Ramage's Trial (33 page)

Ramage grinned amiably. “I wouldn't have missed it for anything,” he said. “Just think, a dozen post-captains are now blessing or cursing me because for today, and perhaps several more days, they're going to have to attend my trial, and either be kept away from very important work or escape something very boring. It's not every day that a very junior post-captain gets court-martialled, you know.”

“I suppose not, sir,” Hill said cautiously, uncertain whether Ramage was serious or not. This fellow, he decided, had the damnedest sense of humour and the most uncertain temper of anyone he had ever met. Captain Ramage could say something with an absolutely straight face and have a hundred men jumping to attention while another hundred, who knew him better, would be roaring with laughter. It was all very odd, though it kept you on your toes
–
in case you got your foot stamped on! He giggled at his own joke and Ramage glanced round.

“Sorry, sir,” Hill said apologetically, “I was just thinking of something.”

“You must have a thin time of it if you giggle every time you think,” Ramage said with a straight face. “That's the first time I've heard you giggle.”

At that moment Hill decided he would pull every string within his reach to serve in the
Calypso
. Providing, of course, there was an acquittal verdict…

 

Ramage recalled his allusion to a wooden cathedral when he followed Hill into the great cabin, which ran the width of the ship. It was more than fifty feet from one side to the other, and the whole after end
–
or so it seemed because the sun now shining through was dazzling
–
comprised sternlights: windows that if the ground glass was coloured and set in leaded shapes, would in size be more suitable for a cathedral.

He was walking on canvas painted in large black and white squares which covered the cabin sole like an enormous carpet (and reminded him of the mosaic floors in some Italian cathedrals). For a moment he felt he should be jinking from one square to another in a particular chess move
–
two ahead and one to the right or left, in the knight's move, or else he would startle everyone by walking diagonally, announcing he was a bishop. In fact, he told himself grimly, he was a pawn…

Apart from a Marine sentry at the door, a couple of seamen arranging chairs round a long table, and a couple more giving the top a final polish, with another man perfunctorily cleaning some panes of glass in the sternlights, occasionally using a little energy on a fly speck, the
Salvador
's great cabin was as peaceful as the nave of St Paul's between services.

The long mahogany table, big enough to seat a couple of dozen for dinner, was set athwartships, so that those captains sitting along one side would have their backs to the sternlights and face into the darker cabin, while the other half would look at the sternlights.

The chair at one end of the table had arms, so that must be the head, while the chair at the other end was straight-backed and armless. There were more chairs down the sides, and in front of each place was a pad of paper, inkwell, quill and sandbox.

As Ramage faced the sternlights with the table in front of him, there were a couple of rows of chairs behind him in the darker part of the cabin with two rows of forms behind them.

Hill coughed to attract his attention. He pointed to two other chairs, placed at an angle to the table in a position so that anyone sitting at the head of the table (it would be the president of the court) had only to look half-left to see and talk. “We sit there, sir. You nearest to the president and me behind.”

“So that you can spit me with your sword if I make a bolt for it.”

Hill had learnt enough by now to answer gravely: “Exactly, sir. Pistols make such a noise.”

At that moment the door was flung open and a fussy-looking little man wearing tiny spectacles and (almost startling, these days) a short wig bustled into the cabin, followed first by a thin and lugubrious seaman carrying an arm full of books, and by a boy laden with a large pewter inkwell, a bunch of quills, and some large pads of paper.

“Ah, Mr Hill and the prisoner, eh?”

“Don't introduce me,” Ramage murmured, guessing the man, looking like a startled hedgehog, must be the deputy judge advocate. No one had yet decided where deputy judge advocates fitted into the naval hierarchy but in Ramage's experience so far they knew little of law and always wrote very slowly, making them little more than clerks.

The little man sat at the chair at the end of the table and looked up at the seaman, now standing beside him. “Ah yes, the Holy Evangelist
–
I want that right in front of me.” He reached up and took it. “Now, the Crucifix, for those of the Catholic faith: that goes there. The books
–
in two piles here, with the titles facing me.”

He dismissed the seaman and turned to the boy. “Now be careful of that ink. Place it there
–
” he pointed to a precise spot. “Now the quills
–
examine each one to make sure it is sharp. You have a pen-knife?”

When the boy looked sulky he was told sharply: “You forgot it last time!”

“Will this be a long trial?” the little lawyer suddenly asked Ramage.

Ramage glanced at the pile of books, the inkwell and the quills, and deliberately misunderstood the purpose of the question.

“Ah yes, you are paid by the day. Well, I'll spin it out as long as I can, and you can dawdle as you write down the evidence. And always read the minutes in a slow and deliberate voice. But come now, you must know all the tricks!”

The boy sniggered but hurried out when the red-faced lawyer pointed to the door.

“I asked you a perfectly civil question, Captain,” the lawyer said crossly.

“And I gave you a perfectly civil answer,” Ramage said.

At that moment three captains came into the cabin, nodded to the three men, and stood near the rows of chairs. Each man had a small roll of parchment in his hand, and as they continued their conversation several more captains came in and joined them.

Ramage said to Hill: “It's time we went outside and waited
–
the court convenes in five minutes.”

Hill led the way out of the cabin and went on to a small cabin which was probably used originally by the Spanish admiral's secretary
–
it was still pleasantly painted in pale blue and white, with a built-in table at one end which served as a desk.

“Damn,” Hill exclaimed unexpectedly, “I forgot to tell the Marine sentry where to find us.”

 

Ramage had just looked at his watch and noted that the court should have assembled fifteen minutes earlier when the sentry knocked on the door. “The admiral is just coming on board, sir.”

Hill looked at Ramage and said: “I suppose the provost marshal isn't allowed to say anything, but George Hill would like to wish you the best, sir. The more I think about this trial, the less I understand what it's all about.”

Ramage smiled and nodded. “Thank you. And if you are puzzled now, remember to pinch yourself halfway through!”

Hill opened the door and led the way back to a point where he could just see the big door into the great cabin and the Marine sentry outside it. “We can see the admiral when he goes in, sir: there's no need for you to be waiting outside.”

Waiting outside and a target for any unpleasantness Goddard wanted to hand out in passing: this young man Hill was thoughtful…and in addition to the extra four shillings a day he would receive for acting as provost marshal, he was learning a lot about both people and the Navy.

The sentry (Ramage realized that Hill must have given him instructions) waved to Hill, who asked Ramage to follow him. “They've just ordered the prisoner to be brought in, sir,” the sentry said.

Hill looked round at Ramage and inspected him. “Excuse me, sir,” he said and gave Ramage's stock a gentle tug. He removed a tiny piece of fluff from the shoulder and then, adjusting his own sword and making sure that Ramage's sword was tucked firmly under his left arm, murmured: “If you'll follow me, sir…”

The great cabin was full of men: six post-captains sat along one side of the table and six more the other, their backs to the sternlights. The fussy and bewigged deputy judge advocate sat at one end while Goddard sat at the other. Crouched, Ramage corrected himself: the fat, grey-faced man was hunched in the chair, holding the arms and looking like an aged toad preparing to leap. Except that now he was staring down at a pile of papers in front of him, deliberately ignoring Ramage's arrival. But all dozen members of the court were watching: the six facing the sternlights were twisted round on their chairs. Ramage did not recognize a single face. Every one of them wore epaulettes on both shoulders, indicating more than three years' seniority. Ramage realized that he was the only post-captain in the cabin wearing a single epaulette, on the right shoulder.

The rows of chairs and forms were filled with people
–
spectators and witnesses. He caught a glimpse of Yorke and wondered why he was sitting on a form, and he was just trying to think why Alexis was not with him when he saw her sitting on a chair in the front row, apparently on her own, the only woman in the cabin.

“The prisoner should be seated,” the deputy judge advocate said pompously, pointing to a chair, but Hill ignored him. Walking up to Goddard and placing Ramage's sword on the table in front of him, he reported quietly: “The prisoner is delivered to the court, sir.”

Goddard growled an acknowledgement and said brusquely to the deputy judge advocate: “Carry on, Mr Jenkins.”

Ramage sat down and crossed his legs. Yes, there was Captain William Shirley, sitting in a chair close to Jenkins. He had been bent over earlier, adjusting his shoe, and Ramage had missed seeing him.

Jenkins' face was shiny and he looked harassed. Already he would have been busy, first checking the seniority of the captains by examining their commissions, and seating them so that the most senior were nearer to the president and the two men at Jenkins' own end were the most junior.

Now he searched through the papers in front of him, found a particular one and, tilting it slightly towards the sternlights, began by reading the letter from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, a copy of which Ramage had already received, ordering the trial following the request by Captain Shirley.

Putting that page to one side, Jenkins searched for another, scattering the bunch of quills as he shuffled through several sheets. Finally he began reading, in an even more lugubrious voice, the commander-in-chief's warrant appointing him the deputy judge advocate for the trial of Captain the Lord Ramage. As he finished he stood looking round the court as though anticipating applause, and Goddard snapped: “Well, get on with it, man!”

Ramage, glancing at the row of spectators and witnesses, caught Alexis' eye and at the same time realized that all the officers in the cabin were glancing at her surreptitiously: she was dressed elegantly in a long dress of dark olive-green with a matching hat obviously inspired by the military shako. Her long-handled parasol was a lighter green
–
and it was looking at it that made Ramage realize that the hat was a slightly lighter colour too. And although he had not really noticed it on board the
Emerald
or the
Calypso
, but it made a contrast with the pinks and whites here, she was very suntanned: unfashionably so, he could hear the admirals' wives saying disapprovingly: that was why one carried a parasol. But these scrawny old harpies never went to sea, or if they did they never came up on deck. They had never learned that one could sit under an awning and never for a moment be in the sun, but after a few days would have a tan: the sun reflecting up unnoticed from the sea was almost as merciless as the direct rays.

Then Ramage realized why Alexis was sitting in the front row and on the larboard side while her brother sat on a form on the other side. Goddard had met Sidney years ago in Jamaica and might well remember him (probably would, since it was not a pleasant meeting for Goddard), but he had never before seen Alexis and could never guess they were brother and sister. Had Sidney thought up some trick? Ramage decided that was impossible: their evidence could be only about what they had seen. No, Sidney had probably decided there was no need for them to be associated on the off-chance that
–
well, Ramage could not think, but he found her nearness curiously comforting.

Now Jenkins was getting ready to administer the oath to each of the captains sitting at the table, and the president. He started with Goddard, who stood up, put his hand on the Bible held out by Jenkins, and read from a card which the deputy judge advocate held discreetly to one side: “I, Jebediah Goddard, do hereby swear that I will duly administer justice, according to the Articles and Orders established by an Act passed in the twenty-second year of the reign of His Majesty, King George III, for amending, explaining and reducing into one Act of Parliament, the laws relating to the Government of His Majesty's ships, vessels and forces by sea, without partiality, favour or affection; and if any case shall arise which is not particularly mentioned in the said Articles and orders, I will duly administer justice according to my conscience, the best of my understanding, and the custom of the Navy in like cases; and I do further swear that I will not upon any account, at any time whatsoever, disclose or discover the vote or opinion of any particular member of this court martial unless required by Act of Parliament, so help me God!”

Goddard had ended with his voice ringing through the cabin in what he assumed was an assured and righteous tone, and again Alexis caught Ramage's eye and by an almost imperceptible lifting of her eyebrows asked: “Do we have to listen to that another twelve times?”