Ramage and the Freebooters

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 me 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 South-wick? 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 this face and this 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, 'H.M.S. Triton' and in smaller letters underneath, 'Captain's Log 18 April 1797 - I7 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 I9th 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, H.M. 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 nonviolent 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 anything 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 puntuated 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's 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 me 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's eyes following the blade as it came out of me 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 Wade 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------'

'Damn the Regulations, Mr Southwick; I have a reason.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

Snapping at Southwick hurt me 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, men 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: me men had stowed their hammocks, they were obeying the order to come aft to hear what he had to say, but mar was all: they were still mutinous—the majority anyway.

He scrambled up on top of the capstan and said loudly: 'Gather round, men.'

And, he thought grimly, this is one of the moments for which all the years of training are supposed to have prepared me.

They grouped themselves in a half-circle facing aft. Apart from the faint moan of the wind, the rattle of halyards against the mast and the slop of waves against the hull, there was a sullen, brooding, menacing silence that could come only from a mob of discontented and potentially dangerous men: a silence like fog soaking cold and damp right through to the skin of the man facing them.

Ramage hadn't rehearsed a speech because his memory was so bad he usually forgot the words. Instead he usually memorized the main points he wanted to make. This morning there were just five.

'Well, men, you know by now I am your new Captain and Mr Southwick is the Master. I know some of you because we sailed together in the Kathleen. The rest I'll get to know very soon. And I have some news for all of you: news the Fleet won't be hearing for a while.

'Two days ago I was at the Admiralty receiving my orders from Lord Spencer, the First Lord. He told me I could tell you the Government has considered very sympathetically the delegates' requests for better pay, provisions and conditions in the Fleet. Because Parliament has to approve any changes, the Government is drawing up a new Act as quickly as possible.'

End of point one, and no reaction from the group, but they were listening intently.

'As far as all you Tritons are concerned, the Fleet's delegates will have to look after your interests—and I'm sure they'll do it well enough—because this ship is under orders to sail at once for Brest and Cadiz with despatches.'

End of point two and the men began murmuring: an angry murmuring, like disturbed bees. Ramage realized that in a moment someone—this fellow Harris for example—would take a pace forward and start haranguing the men. Then, as had happened in the rest of the ships, the officers—he and Southwick in this case—would be bundled on shore. Quiet words weren't working. Very well, now the gambler's bluff was being called.

'In the meantime,' he continued, his voice only slightly louder but the change of tone indicating the importance of his words, 'in the meantime, I want to remind you the discipline and conditions to be maintained on board this ship are those laid down in the Regulations and Instructions and in the Articles of War. No more and no less. But apart from them, let no one dodge his duty—it just means more work for the next man. And remember mis: if you'd been in Bonaparte's Navy, every single one of you would've been hanged by now.'

That was point three. No reaction—nor did he expect any.

'Oh yes,' he added, as if it was an afterthought, 'hands up those of you who can swim.'

Hands were raised and Ramage counted them aloud.

'Nineteen out of sixty-one. Hmm... forty-two of you can't swim. Very well. Harris!'

He snapped out the name, and years of prompt response to discipline could not stop Harris taking an involuntary step forward 'Harris—I want to speak with you alone. Go below and wait in the cabin. Take a lantern with you.'

It took Harris a couple of minutes to collect the lantern and go down the companionway, every man on deck watching him and wondering.

Ramage guessed—was gambling, rather—that Harris, by himself, was no threat: he was almost certain—but not quite —that Harris had become the men's spokesman simply because he was better educated and more articulate: he was not a trouble-maker nor a revolutionary.

He'd learned a lot in the few moments he'd watched the man in his hammock, and Harris was probably sensible enough to realize by now that Ramage unofficially acknowledged him as a spokesmen, and sending him below at this moment indicated there was something to talk about Suddenly Ramage said sharply to the group:

'Right: every man to his station for weighing and making sail.'

This was the crucial moment: he stood poised above the men, trying to will them to move, the words of Lord Spencer, Southwick and Jackson echoing and, as he watched, mocking.

Eight or nine men—all former Kathleens—turned and walked forward. But everyone else stood firm, many of them muttering to each other, a muttering which increased to excited talk. A dozen or so—again, they seemed to be Kathlens—remained silent.

'Very well,' Ramage snapped, a harsh note in his voice.

'Just remember this: forty-two of you can't swim, the ode's falling, and over there, dead to leeward, you can see the sea breaking over the end of Spit Sand...'

The muttering stopped abruptly, the men puzzled by his words, unsure what he meant, unsure whether or not they'd just heard some fearful threat whose significance they did not understand.

Ramage knew he had the initiative again and promptly jumped down to walk forward through the group, forcing men to step aside.

Then, stopping abreast the mainmast, he turned and said:

'Mr Southwick, the axe please!'

Southwick, who had been waiting unnoticed to one side of the men, walked over with a large axe in his hand: an axe used on wooding expeditions, when a boatload of men were sent off to some deserted beach to cut wood for the ship's galley.

Slipping his sword belt over his head, Ramage gave it to the Master in exchange for the axe, moving so he could look at the group of men as he turned. They might have been carved from stone—an impression increased by the grey morning light. But Ramage felt as if he was made of wet bread.

Axe in hand, Ramage walked forward, suddenly feeling almost sick with disappointment, apprehension and too much weak, oversweet tea. Talk had failed, but he knew talk was always dangerous—seamen interpreted soft words as weakness; hard words as a challenge. They judged a man by what he did, not what he said. As he'd half expected, his speech had proved a compromise and suffered the fate of all compromises, simply delaying the moment for action. Parliament and bureaucrats please note, he thought sourly, and wished he hadn't drunk the tea, which was slopping around inside him.

And then he was standing beside the anchor cable which, taut with the strain on it and three feet above me deck, was made fast round the solid H-shaped wooden bins before being led below to the cable tier. The largest cable in the ship, it was a massive piece of cordage, thirteen inches in circumference. (More important, there were four others of the same size, each 720 feet long and weighing more than two tons, stowed below.) Ramage took a firm grip of the axe, noting the wind hadn't changed direction and, if anything, was blowing stronger, so the Spit Sand shoal was still dead to leeward. He changed his stance, placing his feet wider apart. Had the men guessed? Hard to believe they hadn't, but like some wretched actor he had to make sure he was building up to an effective climax.

Turning to look over his shoulder he called:

'All well aft there, Mr Southwick?'

'All well, sir.'

The Master would shout a warning if they tried to rush him. Surprising how quickly the time was passing: it was light enough to recognize the men's faces. And, more important, light enough for them to see every move he made, and to see the waves breaking white on the shoal.

He raised the axe over his head and swung down hard on the cable where the first turn went over the broad and solid top of the bitts.

The thud almost numbed his hands, but the bitts made a solid chopping block. The blade cut perhaps a quarter of the way through the rope, but there was such a strain on it that already the severed strands began unravelling. A second stroke, then a third and fourth. The cable hummed as the whole strain of holding the ship against the wind came on the remaining strands. Stepping back a pace, clear of danger for the final blow, he swung the blade down again.

As if some giant plucked an enormous harp string, the severed end of the cable twanged and shot away from him, whiplashing the width of the deck before snaking out through the hawse like an escaping boa-constrictor.

A moment later a splash told him the cable, with one of the Triton's bower anchors at the end of it, was now sinking into the murky water of Spithead.

The Triton was adrift: already, even as he turned aft, the wind began swinging her bow round to leeward. Since it was high water, with no tidal stream, the Triton had been wind-rode, lying with her bow heading to me north-west. Now she was swinging broadside on to the wind and in a minute or so the wind would be driving her down on to the eastern end of the shoal. Few if any of the men would know mere was a channel, the Swatchway, cutting diagonally across, the shoal just to the west of where the sea was breaking.

Ramage flung down the axe and began walking aft, his face cold with a perspiration brought on by fear, not physical exertion. It was done now: the challenge had been flung at the mutineers' feet: obey the order to make sail or drown when the Triton hit the shoal and either heeled over and then filled on the rising tide or was lifted up and down by the waves until she pounded to pieces. There was only one flaw and he hoped they'd be too excited to spot it: boats from other ships in the Fleet might rescue them in time.

The men began shouting at one another and gesticulating —not at Ramage but at the two boats stowed on deck between the two masts. Three or four men began hurrying towards the boats but Southwick was beside him holding out a musketoon, a musket with a very large bore and the muzzle belled out like a trumpet, Ramage took it and shouted: 'Still!'

The sudden shout combined with the equally unexpected single word 'still'—which normally brought everyone on deck to attention—stopped every man and every tongue for five seconds, during which Ramage promptly cocked the musketoon, the click in the silence sounding as loud as a blacksmith's hammer hitting an anvil.

'If anyone moves towards those boats I'll fire through the bottoms so they won't float anyway. Now, you've three minutes to make sail before we hit the shoal.'

Touch and go: would they have the wit to rush him instead? There'd be plenty of confusion anyway because it'd been impossible to prepare a general quarter, watch and station bill which would have described every man's post for manoeuvre, including weighing anchor and making sail.

But no one was moving. Frightened or still defiant? Hard to tell, but he must assume the former. Plenty of confusion gave anyone with definite ideas or orders an opportunity to get control.

'Carry on, Southwick, this is our chance!' he said quietly. 'Walk aft—detail the first dozen you meet as foretopmen, second dozen maintopmen, then half a dozen afterguard and fo'c'slemen, and we'll sort the rest out as we go. Jackson and Stafford at the helm.'

Southwick gave him back his sword and walked through the group, gesticulating as he went. Still holding the musketoon Ramage watched, his body rigid with tension.

Yes! A dozen men were walking forward now, six of them going to the larboard side and six to the starboard— the foretopmen. A dozen more split up to go to the main shrouds as maintopmen. A small group headed aft and another turned to the fo'c'sle.

Keep the initiative, he muttered to himself; but there's not much time. A glance over the larboard side at the wide area of waves breaking grey and white showed that even if he got through a crisis with the crew, another of his own making was looming close to leeward in the shape of the shoal.

'Away aloft!' he shouted.

At once two dozen men began scrambling up the ratlines of both masts.

With that he began walking aft to the quarterdeck, the traditional centre of all orders and discipline where South-wick was waiting anxiously.

'Going to be touch and go whether we can get into the Swatchway!' the Master muttered.

'It'd better go—if we touch we'll never get off!'

Southwick's laughter, louder because of the strain he was under, boomed across the deck. Men stopped for a moment and looked aft nervously. Ramage, realizing it might ease the tension, also began bellowing with laughter at his own joke. Then the men carried on, obviously puzzled but probably reassured. The shoal was a couple of hundred yards away: six ship-lengths. He'd just weather the western end if no one made a mistake.

'Jackson, Stafford! Take the helm. Speaking trumpet, South wick.'

Handing Southwick the musketoon, he put the black japanned trumpet to his lips and methodically began shouting the string of familiar orders which would get the Triton under way. Quickly the triangular-shaped jib snaked up as men hauled at the halyard, and the sheets were trimmed.

Almost at the same moment the foretopsail was let fall from the yard, hanging down like an enormous curtain, followed by the maintopsail.

He could see the men were working swiftly now: the instinct for self-preservation was swamping any mutinous ideas...

Swiftly the yards were hoisted and braced round and the sheets hauled home so the sails caught every scrap of wind, but for many long moments the brig was dead in the water, the wind on her hull simply pushing her sideways down towards the end of the shoal.

Then, at first almost imperceptibly, the Triton gathered way and Ramage began passing orders to Jackson and Stafford at the helm. Once she was making a couple of knots or more the rudder would get a bite on the water; until then she'd continue moving crabwise to leeward.

Ramage watched the buildings on the shore at Gilkicker Point and saw the Triton's bowsprit gradually stop swinging towards them, then begin to head up to starboard. Steerage-way at last!

A glance over the larboard side showed the end of the shoal was less than forty yards to leeward; but even as he watched the flurry of waves breaking over it began to draw aft. Another glance round to get his bearings and see where the Swatchway Channel began.

Now the brig was beginning to heel in stronger gusts of wind and slowly Ramage managed to work her up until, with the entrance of the channel broad on the larboard bow, it was safe to ease sheets and braces and bear away to pass through it.

Leaving Southwick to give the final orders to trim each sail to perfection, Ramage watched the bulky line of battle ships anchored to the south at Spithead, beyond the Spit Sand. The Port Admiral had been sure they'd open fire as the Triton passed, but Ramage hoped he'd taken them by surprise, unexpectedly cutting through the Swatchway instead of using the main channel and then, by hugging the shore under Gilkicker Point, keep out of the arcs of fire even if they could get the guns loaded and run out in time.

There was no sign of the alarm being raised; no flags being hoisted or a gun fired to draw attention to them.

'There's a little cutter flying our pennant numbers and trying to catch up, sir,' called Southwick.

Fresh orders? Or the surgeon, midshipman, bo'sun and sergeant of Marines me Triton lacked and the Port Admiral had been trying to find for him? Well, they'd have to chase for a few more minutes, until he could wait out of range of the Fleet's guns. Finally he said:

'Heave-to and wait for 'em, Mr Southwick; 'I'll be in the cabin.'

As he went down the companionway to his cabin it was broad daylight but the thick, grey rolling cloud coming over the Porchester hills would hide the sunrise in a few minutes.

Well, he'd won every trick so far—although, he told himself bitterly, he'd had to do it by force: he'd failed to persuade the men to obey his orders from the beginning. Still, the effect was the same.

But winning the final trick depended on the cards held by the seaman Harris, waiting in his cabin. That one man might have it in his power during the next few hours to stop the Triton delivering the despatches to Admirals Curtis and St Vincent and then crossing the Western Ocean to warn Admiral Robinson in the Caribbean.

It was a crazy situation, he reflected, that the success of the First Lord's orders, the intentions of the Board of Admiralty, the desperate need to warn these admirals at sea without a moment's delay that the Fleet at Spithead had mutinied, probably depended at this particular moment not on storms in the Western Ocean, good navigation or Lieutenant Ramage, but on a man called Harris, rated able seaman in the Triton's muster book.

He was standing by the table as Ramage entered the cabin and he stood to attention. Ramage nodded and hung his sword on a hook beside the desk. Pulling the chair round he then sat down and took the muster book out of the drawer.

The daylight shining down through the skylight was cold and grew, stronger now than the yellow, warm light of the lantern whose wick gave the cabin a stuffy, sooty smell.

Turning to Harris, Ramage asked quietly:

'When did you join the ship?'

'July last year, sir.'

Ramage turned back a few pages and found the entry.

Alfred Harris, age thirty-one, born at Basingstoke, Hampshire, volunteer, three years in me Navy.

Ramage chose his words carefully, Harris had been down here in the cabin for some time: he knew only that the Triton was under way, and that the whole ship's company had apparently obeyed Ramage's orders. Any reference to mutiny must, therefore, be in the past tense.

'Harris—were you the ringleader of the mutiny in this ship, or Just the men's spokesman?'

'Spokesman, sir.'

'Who was the ringleader?'

He knew Harris would never reveal a name; but he might reveal something much more important There wasn't a ringleader, sir. You see, after the sail o' the line refused to obey the Admiral's signal for the Fleet to get under way, the delegates came on board and told us the Fleet had mutinied. We could see that anyway—men cheering, the bloody flag flying, an' all that.'

'Yet you were the spokesman for the mutineers in the Triton: 'Not quite like that, sir.'

'Like what, men? The men had mutinied and they regarded you as their leader.'

'Well, sir, we hadn't really mutinied. We'd been—well, doing nothing, like the rest of the small ships of the Fleet, for several days. The delegates were all from the sail of me line: they told us in the small ships to leave it to them. Then when Mr Southwick suddenly came on board the men just left it to me to explain how—well, how things stood.'

'And before Mr Southwick came on board?'

'I was just one of the men, sir.'

Deciding bluff might help, Ramage asked:

'Why did they choose you? There must be a reason. In fact I heard you made yourself the leader.'

'No, sir!' Harris exclaimed. 'Whoever told you dial's a liar!'

'Have you any enemies on board?'

'No, sir.'

'Then why would anyone tell lies about you?'

'I don't know, sir. All I------'

'Well?'

'—All I do is write the letters for them that can't write, sir, and read letters from home. The men—well, they sort of rely on me.'

It was so simple and so obviously true. To the men Harris would be 'educated'; an obvious choice as a spokesman. They hadn't so much chosen him as left it to him. Yet if the Admiralty acted harshly, interpreted the Articles of War literally, it could----- 'You realize you can be hanged for what you've done?'

'Hanged, sir? Me, sir? Why, I...'

The man was stockily built, with a round and cheerful face, md fair hair that refused to grow at any normal angle from his head. He was the man in the shop helping the butcher, the baker or the grocer serve the customers: quietly-spoken, honest, well-meaning... And now the cheerful face was frightened: perspiration forming on the upper lip, hands clasped tightly behind the back, a slight sagging in at me chest, the shoulders coming forward, as if half-expecting a blow. And Ramage knew me man was hurriedly recalling the dozens of times he'd heard the Articles of War read aloud by the captain—at least once a month all the time he was it sea.

Ramage let him dunk for a full couple of minutes, then said quietly:

'I'll refresh your memory. Article Three, for instance: anyone who "shall give, hold or entertain intelligence to or with any Enemy or Rebel...'—punishable by death. Article four: failing to tell a superior officer about any letter or message from an enemy or rebel within twelve hours—death or such punishment as the court awards. Article Five: endeavouring to corrupt—same punishment. Article Nineteen: making a mutinous assembly, contempt to a superior officer —same punishment. (Then there are numbers Twenty, concealing "any traitorous or mutinous practice or design"; Twenty-one, any complaints about victuals to be made quietly to a superior officer, not used to create a disturbance; Twenty-two, disobeying the lawful command of a superior officer; Twenty-three, using reproachful or provoking speeches or gestures------'

'But sir, all I------'

'The delegates are rebels, Harris: they are rebels against their officers, captains, admirals and King... You "entertained intelligence" from them: you listened to what they said and obeyed them by joining the mutiny. You didn't tell a superior officer within twelve hours. By talking about the mutiny with the rest of the men you "took part in a mutinous assembly". You told the twenty-five men who joined from the Lively that the Triton had mutinied, and you and your shipmates scared them into joining you... Harris you can be hanged under half a dozen of the Articles of War: you've done things where the Articles don't even give a court an option—it would have to condemn you to death...'

'But I only told Mr Southwick------'

'And the men from the Lively.' '—Well, yes, I just sort of told them—they knew already, though.'

'Knew what?'

'That me Fleet had mutinied.'

'They didn't know the Triton had: you told them. Article Nineteen—you're guilty under both parts, and death the penalty for each. Twenty, Twenty-one ...'

'But I just told 'em, sir. I didn't make 'em join in. Anyone could have told 'em: it just happened to be me.'

'Harris,' Ramage said quietly, 'on the table beside you: the mahogany box.'

'Yes, sir?'

'Open it.'

Warily the man opened the lid.

'What do you see?'

'Pair o' pistols, sir. Bag o' shot, powder flask an' all that'

'Take out a pistol and load it."

The man was trembling now but fascinated by handling the most beautifully made pistol he'd probably ever seen. He poured a measure of powder down the muzzle, took a wad from a fitted box and rammed it home, then put in a round lead shot and rammed that home.

'The priming powder is in the smaller flask.'

Harris poured a measure from the flask on to me pan and closed the steel.

'Now load the other one.'

He'd gained more confidence and loaded it faster. Just as he finished and before he had time to put it down Ramage, still speaking quietly, said:

'Now pick up me other one.'

The man stood there, slightly hunched, a pistol in each hand.

'Cock them.'

A click from the right hand; a click from the left.

'Now, Harris, as you've probably guessed, those duelling pistols have hair triggers. The most accurate pistols ever made.'

'Yes, sir,' Harris said, bemused and puzzled by what was happening.

'Now raise your right hand — higher — point the pistol at me, Harris. Come on!'

The man's hand was shaking so much Ramage hoped he'd remember the warning about the hair triggers.

'Now Harris — you can shoot me, and use the other pistol on Mr Southwick. Then you can take over command of the Triton. You could sail her over to Boulogne or Calais — or Cherbourg, even Havre de Grace. Bonaparte'd pay you prize money for the ship — you'd all get a share : enough to live in comfort in France for the rest of your lives. Providing Bonaparte wins the war, of course.'

'But, sir,' Harris wailed, the pistols dropping to his side. 'Sir, none of us want anything like that.'

'But Harris,' Ramage said coldly, motioning him to put the pistols down on the table, 'if you shot me and Mr Southwick you'd be no guiltier than you are already. You can't be hanged more than once. Mutiny, intelligence with rebels, treason — a couple of murders won't make matters much worse.'

Even in the chilly light Ramage could see the man was almost fainting.

'Sit down!'

Harris sagged on the edge of the settee behind him, head between his hands, his whole body trembling.

Ramage was sickened by what he'd been forced to do; but now the most intelligent of the original Tritons fully understood the significance of the Fleet's action. And Harris sat mere realizing, for the first time, how close his neck was to the noose at one end of a rope rove from a block at the fore Even now Harris was probably imagining the coarse rasping of the rope on his skin, the knot jammed against one side of his neck; imagining a shouted order and the sudden crash of a gun firing on the deck below where he'd been standing. Then the garrotting while his body soared straight up in the air as men ran with the other end . . .

Ramage said: "Harris, my precise orders are known to very few people: me First Lord of the Admiralty, the Port Admiral and Mr Southwick. But I'll tell you this much: this is going to be a long voyage. You already know nearly half the ship's company have served with me before. Only a few weeks ago I had to give them orders which they knew should have resulted in them being killed by the Spaniards. Even before that several of them risked death many times at my side. They've never flinched and they've never refused. In fact they carried out those orders cheerfully. You know all this?'

Tartly, sir; they was telling us last night.'

'Well, I command a different ship now. More than half the crew haven't served with me. The point is, Harris, I may have to give similar orders again ...'

'Yes, sir?'

'Those orders will have to be obeyed.'

'And they will be, sir, if it's up to me!'

'Yet my first order—to weigh anchor—was not. Hardly a good start.'

'But sir------'

'That's all, Harris: carry on.'

The man wanted to say something but Ramage waved him through the door.

How many such men were there in the Fleet, in those great sail of the line, each with a ship's company of seven or eight hundred? Perhaps barely one in a hundred was a real trouble-maker, which left ninety-nine Harrises, all equally guilty in law but in fact guilty only of putting their trust in hot-heads; of being led astray; of believing they had a just cause of complaint and that once the Admiralty knew of it, they'd put it right...

Ramage took off his coat. It was a chilly morning but the coat was sodden with perspiration. And watching his own hands trembling he knew he wasn't a born gambler. He could sit back and plan the gamble, work out the odds and place his bet. But he lost his nerve just before the card turned face up and, more important, there was no thrill, no pleasure in it; just fear.

And the fear was like a fogbank: it penetrated everywhere and extended an unknown distance. It could last an hour or a week, and no man caught in it could drive it away.