Ramage and the Freebooters r-3

by Dudley Pope

  As he wiped the pen and closed the inkwell, Ramage glanced at what he'd written. If anything went wrong and his plan failed, the paragraphs he'd written in the log and in the journal would be chewed over by a court martial as carefully as a hungry dog chewed over a fresh bone.

  Every word, every comma, would be questioned; every possible construction put on every phrase. It'd be no excuse to say they'd been written before dawn, before he was fully awake. And his plan—well, even though it seemed the only one that had a chance of success, it'd be treated as madness, because six captains sitting in judgement on him would never understand it.

  Whereas they would expect him to wave the Articles of War and breathe fire and brimstone, he was going to gamble on men—on the intelligence of one in particular, Harris, the Triton's spokesman whom he did not know, and on the sentiment of the former Kathleens, all of whom he did.

  His bet was that he could guess the reaction of all of them, Tritons and Kathleens alike, when their captain sprang a surprise on them; did something they could never have expected and wouldn't know how to deal with...

  He slipped his sword belt over his right shoulder and looked at his watch. Three minutes to four. He took the lantern from its hook and went up on deck.

  The wind was fresh, not yet strong enough to sound shrill in the masts, yards and rigging—which he could just make out as black webs against the dark night sky—but sufficient to moan like a man in pain, unreal and almost ghostly in the night and already starting to sap at the confidence Ramage was just beginning to feel.

  It should be light enough to aim a pistol in ten minutes or so since there was a hint of cold greyness about him. Soon Southwick came over with a lantern and reported:

  'I'm just going below now, sir.'

  'Very well; start from aft so you can see what's happening as you walk back again.'

  As the master disappeared down the companionway it was almost uncanny on board the brig: it needed only an owl making its weird call to complete the illusion he was standing in a graveyard: not a man on deck apart from himself. It was the first night he'd ever spent in a ship at anchor without men keeping an anchor watch, a Marine sentry at the gangway with loaded musket, and an officer, midshipman or warrant officer pacing the deck.

  However, since the Triton had been anchored for nearly a week without even a cook's mate keeping the deck by day or night, he'd decided it was pointless for Southwick and himself each to lose half a night's sleep when both would need all their wits about them by dawn. Their Lordships would not approve; but since they had to administer the Navy, they could never admit a man ever needed sleep or had to use unusual methods in carrying out their orders.

  Suddenly from below came Southwick's stentorian voice bellowing: 'Wakey, wakey there! Come on—lash up and stow; show a leg, show a leg, look alive there! Lash up and stow, the sun's burning your eyeballs out!'

  Every few moments, sounding fainter as he walked forward, the Master repeated the time-honoured and time-worn orders and imprecations—normally bawled by the bosun's mates and puntuated by the shrill notes of their bosun's calls —to rouse out the men and have them roll their hammocks and bedding into long sausage shapes and lash them up with the regulation number of turns.

  Then the men would troop up on deck to stow the hammocks in the racks of netting along the top of the bulwarks. There—covered with long strips of canvas to keep them dry —they also formed a barricade against musket-fire when the ship went into action, 'Lash up and stow, lash up and stow...'

  The voice was very faint: Southwick must be right up forward now, turning to retrace his steps and see how many of the sixty-one men were obeying. This was the first of several crucial moments he and Ramage had to face in the next twenty minutes.

  Then the Master was back on deck, swinging the lantern. He said quietly: 'All the Kathleens and the Marines are lashing their hammocks. The rest haven't moved. Harris's hammock is the nearest as you go forward.'

  'Better than I expected. We'll wait a couple of minutes.'

  The first half dozen of the seamen came up the ladder, running to the bulwarks amidships and placing their hammocks in the netting. Normally it was done by orders; but there were no petty officers to give them. Although more men came up from below Ramage did not bother to count— Southwick would be doing that.

  The Master murmured: 'Twenty-nine still below, sir.'

  There was no chance those men were being slow.

  'Give me the lantern.'

  'Go carefully, sir. Let me come with you.'

  'No, stay here, and get those men working—unrolling the hammock cloths, or anything that keeps them occupied."

  Now Ramage felt the cold of dawn and the more penetrating chill of fear. The black of night was fast turning grey; in a few minutes there'd be no need for lanterns on deck.

  He stepped down the companionway and turned forward past the little cabins. As he went through the door in the bulkhead which divided off the officers' and warrant officers' accommodation from the forward part of the ship where the seamen slung their hammocks, he held the lantern higher, so it lit up his face. He had to crouch, since there was a bare five feet of headroom, but he'd learned long ago to walk with his knees slightly bent and back arched so he could keep his head upright.

  The air was fetid: it was air breathed too long and too often by more than sixty men, and stank of sweat and bilge water.

  Then he was abreast the first hammock which, its shape distorted by the body of the man in it, cast weird shadows as it swung to the roll of the brig.

  'Harris,' Ramage said quietly.

  The man sat up quickly, carefully keeping his head low to avoid banging it on me beams above him. He was, as Ramage had planned, in an uncomfortable and undignified position.

  'Sir?'

  'Harris, I can remember when I was a midshipman...'

  He paused, forcing Harris to say:

  'Yes, sir?'

  'Yes, Harris, I remember one poor midshipman cracked his skull. Died five days later. There'd have been trouble if he'd regained consciousness and said who'd done it. He didn't though, and we managed to change a new hammock for the one cut down...'

  Again he paused, and he sensed each of the other men in his hammock was feeling the same tension as Harris who, because Ramage's voice tailed off, was yet again forced to say:

  'Yes, sir?'

  Suddenly metal rasped against metal as Ramage drew his sword: the noise was unmistakable and, watching Harris's eyes following the blade as it came out of me scabbard, Ramage felt more confident.

  'You've probably guessed the trick, Harris—we'd cut the hammock down. Only we made a mistake in the dark—instead of cutting it down at the feet end, we cut it at the head end, so the poor mid landed on his skull—not his feet...'

  Harris said nothing: he was watching the sword Wade glinting in the light of the lantern as Ramage waved it as though it was a walking stick.

  Ramage judged that this was the moment, and said suddenly and harshly:

  'Lash up and stow, Harris—and all the rest of you. If you're not on deck in three minutes I'll cut every hammock down. Bring the lantern with you, Harris.'

  Putting the lantern down on the deck, he strode back to the companionway. He'd given the order to Harris about the lantern on the spur of the moment but for a particular reason. And the tone of his voice showed them all—-he hoped —that it didn't occur to him they'd disobey.

  On deck it was now light enough to see men moving along the top of the bulwark, paler grey patches against a dark grey screen, tucking in the hammock cloths.

  Southwick came over.

  'Most of these men are sullen, sir, very sullen. Jackson, Evans, Fuller an' Rossi are doing their best, but they've got to watch their step. How are things below?'

  'We'll know inside a couple of minutes.'

  'The lantern, sir?'

  'I left it for Harris to bring up------'

  'But------'

  'Damn the Regulations, M
r Southwick; I have a reason.'

  'Aye aye, sir.'

  Snapping at Southwick hurt me old man's feelings, but Ramage was under too much of a strain to explain what seemed to him so obvious. No lanterns without a sentry was a necessary standing order to guard against the danger of fire; but for the moment the risk of fire was of little consequence weighed against getting Harris and the rest of them on deck.

  He moved to one side so the mainmast did not obscure the forehatch, which he could just pick out as a square black hole in the deck forty or fifty feet away.

  He watched until his eyes blurred. Was—he blinked a couple of times—yes, surely there was a square of faint light framed by the hatch coamings. Southwick tried to see what his captain was watching so intently.

  Ramage blinked again and now he wasn't so sure: the hatch looked as black as ever. Suddenly it lit up, showing the shadow of a man with a hammock slung over his shoulder.

  Of course it had darkened for a few moments because the man's body blocked out the light as he started up the ladder.

  'Here comes Harris.'

  'He's got some brains then,' Southwick grunted, 'and wants to keep 'em inside his skull. Was that yarn you were going to tell 'em about the midshipman dying true, sir?'

  'No, but I nearly believed it myself as I was telling Harris!'

  The lantern swung as Harris walked to the other bulwark and Ramage saw the rest of the men following. One by one they scrambled up and put their hammocks in the netting. Harris said something inaudible to the seaman next to him who edged along the bulwark and pulled out a rolled-up hammock cloth.

  'So far so good,' Southwick muttered.

  Ramage waited until the cloth was tucked in along its whole length, covering all their hammocks against rain and spray, men said:

  'Muster everyone here if you please Mr Southwick.'

  The Master bellowed the order and the men shuffled aft The shuffle told Ramage what he needed to know and what he feared: me men had stowed their hammocks, they were obeying the order to come aft to hear what he had to say, but mar was all: they were still mutinous—the majority anyway.

  He scrambled up on top of the capstan and said loudly: 'Gather round, men.'

  And, he thought grimly, this is one of the moments for which all the years of training are supposed to have prepared me.

  They grouped themselves in a half-circle facing aft. Apart from the faint moan of the wind, the rattle of halyards against the mast and the slop of waves against the hull, there was a sullen, brooding, menacing silence that could come only from a mob of discontented and potentially dangerous men: a silence like fog soaking cold and damp right through to the skin of the man facing them.

  Ramage hadn't rehearsed a speech because his memory was so bad he usually forgot the words. Instead he usually memorized the main points he wanted to make. This morning there were just five.

  'Well, men, you know by now I am your new Captain and Mr Southwick is the Master. I know some of you because we sailed together in the Kathleen. The rest I'll get to know very soon. And I have some news for all of you: news the Fleet won't be hearing for a while.

  'Two days ago I was at the Admiralty receiving my orders from Lord Spencer, the First Lord. He told me I could tell you the Government has considered very sympathetically the delegates' requests for better pay, provisions and conditions in the Fleet. Because Parliament has to approve any changes, the Government is drawing up a new Act as quickly as possible.'

  End of point one, and no reaction from the group, but they were listening intently.

  'As far as all you Tritons are concerned, the Fleet's delegates will have to look after your interests—and I'm sure they'll do it well enough—because this ship is under orders to sail at once for Brest and Cadiz with despatches.'

  End of point two and the men began murmuring: an angry murmuring, like disturbed bees. Ramage realized that in a moment someone—this fellow Harris for example—would take a pace forward and start haranguing the men. Then, as had happened in the rest of the ships, the officers—he and Southwick in this case—would be bundled on shore. Quiet words weren't working. Very well, now the gambler's bluff was being called.

  'In the meantime,' he continued, his voice only slightly louder but the change of tone indicating the importance of his words, 'in the meantime, I want to remind you the discipline and conditions to be maintained on board this ship are those laid down in the Regulations and Instructions and in the Articles of War. No more and no less. But apart from them, let no one dodge his duty—it just means more work for the next man. And remember mis: if you'd been in Bonaparte's Navy, every single one of you would've been hanged by now.'

  That was point three. No reaction—nor did he expect any.

  'Oh yes,' he added, as if it was an afterthought, 'hands up those of you who can swim.'

  Hands were raised and Ramage counted them aloud.

  'Nineteen out of sixty-one. Hmm... forty-two of you can't swim. Very well. Harris!'

  He snapped out the name, and years of prompt response to discipline could not stop Harris taking an involuntary step forward 'Harris—I want to speak with you alone. Go below and wait in the cabin. Take a lantern with you.'

  It took Harris a couple of minutes to collect the lantern and go down the companionway, every man on deck watching him and wondering.

  Ramage guessed—was gambling, rather—that Harris, by himself, was no threat: he was almost certain—but not quite —that Harris had become the men's spokesman simply because he was better educated and more articulate: he was not a trouble-maker nor a revolutionary.

  He'd learned a lot in the few moments he'd watched the man in his hammock, and Harris was probably sensible enough to realize by now that Ramage unofficially acknowledged him as a spokesmen, and sending him below at this moment indicated there was something to talk about Suddenly Ramage said sharply to the group:

  'Right: every man to his station for weighing and making sail.'

  This was the crucial moment: he stood poised above the men, trying to will them to move, the words of Lord Spencer, Southwick and Jackson echoing and, as he watched, mocking.

  Eight or nine men—all former Kathleens—turned and walked forward. But everyone else stood firm, many of them muttering to each other, a muttering which increased to excited talk. A dozen or so—again, they seemed to be Kathlens—remained silent.

  'Very well,' Ramage snapped, a harsh note in his voice.

  'Just remember this: forty-two of you can't swim, the ode's falling, and over there, dead to leeward, you can see the sea breaking over the end of Spit Sand...'

  The muttering stopped abruptly, the men puzzled by his words, unsure what he meant, unsure whether or not they'd just heard some fearful threat whose significance they did not understand.

  Ramage knew he had the initiative again and promptly jumped down to walk forward through the group, forcing men to step aside.

  Then, stopping abreast the mainmast, he turned and said:

  'Mr Southwick, the axe please!'

  Southwick, who had been waiting unnoticed to one side of the men, walked over with a large axe in his hand: an axe used on wooding expeditions, when a boatload of men were sent off to some deserted beach to cut wood for the ship's galley.

  Slipping his sword belt over his head, Ramage gave it to the Master in exchange for the axe, moving so he could look at the group of men as he turned. They might have been carved from stone—an impression increased by the grey morning light. But Ramage felt as if he was made of wet bread.

  Axe in hand, Ramage walked forward, suddenly feeling almost sick with disappointment, apprehension and too much weak, oversweet tea. Talk had failed, but he knew talk was always dangerous—seamen interpreted soft words as weakness; hard words as a challenge. They judged a man by what he did, not what he said. As he'd half expected, his speech had proved a compromise and suffered the fate of all compromises, simply delaying the moment for action. Parliament and bureaucrats please note, he tho
ught sourly, and wished he hadn't drunk the tea, which was slopping around inside him.

  And then he was standing beside the anchor cable which, taut with the strain on it and three feet above me deck, was made fast round the solid H-shaped wooden bins before being led below to the cable tier. The largest cable in the ship, it was a massive piece of cordage, thirteen inches in circumference. (More important, there were four others of the same size, each 720 feet long and weighing more than two tons, stowed below.) Ramage took a firm grip of the axe, noting the wind hadn't changed direction and, if anything, was blowing stronger, so the Spit Sand shoal was still dead to leeward. He changed his stance, placing his feet wider apart. Had the men guessed? Hard to believe they hadn't, but like some wretched actor he had to make sure he was building up to an effective climax.

  Turning to look over his shoulder he called:

  'All well aft there, Mr Southwick?'

  'All well, sir.'

  The Master would shout a warning if they tried to rush him. Surprising how quickly the time was passing: it was light enough to recognize the men's faces. And, more important, light enough for them to see every move he made, and to see the waves breaking white on the shoal.

  He raised the axe over his head and swung down hard on the cable where the first turn went over the broad and solid top of the bitts.

  The thud almost numbed his hands, but the bitts made a solid chopping block. The blade cut perhaps a quarter of the way through the rope, but there was such a strain on it that already the severed strands began unravelling. A second stroke, then a third and fourth. The cable hummed as the whole strain of holding the ship against the wind came on the remaining strands. Stepping back a pace, clear of danger for the final blow, he swung the blade down again.

  As if some giant plucked an enormous harp string, the severed end of the cable twanged and shot away from him, whiplashing the width of the deck before snaking out through the hawse like an escaping boa-constrictor.

  A moment later a splash told him the cable, with one of the Triton's bower anchors at the end of it, was now sinking into the murky water of Spithead.

  The Triton was adrift: already, even as he turned aft, the wind began swinging her bow round to leeward. Since it was high water, with no tidal stream, the Triton had been wind-rode, lying with her bow heading to me north-west. Now she was swinging broadside on to the wind and in a minute or so the wind would be driving her down on to the eastern end of the shoal. Few if any of the men would know mere was a channel, the Swatchway, cutting diagonally across, the shoal just to the west of where the sea was breaking.