Ramage and the Dido Read online

  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 realised 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 1’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 les mangues 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.

  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.’

  Southwick put his telescope to his eye. ‘I can just make out Cabrit Island,’ he said. ‘You’ll remember that is the southernmost tip of Martinique. We’ll soon be up to Fort Royal, and loosing off a broadside into Fort Louis. – Ah,’ he said sentimentally, ‘it’s quite like old times!’

  Half an hour later, when the Dido had hauled around to the north-west, a lookout hailed the deck to report a sail in sight in line with Diamond Rock, which it had just rounded.

  Ramage immediately sent Orsini aloft with a telescope, and the young Italian was soon shouting down that the sail was a brig, which had just altered course towards the Dido.

  Aitken, who had answered the hail, put down the speaking trumpet and said to Ramage: ‘Didn’t you say, sir, that there was one of our brigs patrolling off Fort Royal?’

  ‘Yes, the admiral was grumbling that he had not got a frigate. Hoist the challenge.’

  At dawn each day Ramage consulted the little booklet given him by Admiral Cameron showing the challenge and reply for every day during the next three months, and he gave both to Aitken as soon as he came on deck. The brig – if she was British – would have a copy too, and it was the tradition that the challenge was the first signal hoisted, and if the correct reply was made then each ship hoisted the flags corresponding to her number in the List of the Navy. Thus, almost instantaneously, ships could discover a friend and know her identity.

  The booklet containing the challenges and replies was the most secret on board: the penalty for letting it fall into enemy hands was at best a court martial, and in a bad case a captain could expect to be dismissed the Service. By contrast, letting the Signal Book fall into enemy hands, although a court martial offence, was less important: in the Signal Book every signal had its own number, and it was tedious but not impossible to warn every ship, after the Signal Book was known to be in enemy hands, to add a certain number – three, or seven, or nine, usually a single figure – to the numbers in the book and once again secrecy was restored. Most signal books had the original printed numbers crossed out and new numbers written in by hand.

  Paolo shouted down that the brig had answered the challenge correctly and had hoisted her pendant numbers, which he called out. Ramage took the Signal Book out of the drawer in the binnacle and turned to the back. There she was: number 613, the Scourge, of 22 guns.

  ‘Have the captain come on board: heave to when she is closer,’ Ramage told Aitken.

  The signal for captain, with the Scourge’s number, was hoisted, and in a few minutes the Dido was hove to under backed maintopsail and the Scourge was hove to to windward and hoisting out a boat.

  And there was Diamond Rock fine on the starboard bow, sticking up like a jagged tooth. The rock with a sprinkling of green. Yes, it was a long time ago, Ramage thought, but capturing the Rock and attacking the next French convoy to pass had been exciting; afterwards there was a feeling of achievement – apart from having captured a French frigate, which he was given to command, and which became the Calypso, one of the fastest frigates in the King’s service.

  The captain of the Scourge was a nervous young lieutenant who introduced himself to Ramage as James Bennett. He was tall and thin with sandy hair, and very impressed when he found he was talking to Captain Lord Ramage. It was obvious, Ramage thought, that the capture of Diamond Rock made a story still told in the Windward and Leeward Islands.

  Ramage took Bennett down to his cabin. ‘What’s going on up at Fort Royal?’

  ‘It’s very quiet, sir. The French seventy-four is still anchored in the Baie du Carénage, under the guns of Fort St Louis, with a frigate close by her. There are the usual collection of droghers anchored off the mouth of the Salée River, along with a few trading vessels. Otherwise there is nothing going on. The last time I saw her, yesterday afternoon, the seventy-four had her topsail yards sent down, probably doing repairs.’

  ‘How close do you go in to look at her?’

  ‘About a mile, sir. Fort St L
ouis opens fire, and then I usually turn away. It’s easy to lose the wind in the bay, and I’m always a bit nervous about lying there becalmed while the fort gives us a pounding.’

  ‘Yes, the bay is surrounded by mountains to the north and east: they act like curtains and keep the wind out.’

  ‘And they’ve put in some new batteries covering the town to the west of the fort. Before that, I used to sneak in from the west, but now the batteries keep me well out into the bay.’

  As Bennett talked, Ramage got the impression of a nervous young man afraid of risking his ship, but nevertheless carrying out his orders to keep a watch on the French seventy-four. But he was not the man to startle anyone by sending a boarding party in one night to try to cut out the frigate, or make a surprise raid on the droghers, and sink or burn a few. Not a man in other words, who made his presence felt, discomforting the French from time to time. If he ever achieved post rank it would be by luck, being the only man around when the opening occurred, rather than the reward for a particular episode.

  It was a pity, Ramage thought, that someone like Aitken or George Hill did not command the Scourge; they could make the ship live up to her name. He made a guess at how Bennett had obtained the command of the brig: her previous captain had died suddenly from yellow fever and Bennett, a lieutenant in the flagship and a favourite of the admiral, had been given the command. If that was so, and he suspected it was, then Bennett had been lucky. It was a very familiar story, though of no particular credit to the Navy, because it meant that some spirited and competent lieutenants failed to get promotion because they did not catch an admiral’s eyes, never serving in the flagship.