by Dudley Pope
Stafford winked and tapped the side of his nose, a gesture he had copied from Rossi. “We’ve got a clean bottom and she’ll be foul: weeks in the Mediterranean, crossing the Atlantic twice…just think of the barnacles and weed and torn and worn sheathing…in anything but a gale o’ wind we should be able to show her our heels!”
“Don’t bet on it,” Jackson warned. “His Lordship’s flag captain would be commanding a transport by now unless he was good, and the master has been with him for years.”
“This woman from Naples…” Rossi said tentatively, but was immediately jumped on by Jackson.
“If you mean Lady Hamilton, she was the wife – now the widow – of the British ambassador to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, whose king and queen – as you well know – live in Naples–”
“Accidente!” Rossi exclaimed, “not criticalizing–”
“Criticizing,” Jackson corrected.
“Is what I say, I don’t criticalize Lord Nelson, I ask about the lady, is all I ask.”
“All right, then,” Jackson said. “She’s His Lordship’s friend, just as her husband was when he was alive. Good friends.”
“Good friends!” Stafford exclaimed, “she’s his mistress!”
“What’s wrong with that?” Jackson demanded angrily. “Even when we were last in Antigua I heard stories about what a cold woman Lady Nelson was – the widow of a soldier, too,” he added, the final condemnation. “After what he did at St Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen, I don’t care if he has twenty mistresses; he deserves ’em!”
“And me not criticalizing His Lordship,” Rossi said crossly, “I was only asking to make sure he has a mistress, I knowing about this wife…”
“Criticize an Englishman’s horse,” Gilbert said drily, “or even his wife, but be careful of his mistress: that much I learned while working in England as the Count of Rennes’ servant. But,” he added warningly, “if he is happily married it works differently: you can criticize his wife, but never criticize his horse.”
“Just shows you mixed with different people,” Stafford grumbled. “My lot have a wife or a horse or a mistress, and a wise man watches his tongue when talking about any o’ them.”
“Of course, the horse would be stolen, the wife regularly beaten, and the mistress paid with dud coins,” Jackson commented to Gilbert. “Stafford’s friends don’t get taken up by the press because no receiving ship’d have ’em!”
“Sounds good comin’ from the Jonathan,” Stafford said, teasing Jackson with the name by which the Navy always referred to Americans. “Listen, Gilbert, whenever you stop a Jonathan ship and board to see if they’re breakin’ the blockade – ’specially in the West Indies – they’re always carrying a cargo o’ ‘notions’. I arsk you, ‘notions’!”
“What’s wrong with that?” demanded Jackson. “Just means a mixed cargo. All sorts o’ things. Needles and thread, pots and pans, clothes – all the things people need to live their lives.”
“‘Notions’,” Stafford repeated scornfully, “what a barmy word!”
At that moment, Aitken’s hail from the quarterdeck rail stopped the talk: a reef point on the maincourse had somehow become entwined with the next one in the row and the pair of them, tightening up, would cause the sail to rip in a sudden puff. The mainsail had to be furled to clear the points, and the sailmaker would go aloft with the topmen to make sure the sail had not been damaged.
Jackson’s estimate to Gilbert was correct: they could just make out Pointe de Barfleur at the western end of Seine Bay when the order came to go about. This gave the Calypso forty miles of sailing close-hauled on the larboard tack back towards England to reach the Nab off the Isle of Wight and close to St Helens, the fort, anchorage and village at the eastern end of the island, across the Solent from Portsmouth and Spithead. St Helens had the advantage that it was in the lee of the island and well protected from the prevailing west and south-westerly winds.
Ramage was by now certain the Victory would have sailed for Cadiz, but Southwick reckoned the Calypso would arrive in time. “My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty will find some way of delaying him; you can be sure of that,” Southwick said heavily, “and Mr Pitt will want to see him for discussions, and the Secretary of State for the Foreign Department: they’ll all want to tell the tale in their drawing rooms, how they told the famous admiral how to fight his battle.”
“You sound like me,” Ramage said, laughing at Southwick’s lugubrious voice. “But the only thing I can think of that might delay His Lordship is waiting for copies of Sir Home Popham’s new telegraphic code. His Lordship told me he was determined to take out a copy for every ship in the fleet and he may have had to wait for enough to be printed and bound.”
“What’s so magical about this new telegraphic code that the admiral would let it delay him?”
Ramage gestured in a wide sweep across the horizon, indicating limitless distance. “With the present edition of the Signal Book for Ships of War, an admiral can only give – by flag signals – some four hundred-odd orders: in other words, only those that are printed in the Signal Book.
“But supposing he wants the fleet (or a particular ship) to do something else that isn’t in the book? Well, he can’t: if the evolution isn’t in the Signal Book, it can’t be ordered by signal. The admiral has his hands tied to the listed signals – and that doesn’t suit Lord Nelson.
“Now, Home Popham has brought out his new ‘telegraphic code’, and from what I hear it means an admiral can as good as hail his fleet and tell them precisely what he wants done.
“Whereas the Signal Book gives a complete order for every signal number,” Ramage explained, “Home Popham has chosen four thousand of the most important – the most active – words that an admiral might want to signal, and given them numbers, so that an admiral can make up a specific order, signalling each word. Home Popham has been quite clever, too: one word – one signal number – can have various shades of meaning: for example, ‘Appear-ed-ing-ance’, or ‘Arm-ed-ing-ament’–”
“But that means signalling number 4,000 for the last word in the code,” Southwick protested.
Ramage shook his head. “No, Home Popham has a much better way. He’s also lumped ‘I’ and ‘J’ together and said there are twenty-five letters in the alphabet, and each letter represents a number – ‘A’ is one, ‘B’ two, ‘F’ six, ‘P’ fifteen, ‘U’ twenty and ‘Z’ twenty-five.”
Southwick sniffed suspiciously, but Ramage ignored him. “One flag means units – ‘G’ would be seven, for example. With two flags, the upper one represents tens and the lower units – ‘E’ and ‘F’ would be fifty-six. Three flags are hundreds for the upper, tens for the middle and units for the lower. Thus ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘C’ would be signalled as 123.”
Aitken, who had been listening to Ramage’s explanation, said: “Once we get a copy, sir, I suggest we have a competition among the officers to see who can make up the most amusing signal using, say, six flags!”
“We’ll do that,” Ramage promised, “but His Lordship hasn’t enough frigates, and if I know him, he’ll be busy thumbing through Popham’s code, finding detailed ways of keeping us busy!”
And, he thought to himself, thank goodness we’ve just left the dockyard with fresh sheathing, mostly new sails, and Aitken and Southwick having gone over every inch of masts, spars and rigging, both standing and running. If we have to get to windward in the teeth of a full gale, we won’t have to worry about a mast going by the board…
He saw Aitken look at his watch and a moment later Martin, the young fourth lieutenant and son of the master shipwright at the Chatham yard, came up the quarterdeck ladder to take over as officer of the deck.
He was a lively youngster, known throughout the ship as “Blower” Martin because of his skill with a flute. Ramage had resigned himself to hearing only sea chanties and tunes popular with the seamen when, towards the end of the last voyage, he discovered that Martin himself preferred more serious musi
c and was very familiar with the likes of Telemann and the flute concerti of Mozart and Haydn.
As soon as Aitken had passed on the Calypso’s course and details of the wind for the past hour and reported that there were no unexecuted orders, he went below, leaving Martin as officer of the deck, with the master and captain standing around, talking.
Soon Ramage said: “Well, Martin, I hope you’ve brought plenty of good sheet music with you.”
“Yes, sir. I went up to London specially. I’ve been practising the newer items.” He grinned. “I’ve discovered Mr Southwick doesn’t share your enthusiasm for Mozart.”
Ramage, pretending to be shocked, turned to the master. “Unmasked at last, eh Mr Southwick? I’ve always had my doubts about you.”
“I don’t exactly dislike him, sir, it’s just that he’s a foreigner and he doesn’t put a tune together like our chaps do. To be honest, I prefer the tunes ‘Blower’ plays for the sailors.”
“What about the other lieutenants and Orsini?” Ramage asked Martin.
“The Marchesa’s nephew has been making my life a misery! He’s so keen! When he was in London he bought me a lot of sheet music without realizing you can’t play everything on a flute! Opera is his favourite, but there’s not much you can do for opera with just a flute!”
There was a shout from aloft: the lookout at the foremasthead was hailing, and Martin snatched up the black japanned speaking trumpet.
“Foremast – deck here!”
Martin quickly reversed the cone-shaped metal tube so that it acted as an ear trumpet. He listened and, reversing it once again, shouted: “Very well, report every ten minutes.”
“Two frigates on our larboard bow sir, apparently running up for Spithead.”
Ramage nodded. “We’ll be seeing several more of the King’s ships before long: at the moment we seem to be in a particularly deserted stretch of the Channel. I imagine Lord Barham is calling in every possible frigate to provision and water and to make for Cadiz.”
He thought for a few moments and then said to Martin, resuming the conversation interrupted by the lookout: “If we spend a few weeks blockading the Combined Fleet in Cadiz, you’re going to wear out that flute of yours!”
“Ah,” Martin said triumphantly, “I used some of my prize money to buy a third one, sir. So now I have one for the sailors, a good one for serious music, and a masterpiece for special occasions and as a reserve.”
How often has prize money gone on a flute? Ramage wondered.
Ramage went down to his cabin and re-read the letter Sarah had written. Somehow rounding the Ness had put a great distance between them – a great geographical distance. If he went on shore at Portsmouth he could take a ’chaise and be with her in a few hours – a fanciful thought for the captain of one of the King’s ships bound for Cadiz in wartime…
He brought his journal up to date, filling in courses, speeds and wind direction, read his orders again from Lord Barham, looked at the chart of Spithead and the east side of the Isle of Wight, and then just sat and stared round his cabin. It was going to be very different serving in the fleet: attention to salutes, always watching the flagship (and the senior frigate) for flag signals and repeating them as necessary, sending in weekly accounts to the flagship (something he had not done for years), accepting hospitality from other captains and entertaining them in return…all very nice for those captains who enjoyed a social life and slapped each other on the back; it was very unpleasant for a captain who had been lucky enough to spend several years with independent orders, his own master within the limits of the orders he had been given.
He woke up nearly two hours later, startled at having dozed at his desk, and was stiff-necked. There had not been much sleep for the past few nights – taking on powder at Black Stakes was a long, tedious and nerve-racking business, eating cold food because the galley fire could not be lit, and waiting for the crash of a barrel or case of powder slipping out of the cargo net and about to blow the ship apart.
He stared at his watch, calculating time: he had been in his cabin for three hours: by now the Isle of Wight should be close on the weather bow. He went through to the bed place and washed his face, using the jug of water and pewter basin kept in the special rack along with soap, razors and towel. Jamming his hat on his head and vaguely feeling guilty (although any captain was entitled to a nap), he went on deck.
And there it was: the massive bulk of the Isle of Wight on the larboard hand, stretching from St Catherine’s Point in the south to the Foreland at the eastern end. And over there, fine on the starboard bow, the low land from Selsey Bill, with the Owers off the end, reefs of rocks waiting for the unwary, and stretching round to the westward and gently rising to the hills behind Portsmouth.
St Catherine’s was almost obscured now behind the cliffs of Dunnose, and ahead the Foreland was hiding St Helens from view, although a ship drawing as much water as the Victory would have to anchor well out.
Southwick snapped his telescope shut.
“Is she there?” Ramage asked.
“Did we have a wager on it, sir?”
“No, we didn’t. Can you see her?”
Southwick shook his head. “The anchorage is partly hidden by the Foreland,” he said almost hopefully, but then admitted: “But I can see a couple of frigates and a brig anchored there, further out (I reckon) than a three-decker like the Victory would be…”
“So I was right – His Lordship wasted no time.”
“Looks that way, sir,” Southwick agreed reluctantly.
“We’ll have to go right up through Spithead and look into Portsmouth,” Ramage said. “She might have gone in to the dockyard for water or provisions. We’d look silly if we sailed for Cadiz, leaving the Victory behind…”
Southwick sniffed, and after years of experience Ramage understood Southwick’s sniffs as other men understood speech. The master was indicating (without saying a word) that carrying on north to look into Portsmouth was wasting valuable time which could better be used trying to overhaul the Victory.
It was tempting: with this nor’west wind the Calypso could get out through the Chops of the Channel on one tack: a glorious fast stretch clearing Ushant by twenty miles, and (if the wind held) bearing away for an equally fast run across the Bay of Biscay to the Spanish Finisterre, almost in sight of Ferrol and Coruña, where the enemy fleet had been hiding until finally they made a bolt for Cadiz and were sighted by Blackwood in the Euryalus.
Damn, damn, damn…he had been doubtful that they could get round to St Helens before the Victory sailed but (quite absurdly, he admitted) he had hoped, regarding it as a challenge.
Now, stretching out of the Channel alone, at least there would be no question of keeping station on the Victory, forever watching for flag signals and busy taking vertical sextant angles of her mizenmast to make sure they were the precise distance off. Now – well, now they would be able to chase the wind, tacking as necessary without signal, noting the headlands and distances run…
A drunkard’s life was measured out in tots of liquor, but a sailor’s life in headlands, Ramage thought, particularly the last hundred miles before Land’s End. There was Start Point at the western end of Lyme Bay, quickly followed by Prawle Point and Bolt Head if you were bound along the coast to Plymouth.
You left Plymouth and cleared Rame Head (with the next the Lizard if you were having to tack out of the Channel in a south-westerly); otherwise there was Gribben Head, showing the way into Fowey, and then the Dodman, just past Mevagissey, and some nasty overfalls, the Bellows, for any ship that kept in too close. Then St Anthony Head at the entrance to Falmouth (with more overfalls, the Bizzies, close by). You came out of Falmouth and cleared the next big headland, the Manacles, and after that the Lizard and the deep Mount’s Bay ending with Penzance as it came round to Gwennap Head and Land’s End.
And that, Ramage thought, is the story of any seaman who over the centuries has struggled up or down the Channel, trading, fighting, attempting
to identify this headland or that shoal in daylight, fog or darkness, or driven by a storm and smashing into one of them.
Quite deliberately he had not thought of the Cornish coast: now he had his own estate at Aldington, the thought of St Kew was less pressing, but fifteen miles or so inland north of the Gribben was St Kew…
Do not, he warned himself, think of the French coast opposite where you honeymooned with Sarah and where the sudden renewal of war trapped us in Brest. He shuddered when he thought of the risks he had inflicted on Sarah. And finally, sent to England after the fleet had arrived, she had been captured by privateers…no, these waters held no happy memories.
Chapter Eight
By the time the Calypso was running across the Bay of Biscay, all sail set to the royals with a brisk north-westerly still blowing (the same wind that had taken them down-Channel, first to call in at Portsmouth and then along to the Lizard so that clear of Ushant they could bear away for the run to the Spanish coast), Ramage knew there was no chance of catching up with the Victory.
“This wind has been blowing for several days,” Southwick declared crossly, as though somehow the Victory had been cheating. “She picked it up and was probably off the Lizard as we rounded Dungeness.”
“Shows we were slow off the mark,” Hill said. The tall and diffident third lieutenant delighted in teasing Southwick, who was old enough to be his grandfather.
“Slow off the mark be damned,” Southwick exclaimed. “We were out of that dock and down the Medway like scalded cats.”
“Ah, it was the navigation that let us down,” Hill said sadly. “Wandering round the Thames Estuary like a befuddled curate at the wedding of the landlord’s daughter; we lost the tide at the North Foreland and had to fight the current all the way through The Gull – I’ve never seen the Goodwins pass so slowly – and look how wide we passed Dungeness. I won’t mention the stretch up to Spithead, and that leisurely amble along to the Lizard…”