Ramage (27 page)

‘His Majesty’s
late
ship,’ interrupted Ramage.

‘–formerly of His – His Majesty’s late ship
Sibella
, for the loss of the said ship: the aforementioned Captain Croucher hereby authorizes and appoints you to officiate as Provost Marshal on this occasion; and you are to take the person of the said Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage into your custody, and him safely keep, until he shall be delivered by due course of law; and for so doing this shall be your warrant–’

‘Oh stow it,’ Ramage interrupted impatiently, ‘you must like the sound of your own voice.’

‘I’m duty bound to read this to you,’ Blenkinsop said primly.

‘No, you’re not. You are supposed to present it to the Captain of this ship as your authority to remove me. But you’ve already done that, naturally.’

Blenkinsop looked embarrassed. ‘Oh – well, I – I say, do I really have to?’

‘Well, it’s not for your prisoner to tell you what to do; but his Lordship might take a serious view of you removing one of his officers without showing him your authority.’

‘Oh dear. Well, I’d better go and do that.’

‘Excellent! Capital!’ said Ramage. ‘But keep your voice low – his Lordship is on his sick bed. Run along, now: I’ll wait for you on the gangway.’

Ramage picked up Dawlish’s sword, and collected the few papers he had to take with him. There was a letter from the Deputy Judge Advocate which had arrived the previous evening informing him – with an unbecoming briskness, he thought – that of the witnesses he had requested for his defence, only the Bosun and Carpenter’s Mate would be available. Ramage had noted down some facts about the wind and weather, times and casualties, and the courses steered before the
Sibella’
s surrender, but had not prepared the usual written defence, since he had no idea what accusations he would eventually be facing.

A few moments later he was standing talking to Dawlish when a flustered Blenkinsop came up from the Captain’s cabin and said, ‘It seems there’s also someone else for me to take over to the
Trumpeter
.’

Dawlish looked blank; then Ramage remembered Jackson.

‘Yes, one of my witnesses.’

‘Oh, very well,’ Blenkinsop said condescendingly.

‘By the way,’ said Ramage, ‘you forgot to ask me to surrender this,’ handing Blenkinsop the sword and scabbard.

‘And be careful with it,’ said Dawlish, ‘because it’s mine. Tell me’ – his voice suddenly became almost deferential – ‘aren’t you one of the Wiltshire Blenkinsops?’

‘Yes,’ he answered with affected modesty.

‘Am I right in thinking you are the only one in the Service?’

‘Yes, that is so.’

‘Thank Christ for that!’ said Dawlish viciously. ‘Now, don’t let me delay your departure with all this idle social chatter. Be careful you don’t get boarded by one of these bumboats – the women are absolutely riddled with terrible diseases, and the prices they charge are outrageous.’

‘Really!’ exclaimed Blenkinsop, and bolted for the entry port, blushing furiously.

As he disappeared down the ship’s side to the waiting boat, Ramage went to follow him, but Dawlish, with a grin on his face, motioned him to wait a moment and went to the port.

‘Mr Blenkinsop – shall I send your prisoner down?’

The
Trumpeter
’s great cabin, now in use as the courtroom, looked very different from when Ramage had first seen it two days earlier: the long, polished table was placed athwartships, and six naval captains sat along the far side, facing forward, with Ramage’s borrowed sword in front of them.

The captains had Ramage facing them on their left, sitting on a straight-backed wooden chair, and to the right an empty chair was ready for the first witness. To one side of Ramage sat Blenkinsop, a sword across his knees, while behind, at the forward end of the cabin, a dozen chairs for spectators were arranged in two rows, facing the table.

The deck was covered in canvas which had been painted in a pattern of large black and white squares. Ramage noticed the four legs of a chair just fitted inside a square, as though everyone in the court was a chessman. As far as the trial was concerned, he knew what moves the court was allowed by law to make and, providing he kept his head, he might be able to prevent them checkmating him… He waited for the opening gambit to be made by the Deputy Judge Advocate, who was sitting to his left at the far end of the table.

The man’s temporary title could never disguise that he was a purser. Small, steel-rimmed spectacles perched precariously halfway down a long and bulbous red nose, while the nose itself appeared to have been stuck on to a fat face, rather as if some cruel humorist had thrust the thin end of a carrot into an over-ripe pumpkin. It was the face of a prosperous tradesman – as indeed a purser was: a man who knew all there was to know about prices and percentages; who had grown rich serving out provisions to the men in pounds weighing fourteen ounces and, quite legally, pocketing the two ounces’ difference.

Mr Horace Barrow, the
Trumpeter
’s purser, could probably buy out a captain any day of the week; but now – equipped with a sheaf of papers, several quill pens, and a knife to sharpen them, a bottle of ink, sandbox, a leather-bound Bible, an ivory and silver Crucifix – in case any witnesses were Catholic – and books of reference, including the slim volume containing the Articles of War and a thicker one, the
Regulations and Instructions
, by which the Navy was governed, he was ready to start the trial.

Five of the six captains sitting at the table had watched Ramage as he came in. All were smartly dressed, as befitted the occasion: the order summoning each officer to the court martial always specified that ‘it is expected you will attend in your uniform frock’.

Certainly the uniform frock was drabber now, Ramage reflected; only last year the Admiralty had decreed the white facings of the turned-back lapels should be replaced with blue, although not everyone had yet complied, but the lapels, held back by nine buttons on each side, and the stand-up collar, were still edged with gold. All but one of the captains wore epaulets on each shoulder – another new idea ordered by the Admiralty at the same time that the lapel facings were changed – and not at all popular with some officers, who regarded as Frenchified the gold lace sewn on the shoulder pads, and the tight spirals of gold bullion hanging down in a fringe.

The exception among the captains was the one sitting at the end next to the Deputy Judge Advocate: he wore only one epaulet, on his right shoulder, indicating he had less than three years’ seniority.

The one captain who did not look up when Ramage marched in was Croucher, the president of the court: he was staring down at some papers on the table, and Ramage noticed he also had the
Sibella
’s two logs and muster book in front of him. The other captains were sitting on Croucher’s right and left according to seniority. The man on his right – Ramage remembered him from an earlier commission – was Captain Blackman and must be next senior to Croucher, while Captain Herbert, whom he knew by sight, came next and sat on his left. There were two captains Ramage did not recognize, but the most junior, wearing the single epaulet, was Ferris, who commanded a frigate. Was he one of Goddard’s clique? Surely not: Ramage remembered him as one of Sir John Jervis’ protégés.

Since Ramage was facing aft, the captains were silhouetted against the bright glare of the sunlight reflecting up from the sea through the stern lights. On his right, so close he could almost reach out and pat the breech, was an 18-pounder cannon – the last one in the larboard row that began at the forward end of the quarter-deck and continued through the captain’s accommodation which, since the
Trumpeter
was a two-decker and almost twice the size of a frigate, was one deck higher than in the
Lively
. On the other side of the cabin was another cannon, also polished black and resting solidly on its buff-colour carriage, secured by the rope breeching and side tackles, the last of those on the starboard side. They were solid reminders that the
Trumpeter
was first and foremost a fighting ship: when she was in action the furniture would be stowed below and the wooden bulkheads forming the captain’s quarters would be hinged up out of the way, so that no enemy shot should shatter them into splinters.

Ramage watched the Deputy Judge Advocate shuffle through his papers and then polish his spectacles. Presumably he had already read to the court Probus’ letter asking to be excused on the grounds of illness, and the
Lively
’s surgeon would have been called in to attest on oath his Captain’s incapacity. Either Probus had given a realistic impression of a sick man or the surgeon was willing to perjure himself.

After Ramage had been marched in, the court was declared open and everyone else concerned or interested entered, among them Pisano. The names of the captains had been read out by Barrow, who then administered the oath. After each of the six men, with his hand on the Bible, had sworn he would ‘duly administer justice according to my conscience, the best of my understanding, and the custom of the Navy in like cases…’ Croucher, as president of the court, then administered the oath to Barrow.

The preliminaries are over, Ramage thought to himself; now for the opening gambit…

Barrow stood up and read out the charge, like a priest mechanically reciting a mass, his spectacles sliding down his nose from time to time and interrupting the proceedings while he readjusted them.

The witnesses were ordered out of the court and Ramage turned to watch them go: they scarcely make a crowd, he noted sourly – just the Bosun, the Carpenter’s Mate and Jackson. Suddenly he saw someone at the doorway beckoning to Pisano, indicating that he too should leave the court. So Pisano is to be a witness! But he’s not on Barrow’s list of witnesses…

Well, that’ll be a difficult move to counter. Ramage was surprised to find himself using chess similes, since he was an appalling player. He’d always found the game too slow, and had a bad memory. In fact his complete inability to remember the cards already played at those interminable games of whist in the
Superb
used to drive that fellow Hornblower mad. Yet, Ramage remembered with amusement, he sometimes won simply because he was such a bad player: even if Hornblower guessed the cards he held it was no help since his play was completely unpredictable. Nor, when Ramage won, did Hornblower like being reminded that surprise was the vital element in tactics…

After Pisano disappeared through the door Croucher rapped the table. ‘The prisoner’s report on the surrender of His Majesty’s frigate
Sibella
will now be read to the court.’

Ramage was shocked to find himself being referred to as ‘the prisoner’; but of course it was correct.

Barrow wrote down the president’s words – it was his job to keep the minutes – and then shuffled among his pile of papers to extract Ramage’s report to Probus. It was hardly an impressive-sounding document when read by Barrow, who had an irritating habit of letting his voice drop as he reached the end of a line, and put the page down on the table each time his spectacles slipped, so that he could use both hands to readjust them.

To Ramage’s surprise, Barrow continued reading after completing the passage describing the surrender. He was leaning forward, undecided whether or not to protest that the rest of the report had nothing to do with the ship’s loss when Captain Ferris, the junior captain, interrupted.

‘Surely this has no relevance for the court?’

‘Pray allow me to be judge of that,’ said Captain Croucher.

‘But we are only inquiring into the loss of the ship,’ insisted Ferris.

‘We are trying the accused for his conduct upon the occasion,’ said Croucher, sounding like a parson chiding a wayward parishioner. ‘In fairness to the accused, we must satisfy ourselves as to the whole of his conduct during this lamentable episode,’ he added, barely able to keep the hypocrisy from his voice.

‘But–’

‘Captain Ferris,’ Croucher said sharply, ‘if you wish to argue the point we must clear the court.’

Ferris looked round at the other captains, who stared woodenly in front of them, and then glanced at Ramage as if to indicate it was hopeless for either of them to protest any further.

‘Very well,’ Croucher told Barrow, ‘you may proceed.’

Finally Barrow finished reading, and sat down.

‘Since this is an inquiry into the loss of the ship and an examination of the prisoner’s conduct,’ said Croucher, ‘has the prisoner any further facts not contained in his report which he wishes to lay before the court?’

You clever swine, thought Ramage: now you’ve really trapped me. You want me to introduce the Pisano business so it’s set down in the minutes and you can take it further; but if I don’t say anything it’ll look as though I’m hiding it.

He replied, ‘Any facts I may have overlooked in my report will no doubt emerge during the examination of the witnesses, sir,’ and was startled by his own smoothness.

‘
Have
you overlooked any facts?’ demanded Croucher.

‘No relevant facts that I can remember, sir.’