Ramage and the Dido (4 page)

‘That explains it. The master shipwright tells me she has a large number of repaired shotholes, but the repairs were not all made at the same time.’

‘By no means, sir. The last lot were done in the Mediterranean, and the West Indies before that. The ship hasn’t been in a dockyard since she was fitted-out after we captured her, and that fitting-out was done at English Harbour, Antigua, which was – and probably still is – a nest of thieves, where it is hard to refit a bumboat.’

Rossiter laughed and said: ‘Yes, I know about English Harbour. Well, things are a little better here. There’s still some work to be done on the
Dido,
but your first lieutenant is busy. He has a copy of the Port Orders, and I’ve no complaints so far: his daily reports come in on time. He tells me he was with you in the
Calypso.
He’s new to seventy-fours.’

Ramage nodded. ‘As you probably know, sir, the Admiralty turned over all the Calypsos to the
Dido,
so I have a good nucleus to start with: almost all the men have been with me since long before I commanded the
Calypso.’

‘You’re a lucky fellow. But you have to find another three or four hundred men…’

‘Yes,’ said Ramage soberly, ‘and train them.’

‘Did you bring your wife down with you?’ the admiral asked, fully aware that few of his captains were titled and married to the daughter of a marquis and, in Ramage’s case, the son of an earl who had been a famous admiral. Captain Lord Ramage, the admiral guessed, was the source of much influence at the Admiralty. In that, Rossiter was in fact wrong: Ramage’s only influence at the Admiralty arose as a result of many despatches describing his operations and which had been thought worthy of printing in the
London Gazette,
and there were more and more stories about his exploits in the
Naval Chronicle,
an aptly titled magazine describing the activities of the Navy.

‘Yes,’ Ramage told the admiral, ‘she is staying at The George.’ And, realising this was a good opportunity of making the point to the admiral, he added: ‘I had been in the Mediterranean for some time, and the Admiralty had just given me three weeks’ leave. The orders for the
Dido
came after only five days.’

‘Well, it’s going to take you two or three weeks to get the
Dido
ready for sea, so you’ll be able to see something of her.’

‘This is the first time I’ve fitted-out a seventy-four,’ Ramage said. ‘Has she got her masts in?’

The admiral shuffled through some papers on his desk. ‘Ah, yes, here’s yesterday’s report. Masts are in, and your first lieutenant is setting up the standing rigging. Yards are on the dock waiting, along with the guns. Oh yes, she’s lying alongside the Camber, so you will not need to use a boat, and your wife will be able to visit you.’

‘I have permission to sleep on shore, sir?’ Ramage asked, knowing it was needed under the regulations.

‘Yes, while the ship is alongside. After that, I’m afraid not. My apologies to her ladyship, but I’m bound by the rules of the port.’

‘She will understand. Well. I’d better get on board and read myself in,’ Ramage said. ‘I hope some convoys are due in – I’ll need to send out some pressgangs.’

‘You’re lucky: a West Indian convoy is due any day, and another from the Cape of Good Hope. You should find some prime seamen.’ The admiral smiled. ‘You are also lucky that some of the ships in port are well supplied with men; only the
Dido
is so much below her complement, so you’ll have first choice.’

The Camber was only a few hundred yards from the port admiral’s house and Ramage decided to walk over, approaching the
Dido
slowly. The Dockyard was busy, with men trotting along wheeling handcarts, or being marched from one place to another. Another group of men pulled a cart on which were piled rolled-up sails; yet another had several coils of rope. Ramage soon tired of saluting, but he realised there were few post-captains walking around the place in uniform with sword.

And there was the
Dido.
She seemed enormous, black hulled with a double yellow strake above and below the gundeck. Her masts towered up, the impression of height exaggerated because the yards were not crossed, but lying on the ground, waiting to be swayed up. And rows of guns nestling on their carriages – the great 32-pounders, twenty-eight of them, and thirty 24-pounders, sixteen 12-pounders and, like crouching bulldogs, eight 12-pounder carronades, the squatness exaggerated by the length of the barrels of the other guns.

Ramage climbed on board to be met by a startled Kenton, who had not seen him walking across the Dockyard towards the ship. He gave Ramage a hasty salute while sending off Orsini to find the first lieutenant.

‘We didn’t know when to expect you, sir,’ he said apologetically. ‘I did not see your carriage.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Ramage said reassuringly, ‘I walked over from the port admiral’s house. It gave me a chance to look at the ship.’

Kenton grinned happily. ‘A bit different from the
Calypso,
sir! Takes some getting used to.’

Ramage looked affectionately at the small, red-haired and heavily freckled youth. ‘Well, Kenton, what does it feel like to be second lieutenant of a ship of the line?’

‘Awesome, sir. And I have to thank you. Shifting all of us from the
Calypso
to here was a big surprise, and we owe the promotion to you; their Lordships would never have done it but for you.’

Ramage waved a hand diffidently. ‘Well, it’s up to you now.’

At that moment both Aitken and Southwick arrived simultaneously at the entryport and there was a flurry of salutes and greetings. As soon as they were over, Ramage said: ‘Mr Aitken, muster the ship’s company aft on the quarterdeck: I had better read myself in.’

Until he read his commission aloud to the officers and ship’s company, he was not officially in command of the ship, and at the moment the parchment was sitting snugly in his pocket.

Within a minute or two the shrill calls of the bosun’s mates, followed by the bellowed orders to muster aft, were echoing through the ship, and Southwick was standing beside him, saying in a low voice: ‘Bit o’ a surprise, sir, shifting us all from the
Calypso!’

‘Not unwelcome, I trust?’

The old master grinned, taking off his hat and running his hand through his flowing white hair. ‘No, sir. I like to think we all deserved a seventy-four after all those years in a frigate. What does it feel like to command a ship o’ the line?’

‘I’ve only been on board about five minutes, so my feelings are a bit mixed,’ Ramage said lightly. ‘In theory I’m looking forward to it.’

‘Our biggest trouble is going to be men,’ Southwick said. ‘At the moment we have less than half our complement.’

‘The port admiral says two convoys are due in, one from the West Indies and the other from the Cape. With luck we should get at least a hundred men from each one.’

‘I hope so,’ Southwick said gloomily. ‘I don’t want to fill up the ship with rubbish from the prisons.’

‘You can’t avoid having some convicts when fitting-out a ship as big as this.’

‘I know, sir, but don’t expect me to like it.’

Aitken came to report: ‘The men are mustered aft, sir. Will you be making a speech?’

‘A speech? Good heavens, the men know me well enough by now.’

‘I still think they’d appreciate a few words, sir. It’s an even bigger change for them than it is for us, and they’ve been working hard since they came on board.’

‘Oh, very well,’ Ramage said, hard put not to sound surly, ‘but I’ve no idea what to say.’

He was startled when, as he strode across the quarterdeck past the assembled men, they started cheering him. He spotted Jackson, Stafford and Rossi grinning among the throng, and beside them the four Frenchmen. In front of each division stood the officers. There was the willowy, debonair third lieutenant George Hill, who spoke French fluently because his French mother had been unable to learn English. And there, stiff as a ramrod, was the fourth lieutenant, William Martin, popularly known as ‘Blower’ because of his skill with the flute. The freckle-faced Peter Kenton was standing to attention in front of his division and Ramage guessed Orsini was now on watch at the entryport. The Marines were drawn up in two files athwartships, with Sergeant Ferris and Lieutenant Rennick in front. Rennick, Ramage noted, should be promoted to Captain now.

The cheering had stopped and he took the commission from his pocket and unfolded it. He coughed to clear his throat and then began reading in a strong voice, hurrying over the preliminaries until he reached the important part: ‘…We do hereby appoint you captain of His Majesty’s Ship the
Dido
willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the charge and command of Captain in her accordingly.’ He read out the warning to the officers and men to behave themselves, answering to the contrary ‘at your peril’.

Finally he came to the end and rolled up the parchment and looked round at the men. Yes, Aitken was right, they expected him to say a few words.

‘Well, goodbye Calypsos, hello Didos,’ he said. ‘I see that you have a larger ship than when I last saw you. The port admiral has just told me the master shipwright reports that the
Calypso
is worn out. I only hope you men aren’t worn out because–’ he gestured aloft at the bare masts, ‘–there is a lot of work to be done up there.

‘But more important, we shall have about three hundred and fifty new men joining the ship within the next week or two. Some will be trained seamen: some will be fresh off the farm; some will be fresh out of jail. But – as I remember telling you several years ago – none of them has a past the moment his name is written in the muster book. From then on he starts a new life as a Dido, and it will be up to him to make his own reputation. If he proves a bad man, he can expect no mercy from me. If he is a good man, then he will be treated accordingly. I mean that it is of no importance whether a man is an able seaman or fresh from the plough, he makes a fresh start.

‘All this will mean extra work for you men, but also extra responsibility. I want you to help train the men that don’t know their larboard hand from the hanging magazine. And I want you to make sure that trained seamen do things my way.’

He looked round and concluded: ‘The
Calypso
was a happy ship and I hope the
Dido
will be too. But it all depends on the officers and ship’s company. So, men, it all depends on you.’

Ramage stopped talking, certain he had made a lame and ineffectual speech, which would have done little more than embarrass the men, so he was startled to hear them cheering again, this time even louder.

As the men were dismissed by their officers he walked under the halfdeck to look at his cabins for the first time. There the cabin, coach and bedplace seemed larger than usual because they were bare of furniture and the four 12-pounders were down on the dock, not lashed in their usual position, two in the cabin and one each in the coach and bedplace. The canvas-covered deck was painted in a chessboard pattern of black and white, and the sternlights, six big windows with stoneground glass, meant that the cabin had plenty of light. But, Ramage admitted, without a dining table, chairs, settee, armchairs, wine cooler and a desk, both cabin and coach were as inviting as empty warehouses.

He thought for a few minutes. The furniture that he had in the
Calypso
was very worn: the settee sagged so much that it looked more like a nest in the middle, and the armchair was even worse. His desk and the dining room table had been inherited from the French captain, who obviously had not been fussy about scratching the tops of both. No, all that furniture could stay in the
Calypso,
a present to her next captain (assuming the dockyard people did not steal it), and he would start fresh with the
Dido,
buying new furniture. It would give Sarah something to do – she could also choose material for curtains and cushions: she had excellent taste, and Jessop could take her round in the carriage to visit Portsmouth’s selection of furniture shops.

And a cot. He suddenly remembered the bedplace was bare, too, and all that was fitted towards the captain’s getting a good night’s sleep were two eyebolts in the deckhead from which to sling the cot.

The tiny cabin of the captain’s clerk was built on to the starboard forward corner of the bedplace, and he walked outside to inspect it. There was no disguising the fact that it was little more than a hutch, but luckily the man wanted little more than room for a small table and a chair and enough room to swing a hammock. Ramage was sure that Luckhurst, his clerk, was more than content: the fact that a hammock was slung showed that the man had already moved in. Well, from now on he was going to be busy – there would be plenty of reports, surveys and returns ‘according to the prescribed form’ and applications to be made in the next few days before the
Dido
sailed.

He went back into the cabin and opened the door leading to the balcony stretching across the stern, outside the sternlights. Extending the width of the ship, it was going to be a joy, enabling him to walk back and forth in the fresh air with privacy. And he only had to look over the side and he would see the
Dido
’s
wake curling astern beneath him. Yes, a seventy-four was a great improvement on a frigate.

Except… There was one important exception. A seventy-four was a damned big ship. From memory, a ship as big as the
Dido
would be about 275 feet from the end of the spanker boom to the end of the jib-boom. In other words she was that long from the aftermost end to the fore end. And the actual ship, forgetting the booms? Well, about 200 feet from the figurehead at the bow to the end of his balcony.

Ramage’s thoughts were interrupted by a call from the door, and he realised that Rennick had posted a Marine sentry. ‘First lieutenant, sir.’

‘Send him in.’

Aitken was carrying a small grey volume. He stopped by the door and looked around. ‘Bit sparse at the moment, sir,’ he said ruefully.