Ramage's Trial r-14 Read online

  Ramage's Trial

  ( Ramage - 14 )

  Dudley Pope

  Lord Ramage has made his name through numerous brave, daring and extremely perilous sea battles. He has been charged with impossible tasks and has succeeded time after time gaining honour and glory for king and country. He has undertaken his tasks loyally with skill and valour. So it is with some surprise that he finds that perhaps his greatest enemy of all comes from within the British Navy itself. He is forced to undergo a battle that will require his very all.

  DUDLEY POPE

  Ramage's Trial

  (#14 in Ramage series)

  For the Ballengers with thanks

  CHAPTER ONE

  Southwick walked slowly across the quarterdeck to where Ramage stood trying to find some shade from a small awning which, having done so much service in the Tropics, now comprised more patches than original cloth and in places was so threadbare from sun and wind that it provided only a little more shade than a piece of muslin.

  "This current is stronger than I'd allowed for," the master said. "I'd be glad if you'd make up your mind in the next few hours, sir, because it might save us a hard beat against both wind and current ..."

  Ramage nodded agreeably because in fact he had at last decided. The choice had been simple - they had sailed northwest along the South American coast from French Guiana, shepherding their two prizes captured off Devil's Island, and he had to decide whether to make for Barbados or Antigua.

  Barbados, being further out in the Atlantic, a sentry box guarding the Windward and Leeward Islands running north and south like a fence dividing the Caribbean from the Atlantic, meant they had to turn a point or two to starboard and hope that the flagship of the admiral commanding "His Majesty's ships and vessels upon the Windward Island station" was anchored in Carlisle Bay.

  With luck the admiral would be very short of frigates and only too glad to buy in the two prizes to add to his force - no commander-in-chief ever had enough frigates, and two unexpected prizes coming up from the south would be like a quart of fresh water to a parched man.

  The admiral might let the Calypso sail at once for England - he should, since she was sailing under another admiral's orders. However, many convoys assembled at Barbados for the long haul across the Atlantic to England, and what admiral could resist ordering an extra homeward-bound frigate to join the escort? Ramage guessed that, even worse, few if any admirals could resist putting Captain Ramage in command of a convoy and escort, which would mean a long and tedious voyage home.

  Antigua, the alternative choice, was likely to have the other admiral there, the one commanding the King's ships on the Leeward Islands station. Whoever he was at the moment - Ramage seemed to recall that it was Hervey - would be in a very bad temper because he probably had his flagship in English Harbour, which with its mosquitoes, unpleasant and windless anchorage, and notoriously corrupt dockyard staff, made most officers rage against it. One of the most vocal had of course been Rear-Admiral Nelson (when a captain), whom Ramage once remembered getting very angry over the corruption of the Antigua merchants who were busy trading with the Americans in clear defiance of the Navigation Acts. Ramage recalled the long days and nights spent in English Harbour refitting the Calypso after capturing her from the French and the constant rows with the master shipwright, master attendant, boatswain and (worst of all) the "storekeeping and naval officer", each of whom regarded the King's stores as personal investments upon which they could draw, selling cordage, canvas (and probably even spars) to merchant ships, illegally and at grossly inflated prices. Men who were likely to know reckoned that the dockyard minions vied with local businessmen for the size of their profits -with the advantage that they took no risk (the King's stores being delivered there in the King's ships) and faced no competition: a merchant ship with blown-out sails was forced to buy more canvas; those with sprung masts or yards rarely carried any spares and the master might visit the dockyard with a sorry story but he had to have hard cash in his purse.

  After all the strain of the past few weeks, which had started when he had been forced to leave his new bride on board one of the King's ships off Brest as the Treaty of Amiens collapsed and war started once again, Ramage decided he could not face the heat, stink and corruption of English Harbour. He turned to Southwick. "Make it Barbados," he said. The master, his white hair streaming in the wind like a freshly dried mop, gave a knowing grin. "I'd already put my money on it, sir, and took the liberty of keeping up to windward. Is it all right if I pass the word to the ship's company, sir? Most of them hate Antigua, too, but they like Barbados, even if it does mean a convoy for us."

  He waved towards the two prize frigates following the Calypso, one on each quarter. "It's been a profitable voyage for the lads – I reckon they're a fair way to becoming the wealthiest seamen in the Navy. You don't often come home with less than a couple of prizes!"

  "That makes you one of the Navy's wealthiest masters!" Ramage said, teasingly.

  "Reckon I am," Southwick said cheerfully, "and all of it safe in the Funds."

  Ramage's curiosity overcame his usual tact. Southwick had served with him from the day he was given his first command (it seemed so many years ago that a very young Lieutenant Ramage was given seemingly impossible orders by Commodore Nelson, and by a glorious stroke of luck had managed to carry them out successfully). Now he and Southwick shared the bond that comes from having death beckon them many times. "Who inherits the Southwick riches?"

  Southwick looked so embarrassed that Ramage could have bitten his tongue. "My sister (as you know, she's my only living relative, and she's been a spinster all her life), well, she's provided for, so she'll never need again, and then what's left will be a sort of thank you." With that the master excused himself, saying he had some more work to do on the chart.

  The three seamen sitting at the table were chatting and teasing each other with the easy familiarity that comes from often-shared dangers. The tall, sandy-haired man who had a natural authority ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "So it's Barbados," he commented. "I guessed the captain wouldn't choose Antigua, after the trouble we had refitting this ship there."

  "Nor me neither, Jacko," said Stafford, the Cockney in the trio. "Not after the way those dockyard people behaved. Reckon they're rich men now, on the Calypso alone. Nasty lot, they are; they've turned on their own people."

  "But the Calypso's, just one of dozens of ships," said the plump, black-haired man whose accent betrayed his Italian origins. "They all get cheated."

  Rossi, known to most of his shipmates as Rosey, in fact came from Genoa and was a volunteer in the Royal Navy, although since Bonaparte had later turned Genoa into the capital of the Ligurian Republic, the French might now claim that Rossi was a traitor to the French cause. Ramage had always assumed Rossi's original departure from Genoa was connected more with disagreement over the law rather than any personal disagreement with Bonaparte's politics. Not that it mattered; he was a fine seaman with uncomplicated loyalty: he was loyal to his friends (who were serving in his ship) and particularly Jackson and Stafford. He reserved for Captain Ramage what a priest (if Rossi had ever talked to one, which was doubtful) would call idolatry. Ramage's fluent Italian - he could mimic most of the regional accents - and deep love and knowledge of Italy made him Rossi's liege lord, if such things still existed.

  "Still," Stafford said cheerfully, "the Calypso's made us rich too. And the Triton brig before her, and then the Kathleen cutter."

  "Ah," Jackson interjected, "they've made us rich because we've risked our necks: we've used them to kill Frenchmen and capture their ships. If there's no risk, there's no profit; I've learned that much. But what did the storekeeper at English Harbour ever do to justify
making a penny out of us? Or the boatswain, or the master shipwright, and all the rest of that sticky-fingered crowd of time-servers who are always lurking around there? Still, yellow jack or blackwater fever might yet take 'em off before they get home to spend their loot. It's an unhealthy spot, Antigua. Especially English Harbour, which has a fine cemetery ready for 'em. Come to think of it, some of the early ones must be there already!"

  "The survivors should all be put in the Clink," Stafford said emphatically.

  "The Clink?" asked a puzzled Rossi. "Where's that? We've never been there - have we?"

  "You and I haven't," Jackson commented, "but I couldn't be sure about Staff. Go on, you tell him, Staff."

  "I don't know what Jacko is being so clever about. The Clink - well, it's the prison in Southwark. Leastways, any prison's called a clink by the villains: comes from the clinking of their leg irons. But the original Clink was at Southwark - in London, on the south side of the river - where the vagabonds couldn't be arrested. A sort of . . ."

  "Sanctuary," Jackson supplied.

  "Yus, that's it: a sanker wherry. Dunno whether it was legal or if them as was going to do the arrestin' was just scared of goin' in there."

  "I'll remember that," Rossi said.

  " 'Ere, now listen," Stafford said hurriedly. "The sanker wherry bit was long ago. 'Undreds of years, maybe. Today, that Clink is a clink, like all the other clinks: just a prison."

  "I'll remember," Rossi assured the Cockney. "If I go to London it is to collect my prize money and I'll stay at an inn, not a clink."

  "They don't always give you the choice," Stafford said darkly and shook a warning finger. "And watch out for them women; very light-fingered, some of them."

  "We have them in Genoa, too," Rossi said reassuringly. "What do you reckon we'll share out for the two French frigates, Jacko?"

  "Depends," Jackson said. "If the admiral in Barbados is short of frigates (he probably will be) he might pay a good price. Though of course his price has to be approved by the Admiralty. The Navy Board, rather. But they're good ships: no rot; no action damage; sails, spars and cordage in good condition - for Frenchies, anyway. Maybe he'll pay £10 a ton for each hull, so that'll be about £7,000 apiece, plus sails, cordage and stores. Hmm . . . about £10,000. That'll be some £2,500 shared out among us seamen. Doubled, of course, 'cos there are two ships."

  Rossi was faster than Stafford in working out an individual share, which in any case varied with the man's rank. He nodded contentedly, and said: "If this war ever ends, and if we all live to see that day, I shall go back to Genoa a rich man. I may even become a latifondista: ha, that would be a joke!"

  Stafford tried to repeat the word but said sympathetically: "It's somefing you get from rich livin'? Perhaps mercury'll cure it, since it helps the venereals. Seems unlucky if you get it, having fought so hard for your money."

  Rossi laughed and waved a reassuring hand. "No, Staff, is not a disease, a latifondista. Is a big landowner who lives somewhere else on the rents. He has tenants on his land."

  "Oh, so it's all right being one, then?"

  "If you can afford it, yes. Maybe I'll be able to live a rich life in London knowing my tenants are working hard in, say, Piedmont, which is near Genoa."

  Jackson saw that Stafford was still puzzled and explained: " 'Landed gentry' - that's what he'll be. Like the Duke of Shinbone living in Whitehall although his money comes from a big estate up in North Britain."

  Stafford's eyes lit up. "Say, Jacko, if Rosey can live in London on his prize money like the Duke of Shinbone, what about me? I'd make a good Duke of Hambone, and I'd buy an estate nearer to London than North Britain. Somewhere down in Cornwall, say."

  "So you can watch the pretty ships sail out of Plymouth, eh?" Jackson said sarcastically. "And all your pretty daughters can stand on the Hoe with their chaperones and wave the sailors goodbye!"

  "It'd suit me," Stafford said happily, "s'long as the sailors don't get too close."

  "Why so?" Rossi asked.

  "I wouldn't trust those dam' sailors wiv my daughters," Stafford declared. "I know what they're like with pretty girls!"

  Jackson shook his head. "No dukes and latifondisti for me. Just a nice comfortable coaching inn; I just fancy myself as 'mine host'."

  "All that truckling to the rich gentry," Stafford complained. " 'Fetch some more port, my good man!' "

  "Won't worry me because I'll be truckling them a big bill as well. And if they aren't the likes of Mr Ramage, then we shan't have any rooms available."

  "We?" Stafford asked derisively. "So the Jonathan will take himself a wife, eh? Some poor and innocent English girl will get herself lured by your sweet American promises . . ."

  "I'll keep 'em, that's for sure," Jackson said, and Rossi recognized another lonely man who had come to terms with the unpleasant fact that he would never settle down in the land of his birth. That, Rossi knew well by now, was the penalty of travelling. A man crossed distant horizons and sometimes found beyond them lands which were greener or more welcoming . . . where it was easier to find a good job, a comfortable home, a sympathetic wife . . .Where one did not have to lock the door and secure the windows, nor risk arrest by secret poliee who spirited a man away so his family never saw him again. England, Rossi had long since decided, did not have as much sun as Genoa, but it bred the likes of Mr Ramage, and every man was born with as much freedom as he needed. And anyway he now had enough prize money to stay well clear of the clink ...

  The Calypso seemed to be sliding into Carlisle Bay like a skater on ice: the light wind scattered wavelets across the half-moon bay. Looking over the side, Ramage was once again delighted by the deep blue of the sea gradually shading into the faintest of blues and greens as it shallowed and was edged here and there by coral reefs. He had spent enough time in the Tropics to be able to judge the depth of water by the colour - what seemed barely a fathom, hardly enough to float a jolly-boat rowed by half a dozen men, was often deep enough to let a ship of the line swim without risk. Still, when approaching an anchored flagship it was wise to have a man in the chains heaving the lead and singing out the depths in the monotonous voice that it was all too easy not to notice.

  The gunner was standing by ready to fire the salute to the admiral (a rear-admiral received thirteen guns, but if he was also a commander-in-chief he received seventeen). Paolo Orsini, midshipman and rapidly growing into a lean and handsome youth, as well as being a fine seaman, was standing by with his telescope, ready to read off immediately first the flag which would reveal the exact rank of the flag officer and then the hoist of flags by which the flagship told the Calypso where to anchor.

  The place indicated by a bearing and distance was usually where any reasonably competent captain would in any case anchor his ship, but admirals (or more likely those around him) liked to exercise the brief authority granted them by pointing out the obvious.

  "Red ensign with a white ball," Orsini reported and added, unnecessarily, "the commander-in-chief is a rear-admiral of the red." A few minutes later he followed that with: "Flagship about to hoist a signal, sir," having caught sight of a couple of seamen handling coloured bunting and preparing to hoist away at a signal halyard.

  Ramage glanced forward to the fo'c'sle where Southwick was waiting with a couple of dozen seamen, like a shepherd standing on a hillock with his flock, ready to let go an anchor at the given signal.

  More men were standing by, preparing to trim the yards and braces; others were at the shrouds, ready to swarm aloft to furl the Calypso's topsail. The fore and main course were already furled, and Ramage was taking the ship in under topsails. With the wind as light as this it was a slow job, but as far as Ramage was concerned few admirals worth their salt were impressed by young frigate captains tearing into crowded anchorages under a press of sail, anchoring and furling with a flourish. Too many admirals had seen too many anchored ships hit by new arrivals to offer any encouragement, and signalling a ship where to anchor certainly slowed down t
he gamblers and calmed show-offs.

  Paolo read out the signal giving a bearing and distance, and by eye, without having to bend over the azimuth compass, Ramage saw that he had guessed correctly and the Calypso was already heading for the position, with her two prizes astern like two swans obediently following the cob.

  Ramage lifted the speaking trumpet to his lips after giving an order to the quartermaster, who swiftly passed it on to the two men at the wheel. Slowly the frigate turned into the wind; another order saw the maintopsail furled, followed by the mizentopsail. As she headed into the wind it pressed on the forward side of the Calypso's foretopsail, pushing it against the mast like a hand on a man's chest and slowly brought the ship to a stop. Ramage then bent over the compass, checking the bearings given in the flagship's signal. He noted the distance, and waited for the Calypso to gather sternway. He walked to the ship^s side and looked down at the water. A tangled strand of floating seaweed which had been floating past now slowly stopped alongside and then began to move ahead. Or, Ramage corrected himself for the thousandth time in his career, the ship had begun to move astern. He gave another order to the quartermaster because now the rudder's effect was being reversed and, looking ahead to make sure that Southwick was watching him, he lifted his right arm vertically.

  Seamen let go the anchor. The splash of its thirty-seven hundredweight, almost two tons, hitting the water was followed by the cable (it was hemp, seventeen inches in circumference, as thick as a man's lower thigh) which snaked over the side, leaving a haze of smoke at the hawse as its friction scorched the wood. Southwick watched from the bulwark and as it slowed and stopped for a few moments gave the signal for the men to snub it round the bitts. The Calypso, pushed astern by her backed topsail, which was being braced round to keep it square to the wind, then kept a steady strain on the cable, and Southwick gave the order to veer more. Finally he signalled to Ramage that the Calypso was safely anchored. The holding ground in Carlisle Bay was good, but in many islands weed on the bottom, or sunken palm fronds, made anchors drag.