Ramage's Prize
Authors: Dudley Pope
BY
A
LEXANDER
K
ENT
The Complete Midshipman Bolitho
Stand Into Danger
In Gallant Company
Sloop of War
To Glory We Steer
Command a King's Ship
Passage to Mutiny
With All Despatch
Form Line of Battle!
Enemy in Sight!
The Flag Captain
SignalâClose Action!
The Inshore Squadron
A Tradition of Victory
Success to the Brave
Colours Aloft!
Honour This Day
The Only Victor
Beyond the Reef
The Darkening Sea
For My Country's Freedom
Cross of St George
Sword of Honour
Second to None
Relentless Pursuit
Man of War
Heart of Oak
BY
P
HILIP
M
C
C
UTCHAN
Halfhyde's Island
Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest
Halfhyde to the Narrows
Halfhyde for the Queen
Halfhyde Ordered South
Halfhyde on Zanatu
BY
J
AN
N
EEDLE
A Fine Boy for Killing
The Wicked Trade
The Spithead Nymph
BY
J
AMES
L. N
ELSON
The Only Life That Mattered
BY
J
AMES
D
UFFY
Sand of the Arena
The Fight for Rome
BY
D
EWEY
L
AMBDIN
The French Admiral
The Gun Ketch
A King's Commander
Jester's Fortune
BY
D
UDLEY
P
OPE
Ramage
Ramage & The Drumbeat
Ramage & The Freebooters
Governor Ramage R.N.
Ramage's Prize
Ramage & The Guillotine
Ramage's Diamond
Ramage's Mutiny
Ramage & The Rebels
The Ramage Touch
Ramage's Signal
Ramage & The Renegades
Ramage's Devil
Ramage's Trial
Ramage's Challenge
Ramage at Trafalgar
Ramage & The Saracens
Ramage & The Dido
BY
F
REDERICK
M
ARRYAT
Frank Mildmay
or
The Naval Officer
Mr Midshipman Easy
Newton Forster
or
The Merchant Service
BY
V.A. S
TUART
Victors and Lords
The Sepoy Mutiny
Massacre at Cawnpore
The Cannons of Lucknow
The Heroic Garrison
The Valiant Sailors
The Brave Captains
Hazard's Command
Hazard of Huntress
Hazard in Circassia
Victory at Sebastopol
Guns to the Far East
Escape from Hell
BY
D
OUGLAS
W. J
ACOBSON
Night of Flames
BY
J
ULIAN
S
TOCKWIN
Kydd
Artemis
Seaflower
Mutiny
Quarterdeck
Tenacious
Command
The Admiral's Daughter
The Privateer's Revenge
BY
J
OHN
B
IGGINS
A Sailor of Austria
The Emperor's Coloured Coat
The Two-Headed Eagle
Tomorrow the World
BY
A
LEXANDER
F
ULLERTON
Storm Force to Narvik
Last Lift from Crete
All the Drowning Seas
A Share of Honour
The Torch Bearers
The Gatecrashers
BY
C.N. P
ARKINSON
The Guernseyman
Devil to Pay
The Fireship
Dead Reckoning
The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower
BY
D
OUGLAS
R
EEMAN
Twelve Seconds to Live
The White Guns
A Prayer for the Ship
For Valour
BY
D
AVID
D
ONACHIE
The Dying Trade
A Hanging Matter
An Element of Chance
The Scent of Betrayal
A Game of Bones
BY
B
ROOS
C
AMPBELL
No Quarter
The War of Knives
Peter Wicked
Published by McBooks Press 2000
Copyright © 1974 by The Ramage Company Limited
First published in the United Kingdom in 1974 by
The Alison Press/Martin Secker & Warburg Limited
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, Inc.,
ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.
Cover painting by Paul Wright.
The paperback edition of this title was cataloged as:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pope, Dudley.
Ramage's prize / by Dudley Pope.
     p.   cm. â (Lord Ramage novels ; no. 5)
ISBN 0-935526-80-3 (alk. paper)
         1. Ramage, Nicholas (Fictitious character)âFiction. 2. Great BritainâHistory, Navalâ19th centuryâFiction. 3. Great Britain. Royal NavyâOfficersâFiction. 4. Napoleonic Wars, 1800â1815âFiction.  I. Title
PR6066.O5 R36 2000
823'.914âdc21
00-058626
The e-book versions of this title have the following ISBNs:
Kindle 978-1-59013-552-5, ePub 978-1-59013-553-2, and PDF 978-1-59013-554-9
For the Georgesons, who sailed the good ship
Alano
from Falmouth
T
HIS story is based on true events. Post Office packet brigs were surrendered to French privateers in the manner described because of “ventures” carried by treacherous officers and crews, and a P.O. packet was ransomed at Lisbon in the same circumstances and difficulties as the
Lady Arabella
of the story. It is worth recording that in Nelson's day mail from wartime England for the West Indies left Falmouth fortnightly and took only 45 days to reach the most distant destination, Jamaica. Nearly two centuries later, in the age of moon walks and computers, my experience based on eight years in the Caribbean shows that surface mail from England takes sixty to ninety days to reach various islands in the West Indies.
D. P.
Yacht Ramage
Tortola, British Virgin Islands
R
EGULAR sleep had been impossible in the hot and windless night so typical of the hurricane season in Jamaica: the occasional slight zephyr venturing in through the window rarely had enough energy to penetrate the mosquito net and cool him. After a night when every brief doze drifted him into a wild dream, Ramage sat at the breakfast table feeling as limp as damp laundry, sipping coffee and squinting at the reality of the harsh sun reflecting into the hotel dining-room despite a latticed jalousie over each window.
He took a letter from his pocket and read it for the fifth or sixth time since a special messenger had delivered it the previous evening. Addressed to “Lieutenant Ramage, at the Royal Albion Hotel,” it was signed “Pilcher Skinner,” and beneath the hurried scrawl a clerk had written, “Knight, Vice-Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's ships and vessels ⦠upon the Jamaica Station.”
The wording of the letter was straightforward enough, and many a young lieutenant losing his command after a hurricane ripped the masts out of his ship and drifted her up on a coral reef would have been glad to receive it. But Ramage knew that Vice-Admiral Sir Pilcher Skinner was far from being a straightforward man.