Ramage and the Freebooters (26 page)

And it was going to cost Ramage a guinea before long (in addition to the price of the gold leaf, which had to come out of his own pocket since the Admiralty issued only small quantities of yellow paint for ornamental work). Ramage had idly commented to Southwick that the spiral-shaped Triton shell actually existed in the West Indies and to Ramage’s surprise the old Master had become quite interested, having previously thought that, like
Triton
himself, it was a stylized object.

Anyway, it seemed that Southwick had told the master’s mate, who’d told a quartermaster. Soon a request had come back from the ship’s company: if they found a real Triton shell could they use it to replace the wooden one?

This, Ramage realized in retrospect, was one of the first solid indications that not only had the original ship’s company and the former Kathleens become firmly knitted together, but they’d developed a pride in their ship. And pride in a ship, he knew only too well from past experience, meant a happy ship. So he’d agreed, offering a guinea to the man who found a shell of the right size to fit into
Triton
’s hand.

The men had been delighted – a guinea was within a shilling or two of a month’s pay for most of them; but Ramage knew whoever found such a shell would have earned it – the wooden one was a foot long, and the shells were rarely more than eight or nine inches. He also knew that the man who found it would be the proudest in the ship…

Occasionally Southwick, his white hair flying in the wind, stumped up to the bow to watch the gilders at work. It was a fiddling but fascinating job, and Ramage too had watched them begin. After cleaning up the whole carving and scrubbing it with fresh water and soap to remove salt and dirt, they’d let it dry, one of them watching in case spray deposited more salt on it. They’d then carefully covered it with canvas for the night and next morning were badgering the bosun’s mate for a tin of yellow paint, wanting to pour off some of the thick oil on top to use as size.

Leaving the oil to stand in a pot, they’d painted the figurehead with the appropriate colours, and when they were dry, brushed on the size where the gold leaf was to be applied, and left it until it was almost dry.

By that time they’d managed to wheedle a chamois leather from Southwick and sewn it into a small, flat pad. Once again, with all the enthusiasm of schoolboys, they’d gone back to the bow, secured ropes round their waists in case they fell, and despite the pitching and rolling, with the sea bubbling and spouting only a few feet below them, managed to transfer the gold leaf piece by piece from the book in which it was kept to the chamois leather pad.

One man had obviously worked as a gilder because each time he had, with a quick twist of the wrist, pressed the pad precisely against the place where the leaf was to be applied, so the leaf stuck to the size. Since each leaf was about two inches long and one inch wide, and so light that a gentle puff was enough to blow it three or four feet, Ramage was glad to hear they’d lost only three leaves in sudden gusts of wind.

Just after nine o’clock the foremast lookout’s hail of ‘Deck there!’ stopped every man within hearing, and was followed by ‘Land ho! From two points on the starboard bow to one point to larboard, sir!’

‘You wall-eyed monkey,’ Southwick shouted, ‘why didn’t you sight it sooner? And how far?’

‘’Bout seven miles. Lot o’ haze ahead, sir,’ came the cheerful reply. ‘Must have lifted suddenly.’

Southwick glanced at Ramage. It was a good enough reason: the sun had heat in it now and haze over land in the early morning was not unusual, lifting as soon as the land heated up.

Ramage couldn’t resist saying, ‘Bit ahead of your reckoning, eh Mr Southwick? Between ten and noon I thought you said. Or was it nine and noon?’

‘Ten, sir,’ Southwick said ruefully. ‘Still, that’s–’

Seeing the Master was taking him seriously, Ramage interrupted: ‘But for the haze, it’d have been seven-thirty.’

‘But sir, after logging more than 2,900 miles…’

Ramage laughed. ‘Well, it’s a long way from Spithead, anyway!’

From being a long purplish bruise low on the horizon the east side of the island gradually took on a definite shape and slowly changed colour as the
Triton
closed the distance, turning a few degrees to larboard to head for South Point with a stiff breeze hustling her along at better than eight knots.

The purple gave way to a light brown as the contours of the hills slowly emerged, showing shallow valleys between them; then with the brig drawing nearer and the sun rising higher the brown became green; the rich and fertile green of land well-farmed, the large fields of different crops showing like a chessboard.

The land was lower than Bowen had expected: instead of a high rocky island capped with tall palm trees and standing four-square against the full force of the Atlantic swell with high overhanging cliffs – for there was nothing between it and Africa more than 3,000 miles to the east – it was low with rolling land behind it; more like the Sussex coast.

As he commented on it to Southwick, the Master grunted.

‘Barbados always disappoints people new to the Tropics: I always say that from seaward it looks like the east end of the Isle of Wight. But wait until you see the rest of the islands: Grenada, St Lucia, Martinique – they’re just what you expect: mountainous thick jungle…deep bays and beaches and thousands of palm trees… But for all that, give me Barbados: most civilized of ’em all, except for Jamaica.’

Nevertheless, as the
Triton
approached, Bowen admitted the island was a beautiful sight: the deep blue of the sea stretched to within a hundred yards of the shore and then, merging into pale, sparkling green as it swept over coral reefs and outlying shoals, it broke in a narrow ribbon of white foam on a strip of silver sand. Beyond were green, gently sloping fields but very few trees, all of which seemed to be small pines, leaning over at an angle to the left.

‘The wind,’ Southwick explained laconically. ‘Always blowing from the eastwards – makes ’em grow like that. Ah – there are some palms for you.’

Bowen took the proffered telescope and low down, just at the back of the beach, were a few clumps of palm trees, the only ones for a couple of miles either way. He gave the telescope back to Southwick, who sensed his disappointment.

‘Plenty more in the lee of South Point – the headland over there. We round it and the next one and anchor beyond in Carlisle Bay. The windward sides of all these islands are barren. Nothing between them and Africa. The lee sides usually have plenty of jungle – completely sheltered, and of course there’s a lot of rain.’

‘What are those brown patches scattered where the water’s bright green?’

‘Coral heads. Living coral. Usually only a few feet of water over them. They’d rip the bottom out of a ship. The pale green water usually shows there’s a sandy bottom.’

Bowen remarked on several windmills along the coast, identical in shape to those in England.

‘Use ’em for the sugar cane,’ Southwick explained. ‘Instead of having circular grindstones like you use for grain, they use rollers. The sugar cane – it looks like great stalks of wheat, eight feet high and more, and nearly as thick as your wrist – is run between the rollers which squeeze out the juice. It runs off into a lead-lined sink and into vats, where it’s boiled.’

‘Then what happens to it?’

‘Shipped to England in casks. The most stinking cargo there is, too: never go passenger in a ship carrying molasses…’

The
Triton
passed South Point and soon the crescent-shaped Carlisle Bay came into sight, with Bridgetown sprawled comfortably along the western side. Ramage saw at anchor the Admiral’s flagship, the 98-gun
Prince of Wales
. The
Triton’s
pendant numbers were already hoisted and men were standing by at all her carronades, which were loaded with blank charges ready to fire a seventeen-gun salute.

The gunner’s mate was by the foremast ready for Ramage’s signal to begin firing while powder boys stood by with extra charges ready to reload seven of the guns to complete the salute.

There were only two frigates and some squat, ugly transports at anchor near the flagship while a small schooner approached from the west, still hull down over the horizon, her sails showing like tiny visiting cards.

The news of the
Triton’s
arrival must have reached the flagship an hour or so earlier, signalled along the coast, and everyone on board – as well as dozens of people living on shore – would be waiting anxiously for any mail and newspapers she might have brought out.

Ramage signalled to the gunner’s mate who bellowed: ‘Number one gun – fire!’

Even as the gun leapt back in recoil on the starboard side, the explosion echoing across the bay and the smoke blowing forward, the gunner’s mate had begun the chant which ensured each gun fired at the right interval, muttering all but the last four words to himself: ‘
If I wasn
’
t a gunner I wouldn
’
t be here
– number two gun fire!’

The first gun on the larboard side leapt back in recoil, the crew at once beginning the routine of reloading.

‘
If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn
’
t be here
– number three gun fire!’

As the guns fired one after the other Ramage realized Southwick was also totting up the number of rounds – it wasn’t unknown for a gunner or his mate to miscount.

Fifteen…sixteen…the smoke was drifting back to the quarterdeck, catching in everyone’s throat…seventeen. The gunner’s mate was moving aft, the men began sponging the guns before securing them.

Even as the first boom of the flagship’s reply echoed across the water she hoisted several signals. Southwick glanced at the first with his telescope, groaned and said contemptuously: ‘He’s one of those… I was afraid o’ that.’

Even before Jackson started reading out the signals Ramage guessed the first one would say where the brig was to anchor, but if the Admiral was a fussy man…

‘Captain to come to the Admiral, sir.’

‘Sick to be sent to the hospital ship, sir…’

‘Damn and blast it, make a note of them!’ Ramage snapped at the American. ‘Just tell me any more that affect us anchoring.’

He bent over the binnacle, watching the bearing of the flagship. Men were standing by at sheets and braces; topmen were at the foot of the shrouds ready to swarm up and out on the yards to furl the sails. The fo’c’slemen were awaiting the orders that would let the anchor splash into the sea and send the cable racing out through the hawse so fast the smell of scorching would come aft to the quarterdeck.

In his cabin two leather pouches and his newest uniform awaited Ramage. The smaller pouch, which had a lead weight in it so if thrown overboard it would sink immediately (a reminder they might have been captured on the voyage from England), contained the secret letter from the First Lord to Admiral Robinson. The larger one held all the prosaic paperwork the Admiral would require – the
Triton
’s log; ‘weekly accounts’ describing her condition; Sick Book, listing all the men who had been ill during the voyage and the treatment given; returns from the bosun’s, gunner’s and carpenter’s mates; a list of remaining provisions; several reports of surveys signed by himself and Southwick – on a leakage of beer from several badly made barrels, on various casks of salt beef and pork, each of which contained fewer pieces of meat than was painted on the outside, and on a sail too ripe for further repairs. And, most important of all, there was Ramage’s report on the capture of
La Merlette
, together with all the relevant documents – and they were many.

Yet, Ramage thought sourly, within ten minutes of being on board the
Prince of Wales
the Admiral’s wretched secretary would triumphantly announce that Ramage, his clerk and Southwick had forgotten some tedious and unimportant form…

The brig was within a hundred yards of where she was to anchor. Ramage only hoped the men remembered his signals and was pleased the Admiral had chosen a spot so near the flagship. The
Triton
was – if all went according to plan! – about to furl all sail, anchor and hoist out a boat without one word being spoken: everything would be done by signals from Ramage.

He made the first signals with his right arm. In a few moments it seemed that every man in the ship was either hauling a rope or climbing the rigging. The yards were hauled round, the bellying sails flattened and then fluttered; men swarmed out on the yards to furl the sails neatly, securing them with gaskets.

Even as that was happening Ramage was signalling to the quartermaster and the brig turned to head right into the wind’s eye, gradually slowing as she did so. The sound of water sluicing away from the stem, rushing along her sides and gurgling under the counter, which had been part of their lives for so many weeks, died away, leaving a silence which was unsettling.

Slowly the
Triton
lost way. Southwick, watching over the taffrail, lifted his hand as she began to drift astern and Ramage signalled to the men on the fo’c’sle. A moment later a splash told him the anchor had been let go; then he saw the cable snaking out through the hawse, tell-tale whisps of blue smoke vanishing in the wind.

From where he was standing Ramage could see the compass without moving. He checked the bearing from the flagship: by the time the
Triton
drifted astern to the full scope of her cable she’d be in the correct position. And Southwick was already signalling to more men, making sure that all the yards were square – not an inch lower either end, precisely horizontal, all at right angles to the masts. The boat would be hoisted out within a couple of minutes. Ramage looked at Southwick and pointed below, indicating he was going to change. A man may have sworn under his breath, he thought, otherwise not a word had been spoken. But probably the Admiral had been asleep…

But the Admiral had not been asleep: as Ramage, hot and sticky in full uniform, reported to him in the great cabin of the
Prince of Wales
, he was greeted with a breezy, ‘Like to see a ship well handled, m’lad!’ and an outstretched hand which shook his with a firm grasp.