Ramage & The Freebooters Read online

  Spencer forgot the mutiny as he studied Ramage, realizing a lot would depend on the lad’s character over the next few weeks. Next few hours, in fact. No, it wasn’t the face or the stance, nor the physique or the voice… At that moment Ramage glanced up nervously and Spencer saw that part of it was the eyes. He realized they could express the same menace or defiance as the muzzles of a pair of pistols. And looking into them you could no more guess his thoughts than you could see the lead shot in the pistols’ barrels.

  Yet you didn’t see those eyes across the length of a ballroom. What was it then? It was like glancing up at the night sky – a few stars out of the millions visible caught the eye, for no apparent reason. Spencer finally admitted he couldn’t define it, though it was clear why Ramage’s men were devoted to him: he combined a decisive manner with a dry sense of humour and, like his father, he combined a highly developed, even if arbitrary, sense of justice with an uncontrollable impatience with fools. Well, no harm in that – as long as he never became a member of the Board and had to persuade the rest to adopt some policy they were too stupid to understand.

  Realizing he’d been staring at Ramage for some moments, Spencer smiled and asked: ‘Why do you think you were chosen to command the Triton and given these orders?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, sir,’ Ramage said frankly.

  ‘Since you’ve already given the reason yourself without realizing it, I’ll tell you – and I’m speaking to the son of an old friend, not to a young lieutenant!

  ‘The Board know full well that to get the Triton under way at Spithead is going to need ingenuity and quick thinking by her commanding officer; perhaps even highly irregular methods which might lead to violence and which, if it resulted in a public outcry, the Board would have to disown.’

  He held up his hand to stop Ramage interrupting and continued: ‘The Board also know it’s easier to persuade fifty seamen than a couple of hundred, so they chose a brig rather than a frigate. Selecting a lieutenant to command her – well, there was only one man known to them who was the junior lieutenant of a frigate when he was rendered unconscious in battle and woke to find himself her commanding officer and behaved with great initiative and bravery; and only one lieutenant who was quick enough to spot that the only way to prevent several Spanish ships of the line from escaping capture was to ram the leading one with the tiny cutter he was commanding.

  ‘That the lieutenant happens to be you is a fortunate coincidence,’ Spencer added.

  But Ramage had already spotted the potential trap.

  ‘If anything went wrong at Spithead, then I’ll make a convenient scapegoat,’ he added bitterly. ‘And the son of “Old Blazeaway” into the bargain.’

  ‘Scapegoat, yes – if you fail,’ Spencer said blandly. ‘And no public credit if you succeed, because no one but the Admiralty knows the problems you’ll have overcome.’

  ‘Exactly, my Lord.’

  ‘You have a poor view of politicians, Ramage – and in view of your family’s experience, I can’t blame you. But you’d be wise to give the Board a little more credit. For a start, the Board chose the man they thought would succeed. That’s their prime interest. But the man they chose might fail and might become a scapegoat.’

  He wagged a finger as he said slowly, emphasizing each word, ‘Don’t forget any public outcry brings the Navy into disrepute. Just suppose a public outcry forced us to bring you to trial. What better defence can the Admiralty have for their choice than citing your record so far – omitting your tendency to ignore orders? Who else could call witnesses to his character ranging from Lord St Vincent and Sir Horatio Nelson down to seamen who were on board the Kathleen when you rammed the San Nicolas?’

  Ramage was almost persuaded and grateful to the First Lord for his frankness. He was just going to reply when Spencer said quietly: ‘We’re putting a lot of faith in you, Ramage. It’s vital that the three admirals are warned of what’s happening at Spithead. Supposing the mutiny spreads to Admiral Duncan’s Fleet watching the Dutch, or Sir Richard Curtis’ off Brest, or Lord St Vincent’s covering the Spanish off Cadiz, or Admiral Robinson’s covering the Windward and Leeward Islands, or Sir Hyde Parker’s at Jamaica…

  ‘The Royal Navy’s all that stands between us and defeat,’ he continued. ‘You realize that. The price of bread is rising, the people are restive with empty purses and often empty bellies, Parliament is more than restive with a government that can only announce defeats and the defection of one ally after another on the Continent. And every damned merchant in the City of London is screaming that he’s ruined. Sometimes, Ramage, I wonder where and how it will all end. I daren’t even think of when.’

  Since his only knowledge of the mutinies came from the newspapers, Ramage asked: ‘What exactly are the men asking for, sir?’

  ‘More pay; leave to visit their families when in port; better provisions and issued at sixteen ounces to the pound, not fourteen; vegetables to be served with fresh beef instead of flour when in port; better conditions for the sick; wounded to be paid until they’re fit or pensioned… It’s a long list.’

  Hard to judge Spencer’s attitude from his voice, but Ramage wondered if the First Lord knew the views of many of the junior captains. For sure he’d have heard the views of every admiral with enough wind left to express them; yet did he realize that quite a number of officers had for years felt the men’s conditions should be improved? Well, now was the time…

  ‘I think many officers feel some of the grievances are justified, sir,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I daresay,’ Spencer said, ‘but we can only spend the money Parliament votes us – and that’s already well over twelve million pounds a year. Why, the Secretary’s calculated that it’d cost over half a million a year to meet these demands.’

  ‘But granting the men leave after they’ve been at sea for a year or so–’

  ‘Out of the question!’ Spencer snapped. ‘They’d desert in droves!’

  ‘Not the good men,’ Ramage persisted. ‘They only desert because they desperately want to see their families.’

  Then, seeing Spencer was tapping the table impatiently, he decided to make just one more point.

  ‘Purser’s measure, sir – I can guess that’s one of the men’s main grievances. Before they went to sea, these men always considered a pound weight consisted of sixteen ounces. Yet when a sixteen-ounce pound of meat is sent to a ship, only fourteen ounces are issued to the men and they’re called a pound–’

  ‘Ramage, you know as well as I do about wasting. Meat goes rotten, bread gets stale, beer leaks, weevils eat the flour. If the purser wasn’t allowed the difference between the two measures he’d never balance his books!’

  Ramage then knew it was pointless to argue. Spencer was surrounded by clerks with their ledgers. He’d never seen a dishonest purser at work; never seen the wretched fellow altering his books the moment a seaman died, debiting him with clothes and tobacco he’d never had, so that there was nothing left of the man’s pay for the wretched widow…

  Spencer’s next question caught him unawares.

  ‘Do you think you can make sixty mutineers get the Triton under way?’

  ‘No, sir,’ he answered, suddenly realizing this was his chance to lessen the odds. ‘I don’t think anyone could board a brig which had a mutinous crew and make them do anything, even if he had fifty Marines to back him up.’

  He might just as well have flung an inkwell into the First Lord’s face.

  ‘My God, Ramage! You realize what’s at stake? You, of all people, now saying you can’t do it when a minute or two ago you said…’

  He began pushing his chair back, obviously intending to leave the room.

  ‘Sir–’

  Spencer paused. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m afraid you misunderstood me: I meant I couldn’t force a ship’s company I didn’t know to do what I wanted. But if I may ask a favour…’

  ‘Go on, man!’

  ‘Well sir, I was thinking of m
y Kathleens–’

  ‘–but she’s sunk! They’re distributed among Lord Vincent’s squadron.’

  ‘No, sir, twenty-five of them were sent to the Lively with me – she was short of men – and came back to England.’

  ‘Good men?’

  ‘The best, sir! I chose them myself.’

  ‘But the Lively’s at Portsmouth or Spithead; she’s probably affected.’

  ‘I know, sir,’ Ramage persisted, ‘but if half the Triton’s present complement could be exchanged for the twenty-five ex-Kathleens in the Lively, at least I’d have halved the odds by having nearly half a ship’s company who’ve – well, who’ve–’

  ‘Followed you because you’re you…’ Spencer said with a grimace. ‘Very well, a messenger will take the orders to Portsmouth within an hour. That’ll give the men plenty of time to settle in before you arrive.’

  ‘May I ask one more favour, sir.’

  Spencer nodded.

  ‘The Master, sir. I’m sure the Triton’s present one is a good man, but the former Master of the Kathleen, Henry Southwick, might help me turn the trick with the men.’

  ‘Very well. Anything else?’

  ‘No sir. The rest is up to me.’

  ‘Good. But look here, Ramage, I must make one thing clear. You know as well as I do that until you reach the West Indies and come under Admiral Robinson’s command, you’ll be a private ship. But don’t go chasing after prizes just because there’s no admiral to take his eighth share.’

  Ramage’s resentment must have shown in his face much as he tried to control it, because Spencer said coolly: ‘You’re a deuced touchy youngster. I didn’t mean you’d go after the money; just telling you the Admiralty can’t and don’t approve of your habit of going your own way. I’d be a poor friend of your family if I didn’t warn you not to make a habit of it. It’s like duelling. Someone challenges and wins a duel. Very well – perhaps it was a matter of honour. But sometimes a man develops a taste for duelling: before long he’s constantly looking for an imagined insult to justify a challenge. By then he’s no better than a murderer.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘Good. Now, you’ll leave for Portsmouth tonight. We’d better spend half an hour going over the details of what’s been happening at Spithead and how the Admiralty and Parliament view it, so that you can answer any questions from the admirals. Here, pen and paper and ink: make notes as I talk.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dusty and weary after a night’s journey in the post-chaise from London to Portsmouth, Ramage walked through the great dockyard after visiting the Admiral Superintendent’s office with as much enthusiasm for the task ahead as a condemned man going to the wall to face a firing squad.

  Normally there was more bustle in the streets of Portsmouth than in the City of London; normally the dockyard was busier than Billingsgate Fishmarket, and the language riper, and one had to keep a weather eye open for fear of being run down by an exuberant crowd of shipwrights’ apprentices hurrying along with a handcart of wood.

  There’d be the thudding of a hundred adzes biting into solid English oak, shaping futtocks and beams for new ships of war; the sharp clanking of blacksmiths’ hammers shaping red-hot metal in the forges; the grating of two-handled saws cutting logs into planks in the sawyers’ pits.

  Groups of seamen from the various ships with a cheery ‘One, two and heave!’ would normally be hoisting sacks and barrels of provisions on to a can, while the masts and yards sprouting from ships in the docks between the buildings would be alive with men bending on new sails and replacing worn-out rigging.

  Marine sentries guarding the gates and the buildings would be saluting smartly, muskets clattering in a cloud of pipe-clay.

  But today the dockyard was deserted as though abandoned before an approaching enemy army. Not one adze, blacksmith’s hammer or saw was at work; not one forge had its furnace alight: the mutineers had frightened the craftsmen into staying at home. The masts and yards were bare – indeed, few yards were even squared.

  Although there were plenty of seamen about, they slouched, some of them insolently walking out of their way to pass close to an officer without saluting.

  For the first time in his life Ramage felt he didn’t belong; neither to the dockyard nor the ships. All were alien, things of brick or wood through which malevolent ghosts walked.

  And the Port Admiral… He’d cursed and sworn with well-nigh apoplectic vigour about the mutineers and the disrespect they’d shown him; but he’d been quite unable to tell Ramage what was going on. In fact Ramage ended the interview with the uncomfortable feeling the Admiral considered him an odd fellow for being so inquisitive and was far more concerned that, as a new commanding officer joining his ship he took a copy – and signed a receipt for it – of the bulky ‘Port Orders’ which outlined in considerable detail how the port’s daily routine was to be conducted.

  Ramage seethed as he recalled the interview. When he’d asked whether the Triton was provisioned for the West Indies and ready for sea, the question had been brushed aside, the Admiral drawing his attention to the first of the Port Orders and reading it out – ‘the receipt of all Orders or Letters on Service is to be immediately acknowledged in writing…’

  Like a naval Nero fiddling while the Fleet mutinied, the Admiral reacted by ignoring it, apart from a tirade against the men in the Royal George who’d dared to hoist a red flag – the ‘bloody flag’.

  However, he’d finally managed to discover that Southwick had already gone on board the Triton. That was something, even though the Admiral added with gloomy relish that the mutineers had by now probably put him in irons and would do the same to Ramage the moment he set foot on board.

  Recalling Lord Spencer’s reactions when he’d attempted to warn him that many captains felt some of the seamen’s grievances were justified, Ramage suddenly understood why the First Lord showed so little interest: he relied on his admirals to advise him; men like the Port Admiral. Men who, when they went to sea, took their own provisions, own cook and own servants; who, by the very nature of their high position, had to remain remote from the seamen. Little wonder the First Lord showed little sympathy for the men.

  And suddenly he guessed that the mutineers’ leaders must have realized all this long ago; realized that open mutiny was the only chance of getting better conditions. Since the men had already announced their loyalty to the King and vowed they’d sail at once if the French Fleet put to sea, there was no question that the mutiny was fomented by revolutionaries.

  But why, he mused, couldn’t people of Spencer’s calibre understand that conditions must be bad for thousands of men to risk hanging to secure a few pence more pay, another two ounces in a pound of provisions, occasional shore leave and better treatment for the sick and wounded? The only possible explanation was that the admirals, unwilling to be the bearers of unpalatable news, had forgotten they had a loyalty to their men and told the First Lord what they thought he’d want to hear…

  Who on earth was waving from that doorway? Suddenly Ramage recognized the lanky figure of Thomas Jackson, an American seaman and his former coxswain in the Kathleen: the man who’d helped him rescue the Marchesa and helped him escape, using false papers, after being captured by the Spaniards. Each had saved the other’s life more than once; between them was the bond of shared dangers, failures and successes.

  Glancing round to make sure none of the seamen was watching, Ramage walked over to the building, with apparent casualness, noticing Jackson had disappeared through the open door.

  The building was a cooper’s store, full of empty barrels and casks, with thousands of staves and hoops piled on top of each other in great stacks.

  ‘Morning, sir: sorry to be waving like that but–’

  ‘Good to see you, Jackson: you’re mustered in the Triton?’

  ‘Aye, sir: all the Kathleens exchanged into her from the Lively and Mr Southwick’s joined. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘H
ow do you mean?’

  ‘Well, sir, us Kathleens didn’t think anything about the exchange because the Lively’s due for a refit soon; but when Mr Southwick arrived alongside one or two of us began to wonder. The original Tritons were all for keeping him off, but we got him on board. I tipped him the wink and as he knew you were due he thought I’d better stay on shore to keep a weather eye open.’

  ‘Good. Now, how are things on board?’

  ‘Bad, I’m afraid, sir.’

  ‘The Tritons?’

  ‘They support the mutiny, every one of them. There’s no violence, though. They’re good enough men at heart.’

  ‘A particular leader?’

  ‘One man – the rest follow him.’

  ‘If he wasn’t on board?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir, to be honest. Someone else might take his place.’

  ‘Any likely candidates?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. But I’ve only been on board a short while, sir: it’s hard to be sure.’

  ‘The Kathleens?’

  Jackson looked embarrassed.

  ‘Come on, speak out, Jackson. The whole damned Fleet’s mutinied, so nothing else can surprise me!’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain, sir, because the men’s claims are–’

  ‘We’re not discussing conditions in the Navy, Jackson, because I can’t change them. Now, how do the Kathleens stand?’

  ‘Well, sir…’

  He understood only too well Jackson’s dilemma: those twenty-five men were among the finest in the Navy: cheerful, loyal and well-disciplined. After the Kathleen had been sunk he’d hand-picked those sent to the Lively and it had been difficult to choose them.