Ramage & the Renegades Read online

  “Porter, while you have been doing your job here in the dockyard, the officers and men in the King’s ships have been at sea, fighting the weather and the French and the Dutch and the Spanish and the Danes. They’ve been collecting musket balls and round shot and yellow fever and scurvy; you’ve been collecting tainted guineas to buy yourself a house, a wife and four children. Do you understand the two different kinds of life?”

  The eyes and the tone made Porter agree at once.

  “Good, Porter, so we understand each other. Now, I am going to tell you a story. The companion-way down to the gunroom comprises ten steps. A man tripped at the top and fell down them once. He was picked up dead. The parish—he was a dockyard man—had to bury him. It’s surprising how these sort of accidents happen. A chisel slips and cuts a vein and in a trice a man bleeds to death; someone else slips on one of the side battens and falls into the boat and breaks his neck across a thwart. A third has his skull split as he walks along the deck and a double block falls on him from an upper yard. Indeed, Porter, as the chaplains tell us, ‘In the midst of life, we are in death.’”

  “Yes, sir,” Porter managed to whisper.

  “I called you here to give you some information, Porter. We have seven extra people joining the ship on Thursday; we sail on Friday. We need seven extra cabins ready by Thursday.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are a conscientious man, I know. Do I have your assurance that the seven cabins will be ready in time, doors hung and glazed with stone-ground glass, and everything painted?”

  “Yes, sir,” Porter said, at last coming to life. “Oh, easily by Thursday, sir.”

  “Very well, thank you. You may go.”

  After the man shambled out, Southwick said: “You’d never have done it. Rossi, Stafford, Jackson—yes, any of them would have given him a push at a word from you. But I can’t see you giving the word.”

  Ramage grinned, his eyes now warm, the hard line gone from his lips. He looked at the man who was old enough to be his father and who had served as Master in every ship Ramage had commanded, from the earliest day when as a lieutenant he had commanded the little Kathleen cutter.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think, does it? Porter is convinced I can, so the cabins will be ready and we’ll be off Black Stakes on Friday, taking on powder.”

  All ships, naval and mercantile, coming to London or the Medway had to unload their gunpowder into barges moored at Black Stakes, at the entrance to the Thames. The risk of fire and a ship exploding in the London docks or close to one of the Medway towns was too great to allow any exceptions. It delayed a ship, but many an officer late back from leave was glad to hire a cutter at London Bridge and be put on board at Black Stakes.

  “Is it true we’re getting a chaplain, sir?”

  Ramage had mentioned it to the First Lieutenant because Aitken, a Highlander, would not welcome what undoubtedly would be to him a High Church minister. The Low Church First Lieutenant and the free-thinking Master must have been discussing it.

  “Yes. Someone has applied.” It was a convenient way of telling the officers (which meant the ship’s company would know soon enough) that he had not asked for a chaplain; everyone knew the regulations.

  “I’ve never met one yet that was worth the room to sling a hammock.”

  “Perhaps not, but let’s hope he plays chess.”

  Southwick chuckled and reached for his hat. A long time ago, he and Mr Ramage had joined the Triton brig at Portsmouth to find that the ship’s surgeon was a drunkard; a very skilful doctor who had practised in Wimpole Street until his heavy drinking drove his patients away, and the Navy had offered him the only way of earning a living from medicine. Mr Ramage had other ideas: no drunkard would be allowed to treat his men, but he had neither the time nor the influence to have the man changed. Being Mr Ramage, Southwick reflected, he found no difficulty in solving the problem: the drunkard must be cured. It had been a terrible time for Bowen, the surgeon, for Southwick, and for Mr Ramage, but they had cured Bowen. And once the drink no longer clouded his brain, left his eyes bloodshot slits and his face a sweat-stained mat of unshaven whiskers, they found the surgeon was a highly intelligent and amusing man. But part of the convalescence had involved preventing Bowen returning to the drink, and once Ramage found that he was a skilful chess player, Southwick had been made to play seemingly endless games of chess.

  Actually Southwick himself, now considerably more skilful, enjoyed an occasional couple of games with Bowen, but four or five games a week were enough for him, whereas Bowen was good for four or five games a day. A parson had to be able to play, he told himself as he left the cabin. If he could not, then he could dam’ well learn.

  Although the seven newcomers had come by different coaches, starting off from London Bridge or the Bricklayers Arms, all had of course followed the Dover Road, stopping for fresh horses at Blackheath, the Golden Lion on Bexley Heath, again at Dartford, at the Chalk Street Turnpike beyond Gravesend, and finally at Rochester before getting out at the Star Inn to spend the night ready to join the Calypso early on Thursday.

  Aitken had left written orders at the Star for them to come on board at ten in the forenoon. At nine o’clock he reported to Ramage.

  “The foreman carpenter and his men have just left the ship, sir. I inspected the new cabins. The smell of paint is a bit strong, but they’ve swept up all the shavings and scraps of canvas. They even polished the glass windows in the doors. The hinges are greased and all the bulkheads swing up nicely and the doors have drop-on hinges. The doors aren’t marked, sir: I can have one of the men who’s a passing good signwriter paint on ‘chaplain’ and so on, if you like.”

  “We won’t bother yet. Let them decide. They’re going to be spending a lot of time together, and letting them choose their own cabins should sort them out!”

  Aitken paused as if he had bad news he was reluctant to report. “It’s about the last lot of men returning from leave, sir.”

  Ramage felt a sudden depression. He had trusted the first half of the ship’s company and all but one had returned on time, and the man had come back a day late with a story probably true, of being waylaid and robbed. Why was there trouble with the second half of the ship’s company?

  “How many?”

  “Three, sir.”

  Ramage sighed with relief. “I thought you were going to say 33. The Dockyard Commissioner wrote to the Navy Board, telling them that I was giving everyone leave and forecasting that I’d be lucky to get fifty men back.”

  “He must have been basing the estimate on his own men.”

  “Or himself. Now, everything is ready for the chaplain and his party? If we can drop down to Sheerness on this afternoon’s ebb we can be alongside a powder barge at Black Stakes soon after daylight tomorrow and be off through the Four Fathom Channel by early afternoon.”

  “Everything is ready for them and we’re ready to sail. I’ve hoisted in all our boats—they can hire a local sloop, or use a dockyard boat. Young Martin has said goodbye to his father and the letter bag has gone on shore. The tradesmen have been on board to get their bills settled, and I’ve ordered all the women to be off the ship by noon.”

  “Wouldn’t ten o’clock have been better—before the chaplain, ah …”

  “No, sir,” Aitken said emphatically. “Unless you give orders to the contrary, I’d like to watch the parson’s face as the women go down into the boat. We’ll learn more about him in two minutes than we would otherwise in two months.”

  Aitken was quite right, of course. The whole thing was a cold-blooded business because it meant a captain had to allow whores on board, but like most other Navy captains Ramage insisted only that a man had to vouch for each woman and be responsible for her behaviour (obeying the Admiralty instruction which said only that a man “claimed” the woman as his “wife,” with no limit on the number of ports in which the man could have a “wife”). If she misbehaved (quarrelling with others of the sisterhood or smu
ggling her man liquor were the most usual offences) she was turned off the ship and the man could not replace her.

  The Admiralty were, he admitted, very sensible in their attitude. Their Lordships knew that in wartime few seamen could be given shore leave without “running,” but fear of the men deserting did not stop their Lordships understanding that men at sea for months (sometimes a year or more) without seeing women, let alone sharing a hammock with one, had to be given some freedom in port. If they could not be trusted to leave their ships to find the women on shore, the women had to be allowed on board. The price everyone had to pay was to accept the man’s declaration that the woman was his wife, and that he took responsibility for her while she was on board. A ship coming from abroad and staying a week or so at Plymouth before going to Chatham meant that a man could claim two wives, the only proviso being that he could afford them. The price tended to drop the further east the port. The highest price was at Plymouth with the Channel Fleet in: a large number of ships meant plenty of demand.

  Curious how these women would quarrel with each other: frantic screeching from below was the signal for the master-at-arms and the ship’s corporals to hurry down to stop a hairpulling, nail-clawing fight. Indeed, the reason why the cockpit was originally given that name was that the raucous noise of quarrelling women was reminiscent of fighting cocks in a cockpit.

  Aitken said, with elaborate casualness: “Orsini still seems very unhappy after returning from leave, sir.” The Scotsman thought the lad might have fallen in love or received some news of his family in Italy. But whatever it was, his sadness was affecting the men. Orsini was their favourite; he had a way of getting twice as much work out of them just because of his cheerful manner. At least, that had been the case until he came back from leave. Now he was as dour as John Knox on a rainy Sabbath in December.

  Ramage thought for a minute or two. The Marchesa was very well known to a few of the ship’s company—men like Jackson, Rossi and Stafford, who had helped rescue her—and known to most of the others. All were interested in any news of her, and undoubtedly Paolo as her nephew benefited from the relationship. Seeing the lad so downhearted must have led to a good deal of speculation. Perhaps now was the time to pass the word that Gianna was already travelling to Paris with the Herveys, on her way home to Tuscany.

  “His aunt, the Marchesa, is on her way back to Italy.” Ramage had kept his voice neutral, but Aitken stared at him, obviously shocked by the news.

  “But Bonaparte … He still occupies Volterra, which isn’t included in the Treaty … He’ll seize her, sir!”

  “She insisted on going, to be with her people. She would not be persuaded—by anyone.”

  At once Aitken saw the reason for the gloom that hung like a thunderstorm over the Captain, and for Orsini’s dour bad temper. They both loved her in their different ways but they shared the same fear and the same distrust of Bonaparte. If he seized her—when he seized her, rather—there would be nothing they could do. The British government would be powerless. Today Bonaparte did what he wanted, unchallenged; the Treaty was proof of that.

  “Shall I tell? …”

  “Yes. And have a quiet word with Orsini. It’s difficult for me to say anything at the moment.”

  Aitken straightened his hat and spoke slowly, his Perth accent more pronounced than usual, something which Ramage noticed happened whenever the First Lieutenant expressed deep feelings. “With us sailing tomorrow, sir, and being provisioned for five months and watered for three: we’re likely to be away for half a year. That’ll be half a year when ye’ll have no news of the Marchesa, sir?”

  Ramage nodded. “I’m assuming we’ll be away six to ten months, but as you know, I have secret orders which I’ve not yet read.”

  Aitken excused himself, both embarrassed and yet relieved to know the reason for the Captain’s and the Midshipman’s sadness. He could imagine the arguments that had gone on in London at the home of the Captain’s father: the men—the Earl of Blazey, Mr Ramage and Orsini—would have been arguing for reasons of affection; the Marchesa for reasons of state. It must have been a dreadful decision for a woman to make on her own: no husband, no relatives, no ministers could help her; she was—had been, rather—alone in a foreign land. Aitken was suddenly glad to be simply the son of a long-dead officer in the Royal Navy. It seemed inhuman to make a woman choose between some vague loyalty to a country and the man she loved.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RAMAGE had purposely not watched the seven men come on board (Aitken had proudly reported that there were in fact nine: two of the three seamen thought to have “run” had come on board from the same cutter), preferring a more individual approach after they had time to settle in. All except the chaplain were likely to be complete strangers to life afloat.

  Had he watched them come on board through the entry port he would have saved himself the shock of the chaplain’s appearance. Ramage had told Aitken to bring him to his cabin and introduce him at noon. For a moment he thought there had been some mistake until he saw Aitken behind the man.

  Small, with narrow shoulders and a stance that looked as though he was half crouching, a ferret face with stained protruding front teeth that reminded Ramage of splayed fingers, shifty and bloodshot eyes: the Reverend Percival Stokes looked more like a trapped pickpocket as he stopped inside the door and then lurched forward a few more paces, obviously pushed by Aitken.

  “My Lord Ramage? I am—”

  Aitken stepped in front of him. “Captain Ramage, sir: may I introduce the Reverend Percival Stokes? Mr Stokes—Captain Ramage.”

  Aitken had managed the introduction very well, but Ramage doubted if Stokes had noticed that the Captain did not use his title or, if he did, whether he could let his proximity to a member of the aristocracy go unremarked. The Reverend Percival Stokes, Ramage decided within seconds, would create havoc in the gunroom with his ingratiating brand of snobbery, fawning where he thought necessary and bullying where possible. Obviously someone with influence was indebted to the man—or, perhaps more likely, wanted him out of the way.

  “Oh, my Lord, I am honoured and grateful to be the chaplain to such a distinguished officer.”

  Ramage held up a hand. “You have been appointed chaplain to the Calypso frigate, not to me, and at your own request, Mr Stokes. I did not apply for a chaplain.”

  At first Ramage regretted speaking in such chilly tones (which clearly delighted Aitken), but a moment later he saw that neither the words, the double correction nor the snub had registered. Stokes, his hands clasped as though leading a congregation in prayer, was eyeing the sherry decanter and glasses on Ramage’s desk.

  In that moment Ramage thought he saw Stokes’s life as though glancing along a narrow, shadowy corridor, and three words came to mind—debt, drink, hypocrisy. The wretched man was probably heavily in debt and, because of drink, had been neglecting his parish more than usual when the shopkeepers decided it was time their parson paid some attention to Mammon as well as God. With the debtors’ prison suddenly presented to him as an alternative, it was likely that Stokes decided his vocation—for a year or two, anyway—was the Navy in peacetime. There he was paid, food was cheap and drink, duty-free, even cheaper. The Treaty ensured that no round shot would spin past his ears.

  Why did the man choose a frigate? Since his pay depended mainly on the number of men in the ship, a ship of the line offered eight hundred or so souls to be saved. A frigate like the Calypso had only two hundred souls. In both ships a chaplain received nineteen shillings a month, but he also had his “groats,” four pence a month for every man in his ship. In a ship of the line this meant an extra thirteen pounds a month, which was £156 a year. In a frigate like the Calypso it was about £3 6s a month, or about £40 a year.

  Why a frigate? Perhaps, despite the perpetual shortage of chaplains, even the Chaplain General had baulked at Mr Stokes; given that the Admiralty was prepared to grant him a warrant, perhaps the Chaplain General decided that he could do (or
come to) less harm in a frigate.

  Aitken stood to attention and said: “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I have—”

  “No, no, Mr Aitken,” Ramage said genially, having no intention of letting his First Lieutenant desert him at such a moment, “you have the ship so well organized it can run for fifteen minutes without you.”

  Aitken noted the fifteen minutes and sat down on the settee as Ramage gestured towards the armchair for Stokes. It was a seat from which a man of his stature would have to look up at both officers.

  “Your first ship, Mr Stokes?” Ramage asked amiably.

  “Oh yes, indeed, my Lord, oh yes, my goodness—”

  “My title is not used in the Navy, Mr Stokes; you address me as ‘sir’ and refer to me as ‘the Captain.’”

  “Oh yes, indeed, Captain sir,” Stokes said hurriedly, and Ramage noticed the man sprayed saliva as he talked, his protruding teeth tending to act like fingers over a hose.

  “Where were you—” Ramage just avoided saying “practising.” “Where were you—I mean, where was your benefice before you decided to come to sea?”

  “Oh, in Essex, Captain,” Stokes said vaguely.

  “Then you decided you would like to see more of the world?”

  “I had a row with my bishop,” the man said crossly and then, realizing his indiscretion, added with an ingratiating smile: “I considered I could best serve the Lord by saving souls among our brave seamen, exposed as they are to greater temptations than my flock in Essex.”

  “Ah,” Aitken said, glancing at Ramage, “that’s an interesting point of view which I know the Captain has considered before. At this place in Essex where you had your kirk—did ye not have whores and thieves and vagabonds, like anywhere else?”