Governor Ramage R. N. (9 page)

By noon most well-found ships would be carrying all plain sail and making their maximum speed, while one of the King's ships in a hurry would cheerfully hoist out studding sails. Then by four o'clock the wind would start to falter and by five o'clock would be light and fitful while the clouds began shrinking, and vanishing in the reverse order of the strange way they appeared. Soon after six o'clock the sun would set in an almost cloudless sky and darkness would fall with a startling suddenness, and another tropical day would be over.

Although the ritual never ceased to fascinate Ramage, who loved the Tropics and hated the chill, northern latitudes, there were exceptions to the weather pattern: the Trade winds often fell away in the hurricane season—unless there was a hurricane actually nearby—and close to the big islands like Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, the offshore breeze of the night and onshore breeze of the day were more pronounced.

Ramage found himself brooding that it was late in the season to be fooling around with a clutch of merchantmen. He looked eastward to the broad Atlantic, which stretched three thousand miles to the coast of Africa, a great sea desert all the way. Somewhere out there—although how, where and why no man knew—the hurricanes were born. Between July and October the people living in the Caribbean waited in fear for the winds which tore down houses, sank ships and brought torrential rains that washed land into the rivers and the sea. Hurricanes could even conjure up tidal waves: in 1722 the port of Port Royal that had survived the great earthquakes of 1692 had been largely destroyed by one.

Traditionally the only early warning a hurricane gave was swell waves, which could be felt for days before it arrived, and long periods of calm. These calm periods often prevented ships from getting to shelter in time. But not all swell waves or periods of calm presaged a hurricane; probably not one in fifty. Hurricanes were so unusual and unpredictable that apart from avoiding voyages in the hurricane season one could only wait and hope.

At the convoy conference, no one had tried to gloss over the fact that the convoy was well over a month behindhand and that they were crossing the Caribbean dangerously late in the season. If anyone had wanted to make light of it, every master knew that the underwriters were already charging all those merchantmen double premium for being at sea in the Caribbean in July, and that in a couple of weeks' time all policies would be cancelled. The underwriters made good livings because of their skill in basing their premiums and wording their policies on their past experience.

Ramage felt it verged on melodrama to be so gloomy when the sun was bright and the sea such a sparkling blue, the wind steady and the sky clear. Yet the very clearness of the sky could indicate a change, since the clouds should have started forming by now.

As if reading his thoughts, Southwick said, “Swell's more noticeable now we're out of the lee of the island.”

Ramage nodded. “I've noted it in the log. About three feet high.”

“Probably nothing to worry about. Not for a few days, anyway.”

Ramage was fascinated by the swell waves. The short seas knocked up by the wind were streaming in from the eastward, and would disappear as the breeze died in the evening. The swell waves were much lower and less frequent and were coming in from the south-east so that their crests moved diagonally under the others, making a herringbone pattern.

Ramage could not resist the temptation to ask Southwick: “There's no rigging that should be changed, is there?”

“No, sir; everything at all doubtful was replaced the minute I clapped eyes on the first of the swell in Carlisle Bay. While you were on board the
Topaz,”
he added, and Ramage knew the old man intended only to indicate the precise time, not make an oblique criticism of his Captain's absence from the ship.

The sun was behind a small cloud but still above the western horizon, deep red, its rays already a peacock's tail of alternate stripes of orange, yellow and blue. In an hour it would be dark and the wind was becoming fitful as the clouds began dissolving.

Already the convoy was beginning to straggle. The seven leading ships were in position, and so were the next one or two in each column; but after that no telescope was needed to see men out on the yards of many ships, reefing topsails and furling topgallants.

“Look at the mules!” Southwick fumed. “They'd be slow enough if they were setting stun'sails; but they're actually
furling
their t'gallants …”

Ramage shrugged his shoulders, and imagined daybreak next morning when he would stand at the main shrouds and stare at the convoy with a telescope, counting the number of ships as soon as it was light enough to discern them, and then search the horizon astern for the missing ones.

Suddenly Jackson called: “Captain, sir, the flagship's signalling: our pendant,
To pass within hail.”

“Very well, acknowledge.”

The response was mechanical, Ramage realized, but his reaction was not, and he glanced across at Southwick and told him to carry on. As the Master began bellowing the orders which sent the men running to the braces to haul round the yards and to the sheets to trim the sails as the
Triton's
wheel was put over, and the brig turned on to a course which would take her diagonally across the corner of the convoy, Ramage tried to guess the orders waiting for him on board the
Lion.

Routine, or something to catch him out? Since they'd be shouted to him as the
Triton
came close alongside, there'd probably be only a few seconds for him to react: a few seconds in which to haul in what had been shouted and give the requisite orders to Southwick. But, Ramage told himself, there's one sure way of making a mess of it, and that's to start fretting …

It was curious that the Admiral had left him alone since the convoy sailed. Perhaps he was going to send him beating all the way back to Barbados on some footling errand, with orders to rejoin the convoy by noon tomorrow. A small and unimportant task to make sure Ramage had no sleep.

Glancing at the flagship way over on the larboard bow as he went down to his cabin to rinse his face—the scorching, bright sun of the afternoon had left him sticky and slightly dazed—he knew he must beware of getting obsessed with the idea that Goddard was persecuting him. He was, but it didn't do any good to think about it; on the contrary …

He clattered down the companion-way, acknowledged the Marine sentry's salute and went into his cabin, ducking his head under the low beams. It was dark down here, and everywhere he saw red orbs—the result of staring at the sun as he paused for a moment before coming below. He squeezed his eyes shut a few times and the orbs vanished. He took the deep metal jug from the rack, pulled out the wooden bung and poured water into the equally battered metal handbasin. One thing about the Caribbean, the torrential rain so frequent in late-afternoon thunderstorms, often without a lot of wind, meant that they could catch rainwater and not worry about spray making it brackish.

As Southwick brought the
Triton
round to larboard Ramage felt her motion change; the combined roll and pitch on her original course, with the wind on the quarter, changed to sluggish pitching as she ran almost dead before the wind to pass across the corner of the convoy. He reached for a towel, wiped his face briskly, crammed on his hat again and ducked out of the cabin.

He paused at the top of the companion-way and looked astern: the swell waves were longer than he'd thought as they ran up under the wind waves. He counted to himself and saw that the interval between the crests was still the same. It must be an optical illusion; just a trick of the light that made them look longer and larger. Probably because the sun dropping had lengthened the shadows. And he was getting jumpy, too …

In a few minutes the
Triton
would be passing across the
Topaz's
bow. Would Maxine be on deck? He walked aft to join Southwick, and took his telescope from the rack by the binnacle box.

The
Topaz
was a smart ship and Yorke a lucky man to own five more like her. Lucky and obviously shrewd, and one of the few men he knew that deserved the legacy he'd received from his grandfather. A group of people … he put the telescope to his eye. Yes—there was Maxine, looking through a telescope held by Yorke. Her mother and father were laughing and St Cast was struggling with another telescope. Ramage waved and she waved back—and from Yorke's gesture and her wriggling he guessed she had accidentally moved the telescope and they could not train it back on the
Triton's
quarterdeck.

The brig was moving fast now as she headed for a point just ahead of the
Lion:
a point chosen by Southwick as being the place where the two ships, travelling on different courses and at different speeds, would converge after covering the minimum distance. In a few minutes Ramage could distinguish the
Lion's
rigging as made up of individual ropes, so she was a mile away. He took the convoy plan from his pocket, unfolded the page and glanced through the names to refresh his memory. Looking up again, he could recognize men on the
Lion's
decks—a third of a mile to go. Now he could pick out the gilding on her name carved across her transom. And the inside of the transom, behind the stern-lights which now reflected the evening light like dulled mirrors, the cabin in which the convoy conference had been held, and where Goddard and Croucher had clumsily revealed that they were watching—and waiting.

The
Lion
was pitching too, in response to this low swell; pitching more than Ramage expected. It was emphasized by her slow speed—she was already down to double-reefed topsails so that she did not outsail the convoy.

Ramage knew—for he was clasping and unclasping his hands like a nervous curate—that it was as much as he could do to leave the conn with Southwick. The old Master was more than competent to take the
Triton
close alongside the flagship; it was simply jumpiness on Ramage's part; as though everything would go wrong if he was not doing something active. Then he remembered a comment of his father's—true leadership is being able to sit at the back, watch everything, give the minimum of orders and yet remain in complete control.

“To windward, sir?”

Officially, Southwick was asking his Captain a question. In fact he was making a statement. And as he spoke, Southwick knew the answer was equally predictable.

“Yes, to windward, Mr Southwick; we don't want to have her blanketing us.”

She was big: Ramage could see that the
Triton's
deck was just about level with the
Lion's
lowest row of gun ports. And as she pitched she showed the overlapping plates of copper sheathing below the waterline, sheathing foul with barnacles and weed. She had obviously been drydocked before leaving England, and Ramage knew that the two days spent at anchor in Barbados—plus a few days in Cork while collecting the rest of the convoy—were the only times the ship had been at rest since then. It was a miracle how the weed and goose barnacles managed to get a grasp and flourish. He was so absorbed in the eternal problem of keeping a ship's bottom clean that he only half heard Southwick's shouted orders to bear up and bring the
Triton
round a point to starboard to run close alongside the flagship.

“Man the weather braces … Another pull on the sheets there! … Tally that aft, men, and step lively!”

A brief order to the quartermaster and an injunction to “Watch your luff, now!” then Southwick's stream of orders stopped as quickly as they started, and the
Triton
was thirty yards to windward of the
Lion
and a ship's length astern of her. She would pass clear of the great yards which towered over the
Lion
and extended out several feet beyond her sides, and yet close enough for Goddard to shout without effort.

Speaking-trumpet! Ramage turned to call to Jackson and found the American standing just behind him, the speaking-trumpet ready in his outstretched hand. Ramage took it, stepped over to the larboard side and jumped up onto the breech of the aftermost twelve-pounder carronade. He turned the trumpet in his hand: he would first be putting the mouthpiece to his ear so that it served as an ear trumpet.

The
Triton
was overhauling the flagship fast and as he glanced forward, checking on the trim of the sails, Ramage saw that every man on deck was standing precisely at his post. Those that could had edged over slightly to larboard, as if to hear what was shouted from the flagship and be ready to anticipate any manoeuvres and orders. The sails overhead were trimmed perfectly and drawing.

As Southwick bellowed out an order to clew up the maintopsail, reducing the
Triton's
speed to that of the
Lion's
—and so judging it that by the time it was done and the brig began slowing down, she would be abreast of the flagship—Ramage could hear an occasional deep thump high above him as the
Lion's
sails lost the wind when she pitched, and then filled again suddenly. And the creaking of the gudgeons and pintles of her rudder as the
Triton
swept past her transom, and the sloshing of water curling along her sides and round her quarters.

Then Goddard was staring down at him, a gargoyle on the edge of a church roof, and Croucher had appeared beside him at the break in the
Lion's
gangway. As Croucher lifted a speaking-trumpet to his mouth, Ramage held his to his ear. Croucher's was highly polished. When he put it down his fingers would smell brassy, Ramage thought inconsequentially.

“Make a complete sweep southabout round the convoy and stop any ship reducing sail unnecessarily—even if it means getting inside the convoy. Then resume your position.”

Reverse speaking-trumpet; jam to the lips. “Aye aye, sir.”

That's all. Down from the carronade, wave to Southwick indicating he was taking the conn, speaking-trumpet to lips again, clew up the foretopsail, the ship slowing down, and the
Lion
drawing ahead again, Goddard watching because he probably expected the
Triton
to clap on sail and try to cut across the
Lion's
bow.