Ramage's Mutiny Read online

  Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

  BY ALEXANDER KENT

  The Complete

  Midshipman Bolitho Stand Into Danger

  In Gallant Company

  Sloop of War

  To Glory We Steer

  Command a King’s Ship

  Passage to Mutiny

  With All Despatch

  Form Line of Battle!

  Enemy in Sight!

  The Flag Captain

  Signal–Close Action!

  The Inshore Squadron

  A Tradition of Victory

  Success to the Brave

  Colours Aloft!

  Honour This Day

  The Only Victor

  Beyond the Reef

  The Darkening Sea

  For My Country’s Freedom

  Cross of St George

  Sword of Honour

  Second to None

  Relentless Pursuit

  Man of War

  Heart of Oak

  BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN

  Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin

  Halfhyde’s Island

  Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest

  Halfhyde to the Narrows

  Halfhyde for the Queen

  Halfhyde Ordered South

  Halfhyde on Zanatu

  BY JAN NEEDLE

  A Fine Boy for Killing

  The Wicked Trade

  The Spithead Nymph

  BY JAMES L. NELSON

  The Only Life That Mattered

  BY JAMES DUFFY

  Sand of the Arena

  The Fight for Rome

  BY DEWEY LAMBDIN

  The French Admiral

  The Gun Ketch

  A King’s Commander

  Jester’s Fortune

  BY BROOS CAMPBELL

  No Quarter

  The War of Knives

  BY DUDLEY POPE

  Ramage

  Ramage & The Drumbeat

  Ramage & The Freebooters

  Governor Ramage R.N.

  Ramage’s Prize

  Ramage & The Guillotine

  Ramage’s Diamond

  Ramage’s Mutiny

  Ramage & The Rebels

  The Ramage Touch

  Ramage’s Signal

  Ramage & The Renegades

  Ramage’s Devil

  Ramage’s Trial

  Ramage’s Challenge

  Ramage at Trafalgar

  Ramage & The Saracens

  Ramage & The Dido

  BY FREDERICK MARRYAT

  Frank Mildmay or The Naval Officer

  Mr Midshipman Easy

  Newton Forster or The Merchant Service

  Snarleyyow or The Dog Fiend

  BY V.A. STUART

  Victors and Lords

  The Sepoy Mutiny

  Massacre at Cawnpore

  The Cannons of Lucknow

  The Heroic Garrison

  The Valiant Sailors

  The Brave Captains

  Hazard’s Command

  Hazard of Huntress

  Hazard in Circassia

  Victory at Sebastopol

  Guns to the Far East

  Escape from Hell

  BY JULIAN STOCKWIN

  Mutiny

  Quarterdeck

  Tenacious

  Command

  The Admiral’s Daughter

  BY JOHN BIGGINS

  A Sailor of Austria

  The Emperor’s Coloured Coat

  The Two-Headed Eagle

  Tomorrow the World

  BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON

  Storm Force to Narvik

  Last Lift from Crete

  All the Drowning Seas

  A Share of Honour

  The Torch Bearers

  The Gatecrashers

  BY C.N. PARKINSON

  The Guernseyman

  Devil to Pay

  The Fireship

  Touch and Go

  So Near So Far

  Dead Reckoning

  The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower

  BY DOUGLAS REEMAN

  Badge of Glory

  First to Land

  The Horizon

  Dust on the Sea

  Knife Edge

  Twelve Seconds to Live

  Battlecruiser

  The White Guns

  A Prayer for the Ship

  For Valour

  BY DAVID DONACHIE

  The Devil’s Own Luck

  The Dying Trade

  A Hanging Matter

  An Element of Chance

  The Scent of Betrayal

  A Game of Bones

  BY DOUGLAS W. JACOBSON

  Night of Flames

  Published by McBooks Press 2001

  Copyright © 1977 by Dudley Pope

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1997 by The Alison Press/Martin Secker & Warburg Limited

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, Inc., ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Cover painting by Paul Wright.

  The paperback edition of this title was cataloged as:

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pope, Dudley.

  Ramage’s mutiny / by Dudley Pope.

  p. cm.—(Lord Ramage novels ; no. 8)

  ISBN 0-935526-90-0 (alk. paper)

  1. Ramage, Nicholas (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. 3. Great

  Britain. Royal Navy—Officers—Fiction. 4. Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1815—Fiction. I. Title

  PR6066.O5 R35 2001

  823’.914—dc21

  01-030316

  The e-book versions of this title have the following ISBNs:

  Kindle 978-1-59013-549-5, ePub 978-1-59013-550-1,

  and PDF 978-1-59013-551-8

  www.mcbooks.com

  To my cousin

  Dorothy Pope

  with love

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  WITH one exception, all the places mentioned in this story exist. The traveller will, however, look in vain for Santa Cruz on the Spanish Main. The student of naval history will be reminded of the tragedy of the Hermione …

  D. P.

  Yacht Ramage

  English Harbour, Antigua

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE LITTLE dockyard at English Harbour was already bustling, although the sun was only just lifting over the rounded hills to the east. In the West Indies the day began at dawn so that men could do as much heavy work as possible before the sun began to scorch the energy from their bodies.

  Ramage eased himself into the rattan chair on the balcony of the Commander-in-Chief’s house, glancing down warily as protesting creaks warned that termites were busily and silently chewing their way through the legs to convert the springy wood into little piles of brown powder.

  As he relaxed to wait for the Admiral he guessed that today Captain Ramage was far from popular with the dockyard staff. They were all well paid and provided with comfortable houses, and normally enjoyed a quiet life interrupted only twice or three times a year when a frigate came in for a self-refit, using her own seamen to do the work and relying on the dockyard staff for little more than interference.

  Now, however, the master shipwright, master attendant, storekeeper and bosun suddenly found themselves responsible for two former French frigates, seven merchantmen and a schooner, all brought into Antigua as Captain Ramage’s prizes.

  They had orders from the Admiral to help commission one of the frigates within seven days, while the
other—which needed careening for repair to her bottom—had to be ready within three weeks because she was to escort the merchant ships to England. Not only that, but the Admiral was here to make sure the work was completed on time.

  Although the Admiral was harrying the dockyard staff without mercy, Ramage had little sympathy for them. They had settled into a way of life where rum was an important part of the day’s ritual. While some heathens stopped work at sunrise and sunset and knelt facing the east to say prayers, these dockyard fellows rarely started work but frequently interrupted their leisure to reach for a bottle and top up their glasses.

  Ramage had little doubt that a sudden inventory of the dockyard would reveal that they, in combination with the storekeeper, were running a prosperous but illicit business turning the King’s stores into ready money, selling rope, sail canvas and paint to merchant ships calling at St John’s, the main harbour on the north-western side of Antigua.

  Few masters worried about breaking the law and having rope on board that had the “King’s Yarn” in it, a coloured thread that showed it had been laid up in one of the Navy’s ropewalks and issued only to Navy ships. Most of the rigging in a merchant ship took a coat of Stockholm tar to help preserve it, and that hid the “King’s Yarn.”

  There was corruption in every dockyard and English Harbour was probably no worse than the rest. Because it was small, however, the flaws were more obvious. It comprised only a few stone buildings with grey slate roofs and reminded Ramage of a fifteen-horse stable on the fringe of Newmarket Heath. But what it lacked in size and honesty it made up for in sheer beauty.

  It was built at the inner end of a narrow channel which twisted its way like a fjord between ridges of steep hills. The entrance was hard to find and most captains coming in for the first time were thankful for the fortifications on each side, Fort Barclay and the Horseshoe Battery, because the channel did a sharp turn and from seaward there was no hint that ten ships of the line and half a dozen frigates could be safely moored inside, sheltered by the hills from the brisk Trade winds and with cables from their sterns secured to permanent anchors dug in along the beach.

  Ramage saw smoke across the channel, beyond the careening wharf, and a few minutes later smelled the sharp tang of hot pitch as seamen stoked up the fire under one of the big cast-iron pitch kettles standing waist-high on a small point, well clear of ships and buildings in case they became overheated and burst into flames. Nearby one of the French frigates, La Comète, was already hove-down at the Carénage Wharf, lying almost on her side like a stranded whale, with several sheets of copper sheathing missing along the rounded turn of the bilge and showing black stripes where carpenters and their mates were perched on a small raft, busy removing damaged planking.

  Ramage reflected that barely two weeks ago off Martinique that frigate was doing her best to sink the Juno frigate, which he then commanded. Now she was a prize and instead of being dead or a prisoner he was sitting on the balcony of the Commander-in-Chief’s house waiting for orders. These would concern the second French frigate, now anchored farther up the channel in Freeman’s Bay. She was the Surcouf, which he had cut out of Fort Royal, and which would be his new command as soon as all the paperwork was completed; one of the fastest and most heavily armed frigates in the Caribbean, and certainly the loveliest: the French had a knack of building graceful ships.

  But sitting here now, enjoying the first half an hour’s peace and quiet since then, he felt chilled. He had taken terrible risks with his ship and his men, gambling with a recklessness that now appalled him. He had been lucky—the prizes were proof of that—but he had risked lives with less concern than some pallid gambler at Buck’s watched a rolling die with a hundred guineas at stake. Had there been an alternative? Yes, if he cared for his men he would not have risked cutting out the Surcouf. Yet those same men would have marked him down as a coward if he had left her alone. Was success a justification?

  As he considered the grim contradictions he watched two boats pulling away from the Surcouf. They were laden with casks and bound for Tank Bay at the head of the channel, where there was a fresh-water spring. The frigate’s sails were hanging down like enormous creased curtains: old Southwick, her new Master, was seizing the opportunity of airing them before the wind came up, part of the everlasting fight against the mildew that needed only a day or two of hot and humid weather to speckle the cloth with black mould and rot the stitching, however much the thread was waxed.

  A whiff of mildew as he moved slightly told him that his steward had not aired the coat he was wearing, but it was pleasant sitting here, breeches newly pressed, silk stockings uncreased, shoes shining, sword scabbard polished … One thing he missed afloat was sitting comfortably in the fresh air: one was always standing or pacing up and down like an animal in a cage.

  The sun was rising quickly now and bringing colour to hills which had been dark with shadow, but all its early pinkness could not disguise the fact that no rain had fallen on Antigua for several weeks. The earth which Nature had spread thinly on the hills was now arid, streaked with brown scars where the coarse grass had withered and grey where jagged rocks jutted out like enormous teeth. This was the time of day, for perhaps five minutes, that always reminded Ramage of a summer sunrise tinting the heather in the Scottish Highlands.

  As the sun climbed higher the colours changed, growing harsher. Soon one would notice only the vivid blue of the sky, the hard brown of the hills and the dark green of the mangroves growing in a thick band along the water’s edge, the thin red roots twisting like predatory claws. Now the light and shadow caught the cacti scattered over the hills like outrageous artichokes and, every ten yards or so, he could see the single trunk of a century plant sprouting ten or twelve feet high, the yellow blossoms now withering, golden foxgloves past their prime.

  Ramage’s eye caught the flash of red on Fort Barclay as a sentry turned in the sunlight beside the small stone magazine built on the inland side of the battlements. Now he could see the breeches of the guns gleaming black as the sun lifted the shadows. Twenty-six guns, with a dozen more in the Horseshoe Battery on the other side of the entrance. Ramage wondered if any of them had ever fired against an enemy. It would be a brave Frenchman who tried to force his way in, because there was also the masked battery just at the back of the beach facing the entrance, twenty more guns concealed by sand dunes and shaded by palm trees, poised like a cat waiting in front of a mouse hole in the wainscoting.

  At the moment the masked battery covered Admiral Davis’s flagship, the 74-gun Invincible, which was lying with her anchors towards the entrance and her stern held by a cable which ran to the beach and was secured to another anchor half buried in the sand, left there permanently for the big ships.

  Footsteps behind him brought Ramage to his feet and he turned to find the Admiral and Captain Edwards, who commanded the Invincible, blinking in the sunlight as they came out on to the balcony. The Admiral nodded cheerfully.

  “Ha, mornin’, Ramage; sittin’ here admirin’ your prizes, eh? Can’t see the cordage for the guineas, no doubt!”

  Henry Davis, Rear-Admiral and “Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Ships and Vessels upon the Windward and Leeward Islands Station,” was in a cheerful mood; a condition which Ramage guessed had been brought about by an equally calculating look at the prizes—and the knowledge that a commander-in-chief took an eighth share in the prize-money. A young captain might find glory in the gunfire, Ramage thought sourly, but all too often promotion depended on his contribution to his admiral’s prize account.

  The Admiral gestured to Ramage and Captain Edwards to sit down and lowered himself into a rattan chair with the usual care of anyone who had spent much time in the Tropics and knew of the sabotage which termites wreaked. He passed a bundle of papers to Ramage: “The inventory of the Surcouf and the valuation. I’ll buy her in, of course. She’s three years old, so £14 a ton is a fair price. Seven hundred tons, which means £9800 for hull, masts, yards, rigging
and fixed furniture. I think the Admiralty and Navy Board will approve that.”

  “And the rest of her equipment, sir?” Ramage asked.

  “Normal valuation based on prices at Jamaica dockyard,” the Admiral said briskly. “That’s the valuation in England plus sixty per cent—the price they charge merchant ships.” He pointed to the papers he had just given Ramage. “The figure is there—about £7500, I think. A total of just over £17,000 for the whole ship. It’ll work out less for La Comète,” he added, waving towards the careened frigate. “She’s three years older and damaged. Then you have the schooner and the seven merchantmen. A tidy sum for you and your men. The two frigates bring you nearly £10,000, with £5000 shared between the lieutenants, Master and Surgeon … Why, the seamen will get £50 each—the equivalent of four years’ pay!”

  “They earned it,” Captain Edwards commented. “And that doesn’t include the merchant ships and head-money.”

  “I know they earned it,” the Admiral said crossly, “and they’ll earn it twice over by the time they’ve carried out the orders I’m preparing for Ramage. Now,” he said impatiently, indicating that the subject of the prize-money was closed, “how long before you’ll have that Surcouf commissioned?”

  Although Ramage had guessed this was the real reason why he had been ordered to report to the Admiral, it was a difficult question to answer. The Admiral had originally promised to shift the ship’s company of his last command, the Juno, to his new one, but the Juno had not yet arrived in English Harbour. No doubt Aitken, the First Lieutenant who had been left in command off Martinique when Ramage transferred to the Surcouf with a prize crew, had a perfectly good reason for the delay in reaching Antigua, but in the meantime Ramage was left with only forty men.

  So far he had met with nothing but obstruction from the dockyard’s master attendant, bosun and storekeeper—who were probably scared stiff in case this sudden influx of work resulted in demands for stores which would reveal their peculations—but this was usual, not worth even mentioning to the Admiral.

  “About a week, once I get all my Junos. That’s providing we use the French guns, sir. If we shift them and have to get out all the shot—” he broke off as Admiral Davis waved aside the idea. The two navies used different sized shot, but providing the Surcouf carried enough for her next operation it did not matter.