Ramage's Diamond

by Dudley Pope

  Taut and consistent discipline: that was vital. Lack of consistency, from all accounts, had cost Captain Wallis his life in the Caribbean a year or so ago. He had been a strange man who apparently delighted in having men flogged and was utterly arbitrary. He had ordered one man four dozen lashes for drunkenness and let another go unpunished on the same day. He had court-martialled one man for attempted desertion and then freed another. It had gone on like that for months in the Jocasta frigate until the ship’s company had become like wild animals trapped in the jungle, frightened and reduced to fighting for survival against an unpredictable captain. One moment he might smile at them, the next he would order them six dozen lashes (though the regulations permitted no more than two dozen).

  The Navy was shocked when the news had eventually filtered through that a number of the ship’s company had mutinied, murdered Wallis and his officers, leaving only the master and a midshipman, and sailed the ship down to the Spanish Main, handing her over to the Spaniards at La Guaria. Then a few men who had not taken part in the mutiny escaped and managed to get back to Barbados and Jamaica with the whole miserable story of Wallis’ behaviour. Although captains had not dared speak their thoughts aloud – obviously mutiny could not be tolerated – few had sympathized with the dead Wallis. Fortunately many who might have eventually shared his fate learned a lesson in time.

  Ramage picked up his hat, snuffed out the lantern and left the cabin, acknowledging the salute of the sentry at his door as he climbed up the companionway. On deck it was still a starlit night, the air fresh but not yet warm, the crests of the waves picked out as swirling lines of phosphorescence. The men would not expect the inspection and drills to start before half past eight and it would do no harm for those on watch to know that the captain was on deck freshly shaven at half past three, even before they began to wash the decks.

  Aloft the great sails showed as black squares blanking out the stars. On deck there was no movement except for the two men at the wheel, the dim light from the binnacle just showing their features. Near them was the quartermaster, and Ramage knew that lookouts were watching the whole horizon, one at either bow, one at the mainchains on each side, and one on each quarter. He walked aft and as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he saw that Aitken was the officer of the deck.

  The first lieutenant was pacing up and down the larboard side, leaving the starboard side to Ramage, who decided to take a turn round the ship. He walked forward, careful not to trip over various eyebolts, tackles and coils of rope. That was one thing about a tropical night, it was rarely ever really dark. A figure moved as he reached the mainchains – that would be the lookout stationed there. As the Juno surged forward on the long swells her bow wave reached out diagonally in the darkness as far as he could see. Occasionally a flurry of phosphorescence showed a large fish swimming away, or darting after its prey. The lookout on the starboard bow recognized him in the darkness – it was Rossi, the Genoese seaman who had served with him for more than three years.

  ‘Nothing in sight?’ Ramage said conversationally.

  ‘Two dolphins playing under the bow, sir. You can see them – look there!’

  Through the half port Ramage saw two pale green shapes moving fast through the water, crossing back and forth across the bow, missing the stem by only a few feet.

  This was a good opportunity to talk to Rossi about young Paolo. The boy was full of high spirits and anxious to learn seamanship, but there was no way of teaching him properly. The other midshipman, young Benson, had been at sea eighteen months or more and his knowledge of mathematics and navigation was advanced enough for him to work with the fourth lieutenant. Paolo still had much plain seamanship to learn before he buckled down to mathematics and navigation. Ramage was determined that the boy should first become a prime seaman, able to knot and splice, lay out on a yard in a gale of wind and furl a sail, serve a gun and handle a boat. In a ship the size of a frigate, there was only one way to give him that kind of training, and that was put to him in the charge of a good seaman.

  Rossi was the right man for the job. He and Paolo could talk Italian together and Rossi had the shrewd and pleasant manner that would make it work, as well as being a prime seaman. More important, perhaps, was that to Rossi the Marchesa was almost a goddess. He was one of the dozen or so former Tritons about whom Ramage had to give news whenever he wrote to Gianna.

  It took only two or three minutes to describe what he wanted done. With a man like Rossi there was no fear that he would take advantage of the job by seeking extra favours. He was proud to be chosen, he liked the boy, and was confident it would work. Choosing Rossi had yet another advantage: since both he and Paolo were Italian, it would not make the other Tritons jealous. Several of them shared the same feelings for the Marchesa and would have been proud to instruct her nephew.

  With Paolo’s immediate future settled, Ramage continued his walk round the ship. There was a slight dampness in the air, just enough to soak into the tiny particles of salt in his coat and make it smell musty, as though it had been in a wardrobe all winter. The ship surged under the press of sail, the long and low swell waves picking her up on the forward side of their crests so that she hissed along like a toboggan, then leaving her to pitch gently and subside as the crests passed under her, speeding on to the westward as though trying to catch up with the wind.

  James Aitken walked up to the binnacle for the twentieth time during his watch and glanced at the compass. South-west by a quarter west, though he did not expect the men at the wheel to hold the ship to within a quarter point; indeed, nothing annoyed him – or the captain – as much as men turning the wheel back and forth unnecessarily, since the rudder moving from side to side acted like the brake on the wheel of a cart. Now the ship was well balanced, with the sails trimmed to perfection, and although she wandered off course for a minute as a swell wave lifted her, she usually came back as the crest passed on. The quartermaster noticed his movements and glanced anxiously at the helmsman, and then up at the sails and out to the dogvane on the bulwark, where the corks and feathers on a line streamed from a small staff to give the wind direction.

  Aitken would not be sorry when the third lieutenant relieved him: today was the famous day when the captain had promised them an inspection and exercises the like of which they had never seen. Aitken’s heart had sunk when he heard the captain’s announcement to the ship’s company off the Lizard. He had estimated then that it would take a couple of months to knock the ship’s company into shape. Now he thought that there was a fair chance they would get through today without too many disasters.

  What had bothered Aitken was the men’s attitude when he – and the other officers for that matter – joined the ship. The drunken sot who had previously commanded her had not only let the ship go to pieces – the devil knew what he did with the paint the dockyard supplied, for it certainly had not been applied to the ship, and it was not in the storeroom – but he had let the men go to pieces, too. It took a long time to train a ship’s company, but they could go to ruin in a month if they were not kept up to scratch.

  It was like a reputation: he remembered his old uncle Willie Aitken, a pillar of the Church in Perth if ever there was one. He had been a widower with a parcel of land, and his fences were always mended so his sheep did not stray: he was a great believer that good fences made for good neighbours. He had a reputation for driving a hard bargain but a fair one, and never a man in Perthshire could say he had ever been slow to pay his bills. But at the age of fifty Uncle Willie had taken up with a housemaid: not one of his own, but a neighbour’s, and within a week Uncle Willie’s reputation was not worth a handful of sheep’s wool hanging on a briar. He had ended the affair within a week, but by the time he went to his grave twenty years later his reputation was only just cleared.

  Perthshire seemed ten thousand miles away, and Dunkeld twice as far. As he walked away from the binnacle he thought of his home in the lee of the ruined cathedral at Dunkeld, with the Rive
r Tay sparkling and gurgling nearby, bitterly cold and alive with trout. Many a trout he’d tickled as a boy and cooked over a bonfire, and never did fish taste so delicious, even though one side was usually burned to charcoal and the other side raw. It had been a hard life as a boy, since his father had been away at sea for one and two years at a time, and his mother had to rule her family of three boys and three girls with the sternness of a drill sergeant, and there was never enough money. Until he had first gone to sea he had not known what it was to wear clothes specially bought for him: as the youngest son he had always had the clothes which his older brothers had outgrown.

  That was something Captain Ramage had never experienced – there was obviously plenty of money in his family – yet you would never think it from the way he behaved. He was not mean but he lived simply and had simple tastes. He always set a good table when he invited any of the officers to join him for dinner, but there was none of the ostentation that Aitken had so often seen in wealthy captains. The patronizing comment about a vintage wine, for instance, knowing that a poor damned lieutenant’s only knowledge of wine was probably the ‘Black Strap’ issued instead of rum when the ship was in the Mediterranean.

  Aitken had heard some stories about Captain Ramage’s father, too, the Earl of Blazey. Men said that as a captain and as an admiral the nickname of ‘Old Blazeaway’ was used with pride and affection by everyone who served with him, from the cook’s mate to the most senior captain, and that it was a nickname earned not only because of his behaviour in battle but because he commanded ship, squadron or fleet sternly and justly, and woe betide anyone, cook’s mate or captain, who did not measure up to his standards.

  The son had puzzled Aitken at first. The son of a man who held one of the oldest earldoms in the kingdom and who had been one of the country’s most famous admirals could have expected very rapid promotion if he chose the Navy: captain’s servant or midshipman in ships whose captains would ensure he had the finest training; appointment as a master’s mate the moment he passed his examination for lieutenant and waited until he was twenty, the lowest age he could serve as a lieutenant. And the day after he was twenty he would receive an appointment as lieutenant, and probably in some flagship so that he was readily available the moment a vacancy occurred in one of the ships of the fleet for a more senior lieutenant. By the time he was twenty-three or so, he could reckon to be made post, after having spent a year or two commanding a smaller vessel. He might have the necessary knowledge of ships and men but, Aitken reflected bitterly, it was rare: ‘interest’ mattered more than seamanship.

  That had not happened with Mr Ramage; so much was obvious. He had commanded several ships as a lieutenant but Aitken knew that if ‘interest’ had been at work he would have been made post at least a couple of years ago, whereas in fact he had been made post only a few days before taking command of the Juno.

  When the word had reached him from the First Lord’s office that he was to be the Juno’s new first lieutenant, Aitken had been delighted: Lord St Vincent had certainly always kept his word that he would look after the son of the master of the first ship he had ever commanded. But as soon as he heard that the Juno’s new commanding officer was to be Captain Ramage he had grave doubts. He had heard enough stories to know that he was brave – foolhardy, some had said – and a good seaman, but Aitken had been worried by two things. The first was why he had never used his title, and the second was why he had not been made post earlier. Perhaps his reputation for being a fine seaman was simply talk.

  It had taken only a few hours to get the answers: the Juno was hardly clear of the Wight before he realized that this young captain – he guessed they were about the same age – was not only a fine seaman, but a fine instinctive seaman, which was quite a different thing. There were few men who really had the feel of a ship, who could make a vessel do what they wanted with the vessel’s co-operation. That was the secret; handle the ship like a horse, so you guided it, not fought it. And know the weather. Mr Ramage often said quietly that he thought it was time to furl topsails, or reef, when clouds on the horizon would not have worried Aitken, and sure enough an innocent-looking patch of grey cloud would suddenly turn into a screaming squall that would have ripped the sails from the yards but for the captain’s instinct. Back in Dunkeld, Aitken thought, it would have been called the second sight.

  The three lieutenants who had joined the ship at the same time agreed with what Aitken had told them off the Lizard. They had grumbled at the captain’s announcement, and said that what he wanted was impossible and that they needed more time. But Aitken had told them flatly that they were lucky to be serving in the same ship as this captain – and this Master, for old Southwick had more seamanship in his little finger than most men had in their whole bodies.

  Having satisfied himself about his new captain’s seamanship, Aitken had set out to discover, as discreetly as possible, why he was never known in the Service as Lord Ramage. Old Southwick, who had served with him for three or four years, soon gave him the answer: senior officers without titles sometimes became vindictive about junior officers with, and few hostesses knew where to seat titled juniors in relation to their untitled seniors.

  Aitken saw now that Lord St Vincent really had been keeping his promise: he had deliberately chosen the Juno for him, knowing he would be under Mr Ramage. If the stories he had read in the Gazette were authentic, serving with Mr Ramage could bring you honour or it could get your head knocked off by a roundshot. It was not so much that he went looking for trouble but that he seemed to be given tasks that, even reading the dry-as-dust accounts in the Gazette afterwards, must have been almost impossible to achieve. He must get singled out for them. Well, whatever the reason, it meant that Mr Ramage was more than likely to have a detached command; orders which would mean that the Juno would carry out some special service in the Caribbean and not be attached to Rear-Admiral Davis’ command at Barbados. For the whole of Aitken’s life at sea so far he had served in ships attached to a particular command, usually working with a fleet in the Channel or Mediterranean… Dull work, and irritating, too, because any slackness was sure to be spotted by the flagship, and even if whatever drew down the Admiral’s wrath was not slackness but one of those mishaps that are bound to happen – a rope snagging on a cleat, a seaman slipping on a wet deck, a rips sail ripping from luff to leach – no excuses or explanations were accepted. Indeed, it was a stupid or unsure captain or lieutenant who even bothered to offer one.

  Aitken thought about the coming day and took off his hat to wipe his brow. Mr Ramage was walking round the deck now, and he tried to think of the manoeuvres the captain was likely to order him to perform in that quiet voice of his. All the usual sail-handling he knew the men would perform well – better than he could have hoped even a week ago. But from the talk he had heard, from the stories that Southwick had told him of past operations, Mr Ramage had a reputation for doing the unexpected. Admittedly Southwick’s stories had all been about doing unexpected things against the French and Spanish, but any captain wanting to test his ship’s company was likely to order something unexpected too…

  The truly remarkable thing, for which Aitken was thankful, was the change that was coming in the men’s attitude. Efficient ships were always happy ships with firm but just captains; men like Captain Herbert Duff, with whom Aitken had once served. Captain Duff had insisted that all his officers had at least one pair of silk stockings – to be worn when going into action. When he heard that the fourth lieutenant could not afford a pair, Captain Duff had passed along a new pair as a gift. Silk stockings were not just some quirk on Captain Duff’s part; the old Scot had explained in his dry Aberdeen accent that silk made it easier for the surgeon: a leg wound while wearing woollen stockings usually meant that scraps of wool were driven into the wound and often led to gangrene, while silk never did. Aitken shrugged his shoulders at the memory: poor old Captain Duff had been cut in half by a 24-pounder shot that went on to lodge in the mizenmast…
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  Suddenly he realized a figure was standing next to him and the familiar quiet voice said: ‘There’s a bad fire in the Master’s cabin, Aitken…a good start to a Monday morning, eh?’

  It took the young Scot a few moments to switch his mind from Captain Duff’s death to the realization that Captain Ramage’s promised day had begun early. As he began shouting the sequence of orders that set the calls of the bos’n’s mates shrilling he tried to remember everything written in the Captain’s Orders under the heading of ‘Fire’. They had practised it twice, off Ushant and again off Madeira, and Aitken’s mind became a blank as men began running across the deck in the darkness, swarming up from below. But he knew another minute of this and there would be complete confusion unless he began giving specific orders – and there was Mr Ramage standing by the binnacle, the watch in his hand illuminated by the binnacle light.

  Aitken snatched at the speaking trumpet beside the binnacle box and began shouting, his broad Scots accent emphasized by the excitement and the trumpet: ‘Boarders, engine and firemen to the quarterdeck; look alive there!’ He paused a moment and then ordered: ‘Boarders to starboard; firemen with your buckets to larboard!’

  Ah, at last the Marines had woken up: there was the Marine officer – puffing and blowing, he was much too fat – and making for the poop, where they were to stand under arms. Now Baker, the third lieutenant, was waiting beside him, still in his nightshirt with breeches dragged on and his hat jammed askew on his head. And there’s a thing, Aitken reflected crossly: the Captain’s Orders said the first and third lieutenant were to go wherever the fire was and direct operations there, with the captain taking the conn. But Captain Ramage was just standing by the binnacle and at that moment he turned, as if reading the first lieutenant’s thoughts, and said: ‘Regard me as dead in the fire, Mr Aitken…’