Ramage's Trial

CHAPTER NINE

Ramage stood at the starboard side of the quarterdeck rail with Wagstaffe beside him. The quartermaster Pegg had moved between Ramage and the men at the wheel so that he should not miss a hurried order, but almost imperceptibly the Calypso was closing with the Jason. Even without a glass they could see the gingerbread work on the scroll on the transom: JASON was carved there, the letters picked out in gold against a red background. The scrollwork enclosing it all was picked out in blue. Not my choice of colours, Ramage thought, but obviously some other man's personal taste clashed with the normal dictates of heraldry. At least the name was gilded - the man who sought the Golden Fleece did not have to suffer the indignity of having his name painted in tawdry yellow.

There was Southwick, crouched down behind the bulwark, trying to hide the fact that he had occasional twinges of rheumatism. There was Paolo, still loyal to the midshipman's dirk but covering himself by having a cutlass in a belt over his shoulder and a pistol tucked into his belt. Yes, Paolo was as excited as an eighteen-year-old boy was entitled to be. He would be the target of every French sharpshooter in the Jason if they knew he was the heir to the Kingdom of Volterra (might even now be its ruler, if Gianna had been murdered by Bonaparte, which seemed very likely). Young "Blower" Martin had a pistol and a half-pike. Interesting that this time he had picked a half-pike against a cutlass, but he was small, and with a half-pike you could jab the enemy four and a half feet away, whereas you had to be breathing in each other's face to have much effect with the cutlass.

Martin's father, the master shipwright, would probably not recognize his son at this moment. Ramage had a feeling that the father regarded the flute as an unmanly instrument without realizing "Blower's" skill with more lethal instruments.

And there was the irrepressible third lieutenant, Kenton. There was no mistaking his red hair, heavily freckled face which was always peeling because he could not protect it from the sun, and his four-square stance - even though he too was crouching. Kenton's father, a half-pay captain, would be delighted at the eagerness with which Kenton awaited action.

Finally there was Aitken, brought up as a boy in the Highlands and the son of a former master in the Royal Navy. Aitken, tall with a thin, almost gaunt face, black hair and deep-set eyes, at first meeting seemed dour and spare with words, issuing them with the reluctance of a purser handing out candles (which he had to pay for out of his own pocket). But in fact Aitken had a droll sense of humour: he and Southwick sparked teasing remarks off each other which made the rounds of the ship.

All the Jason's guns were still run out, and even though he had looked carefully at each gunport, Ramage could see no sign of the guns' crews. He could now see two men at the wheel (two, not four as a British ship o' war usually had when going into action) and a man was walking round them who could be either the officer of the deck or the captain, but who certainly was not wearing the uniform of a post-captain in the Royal Navy. Or the uniform of anyone's navy. Trousers (did that mean he was a sans-culotte? Presumably) of dark-green material and a long coat one would expect to see on an English parson visiting the dying: it was black with a deep velvet collar. Who but a madman would wear a coat like that in the Tropics? Well, Ramage admitted, the fellow commanding the Jason seems quite at home in it.

Ramage turned to Pegg, eyebrows raised, and the gipsy face nodded to show that he understood the moment was fast approaching and knew what he had to do. It was not a straightforward manoeuvre, because no one would be tending sheets or braces, but Pegg had the kind of confidence that Ramage had spent years instilling into his ship's company against such a day as now.

Fifty yards . . . the black paint of the Jason's hull was in even better condition than he had thought. Forty yards . . . there were a dozen brightly coloured shirts strung out on a washing line on the fo'c'sle. Thirty yards . . . although the Calypso was overhauling her, the Jason was making good speed: her wake formed the usual fascinating pattern of whorls. In a few minutes the Calypso's jibboom would be overhanging the Jason's stern like a fishing rod over a stream.

Ramage nodded to Pegg, who snapped out an order which had the four men spinning the wheel. To the captain of the Jason the Calypso was at last beginning to turn to starboard, sidestepping so that instead of following she came up alongside to starboard: on the windward side, with her whole broadside ready.

The Jason's captain would be making sure that all his gunners were at the starboard side guns: no frigate could man both broadsides at once, and if it was needed the men fired one side and ran across to fire the other.

There were still several yards between the Calypso's jibboom and the Jason's transom, even though the British frigate had begun her swing out, ready to overtake and come alongside.

Ramage watched the gap, narrowing his eyes as if to see more clearly. All he really saw was every one of his officers and Pegg anxiously watching him.

"Right, Pegg," he snapped and the gipsy, certain the order had been left a moment too late, shouted at the four men and flung himself on the wheel too, clawing at the spokes.

Slowly, as though with enormous dignity, like a dowager changing her mind, the Calypso's bow began to turn to larboard. To the watching men, it seemed as though the Jason was being pulled slowly to starboard and then, as the Calypso's extra speed became obvious, the Jason was gently pulled astern.

Ramage watched theJason's quarterdeck. Twenty yards. . .that curious black-coated figure was striding up and down and he had not looked at the Calypso for several minutes: it was as though he was unaware that she had been following and was now overtaking. All part of the play-acting, all part of whatever trap he was trying to set? Ramage was far from sure: all he knew was that the man would look perfectly at home striding among the dark-green yews and the moss-packed tombstones in an English cemetery, perhaps quietly muttering some prayer or psalm in memory of those who had taken up permanent residence.

He said to Pegg: "Now!"

The quartermaster snapped a third order to the men at the wheel, who hauled on the spokes and then stopped at another order from Pegg as the Calypso's bow started to swing in towards the Jason.

After she had travelled to within a dozen yards, the wheel was spun back amidships and the Calypso came back on to a parallel course.

Wagstaffe sighed, but Ramage had the feeling it was more from disappointment than relief: theJason's guns had not crashed back in a full broadside, even though the Calypso was a perfect target. Then once again Pegg, after a quick glance at Ramage to receive an approving nod, gave more orders which sent the wheel spinning again, except this time the Calypso turned on to a course which would converge with the Jason in two ships' lengths.

As the ships approached to crash alongside each other Ramage shouted: "Stand by those grapnels," and ran down the quarterdeck ladder to join his men waiting on the maindeck. Pegg calmly gave the order which turned the wheel enough to lessen the shock of the forthcoming crash. An excited Wagstaffe, for once ordered to remain on the quarterdeck instead of leading a boarding party, contented himself with shouts of "Hurrah, Calypsos!"

Ramage squeezed alongside a gun barrel and peered down into the water between the two ships. Only five yards separated them.

"Over with the grapnels!" he shouted. "Swing the others out from the yards. Take your time and aim true!"

The clinking of metal was men's cutlasses banging against gun barrels and metal fittings as they slid to the ports; the sharp metallic clicks were men cocking their pistols. Moments now - and there it was: with a crash that men felt right through the hull rather than heard, the Calypso drove alongside the Jason. The grapnels swinging out to lodge in her rigging and bulwarks were hauled in to hold the two ships together, and before Ramage had time to give the order the Calypsos were swarming on board the other ship, led as far as Ramage could see by Southwick, who looked like a demented bishop as he ran, white hair streaming, across the Jason's deck, his great sword like an immense crozier.

Ramage scrambled up and over the Jason's hammock nettings and dropped down on to her deck, vaguely noticing that the nearest men to him were Jackson, Rossi, Stafford, Gilbert and the other three Frenchmen. With a pistol in his left hand and cutlass in his right, he headed for the quarterdeck, for the man in the black coat, and was surrounded by dozens of men shouting excitedly: "Calypso! Calypso!"

But there was a strange atmosphere, as though they had met the coldness of a crypt. The excited dash that surged the Calypsos over the Jason's bulwarks was slowing down: far from men being in desperate cutlass-against-pike, pike-against-tomahawk, pistol-against-pistol duels, they were slowing down to a walk and looking round with all the curiosity of bumpkins at a fair. And beyond - or was it round them? - other shouting: that of frightened men shouting in English, as though desperately trying to establish their true identities before being run through, spitted by a pike or cut down by a tomahawk.

Was this the trap? English prisoners forced to shout for quarter at the instant the Calypsos boarded? Creating confusion and making them pause just long enough for the French to shoot them down?

Ramage looked round wildly, saw no immediate explanation and carried on his dash towards the man in the black coat who (Ramage blinked but kept his pistol raised) was now walking towards him, arms outspread in a welcoming gesture: just as a parson would greet a valued parishioner or, more likely, the patron of his living.

Above the din Ramage could hear the man saying in a normal voice: "Ramage, isn't it? I've heard so much about you, my dear fellow, and I'm so glad we meet at last!"

Was this the trap? Ramage stopped and motioned with his pistol that the man should stand his ground. Southwick and Aitken stood warily, like hunters waiting for the prey to walk into their gun sights, and the Calypso's boarders had all stopped and were watching Ramage, waiting for a signal or order.

Ramage glanced at Aitken and snapped: "Talk to her gunners!"

The first lieutenant, as he took the few paces to the nearest gun's crew, realized how quickly his captain was thinking: the gunners would reveal their nationality, why they had fired high when raking the Calypso, and who or what their captain was.

There were six men grouped round the nearest gun, all crouching, and none was armed: there was no sign of a cutlass, pistol, tomahawk, pike or musket; in fact a glance showed Aitken what they should have noticed from the Calypso, that the boarding pikes were still clipped into the racks fitting round the masts like dogs' collars.

The nearest man, holding the trigger lanyard, was obviously the gun captain but his face was white under a superficial tan and his eyes avoided Aitken's glare. He still stood in a half-crouch, as though he had just been kicked in the belly. To Aitken he looked like a pickpocket caught in a congregation and singled out by the parson up in the pulpit for special castigation.

"Do you speak English?" Aitken demanded.

The man nodded nervously.

"Well, stand up straight and tell me what's going on." Aitken suddenly realized something else. "Where are all the officers apart from the man in the black coat and a few midshipmen?"

At last the seaman threw the lanyard over the breech of the gun, out of the way (Aitken noticed the lock was not cocked, so the gun could not be fired), and stood to attention.

"All the officers are down in their cabins, sir. One of them could tell you. Yes, sir," he said eagerly, the idea becoming more appealing as he thought about it, "they'd all be able to tell you, 'specially the first lieutenant."

"You tell me, quickly!" Aitken snapped, slapping the flat of his cutlass against his leg, "or else you'll all be dead men in a couple of minutes: you fired on one of the King's ships. That's treason, to start with."

"Oh no!" the man protested in an agonized voice, and several of the others round the gun now stood up straight and added their protests. "We fired over you sir," the man said excitedly. "All of us did, even though we'd been told to rake you."

Ramage, out of earshot, called impatiently and Aitken said: "Quickly now, this is the Jason and one of the King's ships?"

"She's that," the man said. "Commissioned in Plymouth the week after the war started again. Bound from Barbados an' Jamaica with despatches."

"Why did you open fire?"

"Go on, sir; ask one of the officers," the man said evasively, his body wriggling like a hooked fish.

Aitken's brain felt numbed: if the man in black was the captain, the officers were down in their cabins, and the men were crouched down round guns whose locks were not cocked, then what the devil was going on?

"What were your orders if and when you were boarded by us?"

"Orders, sir? Oh Gawd, sir, it ain't like that at all: please go an' ask the officers 'cos they know all abart it."

"So none of you are going to fight us?"

"Fight you?" the man said in alarm. "Strike me, we bin 'oping fer weeks something like this would 'appen."

Aitken turned and reported to Ramage, who thought for a moment and then snapped out orders. "Rennick," he told the Marine lieutenant, "get all these men at the guns lined up on the fo'c'sle, with your Marines surrounding them."

Then, with his pistol covering the man in the black coat, he told Southwick: "Have all the Calypso's grapnels unhooked and hauled inboard. As soon as she's free I want Wagstaffe to get her clear and keep a gunshot to windward of us."

He looked round for Jackson and waved him over. "Collect half a dozen men here."

Then he turned to the man in the long black coat who was still standing there, calm and not a bit alarmed at having men from another ship swarming over the deck of his own ship; in fact, Ramage realized, the man had a strange remoteness, like an effigy in a church which had watched over the funerals, weddings and christenings for centuries and would continue until the church fell down, unless another Cromwell came along.

Ramage tucked the pistol in his belt and slid the cutlass back into the frog and deliberately looked the other man up and down. He said loudly to Aitken, aware that the words might well have to be remembered as evidence at a court of inquiry: "I wonder who this man is - you notice he is not wearing any sort of uniform. Green trousers, a long black coat, no hat . . ."

"Aye, sir," Aitken said, realizing the point of Ramage's remark. "There's no telling who he is."

"Come, sir," Ramage said, "you have the advantage of me: you have guessed who I am, but I only know your ship has just been firing at mine."

"Shirley, my dear Ramage, William Shirley at your service, a captain in the Royal Navy but lacking, I fear, your distinction."

"You have your commission?" Ramage asked sharply.

"Oh yes indeed, it's in a drawer in my desk. Shall we go down to my cabin and find it?"

"Later," Ramage said. He wanted witnesses to all the conversation with this man. "Less than half an hour ago you approached my ship in the Jason flying the wrong challenge and then giving the wrong answer when my ship hoisted the correct challenge."

"My dear fellow, you don't say so?" Shirley seemed genuinely upset. "How careless of me. Still, no harm came of my omission, I'm glad to say."

"No harm?" Ramage looked round at Aitken to make sure he had heard, and noticed that Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were among several other seamen who had, almost without realizing it, grouped round Shirley, covering him with their pistols. "You narrowly missed colliding with my ship and then fired a raking broadside into her. Do you call that 'No harm'?"

"A raking broadside?" Shirley repeated in a puzzled voice. "My dear Ramage, you are mistaking the poor Jason for someone else. Why should we want to rake one of the King's ships?"

"That's the point of my questions," Ramage said, adding heavily: "It is rather an unusual situation."

"Yes, it would be," Shirley agreed. "By the way, do I address you as 'my Lord' or just Ramage? I've heard it said you don't use your title in the Service."

"Ramage will do. Why did you open fire?"

Shirley shook his head sorrowfully, as though regretfully refusing some importunate request. "Must have been some other ship, my dear Ramage. Anyway, now we've settled that, I hope you can be persuaded to stay and dine with me. That is one of the complaints I have about the King's Service: at sea and on foreign stations one does meet such a poor class of person, and that is why it's such a pleasure to meet you."

Ramage gestured to him. "Come with me." He walked over to one of the starboard guns, ordered the crouching men to stand upright, and told the captain of the gun to step forward.

The man was in his early thirties, clean shaven, his hair tied in a neat queue. He had a green cloth tied round his forehead to absorb perspiration and did not wear a shirt above his white duck trousers.

"Name and rate?" Ramage asked.

"George Gooch, sir, rated able."

"Very well, Gooch. Tell me, have you fired this gun today?"

The man glanced at Shirley, looked down at the deck and said woodenly: "No, sir; ain't fired no gun."

Ramage nodded towards Jackson, who walked to the muzzle and sniffed. "It's been fired recently, sir. Inside half an hour."

"What have you to say to that?" Ramage asked Gooch. The man shook his head and refused to look up.

Ramage took Shirley's arm. "Come, Mr Shirley, let's examine that muzzle ourselves."

"By all means." He stood back a pace and made a sweeping gesture indicating that Ramage should lead the way.

Ramage bent down at the muzzle. The smell of burnt powder was unmistakable. He pointed. "Smell that," he told Shirley.

The man clasped his hands behind his back and bent forward. He inclined his body, Ramage thought, like the patient parent leaning over to listen to a mumbling child. "Well?" Ramage demanded.

"I can smell nothing, but I have a poor sense of smell anyway."

Aitken and Southwick had come down the other side of the gun.

"This one has been fired; those on the larboard side haven't, sir," Southwick said firmly. "I'll check all these on the starboard side." With that he turned and made his way along the row of guns, ducking under barrels and holding his sword clear, sniffing at the muzzles like a terrier at rabbit holes.

"Please wait with these men," Ramage told Shirley and gestured to Jackson to guard him. He noted that Kenton was standing by the men at the wheel giving them orders while Martin was busy with a party of men, helping bear off the Calypso.

With Aitken beside him he made for the officers' cabins.

"What do you make of it, sir?" a bewildered Aitken asked. "Seems like a dream to me: each time you reach out to touch something you find it has no substance, as though everything was made of smoke."

"And we're trying to shovel it," Ramage said sympathetically. "But no, I haven't anything more than a suspicion. Captain Shirley looks crazy enough to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Have you noticed he's not perspiring under that black coat?"

"He's not moving very much, either, sir," Aitken pointed out.

Ramage led the way down the companionway, blinking for a few moments in the half-light. But within five paces of the gunroom, a burly Marine lunged forward with a musket and bellowed: "Halt, who goes there?"

Ramage stopped and inquired in a quiet, polite voice: "Who are you expecting?"

"That's none of your business," the man snarled, taking another pace forward.

"Do you recognize my uniform?" Ramage asked, his voice still low. "And the officer beside me?"

"Aye, I recognize both uniforms but they don't mean nothing to me. Captain Shirley's the only one I take orders from."

"Not even from the Marine captain or lieutenant commanding your detachment?"

" 'Specially not 'im; 'e's one o' them."

"Who are 'they'?" Ramage inquired sympathetically.

"That lot in there," the Marine said, turning and pointing with his musket. He turned back to find Ramage's pistol aiming at his right shoulder, the eye looking along the barrel deep-set, brown, and as far as he could see, without a glimmer of mercy in it.

"Tell me," Ramage said, "don't you think it would be a wise insurance to take your right hand away from the trigger and then hand your musket over to the lieutenant standing beside me?"

The man's right hand came clear; he was making the movement unmistakable. He gave the musket to Aitken as though presenting a large bunch of flowers.

"Where are the other Marines?" Ramage demanded.

"Dunno, sir. On deck, I 'spect. I'm not due to be relieved for 'bout half an hour, I reckon."

"Who are you guarding in there?"

The Marine looked puzzled, as though Ramage's question was one even an imbecile could answer.

Ramage, feeling himself near the answer to the whole puzzle, jabbed his pistol for emphasis, wanting to hear what the sentry had to say before blundering into the half-darkness of the gunroom, whose occupants were regarded as dangerous enough to require a Marine guard.

"Guarding, sir?" The man misunderstood his meaning, and Ramage realized the two senses in which the word could be used, to protect, or to prevent escaping. "Well, sir, they're all in there; the whole bloody lot."

"Damnation, man, who are 'the whole bloody lot'?"

"Why, sir, all the commission and warrant officers. Them wot mutinied!"

Commission and warrant officers mutinying? Against a captain who was walking the quarterdeck wearing a long black coat and denying that every gun in his starboard broadside had just raked the Calypso? Aitken was right: all this had the insubstantial atmosphere of a dream! If only he could wake up and find the Jason, the man in the black coat and the gunroom full of alleged mutineers had all vanished, and his steward had brought him a cup of proper coffee bought in Barbados, whence it had been smuggled from somewhere on the Spanish Main.

But this was no dream: he was down below in the Jason with his pistol held at the head of a Marine who was startled to find that Ramage did not know the gunroom was full of mutinous officers.

Aitken, realizing that Ramage intended to walk into the gunroom, said hurriedly: "Wait, sir, I'll get Rennick and a brace of our Marines. They can flush them out. Come with me," he said sharply to the Marine, gesturing with the musket, and disappearing up the companionway.

Ramage, left alone, listened to the slap of the water against the hull - he should have given orders for the Jason to be hove-to, before she and the Calypso were carried too far to leeward of the convoy. And those two newly promoted captains - would they protect the convoy while he was away? Supposing French privateers out of Guadeloupe suddenly attacked, just a couple of them from different directions: would La Robuste and L'Espoir be able to drive them off? They were powerful and weatherly enough, but no ship was better than her captain. And anyway, the commander of the convoy was standing in half darkness outside a gunroom door, waiting for some Marines to act as good shepherds.

Yet Aitken was right: he was the commander of the convoy, not the leader of a boarding party, and if the convoy came to any harm, Their Lordships would quite reasonably want to know what the devil he was doing.

He stuck the pistol back in his belt, suddenly conscious that his wrist ached from holding it. Damn and blast, all he wanted to do was get this wretched convoy safely back to England and find out what had happened to Sarah. The devil take frigates commanded by men who looked like run-amok prelates in long black coats and whose gunroom (according to a Marine sentry) was full of mutinous officers.

Supposing the captain was not mad. Supposing, instead, that the officers had mutinied. What happened now? Captain Ramage had the responsibility of sorting it all out, along with nursing his convoy, and he owed the Yorkes a dinner, he thought irrelevantly, but found he liked thinking about them. Sidney owned a fleet of merchant ships that were among the best kept and best sailed at sea today, and he was an amusing, erudite and lively host, apart from having become one of Ramage's closest friends. Strange how he had so few friends. Yet not so strange really, because most of his adult life had been spent at sea, where the only people he met were naval officers (with the exception of Sidney).

A clattering on the companion ladder heralded Aitken, followed by Rennick, Southwick (his great sword in hand), Sergeant Ferris and several Marines. Ramage moved back a few steps to make room for them all, and to avoid explanation and any more delay, pulled both pistols from his belt, cocked them and then kicked open the flimsy door of the gunroom, striding in with the shout: "No one move!"

No one moved because the gunroom itself was empty: the table in the centre was bare, there was a form at each of the long sides and a chair at either end, and all round were the doors of the officers' cabins. Hats hung on hooks over several of them, and there were empty racks which normally held swords, telescopes and pistols. But in view of the heat, it was significant that all the doors were shut. Ramage stood by the table until the men behind him had come into the gunroom, pistols and cutlasses at the ready.

Rennick's whole stance showed that he considered this was a job for the Marines, and remembering how there had been no work for them as sharpshooters, Ramage told him: "All right, look into the cabins one at a time, starting at that end."

Rennick did not wait for Ferris or one of the Marines: instead he stepped forward quickly, pistol in his left hand, and flung the door open. Inside a man crouched on a small, folding stool that took up the space left by the cot and small chest of drawers.

"Out!" Rennick snarled, "slowly, with your hands clasped in front of you."

The deckhead was too low for a man to hold up his arms: everyone in the gunroom was having to crouch, and Ramage pulled round a chair and sat down. Whatever was going on, there would be no violence. The officer now coming out of the cabin which was neatly labelled "1st Lt" looked as if he had not slept for a month nor changed his clothes.

"Sit here," Ramage said, pointing to the form on his left. "If you are the Jason's first lieutenant, tell me your name and explain why you are skulking in your cabin."

"Ridley, sir."

"That answers my first question ..."

The man ran a finger along the grain of the deal table but avoided looking up at Ramage, who examined the man's pale and unshaven face closely.

"Ridley," he said quietly, "you haven't been up on deck for two or three weeks." He recalled the man's stiff gait. "And I doubt if you've been out of your cabin, either. Why?"

"My duties kept me down here," the man said sheepishly, his eyes still fixed on the table.

Ramage pointed to the next door.

Rennick flung it open and another man came out. Ramage glanced up at the lettering over the door and waved the man to sit next to Ridley.

"Are you the third lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir. Owens. Henry Owens."

"And what are you doing in your cabin at a time like this?"

"Captain's orders, same as Mr Ridley."

"When were you last on deck?"

"I... er, I'm not sure, sir. Within the last two or three weeks, I think."

Ramage sighed and looked up at Southwick. "Is everything all right on deck?" When the master nodded, Ramage signalled to Rennick, who opened the door over which was written "Master".

The Jason's master was, Ramage noted in amusement, the opposite to Southwick in just about every way: he was tall, thin to the point of being cadaverous, completely bald - his head seemed to be polished like the ivory top of a Malacca cane - and his nose was not just long but tilted up, as though something should be hung on it.

"If you're the master, tell me your name and the date of your warrant," Ramage said wearily, and then felt a finger poking into his side. He looked up to find Southwick signalling that he wanted to whisper something

"I know this fellow," the master whispered. "A good man."

Ramage looked at the man questioningly. "Well?"

"Price, sir. Warrant dated August 1793."

"Very well, go with Southwick - I believe you know him. Take your hat, the sun's still bright."

As Price collected his hat and then followed Southwick out of the gunroom, Ramage said impatiently: "All right, Mr Rennick, winkle out the rest of 'em - the second lieutenant, surgeon and purser, I believe." He raised his voice, so that they could all hear. "I'm getting tired of all this play-acting. None of you seem to realize you're probably going to spend the next few weeks in irons."

The first lieutenant's head jerked up. "But sir!"

"But sir, whatl" Ramage demanded, hoping to provoke him into revealing some details. "Do I need to remind you of the Articles of War? Numbers 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 come immediately to mind, but no doubt 19, 20 and 22 could apply. You'll recall that most of them end up with the phrase 'shall suffer death'."

"But. . . but well, it's not like that, sir," Ridley wailed.

"What is it like, then?"

"Oh, I can't say!" the man said and, collapsing on the table with his arms clasped over his head, he burst into uncontrolled tears.

Ramage stood up, feeling completely helpless, and said formally to Rennick: "All these officers are under arrest and confined to the gunroom."

"The captain, sir?"

Ramage tried to look stern, although he felt more sympathy for the sobbing Ridley than it would have been proper to admit. "I'll decide about him later, after I've had a chance to talk with him."