Ramage And The Drum Beat (4 page)

Henry Southwick, whose cherubic face and flowing white hair gave him the appearance of a benevolent parson, would celebrate his sixtieth birthday in a few weeks’ time, a fact he remembered as he glanced at Ramage. Although the young captain was a year or two over a third of his age and they’d served together for little more than five weeks, Southwick sensed that given a long war and that Ramage survived the intrigues of his father’s enemies and the efforts of the French and Spanish, every man that ever sailed with Mr Ramage would spend his dotage boasting about it to his grandchildren, and Southwick admitted he’d be no exception. Young captains usually annoyed him. He’d served under too many who had been given commands because their fathers owned enough cash and countryside to ensure their own nominees were elected to Parliament. All too often, when grumbling about the blatant inexperience of some young puppy in command, he’d met with the reply, ‘Well, his father’s worth a couple of votes to the Government.’ (What’s the ratio of pastureland to patronage? he wondered sourly.) Anyway, none of that could be said about Mr Ramage, since the Government had tried to get his father shot, like poor old Admiral Byng.

Southwick saw Ramage was blinking again, as though looking at a bright light, and rubbing the scar over his right brow. Although recognizing the warning signal, Southwick wondered what had caused it and, glancing at the Marchesa, saw she too had noticed and was watching with anxiety and affection in her face.

A well-matched pair, he thought, and he could well understand her love (although he was sure Mr Ramage was quite unaware of the depth of it). Sentimentally, picturing the Marchesa as his daughter, the old Master tried to see Ramage through her eyes. He had that classical build like the Greek statues he’d seen in the Morea, with wide shoulders and slim hips, light on his feet and the kind of walk that’d betrayed him as a man born to lead, even if he was dressed in rags. But as far as Southwick was concerned the eyes revealed most: dark brown, deep-set over high cheekbones and slung under bushy eyebrows (which met in a straight line when he was angry or excited), they could look as cold and dangerous as the muzzles of a pair of pistols. Yet he had a dry, straight-faced sense of humour which the men liked, although Southwick admitted that often he only realized he was having his leg pulled when he noticed the tiny wrinkles at the corners of the eyes.

‘Deck there,’ hailed Jackson. ‘A hulk, for certain.’

‘Can y’ make out her build?’ yelled Southwick, suddenly jerked back into the present.

‘Not yet. She’s stern on but yawing around.’

Southwick knew it couldn’t have been an island – there was no land for miles; but what was a dismasted ship doing out here? Suddenly he remembered the previous afternoon’s squall. At first he’d taken it for just another Mediterranean autumn thunderstorm, one of the usual couple a day. But as it approached Mr Ramage had come on deck, seen it and at once called to him to get every stitch of canvas off the ship, and as Southwick had passed on the order he’d been hard put to keep the surprise and doubt out of his voice. But Mr Ramage had been right; three minutes after the last gasket had been tied, securing the furled sails and leaving the ship rolling in a near calm, a seemingly solid wall of wind had hit the Kathleen and, with only the mast, spars, furled sails and hull to get leverage on, heeled her right over until water poured in at the gun and oar ports, and it had taken extra men at the tiller to get her to bear away under bare poles.

Southwick had expected her to capsize and knew he’d never fathom how Mr Ramage guessed there was so much wind in that particular thunderstorm. It’d seemed no larger and its clouds were no blacker than any of the others. But a ship whose captain hadn’t known – well, even if she hadn’t capsized, her masts would have certainly gone by the board.

He looked at Ramage and as their eyes met he knew the lieutenant had worked all that out even before Jackson had started up the ratlines.

‘One of ours, sir?’

‘I doubt it; not in this position.’

With that Ramage went below to use the desk in his own cabin, ducking his head under the beams and acknowledging the sentry’s salute. Even with his neck bent he could not stand upright, although it hardly mattered since the cabin was too small to walk around. And at the moment there could be no mistaking it was temporarily the quarters of a young woman accustomed to having several servants running around after her: flimsy and intimate silk garments edged with delicate lace were strewn on the desk, others tossed into the cot. As he lifted several from the desk he saw one still held the shape of Gianna’s body; she must have flung it off when she changed for lunch. Quite deliberately Ramage pictured the naked Eve carved by Ghiberti on the east doors of the Baptistry in Florence – an Eve for whom Gianna might have been the model: the same small, slim, bold body; the same small, bold breasts, flat belly… He swept the clothes aside, unlocked the second drawer and took out a thick book with a mottled brown cover labelled Signal Book for Ships of War.

Towards the end he found some handwriting on pages left clear of print which listed the numbers and positions of the various rendezvous for ships of the Mediterranean Fleet. He noted the latitude and longitude of the nearest, Number Eleven, and pulled a chart from the rack above the desk. The rendezvous was seventy-five miles to the eastward of the Kathleen’s present position – and with the wind they’d been having it ruled out any chance the dismasted ship was a British frigate waiting like a sentry at the rendezvous with fresh orders or information for ships ordered to call there.

He put a finger on the chart. The Kathleen was here, about a hundred miles due west of the southern tip of Sardinia, because he was going well south to skirt the African coast, at the same time giving a wide berth to Majorca, Minorca and the south-eastern corner of Spain. The ship ahead was much too far north to be British and bound from Naples, Malta or the Levant to Gibraltar. He glanced at the top of the chart. Toulon – yes, a French ship from the eastward and bound for the great naval base could be here. But he saw Barcelona to the west and, farther south, Cartagena, were also possible destinations for Spanish warships whose captains would be anxious to keep to the northward because of the shoals and unpredictable currents along the low-lying African coast. A ship returning after rounding Corsica and Sardinia (as he knew several Spanish ships had done recently watching for the British Fleet) might also be here.

He heard Jackson shouting from aloft but could not make out the words, and after replacing the chart and locking up the Signal Book, turned to leave the cabin just as Southwick came down the companionway.

‘Jackson says she’s a frigate sir,’ the Master explained, following Ramage up the ladder. ‘Swept clean and not a stick set as a jury rig. Says she looks Spanish built.’

‘Very well, Mr Southwick: continue heading up towards her until we can be sure.’

Gianna and Antonio both looked excited as they walked over to meet him. ‘If she’s Spanish, we can pull her to Gibraltar,’ Antonio said.

Ramage shook his head. ‘There’ll be no towing, unless she’s British.’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Gianna. ‘Why not?’

‘I–’

‘Deck there!’ hailed Jackson. ‘She’s definitely Spanish built.’

Southwick acknowledged the hail and Ramage turned away to avoid answering Gianna’s question, but she repeated it.

‘Because, madam,’ Ramage said heavily, ‘we have a ship’s company of sixty-three and we carry ten carronades, each of which fire a 6-pound shot for less than five hundred yards. If that ship over there is a Spanish frigate, she has about two hundred and fifty men on board, and probably soldiers as well, and carries at least thirty-six guns which fire a 12-pound shot for fifteen hundred yards. Any one of those shot could cripple us – they’re more than four and a half inches in diameter – and if we were hit on the waterline by a couple of them we’d sink.’

Antonio stuck an arm out sideways. ‘But don’t their guns point out at right angles, like ours? Surely they can’t shoot straight ahead or behind?’

‘Yes, they’re broadside guns, and we could keep out of their arc of fire. But they could use their bow and stern chasers.’

Antonio looked puzzled.

‘Most ships have two special ports aft and two forward. You just haul round a couple of broadside guns and aim ’em through the ports,’ he explained, gesturing aft. ‘That’s what those two ports are for.’

‘But can’t we risk being shot at by just two guns?’ Antonio persisted. ‘After all, they’ll be rolling, and without sails they can’t swing the ship round to aim a broadside, can they?’

‘No, but even if she had no guns, how can we possibly capture two hundred and fifty men who’d strongly object to us boarding the ship, let alone take them prisoner?’

‘Well, if they haven’t any guns,’ interrupted Gianna triumphantly, ‘why can’t we just keep shooting at them until they surrender?’

‘I didn’t say they haven’t any guns,’ Ramage said, fighting to conceal his exasperation. ‘I simply said “If they hadn’t” – but they have.’

‘Oh well, it’s a pity. We should cut a fine figure towing that big ship into Gibraltar.’

‘If you can imagine a little donkey pulling a large cart loaded with blocks of Carrara marble all the way over the Alps, that’s about how we’d be towing that. She displaces – if you put her on the scales you’d find she weighs about 1,300 tons against our 160 tons.’

‘Less the weight of her masts!’ Antonio exclaimed.

‘Masts, spars, bowsprit, jib-boom, rigging, blocks, sails and boats. Yes,’ Ramage conceded ironically, ‘you can deduct about a hundred tons – a little less than the weight of the Kathleen…’

Southwick called. ‘You can just see her now, sir.’

Ramage spotted the small black shape just beginning to rise over the curvature of the earth as the Kathleen approached; and pointed her out to Gianna. The frigate was about eleven miles away. He glanced astern at the cutter’s wake; she was making between five and six knots, so it would be nearly two hours before they’d be within gunshot. Close enough, rather, to make out her name.

He wondered afterwards why he corrected himself and why he went below and changed from his best uniform into an older one that bright sun, salt spray and his steward’s constant spongings and brushings had reduced to the pleasantly faded blue that he preferred to the original colour.

Ramage’s cabin for the time being was Southwick’s, who in turn had taken over that of the next senior, John Appleby, the Master’s mate. He had just finished changing when Gianna called from her cabin. Her face was serious as she motioned him to shut the door and, not knowing what she was going to say, Ramage first told the sentry to station himself a few feet away, out of earshot.

Sitting at the little desk, the chair swung round to face him, she reached up with her right hand and traced the scar over his brow. ‘Nico…?’

‘Marchesa…’

‘My Lord…?’

They both laughed with embarrassment over her difficulty in starting whatever she wanted to discuss, and he said: ‘Clench your hands, shut your eyes, and say it!’

‘It isn’t my business, Nico, but…’

‘But…?’

‘…but is it wise to leave this Spanish ship with–’

‘Without letting you leap on board, capture her single-handed and hoist the flag of Volterra?’

‘Be serious, Nico! I mean, couldn’t people say you ran away – that you refused to try to capture her?’

‘Some may, and probably will. Others will say it’d be madness even to attempt anything against a ship eight times the size of the Kathleen. Others – and they’d include Admiral Sir John Jervis and Commodore Nelson – would say I’m already disobeying orders even by going close enough to identify her. You realize the Commodore ordered me to take you and Antonio to Gibraltar as quickly as possible by the safest possible route? That means whatever we meet I have to run away, not fight.’

‘Yes, but Antonio’s afraid that since neither Sir John nor the Commodore are at Gibraltar, one of your father’s enemies might be there to make trouble, as they did at Bastia. After all, who knows what might have happened there if the Commodore hadn’t arrived in the middle of that mockery of a court martial?’

Since he’d been thinking of all this long before Jackson identified the ship as Spanish, Ramage knew Gianna’s fears were well-founded. It was difficult being in the Service as the only son of John Uglow Ramage, tenth Earl of Blazey, Admiral of the White, Cornish landowner, man of honour and bravery – and also, after Admiral Byng, the most celebrated political scapegoat of the century; a man whose honour and career, and almost his life, had been snatched away from him by the Government to use as props to keep itself in office. Yes, it was difficult and at times seemed impossible; but…

‘What are you thinking, Nico?’

For a few moments he’d forgotten she was there. ‘Just something my mother once said – that I had the same fault as my father.’

‘What is that?’ she asked quickly, revealing a sudden fear.

‘That neither of us will bother with an easy problem – someone has to say it’s impossible before we make any effort.’

‘I’d have thought that’s half-way between a fault and a virtue.’

He kissed her and led the way up on deck, walking to a carronade away from the rest of the men. While he stood with one foot on the slide facing outboard she leaned back against the bulwark, the sunlight on her hair making it glint blue-black like a raven’s feathers, and as she turned to look at the strange ship Ramage wished he was a painter to capture on canvas the splendid, patrician profile outlined against the almost harsh blue of the sea and sky. The small, slightly hooked nose and high cheekbones, the large brown eyes and delicate ears revealed by the swept-back hair gave her features the classicism of a Roman bust but belied the warm, generous lips.

Deliberately he turned away and looked round the cutter. It was in his power to have this deck swept by enemy shot, their impact gouging out swathes of great splinters and sending them scything through the air, slicing off limbs and stabbing men. Within a couple of hours, at a word from him, the newly scrubbed decks he’d just inspected could be daubed with the blood of these men now standing round laughing and joking, no doubt repeating every witty jeer they’d ever heard against the seamanship, courage and sexual prowess of the Spaniards.