Ramage and the Dido r-18 Read online

  'Holystoning is almost a pleasure in the Tropics,' Rossi commented to Stafford as they worked the blocks back and forth.

  'Where's the pleasure?' demanded the Cockney.

  The Italian seaman sighed. 'Nothing ever pleases you, Staff. The water's warm, the wind is warm, and soon the sun will be up, bringing another nice day. Be cheerful!'

  'That'll be the day,' growled Stafford. 'You'll never find me 'appy 'olystoning: you oughta know that by now, Rosey. It's m'knees. I must be getting old: the joints creak.'

  Rossi called across to Jackson, who was holding the hose of a pump. 'Here, Jacko: we need more water.' Then he waved at Gilbert, who was holding a bucket. 'Come on, we want some sand over here, or we'll never get these decks clean.'

  'I swear we'll wear out the wood afore we've finished,' Stafford said, giving the holystone he was holding an extra flourish.

  Finally the deck was scoured and Jackson directed the stream of water from the pump to wash the excess sand over the side. While some men had been holystoning the deck, others had been polishing the brasswork, using strips of cloth and brickdust.

  The men were just beginning to go below for their breakfast when from the masthead came a familiar hail. 'Deck there!' Martin, who was officer of the deck, snatched up a speaking trumpet and answered.

  'Sail dead ahead, just lifting over the horizon.'

  Ramage, who was listening, said: 'What does he think it is?'

  Martin shouted up the question and the lookout answered: 'Probably no bigger than a frigate but on the same course as us.'

  Ramage looked round aloft. The Dido was sailing along under courses, topsails and topgallants. 'Rig out the stunsails, Mr Martin,' he ordered. 'There's no British warship around here.'

  It took time to rig out the studding sails, which were extensions to the ordinary sails, the head extended by a short yard with a boom which slid out along the yards to hold out the foot.

  As soon as they were trimmed, Ramage could feel the effect: the Dido had increased her speed by a couple of knots. Southwick had come to the quarterdeck and he said: 'Whoever she is, she seems to be steering for Martinique. But she's come from the south. From French Guiana, perhaps.'

  'Maybe she's a privateer,' Ramage said. 'Anyway, we shan't know until we get a closer look.'

  Orsini, sent aloft with a telescope, was soon hailing that the sail was a frigate, on the same course, and that she had just set her royals.

  'That settles it, she's French,' Ramage said. 'If she was British she wouldn't set royals just because a two-decker came up astern: she'd be certain the two-decker had come from Barbados: it's obvious from the course.'

  But, Ramage wondered, what was a French frigate doing out here? As Southwick had speculated, she might be coming up from French Guiana, but it was unlikely. Cayenne, the only town in French Guiana, had only one use and that was because Devil's Island, just up the coast, was used as a penal colony. The ships visiting Cayenne were usually frigates or transports carrying royalist prisoners from France. Usually they were frigates armed en flûte, in other words carrying only a few guns, the rest of the space being used as accommodation for the prisoners.

  Ten minutes later Paolo Orsini was hailing again. The frigate was definitely French, judging from the cut of her sails and her sheer, and they were gaining on her rapidly: she seemed to be a very slow sailer. He stopped talking for a few moments and then added: 'She's just rigging out stunsails.'

  Ramage could see the ship clearly with his glass and he could distinguish that the frigate was beginning to look wider as the stunsails were set. Aitken had come up to the quarterdeck and Ramage nodded to him. 'You've arrived at the right time: I was about to tell Martin to beat to quarters. Bend on the challenge.' A minute later the Dido's two Marine drummers were striding up and down the upperdeck, thudding away at their drums, and at once the ship's company ran to their stations, reminding Ramage yet again of a disturbed anthill.

  Again it was the same procedure: the washdeck pumps, only just put away after holystoning the deck, were brought out again and rigged, the gunner collected the big bronze key of the magazine and went below, and the crews began hauling on the lanyards that raised the gunport lids. As water was sprayed over the deck men scattered sand, and soon Ramage heard the report from Aitken that all the guns were loaded and ready to be run out. 'Can I bring Orsini down now, sir, so that he can look after his carronades?'

  'Yes, we can see what we're about from down here.'

  He could imagine just how the French captain felt now, with a seventy-four rapidly overhauling him. There was no chance of him reaching Martinique in time to seek shelter: even now the island was just coming into sight, a bluish bruise on the horizon to the north-west.

  Now, with every stitch of canvas set in the Dido, it was only a matter of time before they ranged up alongside the frigate and started firing broadsides into her.

  He saw Orsini coming down from aloft and watched him hurry up to the poop, to take command of the carronades. He knew that the three lieutenants, Kenton, Martin and Hill, were standing by at their divisions of guns, as were some of the senior midshipmen. He knew that every available telescope on board the French frigate was trained on the Dido. 'Run out the guns,' he told Aitken. It would depress the French even more, once they saw those stubby black fingers sprouting out along the Dido's sides.

  'Hoist the challenge, if you please Mr Aitken.' Ramage watched as the flags rose on the halyard. He put the glass to his eye, watching the frigate as a matter of routine. But no answer was hoisted, not that Ramage had expected one.

  Still Ramage puzzled over why a French frigate should be out here. If she had come from French Guiana - which he finally decided was a remote chance - there was no reason why she did not go up the inside of the island chain, keeping to the westward. That way she would not risk interception by any British warships on passage between Barbados and other islands such as Grenada and Antigua. Could she have come from France and made a landfall too far south? That too seemed unlikely. A mistake in longitude, yes, putting her too far east or west, but not in latitude, taking her too much to the north or south: a latitude sight did not have to depend on the accuracy of the clock: the highest altitude around noon was sufficient.

  No, it was a puzzle, but now the Dido had closed the distance to a mile, and Ramage could see that the ship was black with two white strakes, and the sails were very patched. The maincourse seemed to have more patches than original cloths and he thought he could see small holes in the stunsails - probably where rats had been chewing, and showing that the stunsails were not used very often. Or that the frigate had a lot of rats on board.

  Southwick was busy with his quadrant and, after consulting his tables, reporting distances. Three quarters of a mile, and the Dido was making at least nine knots. The stunsails were going to be a nuisance and Ramage gave Aitken the order to take them in.

  The master had just reported the distance was down to half a mile when Ramage told Aitken to clew up the courses. What about topgallants? Would the frigate try to escape at the last moment by some cunning manoeuvring? He decided to leave them: the Dido handled well under topsails and topgallants.

  The Tricolour was very obvious now, and Ramage could see that it was very faded, either from age or too much Tropical sun. And the black paint of her hull had no sheen; it was a long time since her topsides had last been painted. In fact, he thought, what with the patched sails and faded paint, the frigate looked as though she was at the end of a long voyage.

  There was no need for Southwick to call out any more ranges: in fact Ramage just managed to read her name, even though the paint on her transom was faded. She was the Volage, and Ramage was surprised she had not opened fire with her sternchasers, in the desperate hope that a lucky shot might bring down the Dido's foremast, or damage her bowsprit.

  Then he noticed, for the first time, that the Volage had run out her guns, some of them, anyway. He watched through the glass, waiting for the rest to be
run out, but nothing happened, and he realized there would be no more: only eight guns were run out on each side.

  'That poor devil's armed en flûte!' he exclaimed to Southwick and Aitken. 'They've only run out sixteen guns, eight a side.'

  'What unlucky fellows,' growled Southwick. 'A lot of them won't live to see the sun set.'

  But what was a frigate armed only en flûte doing here? Had she been carrying prisoners to French Guiana? Was she bringing stores from France to Martinique, urgently needed stores which could not wait for a convoy?

  There were many questions, Ramage decided, but no one was going to find the answers - yet. 'Pass him fifty yards to larboard,' Ramage called to Jackson, who once again was acting as quartermaster.

  'Warn the gunners that we will be engaging to larboard,' he told Aitken, who immediately sent off two midshipmen who had been waiting on the quarterdeck.

  The Dido seems to be making a habit of sinking or capturing frigates, Ramage thought to himself. In fact the thought would be depressing but for the Junon: she had also accounted for a seventy-four, so no one could say she was a bully!

  Now the range was closing fast: two ship's lengths would do it. Just as Ramage was preparing himself for the thunder of the Dido's broadsides he was startled to see spurts of smoke from the Volage's starboard side, and almost immediately the Tricolour was hauled down.

  She had fired a broadside pour l'honneur de pavillon, and then hauled down her colours. No one could accuse her captain of surrendering without firing a shot . . .

  The whole question of firing a broadside for the honour of the flag was one for which Ramage had little sympathy: any court of inquiry afterwards should be able to decide whether or not the odds were so overwhelming that it was pointless to fight. But maybe the French courts were tougher; maybe they had to make sure their captains were full of revolutionary zeal. And being revolutionary perhaps they were more sensitive about insults to their new flag ...

  He saw that the frigate was heaving-to, and he ordered Aitken to back the maintopsail. 'We'll heave-to to windward, and prepare a boat to take over a boarding party. Pass the word for Hill.'

  While a boat was being lowered into the water, Ramage gave the lieutenant his orders, thankful that he had someone on board who spoke fluent French.

  'Take ten Marines with you and bring back the captain. Since she's armed en flûte I presume she's carrying a special cargo. Ask the captain about it but, if necessary, inspect it yourself. Leave the Marines on board with orders to secure the wheel, and put the officers under guard.'

  Just under an hour later Hill returned on board with the French captain, who very punctiliously surrendered his sword to Ramage, Hill explaining that he had refused to receive it earlier. The man introduced himself as Furneaux.

  'Where have they come from?' Ramage asked.

  'Mauritius, sir, and she's bound for Fort Royal, Martinique.'

  'And what is she carrying?'

  'It's all very strange, sir: she's loaded with boxes and boxes of plants. Captain Furneaux says they were carrying them from Mauritius for the French to try and grow them. They came from India originally, and were first taken to Mauritius. Now the French were going to try to grow them in Martinique - it's an experiment.'

  'But what plants are they?'

  'Furneaux calls them les mangues. He says they grow an oval-shaped fruit which is orange inside. He says the Indian name for them is "mango". You can either eat them as a fresh fruit or boil them up and make them into a preserve: something the Indians call "chutney", apparently.'

  'So the French are experimenting with plants, eh? Well, Captain Bligh brought the breadfruit here from the Pacific not so many years ago, and that has been a success. And Louis de Bougainville brought a plant from Brazil in 1768 - if my memory serves me - which has a very pretty purple flower, and which was named after him.'

  He thought a moment and then asked Hill: 'Have any of the plants got fruit on them?'

  Hill shook his head. 'No, sir: I looked carefully at all of them. The plants are in good condition, though: the French have been watering them regularly, and they look to me as though they'll grow all right.'

  'Mangoes . . . well, we'd better send them to Barbados. She looks a fairly new ship, although she needs some paint.'

  'Four years old, according to Furneaux, sir. Built at La Rochelle.'

  'Well, Admiral Cameron will almost certainly buy her in. He's very short of frigates. I don't know what he'll do with the plants - probably grow them and call them "camerons"!'

  Ramage started thinking about sending the Volage to Barbados. It was a voyage which, even though it was to windward, should not take more than a few hours, but he was reluctant to lose any more lieutenants. He decided to send the two senior midshipmen, mature men, along with a few seamen and some Marines.

  'How many men on board her?'

  'Ninety-eight, sir. Apparently they had a lot of fever in Mauritius and lost many men. Furneaux was complaining that he had only a few men and they spent most of their time gardening. He's not very pleased with the idea of introducing les mangues to the West Indies, and he's blaming himself for being too far to the eastward, so that he passed Barbados closer than he intended.'

  Ramage smiled and said: 'Well, if les mangues grow successfully and people like them, perhaps his name will go down in history as the man who nearly brought them to the West Indies!'

  'I think he can claim to have brought them to the West Indies, sir, but he failed to get them ashore anywhere!' Hill said.

  Ramage laughed. 'Well, Captain Bligh is known as "Breadfruit Bligh" despite the Bounty affair, so perhaps we can invent something for Furneaux or the Volage.'

  Furneaux was a very nondescript man; the sort, Ramage thought, who would be given the job of taking lesmangues to Martinique with too few crew, and who would make the mistake of passing too close to a British island after a voyage of thousands of miles. Every time his name, or that of his ship, was mentioned he jerked his head round to look at the speaker, a nervous gesture which showed the strain that he was under.

  Ramage sent orders for the two midshipmen to make ready to embark in the frigate. 'Give them a course for Barbados, Mr Southwick. They should sight it in a few hours.'

  He then turned to Furneaux. 'Tell me, Captain: about these plants you are carrying, have you any special instructions for planting them?'

  Furneaux shrugged his shoulders in a typical Gallic gesture. 'I was told to give them plenty of water, that was all. We carried extra water for them. But special instructions - no. I received none.'

  'Take him back on board the Volage,' Ramage told Hill. 'I'm sorry I can't make you prizemaster, but the Dido can't afford to lose any more lieutenants.'

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ramage had written a brief but tactful letter to Admiral Cameron outlining the capture of the Volage and describing the new plants, mangoes, that she had on board. Without mentioning Captain Bligh or breadfruit, he had tried to draw the admiral's attention to the fact that the mango might become an important fruit in the West Indies - a welcome change from the usual round of oranges and bananas and pawpaw. How did one tell an admiral that the mangoes in the Volage might be as important to the West Indies as the breadfruit, and obtained without having to send a special ship all the way to India to collect them?

  Had the French split the journey up, first taking them from India to Mauritius and planting them out there, then a year or so later taking plants from Mauritius and bringing them here, thus cutting the length of the voyage almost in half?

  How could one persuade an admiral in a letter to have the plants brought ashore and planted out, instead of throwing them overboard and fitting the frigate out with more guns, because he was so short of frigates? Better still, send the Volage on to Jamaica, the biggest British island and the most suitable, he thought, for experiments. They had big botanical gardens there: the staff would be just the right people to plant the mango and see how it prospered in the West Indies.
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  Anyway, the Volage was now carrying the letter to Admiral Cameron. If the admiral was really interested, there must be someone on the station who spoke French and could question Furneaux further.

  Southwick, who Ramage suspected was a frustrated gardener, gave a sniff and said: 'If anything comes of this plant business, they'll probably call you "Mango Ramage" - you'll be as famous as "Breadfruit Bligh".'

  'Bligh is famous for the Bounty, not the breadfruit,' Ramage said sourly, 'so I'll thank you for not making any comparison.'

  'Well, mangoes sound tastier than breadfruit, so perhaps it won't be too bad.'

  'Martinique,' Ramage said, to change the subject. 'Is the current playing tricks with us?'

  'There's a bit o' west-going current here, but not enough to worry about. We should have Diamond Rock abeam in about three hours. That'll bring back some memories, eh?'

  Ramage nodded. 'It seems a long time ago. I still don't know how we captured it!'

  'I don't know about capturing it: the miracle was how we swayed up those guns to the top. And how we captured the Calypso.'

  'Well, we may have captured it, but it was retaken by the French because of the drunken antics of an officer long after we had gone back to England.'

  'Yes, the loss of the Rock was a shameful business,' Southwick said. 'If we'd have held on to it we would have continued to control everything that tried to get into Fort Royal.'

  'And we wouldn't have the present trouble either. At least, Admiral Cameron wouldn't. And we wouldn't be here. Curious how the wheel seems to have turned full circle. It's about time for us to recapture Diamond Rock.'

  'I should imagine the French have a proper garrison there now,' Southwick said speculatively.

  'Well, I'm certainly not going to try it,' Ramage said. 'Times have changed. What a young officer commanding a brig can do, and get away with, is different from the circumstances of a post-captain commanding a seventy-four and with definite orders in his pocket.'