Ramage’s Mutiny

CHAPTER TWO

Back on board the frigate, Ramage settled down at his desk to read through the Calypso's inventory. On the deck above his head he could hear carpenter's mates getting ready to rig a stage over the transom to remove the board with the name Surcouf carved on it, and the carpenter was already over in the dockyard searching for a suitable piece of straight-grained wood on which to carve the new name of Calypso. No doubt he was cursing the choice because it included four curved letters. Carpenters preferred names like "Vixen" or "Kite" which, in capitals, meant the chisels or gouges had to cut only straight lines.

The inventory ran to dozens of pages, each signed by the four dockyard men, and beside each item was their valuation. The first few pages covered the hull, masts and spars. Then came all the sails, blocks and cordage, as well as the spares. He noted that the French followed the Royal Navy in allowing four anchors and six cables, although at 100 fathoms each the cables were shorter.

He turned the pages of the rest of the inventory, the first full one he had ever seen, and although he saw many of them every day he found himself surprised at the number of items needed for a ship as small as a frigate. The reason was simple enough, of course; she was the home of more than two hundred men as well as a fighting ship which had to be sailed and navigated.

He glanced at random at the descriptions. Three large copper kettles in which the ship's company's food was cooked were valued at £12 each. There were two-minute, half-hour and one-hour glasses ("with sand running free") which cost less than he would have expected - the two-minute glasses were valued at twopence each.

Then came the spare sails: a new maintopgallant was valued at £12 5s 4d. The list of purser's stores had a note that the clothing was new "but of poor quality". Well, that would have to be taken on shore; the storekeeper must get rid of it as best he could. Ramage was not having poor-quality clothing sold to his men.

Perishable stores - the French must have gone to a lot of trouble in Fort Royal to provision the ship. He nofed that, by Royal Navy standards, there was an enormous quantity of various cheeses which the dockyard surveyors had not tried to name, merely contenting themselves with the comment that they were in good condition "and strong in flavour".

There were dozens of defective casks, which meant plenty of work for the dockyard coopers, making and fitting new staves. The master shipwright had made a deduction of £4 10s for repairs, based on the cost of employing three coopers for six days at 5s a day per man.

How he hated all this paperwork. Now he had to check and sign the requisitions for all the remaining items needed for the Calypso to sail as one of the King's ships. He reached across the desk for several pages held down by a paperweight.

The surgeon's requirements were on top. Bowen needed a sick book, journal and various forms for his daily reports to the Captain. Then came a string of abbreviated Latin representing the medicines and nostrums needed to keep the seamen fit and sound in wind and limb.

The purser needed a ton of forms, judging from his list. Tables for casting up allowances of food for the ship's company, bed lists, tobacco lists, forms for reporting surveys on casks of salt beef and pork which held fewer pieces than the total stencilled on the outside, forms for reporting the leakage of beer . . . Ramage felt his patience ebbing as he continued reading: the King's ships carried so much paper that he was sometimes surprised they remained afloat. The sheer quantity only became apparent when a ship was commissioned. Bounty list, conduct list, muster table, captain's journal, master's log, account of impressed men, daily report of this, daily report of that . . .

He could guess the dockyard storekeeper's answer to such a requisition: a large packet of blank paper, a box of powder for making ink, a couple of dozen quills and a few straight-edges, and the suggestion that the Calypso make use of the Seaman's Vade Mecum (which gave specimens of just about every form, voucher, list and report used in the Navy) and draw her own.

He heard someone clattering down the ladder and a moment later the Marine sentry at the cabin door called out: "Mr Southwick, sir! "

"Send him in."

The old Master looked tired: his eyes were rimmed with red, his shoulders sagged and his white hair, usually flowing like a dried mop, was dank with perspiration and plastered down on his head. Although they had served together for several years, this was one of the few occasions when Ramage had seen Southwick showing his years.

Ramage stood up from the desk and gestured to Southwick to sit with him on the settee which ran athwart the cabin.

"The carpenter tells me we have a new name, sir, " Southwick said wearily. "It's about the only thing we can get without having to hoist it on board."

"The Juno will be in shortly, " Ramage reassured him, "then we'll have all our men. The Admiral can't spare anyone, so we'll have to make do for the time being."

"Aye, forty men aren't enough to commission a ship of this size. The guns, " Southwick added anxiously, "I hope we aren't going to have to shift them?"

"No, " Ramage assured him, "the Admiral reckons we have enough shot on board."

Southwick gave a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that. I can't think why the Frogs have to use a different measure anyway. And the Dons - all foreigners, in fact."

"How is the work going?" Ramage asked hurriedly, hoping to head off a tirade against foreigners and their wicked, devious and wilful ways, particularly with weights and measures.

"Well, now we've got those dockyard fellows out of the way I can tidy up the ship. Every blessed thing had to be stretched out and measured or lined up and counted. Cables, blocks, pots and pans, sails, candles . . . Now everything has to be stowed again. Is the Admiral buying her in?"

Ramage nodded. "At a valuation of about £17, 000."

Southwick's eyes lit up for a moment, then he said gloomily: "I don't expect the Admiralty and Navy Board will approve that price."

"Don't worry about that; the Admiral knows he'll get his knuckles rapped if he pitches it too high. Anyway, you'll do well enough. At that price you share £5000 with three lieutenants and Bowen. Even at half that you'd still get a tidy sum to invest in the Funds. And that's only for the Calypso."

"Aye, " Southwick admitted, cheering up slightly. "There should be another thousand pounds in it, if those thieving prize agents don't take it all."

"More than that: seven merchant ships fully laden. The Admiral is sending them to England with La Comete as soon as she's repaired."

The Master shrugged his shoulders. "It's as broad as it's long. Out here the cargoes fetch more and the ships less; in England it's t'other way round."

But the old Master's depression was lifting. He had been under a heavy strain for the past few days and was driving himself and his few men to get the Calypso ready for sea. Nor did English Harbour help: it was hot and humid because the very characteristics that made it a sheltered anchorage also meant there was precious little breeze to cool a ship. Although awnings kept the worst of the sun's heat from the decks, there was no draught through the ship herself. Days were bad but nights were worse; the heat stayed locked below and made sleeping difficult. The seamen were luckier - Ramage had given permission for them to sling their hammocks on deck at night. However the Captain, for the sake of discipline, had to sleep in his own cot and curse the tropics.

"We're still going after the Jocasta, sir?" Southwick's tone made it clear that he was more interested in attacking enemy harbours than sitting in British dockyards.

"Yes, we sail as soon as we're ready. Find out all you can about Santa Cruz. I've a rough chart for you - one drawn up by Captain Eames, or his Master."

Southwick gave one of the prodigious sniffs for which he was famous; a perfect combination of contempt and distaste but, if he was ever challenged about it, still just a sniff. "I'll be interested to see it. I've already had the sight of a very small-scale one of that part of the coast - the Master of the Invincible has it; captured from a Spanish prize it was - and that Santa Cruz is a rare hole in the wall."

Ramage went over to the desk, found Captain Eames's small chart, and gave it to Southwick, who looked at it as though it had just hit him in the face. "Wha - wha - just look at it! " he gasped. "The Invincible's, scrap of paper covering the whole coast tells us more than this does! "

Ramage patted Southwick on the shoulder. "Let's be honest: the only chart that'd do us any good is one that gives us the soundings all the way down the entrance channel and the whole of the lagoon. I doubt if even the Spanish have an accurate one! They probably rely on a pilot. You know the sort of thing - thump, 'That's a rock! ' - 'Yes, Captain sir, I'll remember it next time! ' "

Southwick continued looking at the chart and, using his finger and thumb, measured a distance against the latitude scale. "They never went within two miles of the entrance - look, sir, their nearest sounding gives 'em away! "

"Lots of guns in the two forts, " Ramage said mildly. "Hot work running a line of soundings under fire."

Southwick stared at him and Ramage flushed: he was so contemptuous of Eames that he now found himself making excuses for the wretched man, and Southwick was not only puzzled by what Ramage had said but angry with Eames on his own account.

"Under fire, sir? What's to stop 'em going in closer after dark? Or if that doesn't suit 'em, send a boat in. The Dons weren't rowing guard across that entrance! "

"Well, at least the Jocasta is fitted out, " Ramage said. "We won't have any work to do before we sail her back."

"The first word came from the Admiralty, didn't it, sir? Well, they've probably got it all wrong. I'll bet the Dons have only just started fitting her out, and she's not due to sail until this time next year. You wait and see if I'm not right, sir."

Southwick was cheering up; there was no doubt about that - he was grumbling with more relish. "This was reliable information, " Ramage said. "It came from Madrid, apparently. It seems the Spanish are trying to assemble a big convoy in Cuba and need a powerful escort: our frigates from Jamaica have been rattling the bars right off the entrance to Havana."

Southwick nodded in the doubting manner of a gamekeeper listening to a garrulous poacher explaining away the three pheasant in his bag. In Southwick's view no information from the Admiralty was ever to be relied on. Solid facts came only from other masters; it was the result of experience and observation carefully noted down in log books or on charts, and all else was illusion, the eternal Cape Flyaway that many people talked about but no one ever rounded.

"Well, the Jocasta is in there, and whether she's ready or not we have to find a way of winkling her out." Ramage was curious to hear what Southwick, a firm devotee of board-'em-in-the-smoke tactics, might propose.

The Master scratched his head, using the same motion that a seaman might employ to ruffle the head of a mop before wetting it in a bucket. "You always set a lot o' store by surprise, sir, but I can't see how we can surprise 'em at Santa Cruz. Why, that Captain Eames went just close enough to make them as jumpy as a shepherd hearing a fox barking at lambing time.

"No chance of making an accurate landfall in the dark and sending in boarding parties by boat - the current along the coast is too strong for that, " he added. "But if we arrive off the coast in daylight we'll be spotted, wherever we are, and the word will be passed to Santa Cruz. If the wind's fair for sailing in through the entrance channel, it's foul coming out. Towing out two frigates one way or the other past those forts - well, that doesn't bear thinking about. Even cavalrymen galloping along the beach on either side could use us for target practice. "So that leaves us with . . ."

Ramage waited several moments, and then prompted him: "Leaves us with what?"

Southwick tugged a large lock of hair in frustration. "To tell you the honest truth, I'm damned if I know. In fact I'm beginning to have some sympathy for Captain Eames. What have you in mind, sir?"

"First, you'd better save some sympathy for me. Second, don't get fixed ideas. The chart shows the whole thing is impossible, and I think that's what defeated Eames: he kept thinking about the chart, so he was beaten before Santa Cruz hove in sight."

There was a sudden shouting on deck and both men hurriedly moved to the skylight to listen. Ramage caught some of the words and heard someone running down the companionway to report. "The Juno's in sight, " he said. "We'll have our men on hoard by nightfall."