by Dudley Pope
The familiar sound of a contemptuous sniff told Ramage that Southwick was now standing beside him. “These Dons—they never learn, do they? Can’t trim their sails, not even with an enemy frigate bearing down on ‘em.”
“Come now,” Ramage said mildly, “you forget we’re a French-built ship! They can see that, and are probably going to quarters as a matter of routine and waiting to cadge a case of French wine.”
“They’ll soon distinguish our colours,” the Master commented, “even though they have the light in their eyes.”
Ramage shut the telescope with an impatient snap. He must have been half asleep, because the idea he had just snatched at had been floating round his head, waiting to be hauled on board, from the moment he first recognized the ship as a guarda costa. It was not an idea that started him singing like a lark, but almost any idea was welcome at this time of the morning, and if it seemed practical at dawn the chances were better than even that it would be worthy of praise by noon.
Southwick followed as he walked to the quarterdeck rail, and he gestured to Aitken and Rennick to join him. Quickly he gave them their orders and then sent for Wagstaffe, who was standing by a division of guns on the main deck. Finally he walked aft, where Jackson was waiting for him with his sword and a message from his steward that if the Captain wanted breakfast, cold cuts of meat could be served in a moment. The prospect of slices of cold mutton—a sheep had been killed and roasted yesterday—effectively stopped Ramage’s hunger pains.
Half an hour later, with the sun a great reddish-gold ball resting on the low band of cloud across the eastern horizon, the Calypso was sailing a hundred yards to windward of the Spanish brig and on the same course, rolling slightly. The brig had finally hoisted Spanish colours and Ramage was hard put to avoid laughing as he looked through his telescope. There was a little comedy being played out on the brig’s quarterdeck.
Her Captain had watched the Calypso approach; then, as they came abreast each other, Ramage had given the order to clew up the courses so that the Calypso’s speed under topsails alone matched the Spaniard’s. That had been five minutes ago. For five minutes the Spanish Captain had alternately stared at Ramage on the Calypso’s quarterdeck and turned to make comments to his officers—judging from his gestures he was both puzzled and agitated.
Ramage looked at his watch and commented to Southwick: “We’ll give him another five minutes.”
“Aye—he should be done to a turn by then. Do you think he’s thrown over his papers?”
“I haven’t seen any sign, and I’ve been watching closely. I think he’s forgotten them.”
“It’d make sense, sir: first he thought we were French, then it went clean out of his mind when he saw British colours.”
“That’s why we’re going through this pantomime. The more nervous he becomes the easier it is. Fear is not knowing: he doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. He expected us to range close alongside and fire a few broadsides into him—and instead we are sailing along like his shadow. No guns, no hails, no signals …”
“I’d be feeling jumpy if I was him,” Southwick admitted, removing his hat and running his fingers through his mop of white hair. “They’ve been generous with the paint, for once. And not many patches in the sails—though whoever cut them must have used army tents for a pattern.”
Ramage, the telescope to his eye once again, began laughing: “He’s shaking a fist at us!”
Again Southwick sniffed. “Trying to frighten us, no doubt. Er, what had you in mind after—”
“Let’s take her first,” Ramage said, looking once again at his watch. The fact was that the first single idea had brought others in its train; now he was mulling over various alternatives, each of which seemed excellent at the moment of birth and absurd the next.
Southwick stared through his telescope and then turned to Ramage: “You know, sir, I’m beginning to feel sorry for that fellow over there.”
“I’ve been sorry for him since I started this,” Ramage said. “Still, if you’re in a brig with a 36-gun frigate a cable to wind-ward it’s better to be stared at than fired at.”
He could hear his men at the guns on the main-deck laughing and joking: they could see the antics of the Spanish Captain, and several of them knew from experience what it was like to have the positions reversed.
“Mr Southwick,” Ramage said with mock formality, “I’ll trouble you to pass the word that number one gun on the larboard side should fire a shot across the enemy’s bows.”
“It will be my pleasure, sir,” Southwick said with a bow, and replaced his hat with a flourish.
Ramage turned aft and watched the Marines getting ready. The sergeant with six men was standing by at one of the quarter boats with Aitken who, with a cutlass slung over his shoulder and a pistol clipped to his belt, waited with ill-concealed impatience. Wagstaffe was inspecting the men who would be accompanying him in the other quarter boat.
Ramage gave a violent start as the gun fired, and then heard Southwick’s bellow of laughter.
“You should have seen him, sir—jumped a foot off the deck!”
“So did I, blast it,” Ramage growled.
“There!” Southwick bellowed triumphantly, his shout almost drowning the thud of a gun firing from the guarda costa’s lar-board side—a gun fired in the opposite direction from the Calypso. A moment later the Spanish flag came down at the run, the brig’s Captain having gone through the ritual which protected him against an accusation of surrendering without firing a shot. Then seamen climbed up into the yards and began furling the topsails.
It took an hour to ferry the guarda costa’s crew across to the Calypso, and Aitken brought her Captain and officers back in the first boat. The Captain, a plump little man with an amiable face and an excited manner, obviously wanted to talk to the Calypso’s Captain, but Ramage was far more interested in what papers, if any, Aitken had managed to find.
The Spanish Captain and his two lieutenants were taken below to Southwick’s cabin by two stolid Marines, and Ramage, after assuring himself that the Calypso was lying comfortably hove-to, gestured to Aitken to follow him down the companion-way.
He sat down at his desk and eyed the canvas pouch in Aitken’s hand. “Had he thrown the books overboard?”
“No, sir—here.” The First Lieutenant took a second canvas pouch from the one he was carrying. “This is weighted and has a signal book in it. But I found all these—” he fished out a handful of letters “—in his drawer. I can’t read Spanish, but they might be important. I think they are, from the fuss he made when I found them. She’s called the Santa Barbara.”
Ramage flicked through the signal book. It was well-thumbed and likely to be up-to-date. “Where did you find this?”
“In the binnacle box drawer, sir. When I took it out he—the Spanish Captain—waved at our challenge and pointed at the book and shook his head.”
“He saw the challenge before he could make out our colours, probably,” Ramage said as he began looking through the letters. The first contained orders for the Santa Barbara to patrol for two weeks between Punta Peñas and the eastern end of Isla de Margarita, returning to Santa Cruz by nightfall on 24 June—tomorrow, Ramage noted. Any ships suspected of smuggling were to be boarded and sent into Santa Cruz. Care must be taken to avoid any enemy ships of war but, with the exception of one English frigate, none had been sighted off the coast for many weeks. The orders were signed by the Governor of the Province of Caracas.
The remaining letters concerned stores, the supply of seamen and complaints that various reports had not been sent in to the Port Captain and Mayor of Santa Cruz. The brig carried stores and water for three weeks, a small enough margin when sending a ship out on a two-week patrol. Ramage put the letters down and realized that Aitken was obviously keen to know what he had found.
“Just his orders—the rest are routine.”
“But you read them all so quickly, sir. I didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”
“I don’t think they were issued with any to start with, sir,” Aitken said dryly as he made for the door.
Ramage put the letters and signal book in a drawer and pitched the canvas pouches into a locker: it would do no harm to let the Dons think that no one was very interested in papers.
Aitken came back, leading the fat little Captain and two young men, obviously his lieutenants but, from the foppish way they wore their clothes, probably owing their appointments more to the influence of their families than to their knowledge of seamanship.
“This, er, this gentleman is the Captain of the brig, sir,” Aitken said, “I didn’t catch his name.”
“You speak English?” Ramage asked pleasantly.
The Spaniard pointed to the elder of the two lieutenants, who stepped forward and bowed. “I speak English,” he said truculently.
“Then introduce your Captain and tell him I am Captain Ramage.”
The fat Spaniard’s name was Lopez. Ramage, speaking slow and precise English, introduced Aitken and then waved for the three Spaniards to sit on the settee.
“I have some questions to ask your Captain,” he told the lieutenant, watched by a puzzled Aitken. “You will translate. First, what are his orders, and who gave them?”
The lieutenant translated, and Lopez, his eyes on Ramage, said with relief: “Ah—he hasn’t read the letters. Tell him I was patrolling the coast—on the orders of the Governor of the province. Looking for smugglers.”
Ramage nodded as this was translated into careful English. “And from which port did you sail?”
“Do not tell him,” the Captain said quickly, after the translation. “Tell him Cumaná.”
Again Ramage thanked the lieutenant. It was absurd how often people assumed that, because they had not heard you speak their language, you did not understand it.
“I want to know what ships are in Santa Cruz.”
The Captain sniffed. “Tell him I do not know. I have not been there for months.”
Ramage looked puzzled when the lieutenant translated. “I am trying to find the English frigate,” he said helplessly. “Tell your Captain that.”
Lopez was watching him closely as the lieutenant translated. “I guessed that! Tell him she has sailed for Havana. Sailed a month ago.”
Ramage waited for the translation and then carefully arranged his features to show disappointment and disbelief. “But … but,” he stammered, “she was in Santa Cruz six weeks ago!”
The lieutenant translated and Lopez, looking smug, said: “Tell him to look for her in Havana. She escaped all the English corsairs!”
Ramage could not blame Lopez for his attempted deception, but was thankful he had met the William and Henrietta yesterday, otherwise Lopez might have succeeded. But the way the Spaniard was patting his knees, confident he had misled the Englishman was irritating. It was time to jolt him.
“I hope your Captain is telling the truth. I shall be looking into all the ports between here and La Guaira, and if I find he is telling lies it will be easy to punish him: he will be on board …”
The lieutenant translated, trying to conceal his nervousness—he was obviously wondering if he and the other lieutenant were included in the threat—and Lopez shrugged his shoulders: “He’ll never see her: he’ll never get into—” he just caught himself in time to avoid naming the port “—the place, so we’ve nothing to fear.”
Ramage listened to the lieutenant’s hurriedly invented answer: “Captain Lopez says your frigate is not on the coast; you should look for her in Havana.”
Now Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, we’ve missed her, then. Still, I’m sure we’ll find some prizes in Santa Cruz.”
“Santa Cruz?” the lieutenant exclaimed. “Surely you will not try to enter there?”
“Why not? I have charts—and this is a powerful frigate, you know.”
“But the forts—they will blow you out of the water!”
“You, too,” Ramage pointed out just as Lopez demanded to know what was being said.
The lieutenant said hurriedly that the English Captain was going to enter all the ports, starting with Santa Cruz, and he had warned him that the forts would blow the ship out of the water.
“And us, too,” Lopez exclaimed, beginning to turn pale. “Ask him if we can be exchanged—there are many English prisoners at La Guaira. An exchange could be arranged. We must go first to La Guaira and send a message to the Captain-General. A flag of truce—the Santa Barbara could go in under a flag of truce while this ship waits out of range of the guns.”
Ramage listened patiently to the translation, his expression becoming more and more vague. “Tell Captain Lopez my orders are clear: I cannot waste time making exchanges.”
“But—we will all be killed!” the lieutenant exclaimed, his face white.
“There is that risk, of course. But you would have been killed if we had fired into you this morning.”
“But you didn’t! You would never attack such a small ship! It would be dishonourable and cowardly!”
“A few years ago,” Ramage said reminiscently, “I commanded a cutter about the size of the Santa Barbara, perhaps a few tons smaller. She was sunk by a Spanish ship of the line.”
Lopez, his face running with perspiration, ordered the lieutenant to translate, but the young man was shaking now. He made an effort to translate coherently to Lopez: “He hates the Spanish! He was in a small ship that was sunk by one of our ships of the line. This is his revenge—to have us all killed as he tries to get into Santa Cruz. Orders, he says; he cannot arrange an exchange because it is not mentioned in his orders. Caramba! That tells you what sort of man he is.”
“Compose yourself,” Lopez said sharply, wiping the perspiration from his face with a large, lace-edged handkerchief. “If we die then so does he!”
“But he doesn’t care about death!” the lieutenant protested. “They’re heretics, these English; they place no value on life; they glory in killing people.”
“I wish I could kill him,” Lopez said bitterly. “Anyway, it was your uncle that gave us the orders and made me take you as a lieutenant. A poor captain like myself can only obey the CaptainGeneral. You asked him to let you sail in the Santa Barbara. You wanted to impress your friends with your bravery. You have only yourself to blame. Me—I am just an ignorant naval officer. I live or I get killed. I knew that years ago, when first I went into the Navy.”
Ramage snapped his fingers. “What is Captain Lopez saying?”
The lieutenant looked down at the deck. “He is shocked at your cruelty. You have no right to risk our lives with your foolish ideas!”
“Young man,” Ramage said heavily, “you know well enough what the buccaneers used to do along this coast a hundred and fifty years ago with people like you. Yes, they’d light a fire and hang you over it on a spit, or make you walk off the end of a jib-boom …”
“You would never—”
Ramage deliberately looked disinterested and callous. “Today, prisoners can fall over the side—accidentally, of course—and—”
“You would never dare! You would be punished. My uncle is the Captain-General of the province: he would protest to Madrid and—”
“How would he ever know?” Ramage asked casually.
Lopez, alarmed at his lieutenant’s high-pitched protest, demanded to know what was being said.
“He threatens to roast us on a spit over a fire, like the corsairs did. I warned him. I told him my uncle would have him punished.”
“You did what?”
“I told him my uncle was the Captain-General of the province and he would be punished.”
“You fool,” Lopez said contemptuously. “Until now you were an insignificant lieutenant. Now, with yo
ur own tongue, you have made yourself a valuable hostage!”
Ramage told Aitken to take the prisoners away, and the lieutenant jumped up to continue his protests, but when he looked up at the English Captain he found that the vague, almost bored expression was gone; instead a pair of deep-set brown eyes seemed to bore into him, and he realized with a suddenness that left his knees weak and his lips trembling that he should never have asked his uncle for the commission appointing him to the Santa Barbara.
Ramage watched with his telescope as Wagstaffe shouted orders through his speaking-trumpet on the quarterdeck of the Santa Barbara. Swiftly men of the prize crew swarmed aloft and let fall the topsails, which were then hoisted and sheeted home. The brig gathered way and then turned north, away from the distant coast, and when she was a mile off Ramage nodded to Baker, now the second senior lieutenant: “Follow her and keep this distance astern.”
He waited until Baker had given the necessary orders and then went down to his cabin, where Aitken and Southwick were going through the roll of charts found on board the Santa Barbara. Some had been removed, and sent across to Wagstaffe, but Southwick hoped to find harbour plans.
“Nothing of interest to us, sir,” he grumbled. “No chart at all of Santa Cruz. The rest—Cumaná, Barcelona and the like—don’t tell us anything we didn’t know already. The Spanish don’t seem very strong on charts.”
“Very well. We discovered more from the William and Henrietta than from this damned guarda costa—except that we now have on board the nephew of the Captain-General of the province as a prisoner.”
“The Captain-General’s nephew, sir?” Southwick exclaimed. “The whole province?”
“Yes. He began threatening me. Said his uncle would punish me if I took him on shore and roasted him on a spit or made him walk off the end of the jib-boom!”
“I heard you remind him the buccaneers used to do that,” Aitken said. “He was terrified.”
“The Jocasta, sir,” Southwick said anxiously. “Did you find out anything about her?”
“No—except that she’s in Santa Cruz. The Captain was very anxious to assure me she had already sailed for Cuba, and the lieutenant warned me we’d be blown to pieces if we tried to get into Santa Cruz. That’s why he’s so scared.”