by Dudley Pope
But privateers carried very large crews: one the size of the Lady Arabella would have more than a hundred men on board. Nor were they ordinary men: instead of being paid wages they were usually on a "share-of-the-profits" basis. At worst they were licensed pirates, regarding prisoners as an inconvenient nuisance. At best - well, little better than pirates. All too often one heard of a privateer running up the "bloody flag", the red flag that meant they would give no quarter; no prisoners would be taken, and the wounded would be slaughtered and tossed over the side with the men already killed. Few ships of war showed any mercy to a privateer: to avoid one escaping, a ship of war would not hesitate to "give her the stem", ramming the vessel to make sure of sinking her.
"Do you think Stevens ever exercises his guns' crews?" Yorke asked quietly.
Ramage shook his head. "We know he hasn't this voyage. I'll tell Jackson to find out."
That night, as the two men sat in their cabin after supper, Yorke came back to the subject. "If we meet a privateer...?"
Ramage sighed: it was a question he had been turning over in his mind since before they left Kingston, and Yorke had not missed the significance of his earlier reference to "If we fight..." Still, there was no point in keeping his thoughts secret. "I can't decide."
"You mean you won't fight?"
"Well," said Ramage carefully, "I'm trying to leave the welfare and safety of you and our splendid soldier friend out of the calculation..."
"Agreed, and no ill feelings."
"Thanks," Ramage said wryly. "The reason is simply that my orders are to find the cause and halt the losses."
"I know that!" Yorke did not try to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“Well, can you tell me the point at which I'll find the 'cause'? What happens on board when a packet is attacked by a privateer-"
"She surrenders," Yorke interrupted. "Even the Post Office knows that much!"
"Maybe she does. Maybe she tries to escape. Maybe she's boarded. Maybe the privateers shoot the rigging away. We don't know for sure."
"There are the reports of the commanders who were captured and exchanged."
"Oh yes - but were they speaking the truth? Although we haven't seen any of the reports, we've no reason to think they weren't - but we don't know for sure."
"What's all this to do with whether or not we fight?" Yorke demanded impatiently.
"The short answer is, the other packets didn't have three extra officers - five if we include you and the gallant Captain Wilson - and a dozen well-trained seamen from one of the King's ships."
"Perhaps that's why they were captured!"
"Exactly. And that's why I'm damned if I know whether we'll fight or not. If we drive off a privateer, what will we find out about the 'cause'? We might get a completely distorted picture. So far we can only guess at what's involved - you once said it must be magic! Well, our very presence - helping with the fighting, I mean - might stop the magic working."
"It might also stop the Arabella being captured - I've no wish to have my throat cut by a privateersman."
"Leaving aside the sanctity of your throat for a moment, isn't that the point? If I'm going to find the answer, wouldn't it be best to let Stevens do what he'd do if we weren't here? And we watch?"
"Who," Yorke said with heavy sarcasm, "reports your finding to My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty after the privateersmen have cut your throat?"
"They haven't cut packetsmen's throats, but anyway I've gone over all that so many times - lying here early in the morning, while you snore in your bunk..."
"Do you want my advice?"
"No," Ramage said emphatically. "Most certainly not; your advice would coincide with what I'd like to do. And what I'd like to do would probably stop me carrying out my orders."
"You think I'm going to advise fighting?"
"Aren't you?"
"No. I speak with all the wisdom culled from forebears who have spent a thousand years soaking up good whisky and eating tons of porridge."
"Speak before those ancient Scots turn in their graves!"
"My advice coincides with what you've decided without realizing it: not to make up your mind until we meet a privateer. Her size, the weather, her position, the way Stevens and his men react: all these will affect the issue."
Ramage nodded. "I've been telling myself I'm afraid of a definite decision, but-"
"That is making a definite decision," Yorke interrupted. "You've decided that the proper decision can't be made until the situation occurs. Until a privateer attacks, in other words. That's definite enough!"
"I'm blaming myself for letting you risk your neck. You should have waited for the convoy."
"Thanks," Yorke said sourly. "I get scared from time to time, but the fact is I came in the hope of seeing some action. Can you imagine how boring it is commanding a merchantman in a convoy? Leading ship in the fifth column ... two cables from the ship on either side, one cable from the next astern ... week after week ... And planters and their wives as passengers, the men sodden with rum and quarrelsome by suppertime and the women frozen in embarrassment..."
"At least you have the company of frozen women. In a ship of war..." Ramage said unsympathetically.
"What have you told Southwick and Bowen?"
"About an attack? Nothing so far."
"Supposing it doesn't happen?" Yorke asked, beginning to undress and pulling his nightshirt from under the pillow. "Just to cheer ourselves up!"
"Well, when we get to Falmouth I see you into the London carriage, and sail again in the next packet for Jamaica."
"Stevens seems fairly cheerful," Yorke said casually. "At least, he isn't as worried as I'd have expected."
"No, I'd be happier if he was more worried." And that, Ramage thought, is something I've only just realized. All the packetsmen on board the Lady Arabella know the odds are heavily against them reaching Falmouth safely, yet only Much seems at all worried. And only Much is unpopular ... Impossible to think why there should be any relationship between the two facts, yet the Lady Arabella seems to be a ship full of contradictions.
"I'm sleepy!" said Yorke. "If this weather holds, we should be in Falmouth a week from today."
"Or St Malo," Ramage said soberly. "It might be an idea to sew some guineas into the padding of our coats - just in case. Living out on parole is probably expensive..."
"Parole!" Yorke sniffed. "They'll never allow you parole! For all the trouble you've caused the French so far, it wouldn't surprise me if they've put a price on your head!"
Chapter Ten
On the following Sunday, when Stevens told the passengers in his usual abrupt manner that there would be Divine Service at eleven o'clock, Ramage had the impression that Sundays would be ignored if Stevens had his way, but that the Mate forced him to conform.
Certainly at the services on the previous Sundays, Mr Fred Much had read the lesson with all the fervour of a revivalist preacher and sung the hymns with a loud and surprisingly good tenor voice. Our Ned also had a good voice, but after watching the Mate's son for a few minutes at the first service, Ramage was reminded of the word unctuous.
Ramage glanced at the mirror and gave his stock an impatient twitch. It annoyed him to have to change into uniform but Southwick and Wilson made a point of it, and at least it gave the cloth an airing - the weather was still humid and warm enough to make mildew grow quickly. He clipped on his sword, picked up his hat and went on deck.
The Lady Arabella was running up to the north-east before a brisk quartering wind, an all-plain-sail breeze from the west with billowing clouds startlingly white in the early autumn sunshine. The seas rolling eastward were the deep blue of the broad ocean and stippled with just enough white horses to emphasize the irregularity of the waves.
He watched as two seamen carried up a small table and set it down just forward of the binnacle box. A short length of line hung down from the underside of the table-top and one of the men passed the end through an eyebolt in the deck,
heaved down taut and made the rope fast so that as the ship rolled the table could move only a few inches. A third seaman walked up with a Union Flag which he carefully draped over the table. The altar was now ready.
Mr Much carried out a large brass-bound Bible - Ramage, standing aft by the taffrail, guessed it was the Mate's own copy - and placed it carefully on the table. He then turned and spoke to one of the seamen, who immediately went towards the Captain's cabin. He returned a few moments later, said something to the Mate, and then went on to call the ship's company aft for church. As soon as the men were grouped round the altar, freshly shaven and hair combed and tied in neat queues, Stevens appeared in white nankeen trousers and a dark grey coat, with his usual Sunday black hat perched squarely on his head. He had a weary gait which reminded Ramage of a sad prelate who had long ceased trying to placate a nagging wife.
Yorke and Southwick were waiting on the starboard side, and they were now joined by Wilson and the Lady Arabella's surgeon, Farrell, who stood a few paces apart. Bowen was conspicuously absent - there was more than a hint of the freethinker about Bowen, and in the past Ramage had often been shocked by some of the surgeon's comments. Yet if he was honest he had to admit they sometimes left him trying to find answers to disturbing questions. In fact, he thought sourly, he'd spent most of the last month trying to find answers to a different but equally bewildering variety of questions.
As he stood watching, left hand on the hilt of his sword, Ramage recalled, with a nostalgia that knotted his stomach muscles, all the many Sundays when he had conducted the service in the two ships he had commanded. The toothless John Smith, who usually stood on the capstan with his fiddle, playing some cheerful forebitter as the men heaved on the bars to weigh the anchor, would suck in his cheeks and crease his forehead in a frown of concentration as he sawed out the music of a hymn, and the ship's company would sing with gusto. When he first went to sea, Ramage suddenly remembered, his father had told him that he would find Divine Service was a ship's weather glass: if the men did not sing with their hearts in it, he should look for a defect in the captain or officers.
Stevens stopped abaft the table, clasped his hands behind his back, and slowly stared round the ship's company.
The wind hummed in the rigging; the downdraught from the mainsail curving down from high over their heads was chilly and flapped the edges of the Union Flag draped over the table. The Lady Arabella rolled with a ponderousness belying her elegant name as the seas swept up astern and passed under her: Ramage was reminded of a plump fishwife on her way to market. But for all that, it was a comfortable roll; regular enough that the men could balance without effort.
There was a heavy thump every two or three minutes as the packet's bow punched into a larger sea, showering up a sparkling spray which the sun scattered with rainbow patterns before it hit the deck and dribbled aft along the scuppers in prosaic rivulets of water. Almost without realizing he was doing it, Ramage braced back his shoulders: a bright and brisk day like this made up for a score of others when the sky was low with scudding grey clouds and wind drove rain and spray in blinding squalls.
After looking round at the ship's company - resentfully, it seemed to Ramage, as though conducting the service took him away from other more important work - Stevens removed his hat with a flourish, and everyone followed suit.
Catching sight of Southwick's flowing white hair, now fluffing out in the wind, Ramage saw the look of stern disapproval on his face: a ship's company standing round on deck as though on a quayside waiting for a ferry was obviously not the old Master's idea of the way Divine Service should be conducted.
Handing his hat to the nearest seaman, Stevens took a pair of spectacles from a pocket and put them on with great deliberation. He then took a prayer book from another pocket and, after giving a cough intended to get the men's attention, opened it.
At that moment the lookout at the bow shouted excitedly: "Sail - ho! Sail to loo'ard on the starboard bow!"
Ramage immediately watched Stevens. The man tossed the prayer book on to the table, removed his spectacles and thrust them into his pocket before taking his hat back from the seaman. But he did not do what everyone on deck but Ramage had done instinctively as soon as the lookout hailed - look over the starboard bow.
Stevens turned back to the binnacle box, opened the drawer beneath the compass, took out his telescope, and strode over to the aftermost gun on the starboard side. He climbed up to balance himself on the breech, but before looking through the telescope he turned and called, "Run up our colours, Mr Much."
He waited to see two seamen getting ready to hoist the big ensign before putting the telescope to his eye.
Puzzled at what he had seen, Ramage hurried to the main shrouds, unclipping his sword and handing it to Jackson. As he swung into the ratlines he saw Yorke perched halfway up, and as he scrambled up to join him he saw Southwick hurrying across the deck, obviously having run down to his cabin to collect his telescope.
Yorke moved to make room for Ramage, pointing without saying a word. On the horizon Ramage saw two tiny white rectangles, like visiting cards standing on end at the far side of a dark blue tablecloth. The hull of the ship was still hidden from sight below the horizon; only the masts and sails had lifted above the curvature of the earth.
But one glance told him all he needed to know. The ship was not square-rigged; she was a two-masted schooner carrying fore and aft sails. She was hard on the wind on the larboard tack, and she was steering an intercepting course. Miracles apart, there was only one thing she could be.
By now Southwick, puffing slightly, was beside him on the ratlines and turning to face outboard. He took one look at the horizon and gestured with the telescope. "I needn't have bothered to get this!"
"Our lookout must have been asleep," Yorke commented. "How many guns do you reckon she carries?"
"A dozen 4-pounders. These privateer schooners rely on boarding," Ramage said.
"She's dam' fast: we'll have a sight of her hull in a minute or two."
Ramage took Southwick's telescope, adjusted the focus - he had used it so many dozens of times he could do it automatically - and with an arm through a ratline he balanced himself against the Arabella's roll and put the telescope to his eye.
The schooner showed up with almost startling clarity in the circular lens: the lower part of her sails were dark where flying spray kept them soaking wet. Suddenly a long, low, black hull lifted for a moment under the sails like a distant whale, and then sank below the horizon again. He glanced down - they were perched about thirty feet up in the ratlines. From that height you could see the horizon at about six and a quarter miles. Again a random wave lifted the privateer's hull momentarily above the horizon, and he saw the spray slicing up from her stem. Hard to count, but half a dozen gun ports?
The privateersmen had been wide awake: from well down to leeward they had sighted the packet, estimated her track and hardened in sheets to steer an intercepting course ... all this had gone on even before Stevens had removed his hat.
Automatically Ramage began converting what he could see into a mental diagram. The Lady Arabella was running northeast before a quartering westerly wind, and the privateer was beating to windward on the larboard tack, making good a course somewhere between north-west and nor'-nor'-west. When I come to describe it later to Gianna, Ramage thought irrelevantly, the Arabella will be a coach thundering down a long straight road. The privateer will be a highwayman galloping along another road coming diagonally from the right. Unless Stevens does something about it, both coach and highwayman will meet at the crossroads.
The privateer is not travelling along her road as fast as the Arabella, my dear, since she's beating to windward, but that doesn't matter because the French have less distance to travel to the crossroads: it is about six miles away for the Arabella, but less than three for the privateer. But how, Gianna will ask, with that quizzical wrinkling of her brow, could the Arabella escape? And I will smile reassuringly: her
fastest point of sailing was with the wind on the beam, so we immediately turned northwards to put the wind on the beam - taking a turning on the left, in other words, leaving Johnny Frenchman over on our right and well down to leeward: so far to leeward he could never beat up to us before nightfall. We would have no trouble dodging him once it was dark. By making a sudden and drastic alteration of course, at daylight on Monday morning there would be nothing to see on the horizon...
Ramage was brought back to the present with a jerk as both Yorke and Southwick shouted at him, pointing down at the afterdeck, where he saw Stevens standing with a hand cupped behind his ear as if to hear the answer to a question.
"He just asked what you make of her," Yorke said sarcastically. "Apparently thinks it might be Westminster Abbey on the horizon."
Ramage handed the telescope to Southwick and cupped his hands.
"Carries no more than a dozen guns. About six miles away."
"What nationality?"
Ramage turned to Yorke in startled disbelief. "Is he joking?" When Yorke shook his head Ramage shouted: "She's a French privateer schooner on an intercepting course: you'd better turn northward a bit sharpish, Mr Stevens, or she'll be on you within the hour!"
"Are you sure, Mr Ramage?"
Was Stevens a fool or a knave? The most stupid seaman in the Post Office Packet Service - indeed, the youngest cabin boy - knew that such a schooner hard on the wind steering an intercepting course in this part of the Atlantic could only be an enemy privateer.
"I am absolutely certain, and so are Mr Yorke and Mr Southwick. It's time you bore up, Mr Stevens; you've lost a mile to leeward already!"
"Can't act hastily," Stevens called back fretfully. "We'd soon be at the North Pole if I bore up every time we sighted a strange sail."
Southwick nudged Ramage and growled: "First sail we've seen for weeks! You give the order, sir: the Tritons will make sure it's carried out."
Ramage took the telescope again without answering. The privateer was hull-up over the horizon now - an indication of how fast the two ships were converging. She was long, low, black with white masts, and sailing fast; well-heeled to the west wind but pointing high. Almost continuous sheets of spray were flying up from her stem and sweeping aft over the fore-deck. She looked sleek and graceful, her sails well cut and well trimmed. Her captain was obviously expecting the packet to turn north and was making sure his helmsmen did not lose an inch to leeward.