Ramage and the Freebooters

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sitting in his cabin on board the Triton and reviewing the last couple of hours as he filled in the log, Ramage realized how little his brief written report to Admiral Robinson would tell of the story, because it was impossible to visualize unless you had been on board a slaver.

She was La Merlette of Rouen. Her owners had a cynical sense of humour: 'La merlette'—a hen blackbird. Built ten years ago, 260 tons burthen and ninety feet long on deck, she carried 375 slaves... The captain was a happy and portly little Rouenais who'd immediately stepped forward and revealed his identity when he realized Wheeler had been shot dead.

He was proud of his ship, rueful that his subterfuge had failed, and as he took Ramage round on a tour of inspection was equally proud of the way the slaves were cared for. He could, Ramage thought, have been a vintner proudly displaying his cellar of wines.

And that wasn't a bad simile either, for below deck La Merlette was like a long, narrow and low cellar. The ship was divided into five sections. Forward, the seamen lived in the fo'c'sle and each had a bunk, but since there was less than four feet of headroom, the captain explained, they usually slept on deck at sea in the tropics.

Abaft the seamen's accommodation was the space for the male slaves: a forty-feet-long compartment the width of the ship. Even staring at the slaves, lying, squatting and sitting, Ramage could hardly believe it. There was less than five feet headroom, so he had to crouch as he walked. Running the full length of me compartment on each side were two shelves, the lower about a foot from the deck, the second two and a half feet above the first, and each a few inches wider than the length of the slaves lying on their backs side by side, feet outboard, heads towards the centre-line.

Ramage looked closely at the first few slaves—the only ones he could see clearly since the light from the hatch hardly penetrated more than a dozen feet. They were all secured by hinged metal collars round their necks. Each end of the collar was bent out at right angles to form a flange and had a hole in it. In the shelf beneath each slave's head a slot was cut in the wood so that both flanges when pressed together went through it and a padlock was slipped through the holes from the underside.

Each slave could move his arms and legs—though little good it did, since the collar held his head and he was close between fellow-slaves. A canvas scoop—a windsail—was fitted at the after-hatch to catch the following winds, and the forward hatch was open, forcing a draught through the length of the compartment.

Along the centre-line, between the shelves on either side, there was a low, wide bench on which sat three rows of slaves, facing the starboard side. All of them had their knees drawn up and Ramage soon saw why: each was in leg irons. A man on the starboard side could not push back to straighten his legs because of the man behind him in the middle row. The third slave, his back to the larboard side, would slide off the edge of the bench if he straightened up...

The leg-irons were simply U-shaped metal straps fitting over the ankles. A metal rod with a knob at one end went through holes on each side of the iron and also through an eyebolt fitted into the bench. The knob prevented the rod being pulled out one way, a padlock through a hole at the opposite end stopped it being pulled out the other, and the eyebolt held it to the bench.

The slaves watched warily as Ramage, the French captain and a couple of the Triton's boarding party walked through. The stench was appalling—bilgewater, sweat, urine... Yet the slaves' quarters were clean—scrubbed out every day, the French captain explained, while the slaves exercised on deck. But, he added, all their lives the slaves had relieved themselves wherever they happened to be in the jungle and it was impossible in such a short voyage to train them to wait until they were led up on deck.

Although the slaves—all of them young men or boys—

were silent they were not sullen. Fearful, certainly, since the mere noise of the sea against the hull of a ship running in the Trades was frightening, and a thousand times worse if you were shackled down.

The crash of the mast going by the board, Ramage realized, must have sounded like the end of the world.

All the men had deep scars on their cheeks: the different tribal marks deliberately cut by the witch doctors during strange initiation rites. Some had two, three or even four vertical scars an inch long on either cheek; others ran horizontally. And many of the men sitting on the bench had the even more horrifying tribal marks running down their backs. These looked, in the half-light, like pieces of thin rope a couple of feet long stuck on the skin parallel to the spine.

The moment he saw these scars Ramage recalled his first trip to the West Indies, when the overseer at a plantation had explained what they were. The process began at puberty —one or more long cuts was made down the back and mud rubbed in so the flesh healed leaving a raised scar. This was cut again, and more mud rubbed in, Gradually the ridge grew higher, fattened along the centre because of the mud but contracted beneath by the original scar, until it was almost as fat as the top joint of a man's little finger: a long, thin brown sausage glued lengthwise to the skin. Adornment, tribal customs, a sign of manhood—whatever it was it looked worse than any seaman's back scarred by a cat-o'-nine-tails.

Most of the slaves would be under twenty-four years old— the demand was for youngsters. In Jamaica, he recalled, there was a £10 duty on every one landed who was over twenty-four.

Ramage had then gone on to inspect the women's compartment, which was the next aft. Fifteen feet long and also the full width of the ship, it was laid out like the men's. But it was too much and he hurried through and up the hatch, unable to face the terrified, appealing eyes that watched him. Women—they were young girls for the most part, few over eighteen.

The women's compartment was separated from the captain's cabin aft by two bulkheads which also formed cupboards. Ramage was surprised to find that abaft the captain's cabin there was another cabin fitted with more berths. When asked whose they were the Frenchman shrugged, saying he disliked being on his own, with the slaves between him and the crew, and the petty officers used it.

Shutting out the memory of what he had seen, Ramage filled in the log, noting the time and position the schooner had been sighted, weather conditions, and describing briefly how the man claiming to be the schooner's American captain had been shot. Then details of the prize's tonnage and cargo.

He did a sum on a scrap of paper. Slaves were fetching a high price in Jamaica and La Merlette carried 375. Or rather, had shipped that number, but eleven had died. An average of, say, seventy-five guineas a head meant that her present cargo was worth more than 27,000 guineas. Add in the value of a well-built, fast ship...

Which brought him back to the next decision facing him. Southwick and the carpenter's mate had been over to inspect La Merlette and both now reckoned the chances of repairing the mainmast were almost nil because, unless there was an almost flat calm, it would be impossible to raise the mast into position. Plus three days' work actually fishing the mast, replacing the rigging and setting it up. How long would they have to wait for a calm day? It could be two days—or two weeks.

Another factor was that the schooner carried a large crew, and a cut-throat mob they were. They needed to be, with the constant threat of the slaves rising against them, and they shipped in slaves only because of the pay, which was very high since sickness was the worst enemy—Ramage recalled:

Beware and take care of the Bight of Benin, There's one comes out for forty go in... It was an old song and probably true. Anyway, the schooner would need a prize crew of twenty since her penny-pinching owners were forced to give her a crew of twenty, and there were the slaves to guard. And the First Lord's orders precluded him from delaying the Triton by escorting the schooner into Barbados.

Well, there was no choice: he could—indeed he'd have to —keep the French prisoners on board the Triton and let Appleby and twenty Tritons take in La Merlette. That meant there'd be forty men left to work the Triton and guard twenty very tough prisoners. He could only pray that neither ship met a French privateer. Still the French captain was cheerfully reaching along to windward of the islands with only the foremost standing. Barbados was at most a couple of days sailing for La Merlette and dead to leeward. Young Appleby would have no difficulty getting there even if he jogged along under headsails alone.

Yet it'd be easier to leave La Merlette to her French crew: her captain could make Guadeloupe, where he'd already said she was due to call anyway before going on to Haiti. But Ramage dismissed the idea: Admiral Robinson would be extremely angry at letting such a prize slip through his hands.

Ramage glanced up at the skylight and at his watch. Just under a couple of hours of daylight left. Now he'd made up his mind, it was time to transfer the French prisoners to the Triton and send over spare provisions and water to the schooner. Appleby would be delighted at the honour of sailing the schooner into Barbados with only the foremast standing. Bringing in a prize with a 27,000-guinea cargo on board would go a long way towards ensuring Admiral Robinson's interest in helping him pass for lieutenant. As far as Ramage could see, that was the only way the master's mate would ever make it, since he had the brain of an ox.

With Wheeler dead, there was only the French captain and one other officer. They could have Appleby's berth— easier to guard them there, too. He called to the Marine sentry to pass the word for Southwick so he could give the necessary orders.

*

The 'French prisoners had been herded below under a Marine guard; food and water transferred to La Merlette; the prize crew were on board. Ramage was pleased he'd remembered to include Harris among the crew because he would be one of the senior ratings; and Appleby also had Stafford and Fuller with him. Since the Triton had been stripped of her best men, Appleby would have only himself to blame if things went wrong.

Ramage stood at the break in the gangway as Appleby up from below, a chart rolled under his arm.

'Have you forgotten anything?'

'Don't think so, sir,' he said cheerfully, forgetting his Captain's dislike of vague answers.

'Either you have or you haven't Chart, sextant, tables, almanack?'

'Got them all, sir.'

'Latest position from Mr Southwick, course to steer, chronometer checked with La Merlette's?' 'All done, sir.'

'Ensign, set of flags, rockets, false fires...?'

'All on board, sir.'

'Very well. We'll be in sight for much of the night, so don't be afraid to send up a rocket if you've forgotten anything or find you can't manage.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Appleby answered patiently, and Ramage realized he sounded like a mother fussing the first time her son left home for school.

'Good luck, then, and don't forget to salute the Admiral if you find him in Barbados!'

Half an hour later the Triton's boat was back and it was being hoisted on board, La Merlette began setting sail and getting under way. As Ramage watched, the surgeon came up and commented:

'Appleby's first command I He must be excited!'

'I suppose so,' Ramage grunted. 'He's the dullest dog I've ever met. Has no—no push, if you know what I mean.'

The surgeon nodded. 'Still, he tries—and he's very young.'

'Yes, about fourteen months younger than L'

'I beg your pardon, sir, I didn't------'

Ramage laughed. 'It's a compliment, Bowen.'

'This French captain,' Bowen said, hastily changing the subject. 'What son of man is he? I mean, how can someone trade in human lives? It seems—well, against everything their Revolution was supposed to stand for.'

'I've been wondering the same thing. He reminds me of a typical French grocer: cheerful, fat and sharp as a needle.'

Bowen said, 'I must admit I'm an Abolitionist, sir. I've never done anything about supporting Wilberforce, but I admire his work.'

'So do I. At this very moment I feel like resigning my commission and offering him my services.'

'A laudable spirit, if I may say so, sir,' Bowen said seriously. 'But at the moment the country faces worse enemies than slavers. While we condemn a cruel slaver we mustn't forget the first three years of the French Revolution saw more cruelty performed by Frenchmen against Frenchmen in the streets of Paris alone than there's been in the Bight of Benin in the last fifty years.'

Ramage nodded, thinking of the thousands who'd been led to the guillotine merely because they had been born in the upper or middle classes, not because they opposed the Revolution. And they'd been followed by hundreds of people falsely denounced to the Directory by their enemies to pay off old scores.

'Well, one way we can find out what the Frenchman thinks is for me to invite him to dine with me tonight. The idea isn't very appealing—I'd sooner heave him over the side. But it's customary for the Captain to make such an invitation—though hardly to a slaver.'

The Surgeon did not try to hide his interest, 'Perhaps you would join me, Bowen. I can't ask South-wick as he'll be on watch.'

*

The French captain, Jean-Louis Marais, spoke good English, ate heartily (though hinting that a clove of garlic would have improved the meat) and sniffed delicately at the brandy. His chubby face was non-committal; then he glanced over the top of the glass and said:

'Good—yes. But M'sieur Ramage, I hope you won't think me impolite if I regret that I forgot to make you a present of my spirit locker before we parted company with La Merlette?' Ramage, who found himself liking the Frenchman's irrepressible cheerfulness—he could keep grinning within a few hours of finding his ship captured and himself a prisoner of war—couldn't resist saying: 'I hope you won't think me impolite, M'sieur Marais, but by that time it was hardly yours to give...'

'Touche! But your King wouldn't have begrudged it'

'I fear he would; in fact his regulations particularly forbid taking anything out of a captured ship until she has been "adjudged lawful prize" in some Admiralty court------'

'A barbarous regulation!' Marais exclaimed. 'Why 'Another says that "None of the officers, mariners or other persons on board her shall be stripped of their clothes, or in any sort pillaged..."' Ramage added dryly. 'Now that is barbarous.'

'My shirt is of little value, but my heart is of pure gold.'

'We'll have that, then—don't you agree, Bowen?'

The surgeon nodded. 'Yes—I can remove it without spoiling the shirt.'

'Ah, what an evening,' Marais said, still sniffing the brandy between sentences. 'A good dinner, good company— and a good surgeon to do whatever the host requires, quickly and painlessly!'

Bowen said evenly, 'Since you owned a slaver, I imagine not only your heart is made of gold.'

'You overestimate the profit,' Marais said blandly, 'and you natter me. I regret I am not the owner—was not the owner,' he corrected himself. 'Merely the captain.'

'But surely it's a profitable trade,' Ramage said.

'It's a gamble. When you win, you make a lot of money. When you lose, you lose heavily. There's no—how do you say? No "happy medium".'

'But on a round voyage surely you can hedge your bet?' Ramage asked. 'There's profit on the goods you carry from France to the Cape Coast, and profit in carrying sugar, spice and rum from the West Indies to France. Surely your gamble is only from the Cape Coast to the West Indies with the slaves?'

'True,' said Marais. 'But that's also where the major profit is. Don't forget these are fast ships, well-equipped and splendidly built. You saw there's little cargo space—no depth in the holds. And the crews have to be large and need to be paid very well—twice as much as in merchantmen. So for two thirds of a round voyage—from France to the Cape Coast, then from the West Indies back to France —they are expensive and half of them unnecessary.'

'What's the usual profit on a slave?' Bowen asked bluntly.

Marais shrugged his shoulders. 'M'sieur Bowen, be thankful that in the world of medicine you are never concerned with the words "net" and "gross". But a fair question deserves a fair answer. We don't buy the slaves with cash—

it's all bartering with the goods we carry out from France. But it works out at—forgive me, I must change the coinage— yes, about twenty-five guineas a slave: that's what we pay the chiefs and traders for a male. About fifteen guineas for a female. And we sell males at'—he paused, changing French louts into English money—'between fifty and sixty guineas each, providing we are among the first slavers in after the hurricane season ends or the last in before it starts. So our gross profit is between twenty-five and thirty-five guineas for each slave. But ten per cent might the on the voyage— it's rarely as high as that, incidentally—or we might arrive within a week of another slaver, in which case naturally the market price is lower.'

Bowen was obviously both horrified and fascinated by the way Marais discussed the slaves as if they were sacks of sugar or puncheons of rum.

'I don't see how you can make a loss?'

Marais' eyes looked up at the deckhead, shrugging his shoulders and holding out his hands, palms uppermost.

'M'sieur Bowen, I would like you as a backer. If I had a ship but no money to finance a voyage, I wish I could meet you and persuade you to take shares!'

'Why?' Bowen asked innocently.

Marais was serious now: the sharp little eyes focused on the surgeon, the palms of his hands were flat on the table, shoulders hunched forward. The lamp swinging in its gimbals on the bulkhead threw shadows which changed his face from that of a jolly grocer to the captain of a slaver used to dealing with desperate situations which needed desperate measures.

'Take your field, M'sieur Bowen, medicine. The Cape Coast is the unhealthiest place in the world. I often have to take my ship thirty miles up rivers to collect my cargo—in itself a great risk to the ship. I've read the burial service over more bodies consigned to those rivers than ever at sea. I sail from France with a crew of thirty-five—because I need twenty left alive for the passage from the Cape Coast to the West Indies. Many times I've made a passage with only a dozen... The rest have died of sicknesses for which there is no cure, only a death of the most painful kind. When you came in sight,' he said to Ramage, 'only twenty of the thirty five who left France had survived: fifteen died in the Bight of Benin—one stabbed by a treacherous slave-trader, the rest from sickness.'

'But losing crew from sickness is hardly a financial loss,' Ramage objected pointedly.

Marais gave a sly grin. 'I understand the implication; but there is a loss because men who ship in slavers are not gamblers. They won't sign on and agree to collect their pay at the end of the round voyage, so if they died the owner doesn't have to pay, which is what you are thinking. Oh no! They want a large advance before they leave France. Why, 'Come, come,' Ramage interrupted. 'If you paid such large advances they'd desert on the eve of sailing.'

Without saying it, Marais' hands and a twitch of his head indicated this was proof enough of the crude way of British sailors but that French sailors were cleverer.

'The advance, usually four months' pay, is delivered by my agent to whoever the seaman nominates—a week after we have sailed.'

'What do you barter for the slaves?' Bowen asked.

'All sorts of manufactured goods. Cloth and clothing— the brighter the better—brass and iron cooking pots, beads, knives, looking-glasses—they're very popular—liquor, muskets, shot, powder, cutlasses------'

'Muskets and shot?' exclaimed Bowen.

'Of course—the chiefs pay well for them. They're cheap affairs, naturally; more danger to the men that fire them than their targets!'

'And how—well, what happens when you first arrive on the Coast?'

Marais grinned at Ramage. 'First we discover whether there are any British ships of war in the area. Then—well, let's describe it as it was before the war, then I shan't give away any secrets.

'First, M'sieur Bowen, there's a slaving season—that's obvious, because we don't want to arrive in the Caribbean during the hurricane season. So on the Coast the trading settlements and local native chiefs have been preparing for us by collecting slaves. When enough slave ships arrive, the slaves are taken to the market and each captain inspects them.

As he chooses one, so he bargains with the owner—usually a slave-trader or the agent of the particular chief—and agrees on the price.'

Bowen asked: 'These chiefs—where do they get the slaves?'

'You might well ask! From many places. To start with a chief takes up any young men or boys in his own tribe who have misbehaved. Not criminals necessarily, you understand? Then, if it's a large tribe and the chief wants a lot of muskets, or a lot of bright clothes for his wives—well, he's likely to march some of his own people to the settlement.

'Of course, the tribes often raid each other's villages to capture men to sell as slaves. That's quite usual—you can always tell by the tribal marks on the faces. If you see a chief's agent at the market has, say, two vertical scars on his cheek and the slaves he's offering have one horizontal scar, you know they're prisoners of war from another tribe. If they are the same scars—well, the chief is either selling those who've misbehaved, or he's getting greedy.'

'But surely you don't get all your slaves at the settlements?' asked Ramage, remembering Marais' reference to rivers. 'Most of the settlements are on the coast, aren't they?'

'We get perhaps half from the settlements: the best—and the most expensive. The rest we find up the rivers, visiting small villages.'

'You capture them,' Bowen said bluntly.

'Oh no!' Marais exclaimed. 'For a start it'd be too dangerous to send a party of seamen on shore; in fact we usually have a guard boat rowing round the ship day and night. No, a hundred seamen wouldn't last an hour in that jungle— they'd be riddled with spears and arrows from three yards away by natives they couldn't even see, or else they'd come back riddled with sickness.

'Oh no, M'sieur Bowen, we arrive at a village and wait. First a representative of the chief—perhaps even the chief himself—comes out in a canoe for a palaver. He tells us how many slaves he has and the price he wants. One of my men—usually the mate—goes back with him and inspects them. When they return, we agree on the price. And usually, after dark, more canoes arrive with slaves from villages near-by.'

'Where do the other slaves come from then?"

'I never ask, but it's obvious.' Marais shrugged his shoulders. 'You must understand that a man with two sons and six daughters considers he has six useless mouths to feed: he values only his sons. So he's likely to sell some of his daughters. If he has little land and many sons—well, the extra sons too. Particularly if he dislikes any of them.'

Bowen groaned.

'My friend,' said Marais, 'don't be shocked; don't judge them by your standards. These people live different lives and have different codes. They're happy and they work just enough to avoid starving. And it's difficult to starve because fruit and many vegetables grow wild in the jungle, and they catch fish in the rivers.

'And you must remember the family is not the family as we Europeans understand the word. Before I went to the Coast I'd have been shocked if I'd known what I'm telling you now. After twenty years, I understand.

'Incidentally, things we do shock them. The idea of spending sums of money in building enormous ships solely for fighting—that shocks them. They have large canoes—but when they're not fighting another tribe they're used for fishing or trade.

'You consider government. When a chief dies, all the elders elect a new chief—the man they think is best qualified to lead them in battle, administer justice and so on. The European system makes them laugh—a hereditary king whose son'—he glanced significantly at Ramage—'might be stupid or insane or otherwise totally unfit for the crown; men three or four hundred "minor chiefs" elected without qualifications by fools who were probably bribed with pints of ale... You'll admit the results in Europe are a series of situations where nothing gets done and the minor chiefs—your Members of Parliament, the French senators—simply make speech after speech. Who's to say which system is best? In my opinion one system suits the Cape Coast, another suits Europe.'

'When you have me slaves on board,' Bowen asked, 'how are they fed, exercised, cared for?'

Marais looked at him squarely. 'M'sieur, I think you are a supporter of that M'sieur Wilberforce. But always remem her this—it would be madness for a slaver captain not to care for the slaves. For every slave that dies—pouf, there's a twenty-five guinea investment and another twenty-five guinea profit thrown over the side. If you had hundreds of guineas invested in a company, I think you'd make quite sure the company's goods were well cared for.

'However, to answer your question. The slaves—in La Merlette, anyway, and she is typical—get three meals a day, and the food is what they're used to. Once we're at sea they spend at least five hours a day on deck. True, each pair of men is shackled together with leg irons, but they get plenty of exercise—they even manage to dance. Their accommodation is cleaned out while they're on deck, and we give them brandy each day.'

Ramage grunted. For all the talk—and Marais was sincere and the logic of some of his arguments was inescapable even if you disagreed with him—it didn't change Ramage's views on slavery. That chiefs of tribes would sell their own youth into slavery didn't justify slavers buying them. Nor did it justify plantation owners buying them from me slavers.

Marais obviously guessed his thoughts.

'What's the Royal Navy's bounty for seamen now, M'sieur Ramage?'

'That's hardly relevant.'

'No? Your country's Navy and mine are manned in the same way. Prisons are emptied and men herded on board ships of war in which they stay for years, usually without shore leave and for wages hardly worthy of the name. Or a starving man is offered a pitifully small crust of bread—a bounty—to join. To stay alive he accepts—and at once becomes a slave of your King or, in the French ships, the Directory.

'Perhaps not even a starving man. A farm labourer gets drunk—and wakes up to find himself in a boat on his way to a ship of war, having been knocked on the head by a press gang. He's left a wife and children at home to starve,' Marais continued.

'In France and in Britain the price of bread and potatoes goes up every few weeks. Staple foods, M'sieur Ramage: foods that town-dwellers cannot grow, nor can many of the country folk. So, the poor are almost starving. Can you imagine a plantation-owner who's paid more than fifty guineas for a slave letting him starve?'

'Slavery is for life,' Bowen pointed out. 'A seaman serves only for the war.'

'And when the war ends? Why, he's thrown out—along with thousands of other seamen, and soldiers too—and can't find work. All he knows is seamanship. He doesn't know where his next meal will come from; he may have lost a limb; his constitution is probably ruined through hard service in bad climates. Scurvy will have lost him his teeth; malignant fevers will plague him always. Yes, a slave's a slave all his Life—and that means regular meals all his life, too.

'Your M'sieur Wilberforce means well, and so do you gentlemen. But shouldn't we look at the starving people living lives little removed from slavery in the narrow streets of our towns, or in hovels in our villages, before we condemn slavery? Only cheap gin or wine to keep them warm in winter: no fires, no fuel, very little food?'

'I'm sorry, M'sieur Marais,' Ramage said abruptly, 'nothing can be achieved by talking about it. Are you by any chance a chess player?"

Marais' eyes lit up. 'Ah—chess! How I wish for a good game. When I choose my officers, always I ask if they play chess. But never..."

Ramage glanced at Bowen. 'I think you'll have time for a few games before we reach Barbados. I'll have the steward take the chess set to your cabin, Bowen. Oh, by the way, M'sieur Marais, to save you the embarrassment of playing chess with a sentry standing behind you, if you gave your parole...'

'Gladly,' said Marais, 'If I escape I have to swim to Guadeloupe. If I give my parole I can play chess in comfort. Thank you for a pleasant evening.'

Bowen led the way out of the cabin and Ramage looked round for his hat to go up on deck. Two more nights in the Trades, and then Barbados, and under the orders of the Admiral... He realized he'd be more than happy if the Atlantic crossing lasted another couple of months. He was happy with his own little floating world. It had been a challenge to change a mutinous crew into a loyal one, and he wasn't the slightest bit ashamed of his pride in having achieved it.