Ramage and the Freebooters Read online

  ‘No sergeant: just a corporal and six men. They’re all right, but they can’t do anything even if they wanted to because they’ve no arms: the seamen have taken the keys to the arms lockers, though not for those in my cabin.’

  After the Master left the cabin, Ramage went to the sleeping cabin, unlocked his trunk and took out a pair of half boots. He checked the right one, which had a sheath for a throwing knife sewn inside, and pulled them on in place of his shoes.

  There was much to do: before sailing he should go through all the papers left by the previous captain. There were inventories to check and sign, letters and order books to read, a dozen and one other things a new captain had to deal with as soon as he took over command to satisfy the voracious appetites of the clerks at the Admiralty and the Navy Board.

  And then, with Southwick, he’d have to check over the ship: masts, yards, sails, hull, stores, powder, shot and provisions …small wonder the poor old Triton was floating on her marks: she was carrying enough food and water to feed more than sixty men for half a year; enough powder and shot to fight a couple of dozen brisk engagements; enough spare sails and cordage to keep her at sea despite wear, tear and damage from battles with both Nature and the enemy.

  He went to bed early that night. It was obvious, after a couple of hours spent on deck, that there was little to be done while the ship was still in sight of the rest of the Fleet. His steward was too terrified even to unpack his trunk and stow the contents; the Marines dare not resume their duties, so he slept without a sentry at the door. By nine o’clock, after half an hour spent giving instructions to Southwick, Ramage was lying in his cot going over his plan once again.

  It was all or nothing. If it failed he’d be a laughing stock and, since he’d received his orders direct from the First Lord, he might just as well resign his commission since any chance of further promotion – or even employment – would be nil. He’d be the comic hero of the saga of Spit Sand shoal.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Southwick woke Ramage long before daylight. Holding a lantern in one hand and tapping the side of the cot with the other, the Master whispered, ‘It’s half-past three, sir. Wind’s fresh, north-west. Glass has fallen a bit, but nothing significant. Jackson’s bringing your shaving water and a hot drink. Everything you mentioned is hidden away ready.’

  The old man’s cheerfulness was contagious, almost comforting, but, at this time of the morning, tiresome as well. His flowing hair and plump features lit by the lantern reminded Ramage of a genial Falstaff seeing if the Prince was still sober.

  Scrambling out of his cot as the Master hooked the lantern on to the bulkhead, Ramage realized sleepily that the Triton was rolling quite heavily and the cot swung, catching the back of his knee joints so his legs almost jack-knifed.

  ‘Last of the flood, sir,’ Southwick said. ‘There’s quite a sea running.’

  ‘Good. Blast this cot. And a north-west wind…couldn’t be better.’

  ‘Let’s hope it holds, sir: don’t want it to back or veer for another hour.’

  As Southwick left, Jackson came in with a jug of hot water and a large mug of tea.

  ‘How are things, Jackson?’

  ‘Our crowd were quiet, sir, but there was a lot o’ chattering among the Tritons. I daren’t seem too interested… If Harris suspected anything, I’d wake up with a knife in my ribs. You can count on Stafford, Evans and Fuller, sir: I’ve had a chat with them. Rossi, too, after what you did for the Marchesa. He told all the Tritons a long story last night about how you and I rescued her. Then he told ’em how we rammed the San Nicolas.’

  ‘How did they react?’

  ‘Impressed. Very impressed. I think that’s what started them all chattering. If you’ll excuse me saying it, sir, my feeling is – well, it all depends on you now, sir.’

  With that Jackson was gone, leaving Ramage stropping his razor, the American’s sentence echoing again and again in time with the slap of steel against leather. He sipped the tea, poured water into the basin and lathered his face. Wiping the steam from the mirror he stretched the skin and was agreeably surprised that the reflection showed the hand holding the razor was trembling only slightly.

  It all depends on you now, sir.

  Blast Jackson for the reminder at this time of the morning. Did anyone ever feel brave before dawn – apart from Southwick? He’d said almost the same thing – it’s entirely up to you. Jackson, Southwick and the First Lord…

  He began shaving and found himself glowering into the mirror as the features emerged from the anonymity of the lather. As he wiped steam from the mirror again, he realized that in the next half an hour everything would depend on the impression that face made on the thirty-six Tritons.

  He wasn’t worried about the former Kathleens because, as Jackson had made clear, each of them had to sleep with a Triton in the next hammock. Each was realistic enough to know his captain couldn’t save him from being knifed in the dark.

  So, he told himself mockingly, it all depends – he pushed up the tip of his nose to shave the upper lip – on his face and his tongue. He stuck it out for a moment like a rude urchin, then cursed as he tasted soap in his mouth.

  Ten minutes later, shaved, dressed and with the rest of the tea warm inside him, he pulled on his boots, making sure the strap over the throwing knife was clear. Then he took a mahogany box containing a pair of pistols, powder, shot and wads from his trunk and put it on the table. Leave the lid open or closed? Closed – it musn’t be too obvious.

  He looked at his watch: fifteen minutes to four o’clock. Fifteen minutes to waste. Well, he might as well start writing his new log and journal, which should have been done yesterday. He took a large, thin book from the bottom drawer, unscrewed the cap of the inkwell, and wrote boldly across the front cover in letters a couple of inches high, ‘HMS Triton’ and in smaller letters underneath, ‘Captain’s Log 18 April 1797–17 June 1797’.

  Under the Admiralty’s Regulations and Instructions the log had to be sent to the Admiralty after two months and a new one started. If he kept his command that long.

  Opening the book and glancing idly at the first page, which was divided vertically under several headings, he began by filling in the blank spaces in the lines of print across the top of the page:

  ‘Log of the Proceedings of His Majesty’s Ship Triton, Nicholas Ramage, Lieutenant and Commander, between the 18th Day of April and the 19th Day of April.’

  Since the nautical day was measured from noon one day to noon the next, the Navy afloat was always half a day ahead of the folk on land, and as far as the log was concerned, it was still the same day that he had joined the Triton and would be for another eight hours. He inserted the date and wind direction in the appropriate columns and, under ‘Remarks’ wrote: ‘Joined ship as per Commission. Read Commission on quarterdeck. Ship’s company apparently in state of mutiny.’

  He shut the log impatiently, reflecting this would be a daily task for many months ahead, and took out a similar volume, writing on the front ‘Captain’s Journal, HM brig Triton’ and the same two-month period. On the first page he filled in the blank columns under the ‘Date’, and ‘Wind’, and drew a line under such headings as ‘Course’, ‘Miles’, ‘Latitude’ and ‘Longitude’.

  In the end column, headed ‘Remarkable Observations and Accidents’, he wrote:

  On first boarding ship, read commission. Master reported to captain that ship’s company in state of non-violent mutiny. Captain’s only order, to hoist his trunk on board, obeyed by three men transferred to brig the previous day from the Lively frigate. During evening captain gave certain instructions to Master concerning getting the ship under way next morning. No Marines on duty but their basic loyalty reported to be not in doubt. Appears they (six in number and corporal) and the twenty-five men transferred from the Lively frigate fear reprisals from the original ship’s company.

  As he wiped the pen and closed the inkwell, Ramage glanced at what he’d written. If anythi
ng went wrong and his plan failed, the paragraphs he’d written in the log and in the journal would be chewed over by a court martial as carefully as a hungry dog chewed over a fresh bone.

  Every word, every comma, would be questioned; every possible construction put on every phrase. It’d be no excuse to say they’d been written before dawn, before he was fully awake. And his plan – well, even though it seemed the only one that had a chance of success, it’d be treated as madness, because six captains sitting in judgement on him would never understand it.

  Whereas they would expect him to wave the Articles of War and breathe fire and brimstone, he was going to gamble on men – on the intelligence of one in particular, Harris, the Triton’s spokesman whom he did not know, and on the sentiment of the former Kathleens, all of whom he did.

  His bet was that he could guess the reaction of all of them, Tritons and Kathleens alike, when their captain sprang a surprise on them; did something they could never have expected and wouldn’t know how to deal with…

  He slipped his sword belt over his right shoulder and looked at his watch. Three minutes to four. He took the lantern from its hook and went up on deck.

  The wind was fresh, not yet strong enough to sound shrill in the masts, yards and rigging – which he could just make out as black webs against the dark night sky – but sufficient to moan like a man in pain, unreal and almost ghostly in the night and already starting to sap at the confidence Ramage was just beginning to feel.

  It should be light enough to aim a pistol in ten minutes or so since there was a hint of cold greyness about him. Soon Southwick came over with a lantern and reported: ‘I’m just going below now, sir.’

  ‘Very well; start from aft so you can see what’s happening as you walk back again.’

  As the master disappeared down the companionway it was almost uncanny on board the brig: it needed only an owl making its weird call to complete the illusion he was standing in a graveyard: not a man on deck apart from himself. It was the first night he’d ever spent in a ship at anchor without men keeping an anchor watch, a Marine sentry at the gangway with loaded musket, and an officer, midshipman or warrant officer pacing the deck.

  However, since the Triton had been anchored for nearly a week without even a cook’s mate keeping the deck by day or night, he’d decided it was pointless for Southwick and himself each to lose half a night’s sleep when both would need all their wits about them by dawn. Their Lordships would not approve; but since they had to administer the Navy, they could never admit a man ever needed sleep or had to use unusual methods in carrying out their orders.

  Suddenly from below came Southwick’s stentorian voice bellowing: ‘Wakey, wakey there! Come on – lash up and stow; show a leg, show a leg, look alive there! Lash up and stow, the sun’s burning your eyeballs out!’

  Every few moments, sounding fainter as he walked forward, the Master repeated the time-honoured and time-worn orders and imprecations – normally bawled by the bosun’s mates and punctuated by the shrill notes of their bosun’s calls – to rouse out the men and have them roll their hammocks and bedding into long sausage shapes and lash them up with the regulation number of turns.

  Then the men would troop up on deck to stow the hammocks in the racks of netting along the top of the bulwarks. There – covered with long strips of canvas to keep them dry – they also formed a barricade against musket-fire when the ship went into action.

  ‘Lash up and stow, lash up and stow…’

  The voice was very faint: Southwick must be right up forward now, turning to retrace his steps and see how many of the sixty-one men were obeying. This was the first of several crucial moments he and Ramage had to face in the next twenty minutes.

  Then the Master was back on deck, swinging the lantern. He said quietly: ‘All the Kathleens and the Marines are lashing their hammocks. The rest haven’t moved. Harris’ hammock is the nearest as you go forward.’

  ‘Better than I expected. We’ll wait a couple of minutes.’

  The first half dozen of the seamen came up the ladder, running to the bulwarks amidships and placing their hammocks in the netting. Normally it was done by orders; but there were no petty officers to give them. Although more men came up from below Ramage did not bother to count – Southwick would be doing that.

  The Master murmured: ‘Twenty-nine still below, sir.’

  There was no chance those men were being slow.

  ‘Give me the lantern.’

  ‘Go carefully, sir. Let me come with you.’

  ‘No, stay here, and get those men working – unrolling the hammock cloths, or anything that keeps them occupied.’

  Now Ramage felt the cold of dawn and the more penetrating chill of fear. The black of night was fast turning grey; in a few minutes there’d be no need for lanterns on deck.

  He stepped down the companionway and turned forward past the little cabins. As he went through the door in the bulkhead which divided off the officers’ and warrant officers’ accommodation from the forward part of the ship where the seamen slung their hammocks, he held the lantern higher, so it lit up his face. He had to crouch, since there was a bare five feet of headroom, but he’d learned long ago to walk with his knees slightly bent and back arched so he could keep his head upright.

  The air was fetid: it was air breathed too long and too often by more than sixty men, and stank of sweat and bilge water.

  Then he was abreast the first hammock which, its shape distorted by the body of the man in it, cast weird shadows as it swung to the roll of the brig.

  ‘Harris,’ Ramage said quietly.

  The man sat up quickly, carefully keeping his head low to avoid banging it on the beams above him. He was, as Ramage had planned, in an uncomfortable and undignified position.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Harris, I can remember when I was a midshipman…’

  He paused, forcing Harris to say: ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Harris, I remember one poor midshipman cracked his skull. Died five days later. There’d have been trouble if he’d regained consciousness and said who’d done it. He didn’t though, and we managed to change a new hammock for the one cut down…’

  Again he paused, and he sensed each of the other men in his hammock was feeling the same tension as Harris who, because Ramage’s voice tailed off, was yet again forced to say: ‘Yes, sir?’

  Suddenly metal rasped against metal as Ramage drew his sword: the noise was unmistakable and, watching Harris’ eyes following the blade as it came out of the scabbard, Ramage felt more confident.

  ‘You’ve probably guessed the trick, Harris – we’d cut the hammock down. Only we made a mistake in the dark – instead of cutting it down at the feet end, we cut it at the head end, so the poor mid landed on his skull – not his feet…’

  Harris said nothing: he was watching the sword blade glinting in the light of the lantern as Ramage waved it as though it was a walking stick.

  Ramage judged that this was the moment, and said suddenly and harshly: ‘Lash up and stow, Harris – and all the rest of you. If you’re not on deck in three minutes I’ll cut every hammock down. Bring the lantern with you, Harris.’

  Putting the lantern down on the deck, he strode back to the companionway. He’d given the order to Harris about the lantern on the spur of the moment but for a particular reason. And the tone of his voice showed them all – he hoped – that it didn’t occur to him they’d disobey.

  On deck it was now light enough to see men moving along the top of the bulwark, paler grey patches against a dark grey screen, tucking in the hammock cloths.

  Southwick came over.

  ‘Most of these men are sullen, sir, very sullen. Jackson, Evans, Fuller an’ Rossi are doing their best, but they’ve got to watch their step. How are things below?’

  ‘We’ll know inside a couple of minutes.’

  ‘The lantern, sir?’

  ‘I left it for Harris to bring up–’

  ‘But–’

&nb
sp; ‘Damn the Regulations, Mr Southwick; I have a reason.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Snapping at Southwick hurt the old man’s feelings, but Ramage was under too much of a strain to explain what seemed to him so obvious. No lanterns without a sentry was a necessary standing order to guard against the danger of fire; but for the moment the risk of fire was of little consequence weighed against getting Harris and the rest of them on deck.

  He moved to one side so the mainmast did not obscure the forehatch, which he could just pick out as a square black hole in the deck forty or fifty feet away.

  He watched until his eyes blurred. Was – he blinked a couple of times – yes, surely there was a square of faint light framed by the hatch coamings. Southwick tried to see what his captain was watching so intently.

  Ramage blinked again and now he wasn’t so sure: the hatch looked as black as ever. Suddenly it lit up, showing the shadow of a man with a hammock slung over his shoulder.

  Of course it had darkened for a few moments because the man’s body blocked out the light as he started up the ladder.

  ‘Here comes Harris.’

  ‘He’s got some brains then,’ Southwick grunted, ‘and wants to keep ’em inside his skull. Was that yarn you were going to tell ’em about the midshipman dying true, sir?’

  ‘No, but I nearly believed it myself as I was telling Harris!’

  The lantern swung as Harris walked to the other bulwark and Ramage saw the rest of the men following. One by one they scrambled up and put their hammocks in the netting. Harris said something inaudible to the seaman next to him who edged along the bulwark and pulled out a rolled-up hammock cloth.

  ‘So far so good,’ Southwick muttered.

  Ramage waited until the cloth was tucked in along its whole length, covering all their hammocks against rain and spray, then said: ‘Muster everyone here if you please Mr Southwick.’

  The Master bellowed the order and the men shuffled aft. The shuffle told Ramage what he needed to know and what he feared: the men had stowed their hammocks, they were obeying the order to come aft to hear what he had to say, but that was all: they were still mutinous – the majority anyway.