Governor Ramage RN r-4 Page 4

  "I think, indeed I hope," her father said slowly, "that that song is long and fascinating, and best sung later at dinner. For the moment I wonder - if I'm not being indiscreet, and Mr Yorke will warn me if I am - if we might hear something of your fall from Admiral Goddard's grace: I - we, rather - have a particular reason for being curious."

  "You certainly have!" Yorke exclaimed. "May I explain to the Lieutenant?"

  St Brieuc smiled and nodded.

  "My passengers - a clumsy word for such company - originally began their voyage from Portsmouth to Jamaica on board the Lion, with Admiral Goddard as their host," Yorke told Ramage. "They count themselves fortunate that the Lion and the convoy had to call at Cork to collect the Irish and Scottish ships, because it gave them an opportunity to leave the Lion..."

  "A horrible man!" the daughter said with a shudder, and Ramage felt she had as much contempt as dislike for Goddard.

  "He is not a gentleman," St Cast said, his jowls quivering. "Despite -"

  St Brieuc interrupted so smoothly that it took Ramage a fewseconds to realize thatthe Frenchman was unsure what St Cast was going to say, and for reasons difficult yet to understand, St Brieuc was the one who made the decisions.

  "Because of the Admiral's - ah, activities - I had no difficulty in persuading him that despite the Admiralty's orders making us his guests, we would prefer to travel in another ship."

  Tactfully put, Ramage acknowledged, and I'd back my guess as to what happened with guineas: the gallant Admiral made advances to Madame de Dinan ... and in all fairness I can't blame him.

  "I was able to offer them the hospitality of the Topaz," Yorke said, and Ramage guessed that the original passengers had been given suitable compensation to postpone their voyage or travel in another ship.

  These people must be influential enough for Goddard to be worried because they were not travelling in the Lion. The Admiralty would want explanations. That accounted for Goddard's anxiety about the convoy: these people were the "important cargo" and that explained why Yorke hadn't bothered to look round at the rest of the masters...

  But who were they and why were they going to Jamaica? St Cast seemed to be an aide or major-domo of some description; the small and birdlike St Brieuc was the man that mattered. But where was his daughter's husband? Already Ramage disliked him because no one could deserve such a wife, and he was jealous - of a husband he had never seen of a woman he had met for the first time ten minutes before. It's been an unusual sort of morning, he thought sourly to himself.

  "My own story goes back a little further," Ramage said, "but it's a boring one of jealousy, vindictiveness and obsession."

  "We have some experience of all that... It's almost a relief to know we're not alone in our misery," St Brieuc said quietly.

  "Please," the girl pleaded, "tell us, if you can."

  "Say the word and we drop the subject," Yorke said, "but..."

  Ramage laughed and reassured them, but they saw he was rubbing the older of the two scars above his right eyebrow. Yorke remembered seeing him do the same thing at the convoy conference when Goddard ignored him and introduced the other officers. It was obviously a habit when he was tense or concentrating. Yorke watched him snatch his hand away when he saw they had noticed.

  "The story starts with my father. He's an Admiral, but not serving now."

  "Not an old man, though, surely?" St Cast asked.

  "No - simply out of favour."

  St Brieuc snorted with contempt. "Politics, always politics!"

  Ramage nodded. "Politics, yes; but in a roundabout way because he isn't attached to any particular party. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant admirals of his day, but he had - and still has - many faults. He is impatient, he doesn't suffer fools gladly and he is a very decisive sort of man. He hates indecisive people."

  "Hardly faults!" St Cast protested, almost to himself.

  "No, but he also had strong and very advanced views on new tactics and signalling which would have revolutionized sea warfare -"

  "No wonder he was unpopular," Yorke said wryly. "Pity all those other admirals. After spending a lifetime learning and practising the old-style tactics, along comes a bright new admiral wanting to change everything. You can't teach an old dog new tricks - and the old dogs know it!"

  "There is something in that," Ramage admitted, "but then politics came into it."

  "Ah," said St Brieuc, as if Ramage's story had reached a point he could fully understand.

  "No, not what you think, M'sieur; just the opposite. My family are Cornish, but we have kept out of politics since Cromwell's time, or since the Restoration, anyway. We learned then not to put our trust in princes."

  "The Cornish - they are like we Bretons," said the daughter, missing the significance of Ramage's last remark.

  "Yes - even the place-names are similar."

  "We keep interrupting," St Brieuc said. "Do please continue."

  "Halfway through the last war, word reached England that a French fleet had sailed from Brest for an attack on the West Indies. The government had been warned months earlier that it was being prepared, but did nothing about it."

  "I remember," St Brieuc murmured.

  "The Admiralty could scrape up only a small squadron but they put my father in command and rushed it to sea. Even before sailing my father knew that, outnumbered three to one, his only chance of avoiding a disastrous defeat was to use new tactics."

  "To achieve surprise," St Brieuc murmured, "not to use some routine tactic the French admiral would know and be able to counter."

  "Exactly," Ramage said, "but it failed."

  Both Yorke and the girl said, "Why?"

  Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "The manoeuvre was revolutionary, and halfway through it the wind dropped, so only a third of his ships got into action."

  "I begin to remember," Yorke said. "I was only a boy. The Earl of Blazey must be your father?" Ramage nodded, and Yorke continued, as if talking to himself. "Didn't lose any ships, by a miracle, but naturally the French escaped. Great row in Parliament... The government shaky ... Admiral blamed and court-martialled ... The government saved ... The row split the Navy ... Something to do with the Fighting Instructions, wasn't it?"

  Ramage nodded. "Your memory is good. The two main factors were the old story of sending too few ships too late, and the Fighting Instructions."

  "Fighting Instructions?" repeated St Cast. "Are they what they sound like? Orders about how to fight a particular battle?"

  "Not quite; not a particular battle, but a set of rules for fighting all battles."

  "Like the rules of chess?" asked St Brieuc.

  Ramage thought for a moment and then nodded. "Almost, but they don't set down the actual moves each individual ship - or chessman - can make: instead they give the admiral the sequence of moves all the pieces must make together in various circumstances."

  "Do you mean, keeping to the chess analogy," Yorke asked, "they set down the moves for the whole game? Once the admiral chooses a particular sequence, he's committed to make every successive move?"

  "Yes. Of course they give you various alternative sequences, allowing for differences in the wind, the relative positions of your ships and the enemy's, and so on."

  "But," protested Yorke, as if certain he had misunderstood Ramage, "it leaves the admiral no initiative! If the orchestra plays this tune, you dance these steps; if that tune, then those steps."

  "Exactly," Ramage said.

  "But surely there are dozens - if not scores and hundreds - of situations an admiral might meet. Surely they're not all covered?"

  "There are scores of situations, but the manoeuvres listed have to be used to cover them," Ramage said in a deliberately neutral voice.

  "So what happens..."

  "If you're my father, you ignore them, decide on your own tactics, trust to the limited vocabulary of the Signal Book, and attack..."

  "And if the wind drops, my lord?" St Brieuc asked quietly.

 
; "If the wind drops and the government needs a scapegoat to save its own skin..."

  St Brieuc nodded, deep in thought. "Yes, I can see ... In politics it is simple: proving the admiral guilty automatically proves the government innocent. The mob are too stupid to realize that finding an admiral guilty of disobeying the Fighting Instructions - however outdated and absurd they are - doesn't make a government innocent of stupidity, neglect and acting too late ... Pamphleteers, rumours, lies and accusations circulated as gossip ... The methods don't change with the centuries or the countries."

  "The vendetta with this Admiral Goddard," St Cast asked - a wealth of meaning in the way he said "this" - "how did that begin?"

  "My father's trial split the Navy. Most of the old admirals - those supporting the government - were against him, while the young officers were on his side because they wanted to change the old tactics."

  "But the vendetta?"

  "It's complicated! The officers forming the court-martial ... well, they were senior, and they knew the government could fall..."

  "If they found him not guilty," Yorke commented, "they could say goodbye to further promotion."

  Again Ramage shrugged. It was true; it was obvious; men as sophisticated as these three needed nothing spelled out.

  "He was found guilty and dismissed the Service. The young officers protested, petitioned the King, fought the verdict - or, rather, the significance of the verdict - in Parliament, but to no purpose. There were five admirals and one captain forming the court. The captain was comparatively young but he had plenty of 'interest' - patronage in other words. His wife is a distant relative of the King...

  "For reasons no one has ever understood," Ramage continued, "long after the trial was over, long after the government was saved and new elections had put them back in power and when the affair of Admiral the Earl of Blazey was a matter of history, this captain continued to attack my family in every way he could."

  "And his name," Yorke said, "is Goddard."

  St Cast's fingers tapped the arm of his chair. "Motives ... surely he must have reasons ... why?"

  St Brieuc glanced up. "Pourquoi? I will tell you. First, he did what he thought would gain him favour. Afterwards it became a habit and later an obsession .. .Such men always become obsessed by something: religion, gambling, the mathematics of chance ... It gives them a purpose in life - something they previously lacked. In politics, certain insignificant cretins spend their lives constantly attacking a great man. When he falls - as he will, though not because of their efforts - they hope to reap a harvest. Do you agree?"

  Ramage nodded slowly. "M'sieur ... I'd never thought of it as a habit or an obsession, but I think you are right."

  St Brieuc also nodded, but Ramage had the feeling he had merely read his thoughts because he continued: "A vendetta is never more than a habit. Its victims, whichever side they're on, inherit it like an estate. The Montagues and the Capulets. Each family had an entailed legacy - a hatred for the other. Hatred or obsession is the easiest emotion to sustain because it feeds its own flames."

  "Is it against your brothers, too?" asked Maxine.

  "I am the only child."

  "Against you alone, then."

  "Against my father, through me."

  "Have you no patrons?" her father asked.

  "No, but a commodore -"

  "A commodore!"exclaimed Yorke. "Why, you need at least a vice-admiral."

  "As many as possible," Ramage said dryly, "but anyway, this commodore helps bring my story up to date."

  "Ah, I can guess," Yorke exclaimed. "I take back what I said about commodores if this one's called Nelson."

  "He is, but this was before the battle of Cape St Vincent."

  "Come on," Yorke said impatiently, "the plot thickens!"

  "In the Mediterranean," Ramage began, wondering quite where it had all started, conscious that he was being indiscreet, but feeling a great relief as he talked, "I was under Sir John Jervis's orders - he became the Earl of St Vincent after the Battle," he explained to the Frenchmen. "One or two things went wrong. I was court-martialled - on Admiral Goddard's orders."

  "For what?" St Brieuc asked, his interest overcoming his tact.

  "Cowardice," Ramage said in a flat voice.

  "Were you a coward?" the girl asked, equally flatly.

  "No."

  "Then how could Admiral Goddard... ?"

  "Another man did behave as a coward. He had to save his pride. Accusing me instead was a good solution as far as he and the Admiral were concerned. At the trial his cousin unexpectedly gave evidence against him and I was acquitted."

  "Against him? He must have been an honest man to go against family ties," said St Cast.

  "A woman, actually."

  "Oh non!" the girl exclaimed. "Papa! It was Gianna, Papa, I remember the story now."

  A dozen emotions chased across St Brieuc's face before he thought of looking at Ramage for confirmation.

  "My lord," he said quietly, "was it the Marchesa di Volterra?"

  Ramage nodded.

  "Permit me the honour," said St Brieuc, holding out his hand. As they shook he explained, "We are old friends of her family."

  "So are we," Ramage said, "in fact she is staying with my parents in England at this moment."

  Maxine was watching him closely; Ramage felt she was undressing him. "So," she said, "you saved her from Buonaparte ... from under the hooves of the French horses."

  "To coin an old phrase," Yorke said, "this really is a small world. We know the story of the Marchesa's rescue, my lord, but I don't think any of us understand why Admiral Goddard...?"

  "He ordered the trial and sailed from Bastia, leaving Captain Croucher to be president of the court-"

  "This same Croucher?"

  "The same! In the middle of the trial, Commodore Nelson arrived and the trial had to stop because he ordered all the ships to sail."

  "Could they not start it again?" asked St Cast.

  "Fortunately no; legally the court was dispersed. And the Commodore reported the true facts to Sir John Jervis - I'd been under his orders - and the whole thing was dropped."

  "The Commodore ordering the ships to sail," commented St Brieuc, "this was...?"

  "Simply a coincidence."

  "Ah, but he found out about the trial...?"

  Ramage nodded.

  "Justice sometimes waves in your direction, my lord. From what I hear, Commodore Nelson will be a powerful man one of these days ... The battle of Cape St Vincent..."

  "Where Ramage turned the trick by preventing the Spanish from escaping. You must have been mad to think of throwing them into confusion by making their leading ship collide with your little cutter. But it worked, because Nelson and the rest of the Fleet were able to catch up!" Yorke interjected, adding cheerfully: "Ah well, as far as Goddard is concerned, Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris."

  St Brieuc nodded, looking at Ramage, and his daughter asked: "Translate please, Papa - my Latin ..."

  As he searched for words, Yorke said: " 'It's human nature to hate someone you have hurt.' Virgil, was it not?"

  Again St Brieuc nodded. "The men tried and wronged the father; now they attack the son. But - Audentis Fortunas iuvat!"

  '"Fortune is ally to the brave' - let's hope so, eh?" Yorke said.

  Ramage laughed. "More Virgil?"

  "Yes," said St Brieuc. "But come, Mr Yorke. If his lordship is to sing for his supper, I think you ought to give him at least a hint that you do have supper to offer him! What about the champagne?"

  Chapter Four

  Ramage was hot when he sat down at the desk in his tiny cabin on board the Triton later that day. He was pleasantly drowsy from the champagne Yorke had produced and pleasantly bloated from a superb meal cooked by the French chef in the St Brieuc entourage.

  The perspiration soaking his clothes and trickling down his face was not entirely due to the sun heating his box of a cabin. Warmth came in waves, as if a furnace door was op
ened, when he thought about the past couple of hours on board the Topaz-He was flushed with embarrassment for his behaviour.

  My only excuse, he thought to himself, is that it's been months since I talked to intelligent and sophisticated people. And they are the first people outside the Service or the family with whom I've ever discussed the Goddard business. And, dammit, I feel all the better for it. Indiscreet I may have been, and Goddard and his cronies would call it disloyal, but somehow the idea of Goddard setting a trap for me doesn't seem so frightening now and I don't feel so damned lonely. There's nothing Yorke or the Frenchman can do; there's nothing anyone can do, short of wafting Goddard off to the Indian Ocean. He and Croucher have a free hand but maybe I can survive by staying wide awake...

  On board the Topaz, because of an encouraging word from St Brieuc, a puzzled lift of Maxine's eyebrows, a polite question from St Cast and a blunt question from Yorke, I talked and talked. I told them about the rescue of Gianna, the trial at Bastia, losing the Kathleen cutter, the battle of Cape St Vincent and capturing the St Lucia privateers. I also amused them with tales about Goddard and Croucher...

  Come to think of it, he mused, I don't feel as embarrassed as I should. In fact I feel curiously free: the sensation of being trapped, so strong at the conference and almost crushing later at that bizarre interview with Goddard, has gone completely. I have got my confidence back and feel positively jaunty. Somehow they all seemed to understand much more than I'd expected, and Maxine seemed to grasp how lonely it was being on a distant station at the mercy of a vindictive admiral...

  Ramage shook his head; Maxine with her exciting body and delicious accent wasn't a convoy plan, and he had a convoy plan to draw up. He put the instructions and orders to one side, with the list of the forty-nine merchantmen on top, cleaned the point of his pen, unscrewed the cap of the inkwell and then scratched his chin with the feather of the quill.

  The convoy comprised forty-nine ships; they were to sail in seven columns of seven. He smoothed out a clean sheet of paper and drew seven evenly spaced dots in a line across the top. These were the ships leading the seven columns. Beneath each dot he added six more, one below the other, until he had drawn a square full of dots, seven along each edge - and seven horizontally, vertically and diagonally. A pity seven's not my lucky number, he thought inconsequentially. Six letters in Maxine's name and in his surname. Fascinating - and probably forty-nine dots make a magic square, and if you keep on making the knight's move starting from one particular dot, the track you make spells out your sweetheart's name.