Ramage's Trial

CHAPTER THREE

Admiral Tewtin read through the Admiralty's orders once again and then looked up at Ramage, who was sitting opposite him across the big desk in the Queen's great cabin, the sun reflecting harshly through the sternlights and almost blinding Ramage when each wave threw up a flash of sunlight, as if deliberately trying to dazzle him. "Yes," Tewtin said, folding the page, "it all fits together very well: I'll buy in the prizes because I need frigates to escort this next convoy; we'll arrange passages in the merchant ships for the refugees - for the Royalists," he corrected himself, "and then you can command the convoy when it sails for England."

"But ... but that's not my understanding of the orders, sir," Ramage protested.

"It's my understanding," Tewtin said shortly, "and that's what matters."

And Tewtin was right: it would be six months or more before the Admiralty could reprimand him for delaying the Calypso, and only a fool would think that the Admiralty valued the frigate's speedy arrival in England more than the safe arrival of a large trade convoy.

The Count was safe, which was what mattered as far as the Prince of Wales was concerned, and would be coming home in the convoy. In addition, Ramage reflected, from Tewtin's point of view there was a good chance of the convoy arriving unscathed if Ramage commanded it: all too often convoys were commanded by frigate captains who were fit for nothing else or had fallen out of favour with the admiral. It was not too difficult to fall out of favour with some admirals - when sent to "cruise", a euphemism for hunting for prizes, it was no good coming back too often with stories of bad luck. The admiral's share in a prize was an eighth of its value; a couple of years on a good station usually meant he could buy a large country estate and put enough in the Funds to run it, apart from buying a knighthood or baronetcy and, with luck, having a seat in Parliament, being in effect issued one of those like Rochester which, with several others, the Admiralty regarded as its own property . . . Admiral Sir Hyde Parker was thought to have made £200,000 in prize money during his recent four years as commander-in-chief at Jamaica, generally reckoned the most lucrative station of all. So no doubt Tewtin had high hopes, and those hopes rested almost entirely on his frigate captains. That in turn depended on having frigates. No commander-in-chief ever had enough of them, so Tewtin was very lucky to have three arrive unexpectedly out of the south, a bonus he could use for the convoy without losing any of his own yet two of which he could fill with his own people. Each of the two prizes now needed a captain and three lieutenants, apart from warrant and petty officers. The commander-in-chief of the station made all such promotions, although they had to be approved afterwards by the Admiralty.

Watched by Tewtin, Ramage picked up the Admiralty orders and read them through once more. They had been drafted in good faith and neither Their Lordships nor Nepean could have anticipated the present situation. Tewtin could not interfere with a ship acting under direct Admiralty orders, but he was too cunning for that. The Admiralty had ordered the Calypso back to England, but they had not added a phrase like "with all possible despatch", or "without delay". This, Ramage noted bitterly, allowed Tewtin to claim that since the Calypso was returning to England anyway, she might as well take the convoy under her protection.

There was just one more card to play, a poor and miserable card but the only one he had left.

"To be perfectly honest, sir, I'm worried about the Count of Rennes. He is in a desperate hurry to get back to England, to see the Prince of Wales - and of course he has large estates in Kent. I had been wondering whether or not I should keep him on board the Calypso and make a dash for it."

Tewtin nodded understandingly. "I see your problem, but I hope the Count is grateful to you - and the Royal Navy - for rescuing him. Now is not the time to show impatience - why, but for you he would be rotting on Devil's Island. From what I hear, the prisoners don't last very long down there. If your Count of Rennes makes a fuss," he said portentously, "I'll have a word with him. In the meantime, transfer him to that merchant ship - what's she called? - where he has a suite awaiting him

At that point Ramage knew he was beaten: at the end of a week in Barbados, he was going to have to command a convoy back to England, and all he could do now was hope that the merchant ships were not too undermanned, that their sails were not so ripe they were furled in anything of a breeze, that their spars were not so sun-dried and shaken that they would forever be signalling to one of the escort that they needed assistance - which meant sending across a carpenter and his mates to fish a spar.

All of which meant that all too many shipowners sent their ships to the West Indies with too few men and ancient sails, with rigging and cordage that should have been replaced a year ago, spars and yards that had shakes in them wide and deep enough to trap a man's finger, if not a whole hand - and always relying on the Royal Navy in an emergency to help them. And usually the Royal Navy had no choice: a disabled ship left behind by the convoy could be a ship lost to French privateers, and there would be violent letters of protest arriving at the Admiralty from the outraged owners and the insurance underwriters, and woe betide the poor frigate captain who was exasperated beyond control by these constant demands on his men and resources. Not for nothing did most commanders of convoys and the escorts refer to the masters of merchant ships as "mules".

When would the Admiralty in its collective wisdom put its collective foot down and stop these profiteering shipowners from running their ships at the taxpayers' expense? With very few exceptions, shipowners were making their fortunes, thanks to the war. To begin with, the convoy system stopped any rush for a ship to be among the first dozen or so to arrive in England with the new harvest of sugar, tobacco, nutmeg or whatever it was to reap a high price in the market place. The convoy system meant all the ships arrived at once, their cargoes swamping the market, which was bad luck for the shippers (the planters in the West Indies, in this case) but fine for the shipowners. In peacetime, the faster ships (well kept and well commanded) could reasonably charge the highest freight because the planters, first at the market with their produce, made a good profit. In wartime there was no need for fast ships, and unscrupulous shipowners were quick to buy up any hull that would swim and could be insured: the convoy system ensured that she would not be beaten into port by faster ships and the Royal Navy was forced (blackmailed, in fact) to keep her afloat. And, to save any strain and wear on sails, spars, masts and cordage (costs, in other words), the damned mules always reefed at night, no matter how scant the breeze.

In turn that meant that each could sail with a smaller crew: with no risk of having to reef in a squall, many of these smaller traders sailed with only a master, mate, a couple of apprentices (whose indentures meant they were paying to be on board) and half a dozen men. Food, from what Ramage heard, was bad, and any complaints by the crew to a master met with a standard response: a man or two could easily be handed over to the next pressgang that came in sight. The choice was simple: serve in a merchant ship with bad food but higher pay, signing on for a single round-trip voyage, or be swept into one of the King's ships, serving until the next peace, which at the moment seemed a lifetime away.

When he returned to the Calypso and stepped through the entryport, Aitken met him with a broad grin on his face. "Mr Southwick wanted to talk to you before you go below, sir," he said, "and I've passed the word for him."

"What's all this about?" Ramage asked impatiently: he had been sitting in his cutter so long that the heat now soaking him with perspiration seemed to come from inside his body, as though it was a glowing coal. At that moment Southwick, also grinning, bustled up.

"You have visitors, sir, and I took the liberty of taking them down to wait in the cabin, where it's cooler."

Why was Southwick so concerned about visitors? Why the grin? Why the "I've got a surprise for you" way he was rubbing his hands like a parson with the Easter offering? Ramage, still at the entryport, looked outboard along the boat boom, rigged out at right-angles to the ship's side and to which the painters of boats were secured. Only the Calypso's cutter was now secured there, so how had the visitors arrived? Had they dropped from a passing cloud? And who wanted visitors at this moment: he was still so angry over Tewtin's behaviour that he just wanted to go down to his cabin and brood in peace and quiet. Sulk, really, because Tewtin had trapped him with an Admiralty order, and the prospect of driving a convoy of a hundred mules back to England at an average speed (if he was lucky and found the right winds and persuaded the mules to keep enough canvas set) of perhaps four knots. Days and weeks must pass before he could discover anything about Sarah.

At such a time a man wanted solitude, just as a sick animal hid away in a dark corner. He did not want to be surrounded by a noisy throng, all of whom would be fortifying themselves with rum punches and determined to cheer him up, not realizing that trying to cheer up a man in these circumstances only emphasized his loneliness: one was never more alone than in a crowd.

But Southwick and Aitken were still waiting expectantly, and he walked aft to the companionway. He clattered down the ladder, acknowledged the salute of the Marine sentry outside his door, pushed it open and walked into the cabin which, because his eyes had been dazzled by the sun reflecting up from the sea and the scrubbed decks, seemed very dark. There was a man sitting at his desk and he was just conscious of another smaller figure on the settee.

As the man stood up, Ramage recognized him and suddenly realized that of all his friends - few as they were - this was the one he most wanted to see at this moment. No wonder Southwick was grinning: the three of them had been shipmates several years ago, when Ramage had been under orders to find out why so many of the Post Office packets were being captured by French privateers.

As a startled Ramage just stared the man laughed. "You didn't expect to find that fellow Sidney Yorke sitting at your desk, eh?"

Ramage shook his head, trying to gain a few moments while he collected his thoughts. "No, hardly! I expected you to be in London, chasing clerks, bullying your shipmasters, and becoming very rich. Oh yes, and marrying and beginning a large family."

As he finished the last sentence he followed Yorke's eyes round to the settee and saw that the person sitting on it was a woman of such beauty and poise that he felt dizzy, almost disoriented by the surprise. Yorke had found an exquisite wife, and Ramage found himself walking forward in a daze to kiss the proffered hand and muttering "Daphne".

"You two have never met," Yorke said, his voice revealing a pride in both of them.

"But I have heard so much about you, Captain," the woman said, "that I feel I have known you for years. Why Sidney never persuaded you to visit us I don't know!"

Ramage hurriedly thought back across the years. Yorke had never mentioned a wife.

"The gallant captain was always rushing about in those days," Yorke said, "and of course there was the beautiful Marchesa!"

"Ah yes," the woman said, "the Marchesa. But we heard before we left England that she had returned to Italy ..."

She broke off, as if realizing she should not have mentioned it, but Yorke said: "It's all right: Nicholas must know she was caught in France when the war started again. Have you any news of her?"

Ramage shook his head. "Not a word. I know she stayed a few days with the Herveys in Paris, but whether or not she had left for Italy, I don't know."

Ramage pulled himself together and realized he was still holding the woman's hand, and Yorke introduced them formally: "Captain the Lord Ramage . . . Miss Alexis Yorke ..."

Ramage kissed her hand and then said politely: "Sidney, I trust you and Mrs Yorke will stay to dinner? Are you travelling in one of your own ships?"

As Yorke accepted the invitation, the woman laughed: the charming and tinkling laugh of a happy person who had just heard something amusing.

"Answering the last question first, yes. We came out in the Emerald. We planned a nice quiet voyage to celebrate the peace, and who knows, I might have found out here what I can't find in England!"

"And what is that?"

"Who is that," Yorke corrected, grinning.

"Very well, who. And have you succeeded?"

"A wife, and no, I haven't succeeded."

A dumbfounded Ramage turned to the woman, who burst out laughing. "I thought you heard Sidney introduce me as 'Mrs', but he said 'Miss' Alexis Yorke. I am (thank goodness) his sister, not his wife. In fact I have been sorting out the widows, fortune-hunters and desperate mothers among the islands and -"

"- and she has rejected the whole lot of them," Yorke said.

"Out of hand," Alexis said firmly. She looked up at Ramage, who realized she had large eyes which seemed in the shade of the cabin to be black, and she gave what could only be described as an impish grin. "You see, it isn't just a question of a wife for Sidney, but a sister-in-law for me."

"Quite." Ramage said carefully. "It could be a problem."

"Not 'could', but 'will'. Sidney will expect his bride to be immune from seasickness and as fond of going to sea in his ships as he is. She won't, of course; she'll hate the sea and will get sick even in a well-sprung carriage going down the Mall, so she will stay at home when he goes off on his voyages and every day she will come round and weep on my shoulder."

"You have no sense of family loyalty," Yorke chided. "You should be only too glad to console a grieving sister-in-law."

"I'll console a grieving sister-in-law," Alexis said, "but not a moping one, and if I don't keep an eye on you we'll end up with a moper."

"You could get married and live at the other end of the country.' Ramage commented, but she shook her head.

"Don't suggest that," Yorke said. "She's already inspected all the eligible men and found them wanting. If she lives at the other end of the country, I'll have my house forever cluttered up with a brother-in-law complaining that his wife has just gone off on a sea voyage ..."

"I love sea voyages," Alexis said, and her laugh seemed to make the Calypso come alive. "But not every man does."

"What she means is that when the suitors come knocking on the door, the first question she asks is whether or not they like sea voyages. If they say no, they don't cross the threshold."

Ramage excused himself for a moment: he had to give instructions to his steward for the meal. Silkin, sensing that with two guests the captain would at last allow him to fetch out all the silver and cut glass that stayed so long in drawers amid green baize, and napers that yellowed with disuse, listened carefully. The courses he and the captain would like to serve were limited by the frigate's cooking facilities and the fact that he could not get on shore and buy a prime cut of meat in time to roast it. Roasting food was a time-consuming job in a frigate's galley.

"Lobsters," Ramage said. "You can do much with lobsters. The wardroom bought a lamb yesterday. See if they will sell me enough to make up a plate of cold cuts."

"The prizes," Silkin reminded him. "All those salami sausages, or whatever the French call them. There are those what likes that sort o' thing, sliced thin. And we've a couple of hams left that go ten pounds each."

The midday meal, traditionally eaten by the captain about two o'clock and called dinner, was going to be a pleasant one. At that moment, Ramage realized that he had never enjoyed a meal he had to eat alone: it was as if guests were needed to give food any piquancy.

He went up on deck into the dazzling sunlight to find Aitken and explain why Southwick and not he was being invited to dinner, but the Scotsman understood only too well: the master had already told him how Mr Yorke was with them in the Post Office packet.

Ramage turned to go back down the companionway and found that Alexis had come up the steps and was now looking through one of the gunports. She turned and smiled as he approached.

"Are visitors allowed on deck?" she asked.

"Visitors such as yourself are encouraged to be on deck," Ramage said lightly. "The sun seems brighter."

Again that impish smile. "You are very gallant, Captain."

"The opportunities are very rare," he said dryly.

"Who is 'Daphne'?" she asked quietly.

"Daphne? I don't know anyone of that name," he said lamely. The name had sprung to mind the moment he saw her in the shadowed cabin; but surely he had not spoken it aloud?

"I heard you say it and I saw your lips forming it," she said, "but I must not pry into your secret."

"Secret? No secret, I assure you," he said, trying to hide his embarrassment. He managed to muster a laugh. "Oh indeed, no secret!"

"Very well, then who is Daphne?"

She was wearing a long, close-fitting olive dress which was pleated below the knees, obviously intended to give her free movement in awkward places like ship's companionways. Her hair was long and the colour of honey except on the top and sides, where the sun had bleached it. She had left her hat below in the cabin, he noticed. Her face was heart-shaped but with high cheekbones, and her nose -

"I shan't allow myself to be inspected until you tell me about Daphne," she said with feigned sternness.

"I really can't tell you," Ramage found himself stammering.

"You are blushing," she said. "Is she very beautiful?"

The devil take it, Ramage thought: she is a stranger who through Sidney has known of me for years; she is being persistent, and if I do not answer now I shall never hear the last of it.

"She's very beautiful, yes; but she's cold and lifeless and ignores me completely."

"You set me a puzzle," she said. "Now I have to guess who Daphne is! Could I have met her?"

"No, you could not possibly," he said, now alarmed. "She doesn't exist. She's imaginary."

She stood closer and murmured: "The Daphne I saw in your eyes existed: 1 was watching you. You looked round, saw me and said 'Daphne'. Had it not been so quiet I might have thought you said 'Damn me!' from surprise, but I was sure you said 'Daphne' and you've just confirmed it."

"Confirmed it?" Ramage exclaimed. "How? I said 1 didn't know anyone of that name!"

"There's some association, then. Ah - you are blushing under all that sun-tan. Tell me, or you'll never have a moment's peace."

"Oh, very well," Ramage said ungraciously. "A marble statue. Of Daphne. You've never seen it."

"I hope I have," she said. "As a very young girl when I felt clumsy and ugly, when I was making the Grand Tour and seeing what Italy had to offer. Let me see, Daphne is tall and slender, both arms are lifted in the air, and most of her is naked. Except for her left leg. which is turning into the bark of a tree trunk, and her hands too are changing into sprigs of laurel, and she is crying out to her father for help to stop this terrible metamorphosis - and close, holding her with one hand but helpless to do anything, is Apollo, from whom she is fleeing. You flatter me. Captain!" She moved back a pace, as if to let him see her more clearly. "Surely I am not really like the Daphne created by Bernini!"

His eyes dropped to her breasts, outlined perfectly beneath the dress, and he could imagine the flat belly on which, in the statue. - Apollo's hand rested.

He looked up to find two grey eyes watching him. Daring him? Certainly far from offended. Yes, she understood: she knew that her warm body had just been compared with one of the most exquisite female bodies ever revealed in marble, and the comparison apparently neither offended nor embarrassed her. Those grey eyes, the calm look, the complete composure seemed to be saying: "Well, what is the verdict?"

And he heard her say, softly: "Well, what is the verdict?"

"You know already," he said. "I recognized you at once."

"I always thought," she said conversationally, "that Bernini's Apollo was too young. In my imagination I had always thought him older - about your age, I suppose."

"Daphne is as I always thought her," he muttered, finding his breath reluctant to go down to his lungs.

"My brother will be wondering where we are," she said. "Or what we are talking about, anyway."

The meal was the most sparkling that Ramage could remember: the long and dangerous voyage that Yorke, Southwick and he had made (with Jackson, Stafford and Rossi) in the Post Office packet to discover why the ships were being captured now turned into a tale of teasing and hilarious episodes (hilarious when told now; terrifying at the time) which kept the three men glowing with reminiscence and many times brought protests from an almost incoherent Alexis, weakened by laughter and hiccoughs as the narrative began in Jamaica and proceeded to Portugal. The afternoon was finally brought to an end when Aitken passed the word that a lieutenant had arrived from the flagship with a pouch full of papers for Ramage.

They comprised, as he complained sourly to Southwick, just about every paper an admiral's imaginative clerk could draw up. For the two prizes - a bundle of papers including the surveys of their hulls by the master carpenter of the Barbados yard and two carpenters from the fleet; on their sails by the Queen's master and the master attendant at the yard; on their guns by the flagship's gunner and two more from other ships; on their provisions by the flagship's purser and master, assisted by two other masters . . . and so it went on. In one of the French frigates, a cask of red wine with a loose bung had turned to vinegar - so the contents were valued as vinegar, not wine . . .

Yorke, Southwick and Alexis waited while he turned the pages - he had wanted to glance through all the papers, in case any were urgent, before saying goodbye to the Yorkes because at the moment he had no hint when the convoy was to sail.

Ah, there was the final valuation for one of the frigates: £11,384 11s. 6d.

He skimmed through the second survey until he came to the valuation: £1,284 6s. 2d. less. That made a total of £21,484, which in turn meant that Admiral Clinton's eighth (which he did not have to share with a second-in-command because he had not joined Clinton off Brest at the time the Calypso sailed) was about £2,600, with £5,300 or so for himself, £2,600 for the Calypso's officers, master and surgeon, the same for the midshipmen, other warrant officers. Marine sergeant and so on, and the rest of the ship's company would share £5,300. Considering the pay of an ordinary seaman was 19 shillings a month, the wild hour it had taken to capture each of the frigates had been profitable.

He saw Southwick watching him and guessed the old master realized he had reached the valuations - which were in fact the prices at which Rear-Admiral Tewtin was prepared to buy in the prizes and put them into service with the Royal Navy. Fortunately these sort of purchases rarely led to disputes: the Admiralty and the Navy Board had long ago put a price on ships' tonnages with allowances for age and condition, and on just about every object to be found in a ship, so the various surveys carried out by men who did not stand to gain or lose a penny were usually very fair.

Ramage read out the total figures.

Alexis, who knew that the two frigates concerned were the prizes the Calypso had captured at Devil's Island, gave a contemptuous sniff. "That doesn't seem a very good price for two splendid frigates!"

"Please excuse my sister," Yorke said jocularly.

"But no," Alexis protested, "there's not a ship in our fleet whose hull is not insured for more than three times one of those frigates."

"They carry more than three times the cargo!" Yorke said.

"I'm talking of the hull insurance only. Anyway .they're not so dangerous to capture," Alexis protested, to be calmed by a smiling Southwick.

"If we captured such a French merchant ship laden with cargo. ma'am, we'd probably get three times the prize money."

Ramage nodded in agreement and opened the next packet. His orders for the convoy. "Seventy-two ships," he commented to no one in particular. "All the ships rendezvous here, thank goodness.'

"Why is that a good thing?" Alexis asked, collecting a frown from her brother. "Oh, pardon me: these are not matters concerning women!"

"They concern the Emerald, so they concern you," Ramage said idly, his eyes skimming down the copperplate handwriting of Tewtin's clerk. "The advantage of sailing from here is that all seventy-two ships must assemble here by the set date, and then we all sail together. But if we started with, say, twenty-five from here, and then went on to pick up ten from St Vincent, and another fifteen from St Lucia, and the rest from Tortola, we'd be delayed a month . . . at St Vincent there'd be three ships still waiting for the last of their cargo, and they'd have a sorry story that if I did not wait they'd have to sail in the next convoy and they'd be ruined . . . and so it would go on. Here, if there are only sixty-five ships ready when the convoy is due to sail, Admiral Tewtin will send us on our way . . ."

"I love Barbados," Alexis said. "Can Sidney and I persuade you to come to the races with us tomorrow afternoon - after a meal on board the Emerald?"

Ramage looked at Yorke for confirmation but he grinned. "You'll get used to it," he said cheerfully. "I own the shares in the company but she runs.it."

"You don't own all of them," she protested.

"Not all," he said mockingly, "but enough that I don't have to listen to you."

"But you do, though."

"Just out of politeness," he said, and Ramage saw the affection in his glance.