Ramage At Trafalgar

by Dudley Pope

  Well, that was the gunner’s responsibility: the coarse powder had to be used to fill the flannel cartridges, cloth tubes the diameter of the bore of the guns, and priming powder had to be put in the powder horns issued to gun captains as they went into action and to men armed with pistols or muskets.

  One hour later the Calypso was secured alongside a hoy: bow, stern, breastropes and springs had been adjusted and the staytackle rigged, Aitken reported. Ramage had given orders to start loading the powder, after a second check had been made that the galley fire was out, that no men were smoking, that the fire engine had been hoisted up on deck and the cistern filled with seawater, and finally that the washdeck pumps were also rigged and the decks well wetted – running with water, in fact – in case any of the barrels or cases leaked powder while being slung on board.

  Going into action? Ramage considered it was nothing compared to taking on powder. When going into action his mind was full of a dozen different problems, quite apart from giving orders and watching the enemy, but taking on powder – there was just the rattle and squeak of the blocks as the men hauled on the tackle to hoist the net on board, and he either paced the deck or sat in his cabin and thought of a tiny dribble of that grey powder falling on the deck, and something crushing it: just enough pressure to cause a detonation. No flame or spark needed. There would be a gigantic explosion and in the place of the Calypso and the hoy there would be a great circle of roiled water with planks and spars (and bodies) falling like solid rain… They’d hear the noise as far away as Chatham and Greenwich – and few would doubt what caused it.

  With five tons of powder hoisted on board and carried below, Ramage decided he would inspect the magazine and powder-room. He had not been inside either since inspecting every inch of the ship when she was captured from the French. That was not quite true, since every Sunday he made his routine inspection of the ship, when he put his head round the door, but he did not enter because no one was allowed in unless he was barefoot or wearing felt shoes (and had been searched for any ferrous object: that could clink and make a spark).

  He sat down on the settee in his cabin and took off his shoes. Silkin would not be very pleased to find his master had been walking round the ship in white silk stockings, but Silkin had an easy-going master, in Ramage’s view; the captain’s servant was a valet and many of them serving penurious captains had to spend much of their time mending stockings, shirts and stocks, so a little extra laundry would not overtax Silkin.

  He padded out of the cabin, ignored the Marine sentry’s startled gaze but returned his salute as usual, and went on deck calling for Aitken.

  The first lieutenant joined him by the capstan and was careful to keep his eyes above shoulder level.

  “Don’t be so damned tactful,” Ramage growled. “Go below and take your shoes off – we’re going to give the magazine and powder-room a close inspection. Tell the gunner to stay on deck.”

  Aitken grinned happily: the gunner was the only man in the whole ship whose mere appearance could put him in a temper.

  Ramage went below, waited for Aitken, and then led the way along the passage leading to the magazine and powder-room. The passage had the silent, cold feel of the entrance to a vault but, like the rest of the area, it was specially constructed.

  To begin with, both the magazine and powder-room were called officially the “hanging magazine”, because not only were both built below the waterline, but they were placed four feet lower than the deck level, like a large inset box, so that anyone entering had to go down several steps. More important, in an emergency it could be flooded with seawater and both magazine and powder-room would be submerged instantly, along with the powder, whether in case, barrel or flannel cartridges.

  The passageway and both magazine and powder-room had the floors plastered with mortar, and over that had been laid a dry lining of narrow strips of deal planking, little more than lathes. Then all three had been lined with lead sheeting weighing five pounds to the square foot, Ramage recalled inconsequentially as he tapped with his knuckle, making sure that none of the sheeting had “crept”, coming away from the lathes-and-mortar base.

  At the end of the passage the magazine door (which was also the entrance to the powder-room) was hung with heavy brass hinges which were secured with copper screws. The big lock was made of solid copper, and the huge copper key (which always made your hand smell if you had to carry it) was normally kept by Aitken and issued to the gunner only on the captain’s orders.

  The only illumination came from the little light room, a wedge-shaped glass cupboard, accessible only from outside, in which stood a lantern which shone into the magazine with its flame separated from the powder by a thick glass window.

  Ramage stood back to let four sailors pass him with cases of powder. The dim, yellow light of the lantern showed that the passageway was clean and none of the sheeting bulged on the sole, bulkheads or deckhead. Once the seamen had left the magazine, Ramage walked in. With its many shelves, which would soon be filled with flannel cartridges for the 12-pounders and the carronades, the magazine was completely lined with thin copper sheeting: a further precaution against sparks but, along with the lead, giving added protection against rats gnawing their way into the magazine and then chewing the flannel of the cartridges, allowing powder to spill.

  The only reminder that from time to time an enemy could threaten the magazine was the rolls of thick felt, for the moment held up by tapes against the deckhead, out of the way of the men carrying powder, but in action the blankets of felt would be unrolled, to hang down, soaked with water, heavy curtains to prevent the flash from guns or an explosion from penetrating the magazine and blowing up the ship.

  The last curtain had a small aperture cut in it: in action, each powder cartridge would be passed through it to a waiting powder monkey, who would hold up his wooden cartridge case and, with the flannel bag thrust in, push down the lid before hurrying back along the passageway past the wet felt curtains, and making his way back to the gundeck.

  Ramage and Aitken, inside the magazine, inspected the copper. Several sheets near the doorway were a rich reddish-gold: they had been renewed in the past few days. The powder-room beyond – where both Ramage and Aitken had to back and fill so that their own shadows did not obscure what they were trying to inspect – also had some new sheeting.

  When Ramage commented on it. Aitken said: “I took the opportunity when we had all the powder out. I asked the gunner if he had anything needing to be done down here, but he said no. So I made my own inspection. No sheet was actually worn through, but a dozen or more were paper-thin and would soon go…”

  “That damned gunner,” Ramage said. “I did nothing about him…”

  The run down the Thames and out into the English Channel always excited Ramage, not because he enjoyed navigating between the sandbanks which littered the twisting channels, where being an instant late in tacking or wearing round a buoy or getting caught in stays (or even misjudging the strength of the current) could put the ship hard aground, but because of the names.

  Start with the Yantlet, at the western end of Sea Reach. Very well, that took its name from the Yantlet Flats, over to starboard, miles of mud and ooze. But Yantlet? There was no village on the chart; simply a small creek of that name.

  East and West Knock, off Shoeburyness. Knock – like knock, knock? Out to the Great Nore again and then steering south-east for the Four Fathom Channel, leaving the long tongue of Red Sand to larboard, to come into the Kentish Flats and then bear up to the north-east into the Queen’s Channel to avoid two long stretches running parallel with the coast, Cliffend Sand (off Reculver) and Margate Sand.

  And then the reach into Botany Bay, off Foreness Point, and a haul on the sheets to pass North Foreland, the eastern tip of the county of Kent. Botany Bay? The next to the west was called Palm Bay, but what could be botanical, backed by the wicked white cliffs that formed the Foreland itself?

  Then Broadstairs Knoll, into the O
ld Cudd Channel and down the Gull Stream, to pass inside the Goodwin Sands and across the Downs, the comparatively sheltered anchorage favoured by ships of war and merchant ships waiting to go up to the port of London or the Medway.

  Southwick was in his element in these waters: he knew theThames and the Downs “like looking at my face in the morning”; he rarely glanced at the chart and, although the leadsman stood ready in the chains, rarely called for a cast of the lead.

  The Calypso stretched down from the South Foreland, seeming to delight at being at sea again, her copper-sheathed bottom clean, the new topsails and topgallants stretching into shape, the wind flattening out the creases and pressing the canvas into fair curves.

  The wind, Ramage noted thankfully, was beginning to veer as they rounded the South Foreland and hardened sheets to bring Dover into sight. By the time Shakespeare Cliff was on the quarter and Danger Rock on the beam, the wind had settled into the north-west.

  “If it stays there,” Southwick said jubilantly, pointing at the windvane stuck on the weather bulwark capping, a rod with lines at the top, each with a cork tied to it studded with feathers, “we’ll be in St Helens a’fore His Lordship has time to sail in the Victory!”

  “Don’t count on that,” Ramage cautioned. “His Lordship has the light of battle in his eyes: he wants a couple of dozen of the Combined Fleet destroyed. That’ll give him wings, as well as teeth.”

  The Calypso was rising and falling easily to the crests, occasionally butting a large one into sheets of spray which flung up to darken the foot of the foresail and send streams of water over the planking, rivulets of water twisting and turning with the pitch and roll as they ran aft along the deck. Ramage could feel the salt spray tightening the skin of his face and once, when he incautiously rubbed his eyes, the dried salt made them sting.

  Now for the long stretch across the shallow bay known to seamen as Hythe Flats, with Roar Bank and Swallow Bank just inshore of Dungeness Point at the southern end.

  Half-way across Hythe Flat, Ramage looked at the chart. Yes, although it was not marked in, Aldington was now on the beam, four miles or so inshore of the long stretch of beach (with Martello towers like beer mugs every few hundred yards) in front of Dymchurch.

  Were those towers any use? Would they be, rather, if Bonaparte tried to land his troops? The original Mortella Tower in Corsica, manned by thirty-three French soldiers, had held out against the British for weeks; the design was copied by the gentlemen at the Horse Guards (although for some reason the name was altered to Martello), with seventy-four of them built along the coast facing France. Father had inspected one, and he said they cost £7,000 each and had two storeys. The ground floor was the magazine and the upper accommodation, with a swivel gun or howitzer on the roof. With walls nine feet thick on the seaward side they must be proof against enemy gunfire but brutally cold for the garrisons in winter…

  Now they were round “The Ness”. He looked across the dead flat: Romney Marsh, where the smooth fields were occasionally punctuated by a church tower or steeple with a small cluster of the village round it, and saw where the land rose sharply at the back of the Marsh, like a long cliff. Somewhere there, if only he knew exactly where to look with the bring-’em-near, was Treffry Hall. Had Sarah come home yet, or was she still staying in Palace Street? Curiously he hoped she was still in Palace Street: it was depressing to think that she might be over there at home and this very minute looking out of one of the windows, across the Marsh and towards the Ness, not knowing that that tiny speck on the sea was the Calypso…

  Now, almost a copy of Hythe Flats, Rye Bay curved inshore, with Broomhill Sands, Camber Sands and finally Winchelsea Beach before swinging out again at Fairlight, with another dozen miles to Beachy Head.

  Names and history…just a few miles ahead of the Calypso the ships of the Norman King William had landed on the Sussex beaches, to meet Harold at what William later called Battle, and where he built an abbey to show his gratitude to the Almighty…that was almost 750 years ago. Over two hundred years ago the Spanish Armada had sailed up here, to anchor off Calais, some forty miles astern of the Calypso, and there Sir Francis Drake had set about them with fireships. That was the trouble with sailing up or down the Channel: one’s thoughts kept foundering on reefs of history. There was an advantage in being someone like Southwick, to whom history was something that happened yesterday. What happened the day before yesterday (and earlier) was forgotten.

  Chapter Seven

  Up on the fo’c’sle the Italian seaman shivered and said to Jackson: “Is cold, this autumn. How long before we get into warmer weather?”

  “That Italian blood ’o yours has been thinned out with too much wine,” Jackson said unsympathetically. “Cadiz isn’t very far south: won’t be much warmer than here.”

  “Al diavolo!” Rossi swore. “We’ll be there all winter blockading these stronzi. They don’t intend to come out and fight. Why should they – safely anchored in Cadiz, yards sent down, sails stowed below for the rats to eat, whores waiting in the streets…”

  “Rosey’s getting bloodthirsty,” Stafford commented.

  “Your mother’s cooking,” Rossi said amiably.

  “Yus, she fed our plump friend like he was a chicken bein’ fattened for Christmas,” Stafford said proudly, his Cockney accent sounding hard when compared with Rossi’s deeper Genoese accent.

  “I warned Rosey what would happen if he went home with you for his leave,” Jackson said.

  “We ’ad a good time, didn’t we Rosey! Even had ’im admitting London ale was as good as wine. Mind you, by then ’e couldn’t tell gin from ’oly water.”

  “I hope you’ve repented by now,” Jackson said banteringly. “You’re setting a bad example for the foreigners!”

  “My oath!” Stafford exclaimed. “And where did you get to on your leave, my American friend? Bet you didn’t set Louis, Auguste, Gilbert and Albert much of an example. Never could understand why four innocent Frenchmen should go on leave with you. Sin, that’s what you was seeking.”

  “What about you and Rosey?”

  “We weren’t seeking it; it was seeking us,” Stafford said quickly. “There’s a difference.”

  “That’s Beachy Head,” Jackson said unexpectedly. “We’ll be tacking soon, so’s we can inspect the French coast.”

  “Where on the French coast?” asked Louis, his French accent revealed mostly by his trouble pronouncing “th”, which usually emerged as “z”.

  Jackson glanced up at the clouds and then at the English coast. “The wind’s nor’west and we’ll point high with a nice clean bottom, so I reckon we’ll have a sight of Barfleur Point a’fore we go about on to the larboard tack. After that I expect Mr Ramage’ll want to get a good offing coming up to the equinoctials now, and he won’t chance getting caught in a gale with Ushant too close under his lee. Not much chance of a sight o’ your bit o’ coast, Louis.”

  The Frenchman shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t think of it as mine any more.”

  “Nowhere to call home, Louis?” Stafford said sympathetically. “Well, you’re fighting on our side, so think o’ England as home. Cornwall’s the nearest to Brittany, and the Capting comes from there, so why doncher adopt Cornwall?”

  Louis, who with the other three monarchists had helped Ramage and Sarah escape from Brest when war started again and then joined the Royal Navy, understood Stafford’s concern and nodded politely. “Yes, there are close links between the two. Half the names are similar and in peacetime the fishermen use one or the other depending on the wind. But not to be worrying, Staff; this ship is my home. Yours, too, if you think.”

  Stafford’s brow creased with the effort and then he admitted: “You’re right, Louis. I was glad to be back on board at the end of that leave. Land people – they don’t seem to understand. And someone like Jacko–” he turned to the American, “–well, I suppose the Calypso really is the only home you’ve got.”

  “Home?” Jackson excla
imed, “why, I nearly own her, along with the rest of the lads. Don’t forget, we all captured her and have been here ever since we first boarded her.”

  “The Admiralty’s paid you your prize money,” Stafford said shrewdly, “so you’re a sort of tenant.”

  “As long as they don’t charge me rent!”

  “Senta,” Rossi said. “what about this Lord Nelson, eh? Is simpatico, eh?”

  “He’s all right,” Jackson said firmly. “We first had truck with him in the Mediterranean, when he was a commodore and gave Mr Ramage his first command (which is where we first came alongside Mr Southwick: he was master of that ship, the Kathleen cutter). He’s a fine admiral to serve under, but as far as the French and Spanish (and the Danes, too) are concerned, he’s a killer.”

  “All admirals should be killers,” Rossi pointed out.

  “They’re not, though, compared with His Lordship. The rest o’ them reckon they’ve won the battle if they drive two or three of the enemy out of the line of battle, but Lord Nelson wants to destroy the lot! At the Nile he captured or destroyed eleven ships out of thirteen; at Copenhagen he captured or destroyed seventeen. Compare that with Lord Howe’s six at the Glorious First of June or even Lord St Vincent at Cape St Vincent, when two of the four of those captured were taken by Lord Nelson (then only a commodore without any title) personally boarding them! He’s not just a fighter,” Jackson said sombrely, “he really hates the enemy!”

  “That Victory,” Stafford said, “she hasn’t been docked, has she?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jackson said “His Lordship only arrived back in England two or three weeks ago – so I understood from Mr Southwick – and we’re off to join the Victory at St Helens, so there hasn’t been time. Why are you asking?”