Ramage and the Freebooters

by Dudley Pope

  ‘Don’t move, your life ain’t worth a candle!’ Wheeler snarled, and his right hand came up with a pistol. The thumb moved forward and as it went back there was a click as he cocked the pistol. ‘Nor the puff to blow it out.’

  Ramage shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Wheeler, it won’t do. Don’t be a fool–’

  ‘I’ve nuthin’ to lose,’ Wheeler almost shouted, revealing an accent Ramage couldn’t place more specifically than Midland, ‘the Royal Navy’s been looking for me for years!’

  Ramage spoke loudly and deliberately.

  ‘You won’t gain anything by threatening me with a pistol.’

  ‘No?’ jeered Wheeler. ‘Well, I ain’t threatening, I’m promising! Correct Mr Lieutenant, I’m not the captain of this ship; I’m the mate, but I have a share in her. Correct, she’s really French; those papers are forged. Correct she’s now a prize to His Royal Majesty King George the Second–’

  ‘“The Third”,’ Ramage corrected mildly, glancing up at the skylight, trying to gain time.

  ‘“The Third”, then, not that it’s going to make any difference to you. Correct, I’m as good as your prisoner. And I’ll go further – if I was ever brought to trial I’d swing from the foreyardarm, so I’ve nothing to lose; but so help me God, I’m not going to quit this world alone, Mr Lieutenant. I’m taking you with me.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for you I’d have retired rich in my old age. I’ve a house in Charleston – and every brick of it paid for. Not bad for a man who had “Run” put against his name in the muster book of a British ship o’ war only six years ago, eh?

  ‘So say your prayers, Mr Ramage. Your old father’s going to mourn you. Yes, I remember him; even served in his ship once. Five, Mr Ramage, start saying your prayers, Mr Ramage, ’cos when I’ve counted five you’re going to be dead, and it’s only fitting to give a man time to make his peace.’

  He raised the pistol and Ramage was looking straight into the muzzle, which seemed to grow in size as he watched. Wheeler was holding it canted slightly to his left, to be certain the priming powder in the pan covered the touch-hole and there’d be no chance of a miss-fire.

  ‘One, Mr Ramage,’ he said, and the first joint of his index finger whitened as it tightened slightly round the trigger. ‘Two… I don’t see those eyes closed in prayer…’

  And suddenly Ramage was very frightened and oddly resentful: it was a waste – he was going to die, and so stupidly, at the hands of a trapped deserter.

  ‘Three…’

  After all that…rescuing Gianna, the Belette affair, capturing the Spanish frigate, ramming the enormous San Nicolas at Cape St Vincent–

  ‘Four…’

  Only a few seconds. Gianna would–

  A sharp, ear-shattering explosion, a faint crash of broken glass, but mercifully no pain.

  Wheeler’s hand fell to the table still clutching the pistol and he leaned forward, his head dropping on to his arms as though he was tired.

  Ramage, suddenly realizing the pistol had not fired, saw half the man’s face was torn away. A moment later more glass fell from the skylight overhead; two feet and then the legs came into sight through the hole, and Jackson dropped on to the desk.

  ‘You all right, sir?’

  Ramage swore violently.

  ‘You left that damned late, Jackson!’

  The American looked crestfallen. ‘Didn’t think he’d go through with it, sir. I reckoned he’d stop at three and try to strike a bargain. I had to back and fill round the skylight so my shadow didn’t show.’

  ‘Bargain! Bargain – what, with his pistol aimed–’

  Ramage shouted, breaking off as he realized the shock was making him lose control of himself.

  ‘Had a bit of trouble on deck, too, sir,’ Jackson said laconically, jumping off the desk. ‘As soon as I heard him say who he was I had to signal the Tritons to cover the Frenchies – and I was scared stiff there’d be a shot fired. If there had been…’

  Wheeler would have shot him straight away, Ramage realized.

  ‘Very well, Jackson, let’s get on with it. I want those papers collected and taken over to the Triton – don’t let the blood soak them. The real ones are in the sideboard, but clear the desk as well.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sitting in his cabin on board the Triton and reviewing the last couple of hours as he filled in the log, Ramage realized how little his brief written report to Admiral Robinson would tell of the story, because it was impossible to visualize unless you had been on board a slaver.

  She was La Merlette of Rouen. Her owners had a cynical sense of humour: ‘La merlette’ – a hen blackbird. Built ten years ago, 260 tons burthen and ninety feet long on deck, she carried 375 slaves… The captain was a happy and portly little Rouenais who’d immediately stepped forward and revealed his identity when he realized Wheeler had been shot dead.

  He was proud of his ship, rueful that his subterfuge had failed, and as he took Ramage round on a tour of inspection was equally proud of the way the slaves were cared for. He could, Ramage thought, have been a vintner proudly displaying his cellar of wines.

  And that wasn’t a bad simile either, for below deck La Merlette was like a long, narrow and low cellar. The ship was divided into five sections. Forward, the seamen lived in the fo’c’sle and each had a bunk, but since there was less than four feet of headroom, the captain explained, they usually slept on deck at sea in the tropics.

  Abaft the seamen’s accommodation was the space for the male slaves: a forty-feet-long compartment the width of the ship. Even staring at the slaves, lying, squatting and sitting, Ramage could hardly believe it. There was less than five feet headroom, so he had to crouch as he walked. Running the full length of the compartment on each side were two shelves, the lower about a foot from the deck, the second two and a half feet above the first, and each a few inches wider than the length of the slaves lying on their backs side by side, feet outboard, heads towards the centre-line.

  Ramage looked closely at the first few slaves – the only ones he could see clearly since the light from the hatch hardly penetrated more than a dozen feet. They were all secured by hinged metal collars round their necks. Each end of the collar was bent out at right angles to form a flange and had a hole in it. In the shelf beneath each slave’s head a slot was cut in the wood so that both flanges when pressed together went through it and a padlock was slipped through the holes from the underside.

  Each slave could move his arms and legs – though little good it did, since the collar held his head and he was close between fellow-slaves. A canvas scoop – a windsail – was fitted at the after-hatch to catch the following winds, and the forward hatch was open, forcing a draught through the length of the compartment.

  Along the centre-line, between the shelves on either side, there was a low, wide bench on which sat three rows of slaves, facing the starboard side. All of them had their knees drawn up and Ramage soon saw why: each was in leg irons. A man on the starboard side could not push back to straighten his legs because of the man behind him in the middle row. The third slave, his back to the larboard side, would slide off the edge of the bench if he straightened up…

  The leg-irons were simply U-shaped metal straps fitting over the ankles. A metal rod with a knob at one end went through holes on each side of the iron and also through an eyebolt fitted into the bench. The knob prevented the rod being pulled out one way, a padlock through a hole at the opposite end stopped it being pulled out the other, and the eyebolt held it to the bench.

  The slaves watched warily as Ramage, the French captain and a couple of the Triton’s boarding party walked through. The stench was appalling – bilgewater, sweat, urine… Yet the slaves’ quarters were clean – scrubbed out every day, the French captain explained, while the slaves exercised on deck. But, he added, all their lives the slaves had relieved themselves wherever they happened to be in the jungle and it was impossible in such a short voyage to train them to wait until they were
led up on deck.

  Although the slaves – all of them young men or boys – were silent they were not sullen. Fearful, certainly, since the mere noise of the sea against the hull of a ship running in the Trades was frightening, and a thousand times worse if you were shackled down.

  The crash of the mast going by the board, Ramage realized, must have sounded like the end of the world.

  All the men had deep scars on their cheeks: the different tribal marks deliberately cut by the witch doctors during strange initiation rites. Some had two, three or even four vertical scars an inch long on either cheek; others ran horizontally. And many of the men sitting on the bench had the even more horrifying tribal marks running down their backs. These looked, in the half-light, like pieces of thin rope a couple of feet long stuck on the skin parallel to the spine.

  The moment he saw these scars Ramage recalled his first trip to the West Indies, when the overseer at a plantation had explained what they were. The process began at puberty – one or more long cuts was made down the back and mud rubbed in so the flesh healed leaving a raised scar. This was cut again, and more mud rubbed in. Gradually the ridge grew higher, fattened along the centre because of the mud but contracted beneath by the original scar, until it was almost as fat as the top joint of a man’s little finger: a long, thin brown sausage glued lengthwise to the skin. Adornment, tribal customs, a sign of manhood – whatever it was it looked worse than any seaman’s back scarred by a cat-o’-nine-tails.

  Most of the slaves would be under twenty-four years old – the demand was for youngsters. In Jamaica, he recalled, there was a £10 duty on every one landed who was over twenty-four.

  Ramage had then gone on to inspect the women’s compartment, which was the next aft. Fifteen feet long and also the full width of the ship, it was laid out like the men’s. But it was too much and he hurried through and up the hatch, unable to face the terrified, appealing eyes that watched him. Women – they were young girls for the most part, few over eighteen.

  The women’s compartment was separated from the captain’s cabin aft by two bulkheads which also formed cupboards. Ramage was surprised to find that abaft the captain’s cabin there was another cabin fitted with more berths. When asked whose they were the Frenchman shrugged, saying he disliked being on his own, with the slaves between him and the crew, and the petty officers used it.

  Shutting out the memory of what he had seen, Ramage filled in the log, noting the time and position the schooner had been sighted, weather conditions, and describing briefly how the man claiming to be the schooner’s American captain had been shot. Then details of the prize’s tonnage and cargo.

  He did a sum on a scrap of paper. Slaves were fetching a high price in Jamaica and La Merlette carried 375. Or rather, had shipped that number, but eleven had died. An average of, say, seventy-five guineas a head meant that her present cargo was worth more than 27,000 guineas. Add in the value of a well-built, fast ship…

  Which brought him back to the next decision facing him. Southwick and the carpenter’s mate had been over to inspect La Merlette and both now reckoned the chances of repairing the mainmast were almost nil because, unless there was an almost flat calm, it would be impossible to raise the mast into position. Plus three days’ work actually fishing the mast, replacing the rigging and setting it up. How long would they have to wait for a calm day? It could be two days – or two weeks.

  Another factor was that the schooner carried a large crew, and a cut-throat mob they were. They needed to be, with the constant threat of the slaves rising against them, and they shipped in slaves only because of the pay, which was very high since sickness was the worst enemy – Ramage recalled:

  Beware and take care of the Bight of Benin,

  There’s one comes out for forty go in…

  It was an old song and probably true. Anyway, the schooner would need a prize crew of twenty since her penny-pinching owners were forced to give her a crew of twenty, and there were the slaves to guard. And the First Lord’s orders precluded him from delaying the Triton by escorting the schooner into Barbados.

  Well, there was no choice: he could – indeed he’d have to – keep the French prisoners on board the Triton and let Appleby and twenty Tritons take in La Merlette. That meant there’d be forty men left to work the Triton and guard twenty very tough prisoners. He could only pray that neither ship met a French privateer. Still the French captain was cheerfully reaching along to windward of the islands with only the foremost standing. Barbados was at most a couple of days sailing for La Merlette and dead to leeward. Young Appleby would have no difficulty getting there even if he jogged along under headsails alone.

  Yet it’d be easier to leave La Merlette to her French crew: her captain could make Guadeloupe, where he’d already said she was due to call anyway before going on to Haiti. But Ramage dismissed the idea: Admiral Robinson would be extremely angry at letting such a prize ship through his hands.

  Ramage glanced up at the skylight and at his watch. Just under a couple of hours of daylight left. Now he’d made up his mind, it was time to transfer the French prisoners to the Triton and send over spare provisions and water to the schooner. Appleby would be delighted at the honour of sailing the schooner into Barbados with only the foremast standing. Bringing in a prize with a 27,000-guinea cargo on board would go a long way towards ensuring Admiral Robinson’s interest in helping him pass for lieutenant. As far as Ramage could see, that was the only way the master’s mate would ever make it, since he had the brain of an ox.

  With Wheeler dead, there was only the French captain and one other officer. They could have Appleby’s berth – easier to guard them there, too. He called to the Marine sentry to pass the word for Southwick so he could give the necessary orders.

  The French prisoners had been herded below under a Marine guard; food and water transferred to La Merlette; the prize crew were on board. Ramage was pleased he’d remembered to include Harris among the crew because he would be one of the senior ratings; and Appleby also had Stafford and Fuller with him. Since the Triton had been stripped of her best men, Appleby would have only himself to blame if things went wrong.

  Ramage stood at the break in the gangway as Appleby came up from below, a chart rolled under his arm.

  ‘Have you forgotten anything?’

  ‘Don’t think so, sir,’ he said cheerfully, forgetting his captain’s dislike of vague answers.

  ‘Either you have or you haven’t. Chart, sextant, tables, almanack?’

  ‘Got them all, sir.’

  ‘Latest position from Mr Southwick, course to steer, chronometer checked with La Merlette’s?’

  ‘All done, sir.’

  ‘Ensign, set of flags, rockets, false fires…?’

  ‘All on board, sir.’

  ‘Very well. We’ll be in sight for much of the night, so don’t be afraid to send up a rocket if you’ve forgotten anything or find you can’t manage.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Appleby answered patiently, and Ramage realized he sounded like a mother fussing the first time her son left home for school.

  ‘Good luck, then, and don’t forget to salute the Admiral if you find him in Barbados!’

  Half an hour later the Triton’s boat was back and it was being hoisted on board, La Merlette began setting sail and getting under way. As Ramage watched, the surgeon came up and commented:

  ‘Appleby’s first command! He must be excited!’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Ramage grunted. ‘He’s the dullest dog I’ve ever met. Has no – no push, if you know what I mean.’

  The surgeon nodded. ‘Still, he tries – and he’s very young.’

  ‘Yes, about fourteen months younger than I.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir, I didn’t–’

  Ramage laughed. ‘It’s a compliment, Bowen.’

  ‘This French captain,’ Bowen said, hastily changing the subject. ‘What sort of man is he? I mean, how can someone trade in human lives? It seems – well, against everythi
ng their Revolution was supposed to stand for.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering the same thing. He reminds me of a typical French grocer: cheerful, fat and sharp as a needle.’

  Bowen said, ‘I must admit I’m an Abolitionist, sir. I’ve never done anything about supporting Wilberforce, but I admire his work.’

  ‘So do I. At this very moment I feel like resigning my commission and offering him my services.’

  ‘A laudable spirit, if I may say so, sir,’ Bowen said seriously. ‘But at the moment the country faces worse enemies than slavers. While we condemn a cruel slaver we mustn’t forget the first three years of the French Revolution saw more cruelty performed by Frenchmen against Frenchmen in the streets of Paris alone than there’s been in the Bight of Benin in the last fifty years.’

  Ramage nodded, thinking of the thousands who’d been led to the guillotine merely because they had been born in the upper or middle classes, not because they opposed the Revolution. And they’d been followed by hundreds of people falsely denounced to the Directory by their enemies to pay off old scores.

  ‘Well, one way we can find out what the Frenchman thinks is for me to invite him to dine with me tonight. The idea isn’t very appealing – I’d sooner heave him over the side. But it’s customary for the captain to make such an invitation – though hardly to a slaver.’

  The Surgeon did not try to hide his interest.

  ‘Perhaps you would join me, Bowen. I can’t ask Southwick as he’ll be on watch.’

  The French captain, Jean-Louis Marais, spoke good English, ate heartily (though hinting that a clove of garlic would have improved the meat) and sniffed delicately at the brandy. His chubby face was non-committal; then he glanced over the top of the glass and said: ‘Good – yes. But M’sieur Ramage, I hope you won’t think me impolite if I regret that I forgot to make you a present of my spirit locker before we parted company with La Merlette?’