Ramage's Trial r-14

by Dudley Pope

  Ramage stood up and clasped his hands behind his back. "In this case I must insist upon it, sir. It's customary for all witnesses to give evidence on oath."

  With a nervous glance towards Captain Markham, Goddard motioned Jenkins to carry on. Shirley held up the Bible and read the oath.

  Ramage remained standing and waited for Jenkins to return to his seat. The great cabin was silent except for the distant slop of the waves butting the Salvador del Mundo's hull, and he asked Captain Shirley the first question.

  "Did you on a certain day in June last murder Henry Barker, the surgeon on board His Majesty's ship the Jason frigate, which you commanded?"

  "Yes," Shirley said in a conversational voice. "He was irritating me. You see, he continually claimed I was mad; indeed, he wanted to confine me and put the first lieutenant in command of the ship. I couldn't allow that, of course, so I ran him through with m' sword."

  Ramage nodded, as though expecting the answer which had brought a gasp from almost everyone else in the cabin. "Did Barker attack you? Did you act in self-defence?"

  "Oh no, I was the captain, you see. But he had been nagging me for weeks."

  "Always claiming that you were mad?"

  "Mmm, yes," Shirley said. "Always the same thing, like a litany. Pity about Barker, he was a good surgeon. But just imagine it, the first lieutenant in command!"

  Shirley began to laugh; a laugh which went on and rose in pitch until it was a maniacal scream and the man's face, mouth open and teeth bared, seemed to be a skull over which parchment had been stretched.

  Ramage stood still, startled by the man's reaction, and Markham was the first to recover. "You! Provost Marshal!" he shouted at Hill. "Take Captain Shirley into your custody. Guard him carefully: make sure he doesn't harm himself."

  As soon as Captain Shirley was led away, with Goddard still mopping his brow and the twelve captains recovering enough to whisper to each other, Ramage said quietly: "Can my next witness be called?"

  Goddard stared at him as though he had burst into song. "But my dear fellow, obviously the case is closed! There is no need for more witnesses!"

  Ramage shook his head stubbornly. Goddard was either numbed by what had just happened, or a cunning scoundrel whose brain was working very fast, trying to calculate whether or not Shirley's madness (with his confession made in open court and, thanks to Ramage's insistence, on oath) could affect him.

  "With respect, sir, the case against me is most certainly not closed. I am still charged with breaches of various Articles of War, several carrying a mandatory death sentence, and I insist on the opportunity of clearing myself."

  "Quite unnecessary," Goddard said. "As soon as I clear the court, we shall consider our verdict. In fifteen minutes you will leave the ship a free man without - well, without a stain on your character. As of course," he added smoothly, "we all knew you would."

  At that moment, Ramage was sure that Goddard was being cunning; that he had not been numbed: he had already calculated that any further evidence given for Ramage would reinforce a case against Shirley, who obviously now faced a charge of murder (and possibly more), and it was in Goddard's interest to stop the proceedings at once.

  Ramage finally turned to the spectators. "Captain Markham, I must appeal to you again."

  "No need, no need!" Goddard exclaimed. "No, you are quite right. The court will hear your next witness."

  "Call Midshipman Blaxton," Jenkins said.

  As the young midshipman came into the cabin, Ramage took several sheets of paper from the flat canvas pouch beneath his chair and walked over to Jenkins, who looked up nervously.

  "A copy of the questions I shall be asking," Ramage said.

  "Oh - thank you, sir: I am much obliged."

  Blaxton, who was not in uniform, was nervous yet self-possessed. He held up the Bible, read out the oath from the card, and identified himself.

  Goddard coughed and said: "The court will question you."

  At once Ramage said: "This is a defence witness and I have prepared questions." He allowed impatience to creep into his voice as he added: "I am aware of all the circumstances and the court is not, and I know you wish that the witness's knowledge be fully investigated."

  "Oh, very well," Goddard said sulkily, seeing the trap in front of him, "but of course the court reserves the right to take over the questioning."

  Ramage ignored the remark and asked Blaxton: "Please tell the court of the events concerning the handling of the Jason frigate, in which you were serving, in June last."

  "Come now!" Goddard exclaimed. "Are we to hear of every time she tacked or wore for two months?"

  "Not every time," Ramage said carefully, and told Blaxton: "Confine yourself to the main events."

  "On the first day of June as soon as it was daylight and the lookouts had been sent aloft, Captain Shirley gave the order to back the topsails, and for one hour we made a stern board. Then he let the topsails draw for an hour, and then ordered them backed again, so that we did another stern board -"

  Ramage interrupted him. "For how long did this manoeuvre continue, going ahead for an hour and astern for an hour?"

  "Until dusk, sir."

  "And the Jason was on passage from where to where?"

  "From Port Royal, Jamaica, to Carlisle Bay, Barbados, sir."

  "So that occurred on the first day of June. Very well, what happened on the six successive days, between dawn and dusk?"

  "The same, sir."

  "What happened during the second week of the passage?"

  "Captain Shirley had the ship beating to windward for an hour, and then running off for an hour, with stunsails set."

  "This happened every day during that second week?"

  "Yes, sir," Blaxton said, obviously as puzzled now as he was then.

  "Was the Jason closing with Barbados?"

  "No, sir. What with the westgoing current and running off and the wind dropping at night, the first lieutenant calculated that on average we were losing three or four miles easting an hour."

  "What happened during the third week of the passage?"

  "We had a very bad outbreak of yellow fever, sir, and we became very short of water."

  "Why were you short of water? After all, you were only two weeks out of Port Royal."

  "Captain Shirley refused to water the ship there, sir."

  "Do you know - of your own knowledge, not from what anyone else may have told you - why this was?"

  "Yes, sir. I was with the first lieutenant in Port Royal when he asked permission to send off the boats with the casks, and Captain Shirley refused."

  "Did you hear him give a reason?"

  "Yes, sir; he said he was not going to have the ship laden down with a lot of extra weight."

  "How many cases of yellow fever did you have?"

  "It started with three men, sir. There were nine the second day and twenty-eight the third -"

  "How many men had died before the ship reached Barbados?"

  "Twenty-three, sir."

  "Did the surgeon, to your certain knowledge, make any representation to Captain Shirley?"

  "Yes, sir, several times each day, and always after we had funeral services, which were held daily."

  "Did you hear Captain Shirley's replies?"

  "Most of them, sir. He said that the deaths were 'condign punishment' for the men's wickedness in plotting against him."

  "To your knowledge, were the men plotting against him?"

  "No, sir."

  "After the ship reached Barbados, was water embarked?"

  "Yes sir, but Captain Shirley allowed only twenty tons."

  "Did the officers comment?"

  "Two lieutenants went with the first lieutenant to see the captain, to protest we needed fifty tons for the passage to England."

  "Do you know what happened then?"

  "Yes, sir, because I was present: the captain assembled all the officers and the midshipmen and said he was charging us with mutinous assembly."

/>   "Did he in fact charge you all?"

  "Not exactly charge, sir . . ." Blaxton was at a loss for words.

  "What then?"

  "Well, sir, he made us all sign a document he drew up. We also had to witness each other's signatures, so we signed twice."

  "What did the document say?"

  Blaxton's brow wrinkled with the effort of remembering. "I can't recall precisely, but across the top it said something to the effect that all the undersigned admitted making a mutinous assembly, and then there were two columns. Each officer signed in the first column, and the witness to the signature signed in the second."

  "Why," asked Ramage, "can't you remember more exactly what statement you and the lieutenants were signing? It is a serious admission for you all to make."

  "Oh, but that one was only one of several," Blaxton explained.

  "How many more were signed and what did they say?"

  "I signed seven more, and so did each of the commission and warrant officers. Seven in addition to the first one. The rest of the ship's company signed two."

  "Do you mean to say the commission and warrant officers all signed eight documents at the same time, and all the ship's company were mustered to sign two?"

  "Oh no, sir!" Blaxton exclaimed. "They were signed at various times on the passage between Barbados and meeting the Calypso."

  "What did the various documents say? Begin with the ones signed by the commission and warrant officers."

  "The first was making a mutinous assembly; the second was the same plus concealing a 'traiterous or mutinous practice or design', falling under Article twenty. The next four were mutinous assembly again, Article nineteen. The next two followed the sighting of the Calypso, Article twelve, 'every person in the fleet, who through cowardice, negligence or disaffection, shall in time of action withdraw or keep back, or not come to the fight . . .'"

  "Wait," Ramage said. "What was the occasion of Captain Shirley making you all sign an admission at that particular moment?"

  "We had just sighted the Calypso and the convoy, and identified her from her shape and pendant numbers, when Captain Shirley announced she was an enemy ship and he intended to attack her. The officers protested and pointed out the convoy, which had to be British. Captain Shirley accused them under the twelfth Article and made them sign."

  "You say 'made them sign', but how could he force them?"

  "He already had admissions (confessions, I suppose they were) of breaches of other Articles of War, sir, and he threatened to ask the Calypso for assistance in confining us all."

  "But he had just identified the Calypso as an enemy and planned to attack her!" Ramage protested.

  "Yes, sir," Blaxton said soberly. "That was the trouble: he was completely mad."

  Ramage waited for Goddard to order that remark to be deleted from the minutes, but the Rear-Admiral was slumped in his chair, apparently dazed.

  "So by the time the Calypso arrived, the commission and warrant officers had signed eight of these 'admissions', or confessions. What about the two signed by the rest of the ship's company?"

  "They were admissions of 'mutinous assembly' on various occasions, and Captain Shirley told the men that under Article nineteen death was the only punishment."

  "So everybody signed? What about the men who could not write?"

  "They put down a thumbprint and an 'X', and this was witnessed by shipmates who could write. Captain Shirley had the clerk copy the names out of the Muster Book: it was no more difficult than a weekly muster."

  "So in all how many 'admissions' did Captain Shirley have?"

  "I don't know offhand, sir. We mustered more than two hundred, so there must have been more than five hundred signatures."

  "But why," Ramage insisted, "did you all sign so freely when you thought Captain Shirley was mad?"

  "The officers signed that first admission because they were frightened that they had in fact taken part in a 'mutinous assembly' and they thought Captain Shirley would bring them to trial. Later, when they became absolutely certain that he was mad, they knew that with the surgeon dead they could never prove it, and Captain Shirley used that first admission to force them - to blackmail them, I now realize - to sign the later ones."

  And that just about covers Captain Shirley's madness as far as I am concerned, Ramage thought: from now on the Board of Admiralty has to decide what to do with him. There was just one last episode to clear up.

  "When the Calypso was first sighted from the Jason," Ramage said, "you gave evidence that she was immediately identified."

  "Yes, sir: she has a distinctive shape since she's French-built, and we all knew of her because she's your command, sir. And she was flying the correct challenge, and we could see her pendant numbers."

  "But Captain Shirley did not agree with the identification by his officers?"

  "No, sir. He didn't doubt she was the Calypso; he just insisted she was an enemy ship."

  "Even though he was told I commanded her?"

  "He never doubted that, sir," Blaxton said, looking embarrassed. "He just said that everyone knew you were a traitor."

  "Describe what happened in the Jason after the Calypso was within five hundred yards."

  "Well, sir, Captain Shirley sent the men to quarters and the guns were loaded with roundshot. He had told the gun captains to aim for the hull. In fact," Blaxton explained, "the men agreed among themselves to aim high, even though Captain Shirley had just threatened them with the admissions. Well, we approached larboard bow to larboard bow, as though both ships intended to pass within hail. All the officers had been sent down to the gunroom under Marine guard, and Captain Shirley had the deck to himself. At the -"

  "Wait," Goddard snapped. "How do you know this? You were under guard in the gunroom."

  "No sir: if you recall," Blaxton said politely, "the midshipmen's berth in a frigate is separate, forward of the gunroom. Anyway, we four midshipmen remained on deck."

  "Please continue," Ramage said.

  "At the last moment, Captain Shirley turned the Jason to larboard and bore across the Calypso's bow, as though he intended to ram, and as we passed he gave the order to fire."

  "You heard him and the actual raking?" Ramage asked.

  "Yes, sir: everyone in the Jason heard."

  Ramage turned to Goddard and said quietly: "I have no further questions to put to this witness."

  Goddard nodded. "Let him listen to the minutes being read back, and then he can sign them."

  When Blaxton had done this, Ramage said to Goddard: "Does the court wish me to make a statement in my defence?"

  Goddard shook his head wearily. "That will not be necessary." He looked down the table at Jenkins. "Clear the court," he said. "We will now consider our verdict."

  Lieutenant Hill had not returned from taking away Shirley, and Ramage walked to the door of the great cabin, meeting Alexis on the way.

  "It worked," she murmured, and as they paused, waiting for the crowd of spectators to leave the cabin, she added: "It worked just the way I dreamed it would when I slept in your bed at Palace Street."

  "You have slept in two of my beds now," he said, and then had to turn politely as Captain Markham walked up, smiling and with his hand outstretched.

  "What he did on board the Jason takes more courage than attacking a ship of the line," Markham commented to Alexis, taking her arm and leading her out of the cabin.

  "Yes, I know," she said, "but what happens now?"

  "Captain Shirley will be examined by doctors: I'm sure he's not fit to stand trial. The Jason's officers and men - nothing will be held against them."

  "And that poor surgeon?"

  "Murdered by a madman: it doesn't help him much, but that surgeon probably saved the Jason,"Markham said soberly.

  "And - and what about Nicholas? About Captain Ramage, I mean?"

  "He'll go back in there in a few minutes and find his sword hilt towards him, showing he is acquitted."

  "And then?"

&n
bsp; "Well," said Markham, smiling at Alexis, "for the moment he seems to be in good hands; but very soon he will have to take the Calypso to sea again."

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