Ramage & the Rebels (28 page)

Protocol demanded a salute and Ramage gave it. Governor van Someren removed his hat and gave a deep bow, but not before Ramage noted the flicker of annoyance which had shown round his eyes when his aide introduced him as “Citizen.” No doubt when the House of Nassau ruled the Netherlands—until February of 1793, in other words—van Someren had been one of the Dutch nobility. Since then he had managed to keep his head on his shoulders while the occupying French renamed his country the Republic of the United Provinces and then, more recently, the Batavian Republic. Now, anyway, in public and in front of strangers, he had to be
“citoyen.”

Now what? The Governor replaced his hat but the two aides were still rigidly at attention. Did the Governor speak English? Whatever it was, he was more likely to speak freely if he did not have witnesses of his own nation.

“Should we go below, Your Excellency? My cabin is cool.”

“Very well, very well,” van Someren said thankfully.

Ramage signalled to Aitken and said with an apparent casualness that he knew the Scot would immediately understand: “Perhaps you would be kind enough to show these two gentlemen round the ship, and then provide them with refreshment.” Then, before either of them could demur, he said to the Governor: “If Your Excellency would follow me …”

Down in the cabin, van Someren sank into the single armchair with a sigh of relief, though Ramage was not sure whether the relief came from getting the weight off swollen feet or boarding the
Calypso
without incident.

As Ramage sat down on the settee opposite, van Someren said conversationally: “What happened to the French frigate?”

“You would like some refreshment, Your Excellency? A rum punch, perhaps?”

Van Someren shook his head impatiently. “Thank you, nothing. The French frigate?”

Ramage inspected his nails. “I understood from your aide—what was his name?”

“Lausser, Major Lausser.”

“—that you were visiting this ship under a flag of truce …” “But I am, I am!”

“One might get the impression,” Ramage said almost dreamily, clearly absorbed with his nails, “that you are in fact conducting an unarmed reconnaissance.”

“My dear Lord Ramage—you see, I know who you are—I am merely asking a polite question. However, if you do not care to answer …”

“According to my information, the Dutch—the Batavian Republic, if you prefer the term—are at war with Britain and they are allies of France, which is also at war with Britain. You, sir, are my enemy, so perhaps you will forgive me for not supplying you with news of your allies.”

“You captured her,” van Someren said, and Ramage was startled to hear the satisfaction in his voice. “You captured her and you've sent her off to Jamaica with your other ship, the little schooner, escorting her.”

Dutch lookouts along the coast could have seen everything, of course; indeed, they obviously had reported to the Governor, who was perhaps curious to know how it had been done, because his informants would also have noted the lack of gunfire and smoke.

“If I can be of some service to Your Excellency while you are on board under a flag of truce,” Ramage said heavily, “please feel free to mention it.”

Van Someren's eyes twinkled and he slapped his knee. “Lord Ramage, we can do business. Or, rather, we can do business if you have definitely disposed of that French frigate. She was not expected here and she was sighted only about the time you saw her. But I must be assured you captured her. Without that assurance I can do or say nothing more.”

Van Someren was not deliberately talking in riddles; Ramage was sure of that. But what would he propose once he knew that
La Perle
was not coming to Amsterdam—could not come, rather? On the other hand, the flag of truce could be just a trick to get information. Perhaps
La Perle
was needed urgently, and this flag of truce and talk of “business” was just an elaborate charade to find out.

Van Someren was deliberately staying silent, giving him time to think. Very well, think. Assume the Governor is speaking the truth when he says the French frigate was not expected, and the first the Dutch knew of her presence was sighting her off the west end of the island—from a lookout position on the slopes of Sint Christoffelberg, no doubt. A French frigate in the offing and ten French privateers anchored in the harbour. Van Someren doesn't know that Duroc was making for Amsterdam to careen and mend the leak, and that his visit had nothing to do with the privateers. Yet … was Duroc speaking the truth?

Supposing van Someren expected the frigate because she was in fact bringing Frenchmen to help man the privateers? Duroc had boasted of having three hundred men on board—not a large number for a French frigate, but a hundred more than an equivalent British frigate would have. Duroc could have left a hundred men behind for the privateers and still had a strong crew for the voyage back to France. A hundred men, ten privateers. Ten men for each ship. That was nonsense, unless the ships had only nucleus crews, because each needed at least fifty or more.

Start again. Van Someren, alarmed at finding a British frigate and schooner arrive off Amsterdam and (as far as the Dutchmen knew) about to blockade Curaçao for the next couple of months (and probably Bonaire and Aruba as well), was anxious to see the French frigate arrive to lift the blockade. That sounded much more likely—except for two things.

The first was that Duroc would not have been lying when he said he was going to Curaçao only to careen, for the simple reason that Aruba was west of Curaçao. Any frigate bringing reinforcements of any sort—men, powder, shot, provisions—from Martinique would go direct to Curaçao, not sail past it for thirty miles in a leaky condition and have to beat back. The second was that van Someren had seemed both relieved and pleased when he thought that Ramage had disposed of
La Perle.

“You talk of ‘business.' What have you to offer?” Ramage asked bluntly.

“Did you capture or sink that French frigate?”

“Before I discuss her, I want to know what you want.”

“Stalemate,” van Someren said gloomily. “We have reached a stalemate.”

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “I am sorry, but remember that our countries are at war.”

“Have you seen any fires burning on the island?”

Ramage glanced up, trying to keep the surprise from his voice. “Yes. Quite large fires. And we've heard gunfire, too.”

Van Someren's eyes were narrowing now; the twinkle that accompanied his remark about doing business had gone. Indeed, looking at that so very Dutch face, Ramage found it hard to visualize it ever smiling.

“You are a man of honour,” van Someren said suddenly. “And you are a brave man. All this I hear from many ship captains who know what happens at sea. This very ship, for instance …”

Ramage again shrugged his shoulders: it was gratifying that the Governor of Curaçao knew of him, but that same Governor had just used the word stalemate.

“Lord Ramage, I mentioned that we could do business together, providing you assured me you had captured or sunk that French frigate. You suspect a trap and I suppose I cannot blame you. You remind me we are enemies. However, stalemate helps neither of us.

“Therefore, young man—you will forgive me so addressing you; I am more than twice, nearly thrice, your age—I am going to tell you why I need to know if you have sunk that French frigate. But before I do, I must warn you that my life could be forfeit if you betray what I am going to tell you. I am going to show you my hand of cards without knowing if you will then show me yours. But I rely on your honour.”

Ramage said nothing. The Governor sounded sincere, but the fact was that he commanded an island thirty-eight miles long by seven miles wide, must have sufficient troops, had an excellent and impregnable port as a capital, and as such was the most powerful representative of the Batavian Republic in the Caribbean—in the New World, in fact. Why, then, was he out here under a flag of truce trying “to do business” with the captain of a British frigate?

The man
was
sincere, Ramage suddenly felt sure of that, and as he waited he felt a tingling of excitement. Whatever it was would be a challenge. He raised his eyebrows, feigning only idle curiosity: “Well, Your Excellency?”

“I want to surrender the island of Curaçao to you,” van Someren said quietly and added, “to you as the representative of His Britannic Majesty.”

Ramage stared at him in surprise. “Why?”

A
MSTERDAM as a harbour was excellent for any ship wanting to unload cargo at one of the quays lining each side of the channel, or for other vessels, including privateers, needing to pass through and anchor at the far end or in the Schottegat. For a frigate wanting to anchor across the channel to block it, to be outside the arcs of fire of the guns of Riffort and Waterfort, and also to be able to swing herself round far enough to fire into the Punda side of the port in case of emergency, it presented difficulties, with only a couple of hundred yards in which to anchor.

Governor van Someren, Ramage realized, now regarded the island's surrender as an accepted fact, with only the actual document, the “instrument of surrender,” to be drawn up, signed and sealed. He did not realize that Ramage still had no guarantee of good faith, no hostages to make sure the Dutch kept their word, and had no explanation of the sudden surrender. Van Someren, on the other hand, had a British frigate in the harbour and would, within an hour or two, have her Captain sitting down with him in Government House, a guest or a hostage.

As the
Calypso
sailed in towards Waterfort and Riffort, the Governor and his two aides had stood beside Ramage on the quarterdeck, commenting, explaining and exclaiming at the sight of Amsterdam from seaward on a sparkling, sunny day. Their boat was towing astern; their crew was in the waist, keeping out of the way of the British seamen as they hurried back and forth, trimming yards and sails. Southwick had a party preparing the anchor, Aitken had the topmen standing by to furl the topsails, and Ramage, acting the role of host, was thankful none of the Dutch trio enquired why Lieutenants Wagstaffe, Baker and Kenton remained with groups of men who, while not ostentatiously standing by each gun, would be recognized by trained eyes as being the guns' crews. If the Dutchmen had asked why the guns were left run out, and why a few men swilled water over the deck from time to time and sprinkled more sand, Ramage was prepared to say with a straight face that this was the way in wartime that ships of the Royal Navy always entered port.

The thunder of twelve-pounder guns firing at five-second intervals would echo up the channel and carry for miles across the flat countryside, advertising the
Calypso
's presence, so Ramage had avoided the question whether or not to fire a salute by explaining, again with a straight face, that Admiralty regulations forbade him saluting anyone who was actually on board the ship. His Excellency thought this a splendid joke and, revealing a lively mind and a good memory of peacetime routines, commented that Ramage would not in fact fire a salute anyway without first sending an officer on shore to satisfy himself that a salute would be returned “in due form.” (No one pointed out that a salute was also to a place, as well as an individual, a point covered by paragraph fifteen in the “Of Salutes” section in the Regulations and Instructions.)

Ramage had laughed politely at the phrase but it was difficult to maintain polite conversation while judging distances, calculating how much way the ship would carry in the channel with a backed fore-topsail, and where to drop the anchor because the
Calypso
would end up with her stern very close to the Otrabanda side. More important, he had to see the arcs of fire of Waterfort and Riffort. One thing was clear now that the
Calypso
was only a cable or so away—they were not so much forts as walled batteries facing seaward.

Under the guise of using his telescope to examine the house which Major Lausser described as his, Ramage was able to see that the guns of Riffort on Otrabanda could cover only the entrance to seaward; there was no way they could fire inland, down the channel. Once inside, a ship was safe. The same went for Punda's guns: Waterfort was a reversed replica of Riffort.

He saw exactly where he wanted to anchor the
Calypso—
halfway along the channel. A single anchor to the eastward would keep her head to wind and with springs to the cable he would be able to haul the
Calypso
round far enough to fire into each side of the town, should it become necessary.

The temptation to take command, to give all the orders direct through the speaking-trumpet, was very strong, but he knew it was also the sign of a weak and an unfair captain. Weak because it showed he was uncertain of his ship's company (and probably of himself as well) and unfair to the first lieutenant, particularly one of Aitken's ability, because it deprived him of responsibility for handling the ship at just the time when it would do the most good: at a time when no mistakes could be made. Few captains, Ramage reckoned, were as cold-blooded as himself: if Aitken sailed the
Calypso
on to the rocks in front of either fort, or let the ship get into stays so that she drifted on to one of the sand-banks inside, the Captain would get the blame anyway: courts martial rarely departed from the tradition that captains might not have much work to do, but they carried
all
the responsibility at all times. So Aitken might just as well have the experience.

“Mr Aitken,” he said, “you see the long house with the pink walls and red roof to starboard, and the grey warehouse to larboard?”

“Aye, sir.”

“We'll anchor between the two, about a third of the way to the eastward.”

“Aye aye, sir.”