ?"

  "Yes," Ramage said and because Hill's question was unintentionally ambiguous left it at that.

  When one saw the ship from a frigate, the name Salvador del Mundo, Saviour of the World, seemed - well, more than a little pretentious. But now, standing on the maindeck, one could see that the Spanish builders and the Spanish navy had built a ship of which they could be proud. She seemed more like a great cathedral of wood which should be standing four-square on the ground. Here in the Sound on a calm day it was hard to believe she could ever be fighting for her life in an Atlantic storm, barely able to carry a stitch of canvas and with
great seas sweeping over the bow and thundering their way aft, and the planking working so that water spurted through the seams and dozens of seamen cranked the bilgepumps. Nor, standing here and knowing that the other ship must be just as impressive, did the name Santisima Trinidada, the Holy Trinity, seem so pretentious (or, to a Protestant ear, so blasphemous).

  Curious how different countries have different styles in naming their ships. The British seemed to name ships almost at random; sometimes they used that of an old ship which had been scrapped, but if the ship was a prize they often kept the original foreign name, the rule apparently being only that seamen should be able to pronounce it.

  Ramage could think of very few British ships in service which had been named by the Admiralty after a man or woman, apart from members of the Royal Family. Merchant ships and privateers were often named after their owners (or their wives). Certainly no names had any religious significance, except for prizes like the Salvador del Mundo. Who but the British, he thought, would have the 110-ton Ville de Paris as the flagship of the admiral commanding the Channel Squadron? She was not even a prize, but had been built recently in a British yard! At Chatham, in fact. Admittedly that Ville de Paris, which was almost as big as the Salvador, was named after a predecessor captured from the French, but Ramage could not imagine a French fleet sailing from Brest with the admiral's flag flying in a French-built ship called the London. Still, apart from a few big ships associated with places, the French seemed to have just as haphazard a way of naming ships as the British. The arrival of Bonaparte had made little difference, except that since the Revolution there was now a Ça Ira. The only danger of such a name was that the ship might sink in a storm, or be captured by the enemy. . . if the Ça Ira (a 112-gun ship, if he remembered rightly) was captured by the British, would Their Lordships keep the name? It would be a huge joke, although the King was said not to have a very strong sense of humour.

  He suddenly realized that Hill had been deliberately walking towards the fo'c'sle, as though to lead him forward, and the familiar squawking of rope rendering through blocks, and then the flopping of cloth in the wind, made him glance up.

  A hoist of three flags were now flying - the uppermost was a white flag with a blue diagonal cross on it - number two. The second, triangular and divided white and red, was the substitute, indicating that the upper flag was being repeated, so the signal so far was two two. The lower flag comprised three vertical stripes, blue, white, blue, and was number three. So the whole signal was number 223, and Ramage did not have to look it up in the signal book: The flag officers, captains and commanders, and all other persons summoned to attend a court martial, are to assemble on board the ship whose signal is shown after this has been answered.

  An italic note below the signal in the book said: N.B. The ship in which the court martial is to be held, is immediately to hoist a union jack at the mizen peak.

  Ramage looked aft and saw the Union Flag being hoisted. Tiresome, he thought, that an official volume like the Signal Book for the Ships of War should make such an elementary mistake as calling the Union Flag a "jack" when it most certainly was not being used as a jack, which was a flag flown on a staff at the bow.

  "The Union at the mizen peak" - seamen's jargon for a court-martial, and as well known as being "stabbed with a Bridport dagger", which was another way of saying being hanged, and a tribute to the fine hemp rope made at the town of Bridport.

  "Sorry, sir," Hill said apologetically, "I was hoping you would not see or hear any of that."

  Ramage grinned amiably. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything," he said. "Just think, a dozen post-captains are now blessing or cursing me because for today, and perhaps several more days, they're going to have to attend my trial, and either be kept away from very important work or escape something very boring. It's not every day that a very junior post-captain gets court-martialled, you know."

  "I suppose not, sir," Hill said cautiously, uncertain whether Ramage was serious or not. This fellow, he decided, had the damnedest sense of humour and the most uncertain temper of anyone he had ever met. Captain Ramage could say something with an absolutely straight face and have a hundred men jumping to attention while another hundred, who knew him better, would be roaring with laughter. It was all very odd, though it kept you on your toes - in case you got your foot stamped on! He giggled at his own joke and Ramage glanced round.

  "Sorry, sir," Hill said apologetically, "I was just thinking of something."

  "You must have a thin time of it if you giggle every time you think," Ramage said with a straight face. "That's the first time I've heard you giggle."

  At that moment Hill decided he would pull every string within his reach to serve in the Calypso. Providing, of course, there was an acquittal verdict . . .

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ramage recalled his allusion to a wooden cathedral when he followed Hill into the great cabin, which ran the width of the ship. It was more than fifty feet from one side to the other, and the whole after end - or so it seemed because the sun now shining through was dazzling - comprised sternlights: windows that if the ground glass was coloured and set in leaded shapes, would in size be more suitable for a cathedral.

  He was walking on canvas painted in large black and white squares which covered the cabin sole like an enormous carpet (and reminded him of the mosaic floors in some Italian cathedrals). For a moment he felt he should be jinking from one square to another in a particular chess move - two ahead and one to the right or left, in the knight's move, or else he would startle everyone by walking diagonally, announcing he was a bishop. In fact, he told himself grimly, he was a pawn . . .

  Apart from a Marine sentry at the door, a couple of seamen arranging chairs round a long table, and a couple more giving the top a final polish, with another man perfunctorily cleaning some panes of glass in the sternlights, occasionally using a little energy on a fly speck, the Salvador's great cabin was as peaceful as the nave of St Paul's between services.

  The long mahogany table, big enough to seat a couple of dozen for dinner, was set athwartships, so that those captains sitting along one side would have their backs to the sternlights and face into the darker cabin, while the other half would look at the sternlights.

  The chair at one end of the table had arms, so that must be the head, while the chair at the other end was straight-backed and armless. There were more chairs down the sides, and in front of each place was a pad of paper, inkwell, quill and sandbox.

  As Ramage faced the sternlights with the table in front of him, there were a couple of rows of chairs behind him in the darker part of the cabin with two rows of forms behind them.

  Hill coughed to attract his attention. He pointed to two other chairs, placed at an angle to the table in a position so that anyone sitting at the head of the table (it would be the president of the court) had only to look half-left to see and talk. "We sit there, sir. You nearest to the president and me behind."

  "So that you can spit me with your sword if I make a bolt for it."

  Hill had learnt enough by now to answer gravely: "Exactly, sir. Pistols make such a noise."

  At that moment the door was flung open and a fussy-looking little man wearing tiny spectacles and (almost startling, these days) a short wig bustled into the cabin, followed first by a thin and lugubrious seaman carrying an arm full of books, and by a boy laden with a large pewter inkwell, a bunch of quills, and some large pads of paper.

  "Ah, Mr Hill and the prisoner, eh?"

  "Don't introduce me," Ramage murmured, guessing the man, looking like a startled hedgehog, must be the deputy judge advocate. No one had yet decided where deputy judge advocates fitted into the naval hierarchy but in Ramage's experience so far they knew little of law and always wrote very slowly, making them little more than clerks.

  The little man sat at the chair at the end of the table and looked up at the seaman, now standing beside him. "Ah yes, the Holy Evangelist - I want that right in front of me." He reache
d up and took it. "Now, the Crucifix, for those of the Catholic faith: that goes there. The books - in two piles here, with the titles facing me."

  He dismissed the seaman and turned to the boy. "Now be careful of that ink. Place it there -" he pointed to a precise spot. "Now the quills - examine each one to make sure it is sharp. You have a pen-knife?"

  When the boy looked sulky he was told sharply: "You forgot it last time!"

  "Will this be a long trial?" the little lawyer suddenly asked Ramage.

  Ramage glanced at the pile of books, the inkwell and the quills, and deliberately misunderstood the purpose of the question.

  "Ah yes, you are paid by the day. Well, I'll spin it out as long as I can, and you can dawdle as you write down the evidence. And always read the minutes in a slow and deliberate voice. But come now, you must know all the tricks!"

  The boy sniggered but hurried out when the red-faced lawyer pointed to the door.

  "I asked you a perfectly civil question, Captain," the lawyer said crossly.

  "And I gave you a perfectly civil answer," Ramage said.

  At that moment three captains came into the cabin, nodded to the three men, and stood near the rows of chairs. Each man had a small roll of parchment in his hand, and as they continued their conversation several more captains came in and joined them.

  Ramage said to Hill: "It's time we went outside and waited - the court convenes in five minutes."

  Hill led the way out of the cabin and went on to a small cabin which was probably used originally by the Spanish admiral's secretary - it was still pleasantly painted in pale blue and white, with a built-in table at one end which served as a desk.

  "Damn," Hill exclaimed unexpectedly, "I forgot to tell the Marine sentry where to find us."

  Ramage had just looked at his watch and noted that the court should have assembled fifteen minutes earlier when the sentry knocked on the door. "The admiral is just coming on board, sir."