Ramage and the Dido

by Dudley Pope

  Well, two or three frigates escorting the convoy. There would be the one that had sneaked into Fort Royal that night and got out again without the Scourge or the Dido seeing her, and probably two more making up the escort. Three frigates to deal with before seizing the merchantmen. Unless…unless the French had sent a ship of the line along as well, knowing that the British were blockading Martinique (though unaware that for much of the time it was with a tiny brig).

  That would make an enormous difference: the Dido would be heavily outnumbered with a ship of the line and three frigates to deal with, especially if the frigates were skilfully handled. In that case three frigates would almost equal another ship of the line. Well, Ramage decided grimly, if that was the escort then Ramage would go at them like a wolf attacking a flock of sheep – he would try and evade the escorts and go for the merchantmen, sinking any that came within range. It would cut down on the prize money they could expect to collect, but the object was to stop the convoy getting into Fort Royal.

  By now the Dido was abreast of Diamond Rock. The day when he had captured Diamond Rock and swayed up guns to the top seemed a lifetime ago. He still remembered the excitement, though – and the wild day which had ended up with the capture of a French frigate which had been renamed the Calypso. He had been very lucky: there were few young captains who managed to capture frigates and be given command of them, and certainly he had had an exciting life while commanding the Calypso. Exciting enough for him to wonder what life would be like in the comparatively enormous Dido. Well, so far it had not been too bad. But chasing a convoy was not really a job for a ship of the line, because she was big and comparatively unhandy. Yet, he realised, if there were three frigates escorting the convoy, he would have little or no success with only the Calypso.

  His reverie was broken as the hands were piped to dinner and the bosun’s mates went through the ship blowing their calls, which sounded like piercing bird songs.

  ‘They’ll never get her off those rocks, I don’t care what anyone says,’ Stafford announced, sawing away at a piece of salt beef. ‘You saw how she was up by the bow, and she must have stove in several planks. Probably set back her stem a couple of feet, too.

  ‘Even if they do get her orf,’ he added, ‘she’ll spend a long time in the dockyard. Her stern was completely smashed in. We were going past her so slowly it was no problem aiming. Every one of my shots ‘it her fair and square in the capting’s sternlights.’

  ‘It’s a wonder we didn’t bring her mizen down,’ Jackson said. ‘It must have been peppered with shot.’

  ‘That’s a very exposed reef,’ Rossi said ‘A good blow making her roll might bring it down. Her mainmast too, because those shot must have torn her insides out.’

  Gilbert, pushing his plate away, leaving some gristle on the side, said: ‘I wonder how many men we killed.’

  Jackson shook his head. ‘A hundred, I shouldn’t wonder. I’ve never seen a ship so thoroughly raked since we attacked that frigate at Capraia Island. But that was with the Calypso, and we didn’t have anything like the Dido’s broadside. One thing about a big ship – her broadside is something to respect.’

  ‘It’s the 32-pounders that do the damage,’ Stafford said solemnly.

  ‘You don’t say,’ Jackson said sarcastically. ‘I thought it’d be Mr Orsini’s carronades.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate those carronades: they slaughter ‘em on deck: cut ‘em down like ‘ay before a scythe.’

  ‘Well,’ said Louis, ‘we must find the convoy.’

  ‘Ah, that might be a needle in a ‘aystack,’ Stafford said.

  ‘But it has to come round the south of the island,’ Gilbert protested. ‘If we just wait, it will come to us.’

  ‘It’s something over twenty miles from Cabrit Island to Fort Royal,’ Jackson said. ‘If the convoy arrived at night, it doesn’t give us much time to hunt it down.’

  ‘Arrive at night?’ exclaimed Rossi. ‘They’d never dare make a landfall at night. Mamma mia, they might all end up on the beach!’

  ‘Don’t forget they’ve got frigates that can scout ahead,’ Jack-son pointed out. ‘They might use them as pilots.’

  ‘I bet they won’t stop one of them French mules running slap into Diamond Rock!’ commented Stafford. ‘It’s just put there for ‘em to ‘it – specially on a dark night, and we’ve only got the new moon for an hour.’

  ‘This salt beef is even tougher than usual,’ Jackson grumbled. ‘They must’ve had it in pickle since the last war.’

  ‘Antique, that’s wot it is,’ pronounced Stafford. ‘Every piece a genuine antique. You can carve it or polish it. Just don’t try to chew it: it’ll stave in your gnashers.’

  ‘Those dockyard Johnnies at Portsmouth knew we were going to the West Indies, so they got rid of some of their old stuff,’ Jackson said. ‘It’s their favourite trick. They don’t issue it to any ship of the Channel Fleet because they know they’d soon hear about it. But the West Indies are far enough away.’

  ‘There ain’t many currants in this duff, either,’ exclaimed Stafford. ‘Who’s the cook this week? You, Louis? What happened?’

  ‘You can’t have a lot of currants all the time,’ Louis said defensively. ‘I put plenty of currants in the last one. There weren’t many left. Stop grumbling!’

  ‘Not much to be cheerful about,’ Stafford said. ‘Tough meat, no guts in the duff, and where the ‘ell’s the convoy? I ask yer!’

  ‘The trouble with you is you worry too much,’ Jackson said ironically. ‘What with the meat and the duff and the convoy, you’ve got too heavy a load on your head.’

  ‘Yus,’ Stafford agreed seriously, ‘that’s my problem: I worry too much. Mind you, I ‘ave to. You lot don’t give tuppence about the meat and the duff, and the convoy might as well not exist. So I worry.’

  ‘Very kind of you,’ Jackson said, keeping a straight face. ‘We appreciate it, don’t we lads?’

  The others murmured their agreement, and Stafford was satisfied that he was appreciated.

  Later in the day there were the funerals. The Reverend Benjamin Brewster read the funeral service over eight men who had been killed by the shot from the Achille. Bowen reported to Ramage that the ten men wounded were making good progress and six of them would be able to return to duty within the week.

  When Bowen paused on the quarterdeck for a few minutes, Southwick teased him about his chess. Bowen was a keen and expert player who had sometimes managed to trap an unenthusiastic Southwick into playing a game with him. Now the master was relieved to find that the chaplain was a chess player and, although not as good as Bowen, only too happy to play him.

  Ramage watched as the carpenter and his mates worked hard to finish the main topgallant yard, splintered by a shot from the Achille. The wreckage had been lowered to the deck and the men were working fast on the repair.

  Aitken had reported that it would take them five hours: the yard would be swayed up again before darkness fell, and the sail – fortunately not badly torn and already repaired – bent on again.

  On the quarterdeck Martin, who was officer of the deck, was having a very serious conversation with Paolo Orsini about playing the flute, the skill which had earned Martin his nickname of ‘Blower’.

  ‘Could you teach me how to play?’ Orsini asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Martin said carefully. ‘It depends on many things. How musical are you? Are your fingers nimble? And you’ll have to learn to read music.’

  ‘That won’t be any harder than navigation,’ Orsini said ruefully. ‘Anyway, I hope not. As for being musical – well, I like it when you play Telemann. I thoroughly enjoy it. The Bach, too.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll lend you my second-best flute. First you have to learn just to blow it. That means controlling your breath. And that means controlling your breathing: you can’t run out of breath in the middle of a complicated piece of music.’

  ‘I can practise breathing on watch,’ Orsini said eagerly.
/>   ‘As long as Mr Aitken doesn’t notice: I don’t think he would approve. He’d say you aren’t concentrating on your job.’

  ‘Oh, but I would be. After all, you’ve got to breathe anyway.’

  Martin laughed. ‘Well, just be careful.’

  The wind fluked round to the north-east and Martin hailed the watch to trim the sheets and brace round the yards. ‘It would be nice if we sighted the convoy coming round Cabrit Point,’ he said conversationally. ‘I can’t wait to get into the middle of them.’

  ‘I can’t get used to being in a ship of the line,’ Orsini admitted. ‘I still think in terms of the Calypso, then I suddenly realise the size of our broadside. The way we smashed in the stern of the Achille, for instance. Those 32-pounders throw a powerful shot.’

  ‘Your carronades seem to be quite effective at clearing the deck. They certainly swept the Achille clean.’

  ‘They have their uses,’ Orsini admitted modestly. ‘Having them so high means their shot get over the enemy’s bulwarks. There’s nothing between us and the target.’

  ‘I wonder what would happen if you fitted-out a ship of the line entirely with carronades. She’d be fearsome at close range.’

  ‘They did try it – at the Battle of Copenhagen the Dictator had only carronades. Commanded by Captain William Bligh – “Breadfruit” Bligh. From what I heard she was quite a success, but because of the short range of the carronades she had to keep close.’

  ‘They were short enough at Copenhagen,’ Martin commented. ‘Any closer and they would have been throwing pikes at each other.’

  ‘Ah,’ Orsini said sadly, ‘I’m sorry we missed Copenhagen – and the Nile, too, for that matter, since Nelson used the same tactics. I suppose we were lucky to have been at Trafalgar. Mr Ramage was at the Battle of Cape St Vincent – and so was Southwick and several of the ship’s company – so they have been in two of his Lordship’s great victories.’

  ‘Earl St Vincent got the credit for that last battle,’ said Martin, who had read the description of it several times – in fact David Steel’s Naval Chronologist had been one of his purchases just before they left Portsmouth. He had eagerly read the description of the battles, including Trafalgar, in which he had taken part.

  Admiral Duncan’s victory at Camperdown was another battle he would like to have been in – it was, like the Nile and Trafalgar, clear cut.

  ‘St Vincent may have got the title but it was Nelson’s victory, no doubt about it,’ Orsini said contemptuously. ‘Mr Ramage was there and he saw it all. In fact he lost the Kathleen cutter in the battle.’

  ‘I heard about that,’ Martin said. ‘Well, he would know!’

  ‘To hear Jackson tell the story, it was quite a battle. Mr Ramage stopped a Spanish ship of the line by letting it ram the Kathleen. This slowed the Spanish up and gave Lord Nelson – Commodore as he then was – time to catch up. His Lordship never forgot that.’

  ‘Yes, we lost a good friend when he was killed. It doesn’t do to think what the Navy lost. There’ll never be another admiral like him,’ Martin said.

  ‘Let’s hope we don’t have another battle like Trafalgar to fight, because I don’t think we have an admiral capable of fighting it: they’re all so old or inexperienced. Look what Calder did – he was court-martialled, and quite rightly so.’

  Martin nodded and said: ‘Yes, but it will be quite a day when Mr Ramage gets his flag. The war may be over by the time he has enough seniority – that’s the curse of the Navy, seniority. Why they don’t promote on merit alone I’ll never understand.’

  Orsini held his hands out in a typical Italian gesture. ‘It would never work. It might start off with promotion by merit, but soon the politicians would get their fingers into it, and it would turn into favouritism, influence and patronage. Politicians foul everything they touch. So maybe it is safer to rely on seniority.’

  Martin was startled by Orsini’s matter-of-fact wisdom. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right, but in the meantime we have to put up with the Calders and the like, promoted on seniority, not merit.’

  ‘It’s the price we pay. Sometimes merit and seniority combine and we get a Lord Nelson.’

  ‘Don’t forget,’ Martin said, ‘that it was Lord St Vincent that picked him for Copenhagen.’

  ‘And put that old fool Sir Hyde Parker in command!’ retorted Orsini. ‘It nearly caused a disaster – in fact if it had not been for Lord Nelson it would have been a complete disaster: the command and the battle.’

  ‘Well, Lord Nelson won, in spite of the confusion.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Ramage says the Danes never studied the Battle of the Nile. Had they done so, they would never have fought the battle like they did because they let Nelson fight the same sort of battle – with the same sort of results.’

  At that moment Ramage came on to the quarterdeck and, overhearing Orsini’s last few words, asked: ‘What are you two naval strategists discussing?’

  ‘Lord Nelson and Sir Hyde Parker at Copenhagen, sir,’ Martin said. ‘The divided command.’

  ‘You can talk about that for a month without reaching any conclusions,’ Ramage said, deciding not to enter into any conversation criticising senior flag officers. He had talked about Copenhagen with his father and Paolo at Palace Street, but they were family conversations, not exactly private but not the sort of talks he would have with his junior officers, since he had been very critical of Sir Hyde Parker, who was unsuited to Danish waters after several years of comparative luxury in the West Indies, where the only enemies were mosquitoes, yellow fever and occasional enemy cruisers.

  ‘Well, can you two strategists tell me how far we are from Cabrit?’

  ‘Five miles, sir,’ Martin said with a promptness that told Ramage he was making a guess. Martin, he decided, had learned the old trick of always giving a prompt reply, relying on its promptness to assure the listener of its accuracy.

  Not, Ramage admitted, that it mattered on this occasion: they were on course for Cabrit and were about halfway between Diamond Rock and the island itself, so five miles was a good guess. From this angle, Cabrit Island still seemed to be part of the southern tip of Martinique, not yet outlined against the sea horizon.

  Which side of the headland should he wait on? He had already decided not to go hunting for the convoy; instead he would wait and tackle it somewhere between Cabrit and Diamond Rock. That gave him a distance of ten miles. In that distance he had to deal with two or three frigates, perhaps a ship of the line, and a dozen or so merchant ships (maybe more).

  It was not a great distance, but he could always chase them the last few miles up to Fort Royal, and there was nowhere there for them to hide – they could not all huddle under the protection of Fort St Louis. But how many merchant ships would there be? It was hard to guess. A British convoy to England from somewhere like Barbados could amount to fifty ships, sometimes a hundred, and those coming back were as big. But the French were only supplying Martinique, they were not sending out ships to bring back molasses and sugar and hides and spices: no, they were just breaking the blockade, so the ships would probably be carrying supplies for the Navy (rope, powder, canvas and salt tack) and the army (guns, powder and shot, muskets, clothing) and, if they were lucky, some cargo for the civil population. The French were fortunate to have been able to assemble and sail a convoy from Europe – there were plenty of British squadrons cruising off the French coast, ready to intercept such ships.

  Yet the French would be prepared to take risks to supply Martinique. It was one of their more important colonies and, to the authorities in Paris, it must seem to be one of the keys to French power in the West Indies. But at the moment it was a dog without teeth: the Alerte frigate was captured and in Barbados, the Achille was on the rocks. The army in Martinique was helpless without the French Navy to carry it anywhere.

  Anyway, the convoy would have a large escort, and some of the ships might stay behind, to reinforce the French in Martinique. Or at least that would be the intenti
on of the Ministry of Marine in Paris, unaware just what had been happening in the past few days. All of which boiled down to one thing – that the Dido might be in for a surprise when the French hove in sight; a surprise and a bitter fight against heavy odds. Well, as usual, the Dido’s only ally would be surprise: the French would be expecting to be met by the Achille and the Alerte; in their place they would find the Dido.

  As soon as the Dido reached Cabrit Point she tacked and began retracing her course up to the north-west. Ramage told Southwick: ‘We’ll hold this course for an hour and then wear round and steer back for Cabrit. We’ll continue doing that until we sight the convoy.’

  ‘What’ll the French do when they don’t see the Achille and the Alerte?’ the master asked.

  Ramage shrugged his shoulders. ‘I hope they’ll assume there’s been some mix-up and that both ships have gone to a different rendezvous. It wouldn’t be the first time that something like that has happened. They wouldn’t have sent that frigate very far ahead: just to give the Achille time to get ready for sea. Perhaps twenty-four hours, and another day to reach the rendezvous.’

  ‘Yes, they wouldn’t be sure enough of their navigation to set a time and place too far ahead.’

  ‘I doubt if they did much more than give a latitude,’ Ramage said. ‘They probably aren’t very sure of their longitude after an Atlantic crossing. Most likely they said “Rendezvous in l4° 40’ North”, or something like that. I can’t see them being more exact. Nor is there any need.’

  ‘I’d give a lot to know whether they are going to try to get into Fort Royal in the dark,’ Southwick said.

  ‘The easiest way of answering that is to ask yourself what you would do if you were the French.’

  ‘I’d have a go,’ Southwick declared. ‘The frigate did it once, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t try it again, and pilot the convoy in.’

  ‘Exactly. He will be very confident of himself. And quite rightly so: that was a very creditable piece of seamanship. He fooled us!’