Ramage's Mutiny

by Dudley Pope

  Now the Calypso was beginning the slow turn across the eastern end of the lagoon, a long curve that would end, if Aitken directed the boats properly, with the frigate coming alongside the Jocasta perhaps ten minutes before it was dark. With the yards braced sharp up and the lines led ready to be passed to the Jocasta, there was nothing more to be done on board, and men stood silent, each alone with his thoughts. Aitken, on the fo’c’s’le and now standing on the knightheads with a speaking-trumpet so he could shout down to the boats when necessary, was reminded of the lochs on the west coast of Scotland: long stretches of water, some surrounded by steep hills, others with hills in the distance. But of an evening they had the same tranquillity, the same atmosphere of time passed, of witnessing events that left no mark. When the Captain had described it all in the cabin earlier, Aitken had pictured Santa Cruz rather like a cave; he had expected to feel an overwhelming sense of being trapped—as indeed they were—but instead he was reminded of a peaceful evening’s walk beside a loch.

  Jackson, walking from one side of the ship to the other to keep an eye on the edges of the channel, now mercifully disappearing astern as the ship came out into the lagoon, was reminded of Italy, not by the water but by the hills. They were smoothly rounded and rose higher and higher as they moved inland. This was, he thought, like southern Tuscany: that big peak could be Monte Amiata. The land on either side of the channel was covered with the same tough scrub of the macchia, like the countryside where they had found the Marchesa. He wondered if it had jogged the Captain’s memory. At times like this he always seemed busy, working out angles and distances, ranges and trajectories, or what the enemy might be planning, but afterwards—perhaps long afterwards—he’d make some comment that showed he had missed nothing.

  Stafford, squatting on the breech of one of the aftermost of the quarterdeck guns with Rossi, felt uncomfortable. The long channel back to the sea, with the fort on each side, reminded him of a heavy door. He had never been in the Bridewell, but he knew plenty of men who had, and they all commented on the jail doors slamming behind them as they entered, then the long walk to the cells. The long walk was what they remembered, down a corridor that seemed to go on for miles.

  “Be glad to get out o’ here,” he commented to Rossi.

  The Italian turned to look at him. “Oh? Is not so bad, you know; the French build a good ship.”

  “I don’t mean the Calypso,” he said impatiently. “I mean this place, Santa Cruz.”

  “Is quiet enough now, Staff,” Rossi said complacently. “Just like the Captain said.”

  “He didn’t say it’d be quiet going out, though. I’ll take my oath on that!”

  “We’ll soon know. Remember when we were in Cartagena?”

  “Aye, that’s what I’m saying. Trapped. Same sort of place—Spanish, mountains, narrow entrance …”

  “We sailed out of Cartagena all right!”

  “But he’ll chance ‘is arm once too orfen, mark my words.” Rossi spread both arms, palms upwards. “Always you get like this, Staff. For ten minutes you think of ways we can all get killed. Then you forget all about it.”

  “‘Ere!” Stafford exclaimed, jumping from the gun, “that bleedin’ Jocasta’s gettin’ close. Come on, Rosey, time we got ready to invite the Dons on board.”

  Ramage watched the Jocasta: she was a hundred yards ahead, fine on the starboard bow, but the men at the oars were getting tired now and the Calypso was slowing down, yet he wanted some way on her so that the rudder would have a bite on the water for the final slight turn that would bring the Calypso alongside.

  Suddenly he swung round: “Jackson, the signal lanterns: have you checked that they’re ready?”

  “Just done it, sir. Slow matches too; I’ve got three of them going.”

  “Very well.” And keep control of your voice, he told himself; that all sounded rather agitated. A glance back at the channel: they were too far into the lagoon to see along it now, but he could not distinguish the Santa Barbara’s masts across the land. What’s delaying Wagstaffe? Don’t say he’s put the brig aground!

  Southwick was standing beside him muttering: “Not much breeze, sir. From the south, a soldier’s wind for getting out of here down the channel.”

  “We’ll need it,” Ramage said briefly. “Jackson! Four spokes to larboard!”

  It was hardly a standard helm order but it should be just enough, a quarter of a turn of the wheel. The Jocasta’s stern was showing up black, like the end of a barn, with the Spanish name picked out in white paint (and probably a lot of gilt, too, but it was too dark to see that). And the masts, spars and rigging made a complicated but beautiful web of lace against the sky, like a Spanish mantilla.

  Ramage saw that dozens of men were lining the Jocasta’s bulwarks, waiting for lines to be thrown. Dozens—a hundred or more and others streaming up from below. Many were running, but they were spurred on more by curiosity than orders.

  “Two more spokes!” he snapped. The Calypso’s bow was abreast the Jocasta’s stern; now level with her mizen. Men were shouting in Spanish from her quarterdeck. Now abreast her mainmast, and the ship was moving a little too fast.

  “Wheel hard a’starboard!”

  That would stop her; at low speeds the rudder put hard over acted as a good brake. And now the Calypso was precisely alongside the Jocasta, bow to bow, stern to stern, and he tried to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  “Bowline, brothers; pass a bowline! Aft there, get a sternline over. You there amidships—pass the after spring! Come on, brothers, look alive and get the fore spring across!”

  Every Spaniard on board the Jocasta seemed to be yelling at once and at least two men were bellowing through speaking-trumpets. There must be a hundred voices within fifty feet, all shouting orders, advice and encouragement on how to get the Calypso safely alongside, and all ignoring the fact that she was already there.

  No sign of the Santa Barbara, although she was so small and the channel was in such deep shadow that her masts might not show up. The shouting on board the Jocasta seemed to be reaching a crescendo amidships, as though the Captain was demanding to be allowed through.

  “Brother Southwick,” Ramage said, “I think we’d better join brother Aitken at the gangway, and form a welcoming committee. Brother Stafford, bring up some lanterns!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THREE SPANISH sailors carrying cutlasses leapt on to the Calypso’s bulwarks, scrambled down to the deck and then stood round in a half-circle, looking rather sheepish as Ramage led a round of cheering. A moment later three officers followed them, led by a tall and gaunt man in the uniform of a Captain.

  As soon as he was standing on the Calypso’s deck the captain squared his hat, gave his sword-belt a twitch and looked around him. It was a slow, calculating stare, and although the last of the light had almost gone, Ramage sensed that the Spaniard had not missed much, the dirty, gritty decks, the untidy ropes, the dark stains on the planks … At the moment he was obviously trying to determine which of the dozens of men standing round was the leader of the mutineers.

  “Que pasa?” he demanded.

  Ramage stepped forward and gave a clumsy salute which the Spaniard did not bother to acknowledge. “You speak English, sir?”

  “A little.”

  “Well, sir, me and my mates you see, we took the ship and—”

  Ramage stopped as Stafford and Rossi came up from below with lanterns, one in each hand.

  “Where j’yer want ‘em, brother?” Stafford asked the Spaniard, the complete mutineer addressing everyone as his equal.

  The Spanish Captain gestured towards the quarterdeck. “Aye, aye, sir!” Ramage said quickly, leading the way aft to the ladder. “Bring them up here, brothers.”

  Rossi put one lantern on the binnacle and another on top of the capstan; Stafford put a third on the binnacle and continued to hold the fourth.

  “Now, sir,” Ramage said in an ingratiating voice, “may I present the committee—
”

  “Committee?”

  “Yes, sir. When we took the ship the men elected a committee. Three of us to run the ship. Make decisions, and things like that.”

  “I understand. You are the leader?”

  “No, sir, there are three of us. Me—Nicholas Ramage, sir. And this here is brother Southwick, and here is brother Aitken.”

  “This ‘brother,’ I do not understand it. You have different names; how can you be brothers?”

  “It’s a sort of … well, sir,” Ramage said, careful to keep the ingratiating note in his voice, “a greeting, like ‘mister,’ only it—”

  “I do not care for this ‘brothers,’” the Captain interrupted. “I have taken command of this ship. What is her name?”

  “The Calypso, sir; she’s French-built and—”

  “I want the ship’s documents. Signal book, log …”

  Ramage held up his hands. “I’m sorry, sir, we couldn’t save the papers—”

  “What happened to them?”

  “The officers, sir. You see, before we could take control, the officers—the First Lieutenant it was—threw the bag over the side.”

  “What bag?”

  “The bag—a bag with a lead weight in it. The one they kept all the papers in. Sunk it, he did, before—”

  “Your men,” the Spaniard interrupted. “How many?”

  “Two hundred and four left, sir.”

  “Show me round the ship.”

  With that he gestured to Rossi and Stafford to pick up lanterns and began to walk round the quarterdeck. He inspected the binnacle, the capstan, the wheel and then the guns. He paused from time to time and Ramage saw how the sharp eyes noted the pieces of food in the scuppers, the grease spots on the deck, and then the barrel of rum and the mugs beside it. The Spaniard stopped by a bloodstain and told Rossi to hold the lantern lower, but he made no comment.

  Ramage cursed the lanterns: the light had destroyed his night vision, yet he had to know where the Santa Barbara was. The Spaniard had been on board about ten minutes—and already part of the plan was breaking down: apart from the three Spanish seamen and the two lieutenants, the Captain had not brought more men on board. Ramage had expected that all the Spanish seamen from the Jocasta would stream on board the Calypso, where everyone was ready to seize them. The groups of British seamen apparently lounging around on the main deck were in fact all near piles of cutlasses; most of them had pistols and loaded muskets ready. But the Spanish seamen were still on board the Jocasta; it had not yet occurred to the Spanish Captain that he must take control of the Calypso and the Jocasta’s men were—judging by those now idly spitting over the side and walking away from the bulwark—rapidly losing interest in the proceedings.

  Ramage sensed that at this moment he risked losing control of the situation. Because his plan for seizing the Spanish seamen had collapsed, the advantage could easily swing to the Spanish Captain without the man realizing it. Surprise, he thought to himself; I must get this fellow off balance. He walked over to him and said insolently: “Sir, the men have not had their dinner yet.”

  “They must wait.”

  “But, sir, the committee agreed that all meals should be piped on time and—”

  “The committee! Caramba, I command now! Tell your committee that! I want all the men paraded here, now. Give the order!”

  If one part of a plan goes adrift, Ramage thought bitterly, another soon follows. The men must stay where they are; that was vital. The problem was that the Spaniard was too confident: Ramage had underestimated him. He should have sent his men swarming on board to take control the moment the Calypso came alongside, but instead he was walking round making a leisurely inspection by lantern light. And all the time the Santa Barbara was getting into position in the darkness and waiting; Wagstaffe was watching for the signal.

  Aitken was close and the Spanish Captain was striding away towards the quarterdeck ladder, the gold lace on his uniform glinting in the light of Rossi’s lantern. The three Spanish seamen remained on guard at the gangway.

  “Can you see the brig?” Ramage hissed at Aitken.

  “I just caught sight of her five minutes ago coming clear of the channel, but I haven’t seen her since. These damned lanterns …”

  Aitken was tense—Ramage could detect that from his clipped voice. The young Scot knew that the success of the whole venture was at this very moment in the balance: one wrong word to the Spanish Captain and it would fail; instead of losing the Jocasta, the Spanish would gain the Calypso.

  “Captain!” Ramage called.

  Ramage braced himself. Insolent self-assurance, that was what he had to convey in the dim light thrown by the lanterns, and he had only a dozen paces in which to achieve it. Just enough to provoke the man, to cause sufficient anger to cloud his judgement and make him act pettishly.

  Now he was standing in front of him on the quarterdeck, staring him straight in the eye: “Me and my mates want dinner.”

  Ramage deliberately slurred the words and the Spaniard, provoked by the tone although he could not fully understand what was said, snapped his finger to attract one of the lieutenants as he said: “Speak slowly. What did you say?”

  “Me—and—my—mates—want—our—dinner. Now.”

  The lieutenant hurried up the ladder and stood waiting. “Send the men to quarters,” the Captain said in Spanish, careful to keep his voice casual. “Load and run out all the guns on the larboard side. We might have trouble with these men.”

  “Brother Ramage,” Aitken said urgently in the darkness. “Brother Ramage—brother Wagstaffe says he’s ready for dinner.”

  Like the tumblers of a lock clicking as the key turned, Ramage assessed the significance of the Captain’s brief order to the Spanish lieutenant: the Captain was not confident, and he was stupid; he had boarded the Calypso with only two lieutenants and three seamen—because he had not considered there was any danger—and left the Jocasta completely unprepared: until the lieutenant shouted the Captain’s order the frigate was defenceless, the men gossiping on deck like idlers in a town plaza, not a gun loaded nor a pistol ready.

  “Brother Jackson and you, Staff and Rosey,” Ramage said conversationally, making the lieutenant pause for a moment, “stop our brothers here from shouting.”

  Two lanterns were put down on the deck and suddenly there was a blur of movement. The lieutenant gave a great gasp, struggling for air, and the Captain suddenly collapsed like a rag doll dropped by a child. A moment later the lieutenant fell beside him, seeming curiously bulky. Then Ramage saw that Jackson had knocked out the Captain with the butt of a pistol while Rossi had seized the lieutenant from behind, an arm round his neck and throttling him. Both men had fallen to the deck and Stafford had knelt down, seized the lieutenant’s head and banged it on the deck. In the silence that followed the other lieutenant down at the gangway began calling plaintively: “Que pasa?”

  There was no shout from the Jocasta, nor did the three Spanish seamen, out of sight at the gangway, raise any alarm.

  “Both of ‘em unconscious, sir,” Jackson reported. “Here, Staff, quick, get some rope and cloths to gag them. Or did you want ‘em slung over the side, sir?”

  “No, tie them up. Make sure you’re not seen from the Jocasta. Where the devil’s a speaking-trumpet? Oh, thank you, Aitken. We seem to be getting short of time, so let’s be quick now.” He put the speaking-trumpet to his lips and turned forward to bellow: “Do you hear, there! Calypsos! There’s a change of plan! Now then—board the Jocasta!”

  Immediately the whole starboard side of the frigate seemed to give a convulsive twitch in the darkness as more than a hundred seamen leapt on top of the bulwark, cutlasses waving and all shouting “Calypso!” and swarmed on board the Jocasta.

  As Ramage made for the bulwark Jackson grabbed his arm. “Your pistols, sir!”

  Ramage took them and paused to jam the barrels into his belt, picturing for a moment what would happen if one of them fired accidentally.
Then he was scrambling up on to the bulwark and leaping across the gap of black water between the two ships—a gap at the bottom of which a man was already splashing and screaming in Spanish.

  “Calypso!” Ramage began shouting as he landed on the Jocasta’s quarterdeck, followed a moment later by Jackson and several other men. But the quarterdeck was deserted; all the shouting was amidships, the bellows of “Calypso” punctuated by the sharp clash of cutlass against cutlass.

  Ramage plunged forward down the ladder to the main deck and found two Spaniards on the steps climbing backwards as they tried to fight off seamen attacking them from below. A slash of the cutlass sent the nearest man collapsing on top of the one below and as he scrambled over the bodies Ramage remembered to keep on shouting “Calypso,” the prearranged call so that the men could distinguish friend from foe.

  By now Ramage’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. He was conscious of a dim, yellow glow from the Calypso’s quarterdeck where lanterns still guttered in the light breeze, and he could see the Jocasta’s main deck packed with men fighting in isolated groups, a dozen Calypsos against a dozen Spaniards.

  And there were many more Spaniards than he expected: with the three hundred soldiers away in the hills he had assumed only a hundred or so Spanish seamen would remain on board the frigate; little more than a “care and maintenance” party. He paused a moment to have a good look round, conscious that Jackson and some men immediately closed up like a bodyguard.

  How many Spaniards? More than a hundred, but the Calypsos had the advantage of surprise. Yet the Spanish were quickly recovering themselves; they had found cutlasses and grabbed boarding-pikes from the racks round the masts, and they were fighting with the desperation of men who knew their lives depended on it.

  Ramage found himself breathing fast, fighting back the excitement that crowded out logical thought. Group against group, man against man: this was useless; he needed his men concentrated, not spread out all over the ship. He took a deep breath.