by Dudley Pope
Ramage saw that the political leadership was divided between two Joint Postmasters-General, Lord Auckland and Lord Gower, each of whom received a salary of £5,000 a year. The Secretary, Francis Freeling, received £500 a year - hardly overpaid. Except, he noticed in another section, Freeling was also the "Principal and Resident Surveyor", at £700 a year, which gave him a total of more than that received by an admiral ...
He ran a finger down the rest of the names and was surprised at the number and variety of jobs listed. They ranged from the receiver general to the superintendent and surveyor of mail-coaches; from the Postmaster-General's chamber-keeper to the deliverer of letters to the House of Commons (at 6s 8d a day - presumably he starved when the House was not in session).
The Post Office, in effect, was split into two sections, the Inland Letter Office and the Foreign Letter Office. The former employed four dozen sorters and more than a hundred letter-carriers (at fourteen shillings a week), but was far less complex than the Foreign Letter Office, whose comptroller was paid £700 a year - not much less than Sir Pilcher Skinner.
Twenty letter-carriers presumably delivered the incoming foreign mail to the Lombard Street sorters, and carried the bags of outgoing foreign mail to the various ports to be loaded on board the packets - to Falmouth for the West Indies, Lisbon and America; Weymouth for the Channel Islands; and Harwich for Hamburg.
There were five "mail ports" abroad and each had its Post Office agent (among them "J. Smith, Deputy Postmaster-General of Jamaica"), while elsewhere there were postmasters. And as he read their names, Ramage began to feel uneasy: the number of places listed brought home the enormity of the orders he had been given - from Quebec and Halifax at one end of the Atlantic to Surinam, Demerara, Tobago and Barbados at the other; from Hamburg and Lisbon on one side of the Atlantic to New York and Jamaica on the other.
He pictured the packets sailing from Falmouth to deliver bags of outward mail at all these places and collect the inward, and realized the Cornish port was the centre of a giant cobweb, the lines reaching out thousands of miles across the Atlantic. Not straight lines, but lines gently curved as they met trade winds, bent sharply as they rounded continents and islands, and sometimes forced back on themselves by gales and storms. Quebec, Halifax and New York were three thousand miles across the often stormy North Atlantic, much of it against strong headwinds; to Barbados was more than four thousand miles in a long dog-leg sweep past Spain and the west coast of North Africa, passing close to Madeira and the Canary Islands before picking up the North-East Trades for the long run across the Atlantic to a landfall at Barbados, with three hundred miles on to Antigua and .another nine hundred to Jamaica. Another packet sailed a similar route towards Barbados before turning south-west for Demerara and Surinam, on the continent of South America.
So much for the routes. He found his interest quickening as he came to the ships themselves. The Kalendar gave a list of "His Majesty's packet boats, with their stations", and beside each one was the name of her commander. There were twelve packets given for "W. India and America", but seventeen commanders were listed. Five had blanks against their names - had their packets been captured? But, Ramage groaned inwardly, some of the packet people had let their patriotism swamp their imagination - one packet on the Lisbon and three more on the Hamburg route were named Prince of Wales, and two called King George were listed under Hamburg. The only way of distinguishing them was by the names of their commanders.
Finally, reluctant to leave the coolness of the secretary's office to go out into the scorching sun and noisy, dusty streets for his visit to the Deputy Postmaster-General, Ramage turned over another page and glanced at the "Postage of simple letters in British pence". From Falmouth to any port in North America or the West Indies cost twelve pence, plus the inland postage to Falmouth. Thus a letter from London to New York or Jamaica cost eight pence to Falmouth and another twelve pence to cross the Atlantic. Sending a letter between the West Indies and North America - a part of the way round the edge of the spider's web, as it were - cost four pence.
Well, anything more he was to learn about the Post Office would have to come from Mr Smith. He gave the Kalendar back to the Governor's secretary, once again refused a rum punch, borrowed a pencil and some paper to make some calculations and left, tucking the papers in his pocket.
The Deputy Postmaster-General of Jamaica was a man with a mania for tidiness. Although the enormous outer office looked like a cross between a counting house and a warehouse, with sorters working on the local mail at a long bench along one wall and the canvas mailbags hanging from hooks along another, Mr Smith's own room was as neat as a column of printed figures.
He worked at a large, square, mahogany table on top of which smooth pebbles held down piles of papers whose edges fluttered in the breeze coming through the jalousie at either end of the room. The piles were spaced out with geometric precision, as if the pebbles were chess men.
On top of each pile under the weight was a neatly written label indicating what it contained, and a scrutiny of the labels showed the scope of Mr Smith's work. The largest pile was marked "Inward packetboats - lost", and next to it was "Outward packetboats - lost". Another large pile contained "Complaints - from committee of West India merchants", and next to it, "Complaints - from private citizens". Yet another said simply, "From Lombard Street, miscellaneous". Directly in front of him was a small pile which said: "From Lord Auckland".
In contrast to the neatness of his table-top, Smith was a large, gangling man with heavy features and large hands seemingly too clumsy to handle papers: they were, in size, the hands of a labourer. Yet Smith not only had one of the most coveted jobs in Jamaica - in peacetime, anyway - but he did it supremely well. He had it and, despite the influence and patronage of other claimants, held it because without him the Post Office's foreign section in Jamaica became chaos.
Unmarried, and with a widowed sister in Cumberland as his only relative, he lived for the mails. Until recently his life had had a series of fortnightly peaks. Every two weeks - in normal times - the packet arrived and he went on board to meet the commander, inspect the sealed bags of incoming mail, sign for them and supervise their removal on shore to his office before arranging for the outgoing mail to be brought out and stowed on board.
He was meticulous in having the mail sorted quickly - and equally meticulous in refusing to allow anyone but Post Office employees to be in the sorting-room while it was being done. The early days when impatient folk protested that his predecessor always allowed them to wait there for it were now long past.
He was equally meticulous in having the commander to dinner on the night the packet arrived. Although in any case he enjoyed the company of the lively Falmouth men, the long chats over glasses of rum punch after the meal also meant that he kept himself well informed about everyday events in England. Also the commanders had few problems, whether concerning their youngest sons, maiden aunts or their ships, that they did not discuss with him. Over the years he had become a distant uncle to most of the sons and daughters of the commanders, and his ambition when he retired was to live in Falmouth and enjoy the company of the large and closely knit "packet families".
His closeness to the commanders, and his meticulous habits, meant that at this moment his world was chaos: Smith was now a man with a job but almost no work. There were no bags of foreign mail to be officially sealed and labelled - no one was writing letters to England now, not until the Kingston Chronicle announced that a packet had at last arrived. And then, Smith thought gloomily, everyone possessed of pen and paper will write a score of letters and the commander will start complaining about the bulk ...
Still, Lord Auckland in a letter sent by the Hydra - instinctively he tapped the paperweight holding it down - had written reassuringly. It was not normally Lombard Street's policy to get involved with other Government departments - they were usually so lamentably disorganized - but from what he could see (reading between the lines, anyway) the Cabinet had de
cided that action over the heavy loss of packets was now up to the Admiralty. He was pleased and flattered to note that Lombard Street had seen (at last) that Jamaica was the real centre of the Foreign Mails on this side of the Atlantic, despite the claims of that damned agent in New York. Obviously the Admiralty agreed, but anyway Lord Auckland assured him that Sir Pilcher Skinner had been given orders to put one of his best officers in charge of a complete investigation.
Smith moved a paperweight half an inch to stop a particularly thin sheet from flapping too irritatingly in the breeze. Well, Sir Pilcher was a meticulous man, and the Deputy Postmaster knew he could rely on his choice of officer. There were two 74-gun ships in the harbour, each commanded by a senior captain. Presumably one of them would be given the job, and there were plenty of frigates. For the first time in weeks, Smith began to nourish a hope that his orderly world would return ...
Smith took out his watch. He'd wait another hour before leaving for lunch, although for all the good he was doing sitting here he might just as well have accepted Mrs Warner's invitation to her picnic. He admitted she frightened him a little. Although she was quite one of the most comely widows in Kingston, her constant invitations were embarrassing: people gossiped and chattered and all took it for granted that even a well-chaperoned young widow had only marriage in mind if she entertained a bachelor to dinner more than a couple of times in the year.
Someone was knocking at the open door, and he glanced up to see a young naval officer standing there. Ah, news from Sir Pilcher! That was the advantage of being a commander-in-chief; you had plenty of young fellows to run errands for you.
"Mr Smith?"
The Postmaster nodded.
"My name is Ramage. Sir Pilcher sent me.'
Again the Postmaster nodded affably, waiting for him to deliver the letter, or whatever it was from the Admiral.
"About the packets," the lieutenant said, coming right into the room.
This was rather irregular: Sir Pilcher was not the man to send verbal messages.
"What about the packets, pray?"
"Sir Pilcher said you could tell me about them. You have a letter from him, I believe?"
"No. At least, telling me what?"
"That I would be calling on you."
"Wait a moment."
Smith waved Ramage to a chair and bellowed: "Dent! Come here, Dent!"
A moment later an elderly clerk appeared at the door.
"Are there any letters for me?"
"Only this one, sir," Dent said, holding it up nervously.
"Give it to me! When did it arrive?"
"A couple of hours ago, sir; came by messenger."
"Then why the devil - oh, go away!"
Smith looked across at Ramage. "I'm sorry. It's from Sir Pilcher - give me a moment to read it."
He looked at the right-hand corner of the table for a paper-knife, extricated it from under a pile, and opened the letter with the precision of a surgeon. He read it twice, folded it again and reached out, his hand hovering between the labels "Outward packets - lost" and "Inward packets - lost". Finally he tucked it temporarily under "Lord Auckland", mentally noting that he would write a fresh label later.
He thought for a moment, and then looked up at the lieutenant. He's only a youngster, he thought crossly; obviously one of Sir Pilcher's favourites. There's no disguising that the Admiral's one major fault is pushing his favourites and giving them quick promotion. It wouldn't matter if half of them weren't young ninnies. This one doesn't look as much of a ninny as the usual run, but a lieutenant! Damnation, with the foreign mails at stake a rear-admiral would not be too much, even if his only task was to ask questions.
There were dark rings under the lad's eyes: late nights, heavy drinking, wenching ... Sir Pilcher's young lieutenants never seem to have done much fighting: those two scars over his right eyebrow - slipped with a glass of wine in his hand no doubt, or fell out of some trollop's bed: they aren't deep enough to be wounds.
Yet, Smith admitted to himself, the youth's eyes were intelligent enough: brown, deep set and almost frightening. He was handsome, too, if you liked that thin-faced aristocratic type; high cheekbones and a hard, firm chin.
The lad was looking at him, and Smith found himself feeling uncomfortable, as if he had been thinking aloud. A curious power seemed to surround the lieutenant, as though his body was merely the covering for a powerful spring. Smith found it hard to understand why a lad like this was content to hang around as one of the Admiral's lackeys.
"Forgive me, Lieutenant," Smith said finally, "I was preoccupied. All this is a great worry to me."
"To everyone," Ramage said politely. "Would you care to ...?"
"Yes, of course. Now, what do you want to know?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders.
"Everything! How the Packet Service is organized ... How frequently the packets sail... The routine for loading mails ... How long the voyage usually takes ... Who actually employs the commanders ... Does the Post Office own the ships..."
Smith threw up his hands. "But what's all that got to do with Sir Pilcher finding out how and why the packets are being captured?" He was conscious of Ramage's eyes boring into his brain.
"Then tell me, Mr Smith," he said gently, "where do you think I should start finding out 'how and why'?"
"Well, my dear fellow, that's your affair!" Really these young men had precious little sense of responsibility!
"Suppose it was your job, Mr Smith. Where would you start making your inquiries?" Ramage persisted, taking a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. "For example, the distances involved are quite considerable. Roughly 4,200 miles from Falmouth to Barbados, 300 up to Antigua, and another 900 on to Jamaica. From Jamaica back to Falmouth - well, let's take it from the Windward Passage. That's about 3,750 miles, depending on the wind."
Smith tapped the table impatiently. "I'm quite aware of the distances across the Atlantic Ocean, Lieutenant."
"Ah, but are we really concerned with distances, Mr Smith?" Ramage's voice was bantering now, and Smith wondered hurriedly why there had been such emphasis on the word. "We are trying to find something in the Atlantic Ocean, Mr Smith, so aren't we really concerned with areas?"
When the Postmaster nodded warily, Ramage said: "I hope you'll take my word for it that, because of the uncertain direction of the wind, a packet could sail some 250 miles either side of the regular route. In other words a packet on its way from Falmouth to Barbados could be lost in a rectangle measuring 4,200 miles by 500 miles. That" - he glanced at the paper - "is an area of more than two million square miles."
Smith said nothing.
"We'll ignore the leg from Barbados to Antigua, and say that for the 900 miles from Antigua to Jamaica the packet could be twenty-five miles either side of the direct course," Ramage continued. "A rectangle 900 miles by fifty comprises 45,000 square miles."
Smith was now jotting down the figures, and Ramage paused for a moment. When he saw the Postmaster had stopped writing he said: "Now for the voyage home from Jamaica. It's roughly 3,750 miles from the Windward Passage to Falmouth, and allowing the 250 miles either side of the direct route gives us nearly two million square miles. For the round voyage, Falmouth, Barbados, Antigua, Jamaica and back to Falmouth, we get" - he glanced at the paper again - "a total of more than four million square miles. Four million and twenty thousand, to be exact," he added: Smith was a man who would like exact figures. He waited while Smith wrote them down.
"Now, in good conditions a lookout at sea might sight a ship at ten miles - it'd be unlikely, but I'll be generous with the figures. That means he is looking from the centre of a circle twenty miles in diameter and scanning an area of about 300 square miles. Since a packet can be lost anywhere in more than four million square miles of ocean, I admit it's only of academic interest to divide it by the 300 covered by the lookout, but - I'm using the precise figures now - the answer is 13,400. Tell me, Mr Smith," Ramage said quietly, "where would you start
your investigation?"
Smith smiled amiably, already regretting his sharp tongue. The lad was right, and he was prepared to admit it. "I'd start right here, Lieutenant, sitting in that very chair and asking me questions!"
As if to emphasize his change of heart he removed three paperweights and put the "Outward Bound - Lost" and "Inward Bound - Lost" piles of paper in front of him, with "Auckland" on top. Tapping them, he said: "All that's known about the losses is written here."
"Yes," Ramage said gently, "but first I want to know how the Packet Service functions."
The question still puzzled Smith: his whole life had been so wrapped up in the Service he could neither credit that there could be people who knew nothing about it nor really know how to begin describing it.
"The packets," Ramage prompted. "How long does the average passage take?"
"Forty-five days out to Jamaica, via Barbados, and thirty-five days back, sailing direct."
"Who actually owns the ships?"
"They're owned individually, usually by the commanders - by the commanders and their business associates, in some cases."
"And the Post Office charters them?"
"Yes, Lombard Street hires the ships."
"And the crews?"
"They are employed and paid by the Post Office: the commander and the entire ship's company."
"Even if the commander owns the ship?"
"Yes, he's paid a monthly wage as well as the charter fee."
"Who stands to lose if a packet is captured? Or pays for repairs if she's damaged in action?"
"The Post Office pays. Of course, the conditions are all set down in the original charter agreement, but in effect the Post Office carries the insurance."