Ramage's Trial (32 page)

Ramage turned and nodded to Jackson. “Cast off and carry on.”

Once the cutter was clear of the
San Joseph
, Jackson asked conversationally, “The
Salvador
, sir?”

Ramage nodded and ignored Lieutenant Hill's protest about going to the
Calypso
.

“Reminds you of old times, don't it, sir?” Jackson said. “The
Salvador del Mundo
over there, the
San Joseph
over here–” he pointed to the west. “Just needs the
San Nicolas
and
San
Ysidro
and it'd be like the day we lost the
Kathleen
.”

“Sir,” Hill said, not realizing Ramage was unclipping his sword because his hands were hidden beneath the tarpaulin.

“Don't interrupt my thoughts,” Ramage said severely. “What you don't know is precisely how the
Salvador del Mundo
and the
San Joseph
and the
San Ysidro
and
San Nicolas
were captured, but almost every other man in this boat can tell you exactly, because they were there.”

“Indeed, sir,” Hill said disdainfully, “how interesting.”

“Yes, interesting because–” A sudden thought struck Ramage. “Tell me, lieutenant, have you ever had a shot fired at you by the enemy
–
cannon, musket or pistol?”

“Well, not exactly, sir.”

“Have you ever been in action?”

“Well, no, sir.”

“Then don't ever sneer at those that have,” Ramage said sourly, realizing he was hardly being fair to the wretched lieutenant. “You can see the
Salvador
and
San Joseph
. The two ships not here are the
San Ysidro
and
San Nicolas
. They were leading the enemy fleet, and both ships were captured by Commodore (as he then was) Nelson.”

“I know
that
, sir,” Hill said petulantly.

“But do you know
how
the commodore caught up with the two Dons who were trying to escape?”

“Well, no sir, I don't know
all
the details of the battle.”

“You ought to ask the seaman holding the tiller of this cutter.”

“Sir, I can hardly–”

“Or any of the first six men at the oars.”

“Oh, sir–”

“Or this gentleman sitting here,” Ramage said relentlessly, indicating Southwick.

Southwick sniffed and said loudly: “You might even ask Mr Ramage, because if it hadn't been for him none of the ships would have been taken and Sir John Jervis would never have got his earldom!”

By now Hill's embarrassment and annoyance had gone: instead his curiosity was aroused. He was cautious enough to ask Southwick, rather than risk an encounter with Ramage. “Tell me, then, what happened?”

“Mr Ramage was a lieutenant then, with about as much seniority as you've got and from the looks of it a lot younger, and he commanded the
Kathleen
cutter, and to stop the four Dons escaping
–
”

“He ran his cutter across the bows of the leading one!” Hill interrupted. “I remember now! I'd forgotten the name of that lieutenant,” he said apologetically to Ramage. “And I've just remembered a
Gazette
I read: in the West Indies you captured that frigate you command: I forget her French name but she was renamed
Calypso
.”

Ramage pulled his sword and scabbard out from beneath the tarpaulin. “You'd better take this.”

The significance of an officer about to be tried handing over his sword had never been cleared up. Something to do with surrendering a badge of office, perhaps. Anyway, the sword was put on the table during the trial, and if after the court considered its verdict the accused came back into the courtroom and found the point of the sword towards him, he knew he was guilty.

Ramage could see that Hill was a very puzzled young man. He was glancing covertly at Ramage, Southwick and Jackson and
–
probably much to his surprise
–
finding that none of them had tails like the pictures of Satan. Ramage realized that the wretched youngster was finding it impossible to reconcile what he had been hearing about Captain Ramage for the past few days with what he had just learned in the last few minutes.

“Sir,” Hill whispered, “this Captain Shirley says you are mad. It's in the charge and he talks about it to anyone who will listen–”

“Mr Hill, you are the ‘provost marshal upon the occasion' and I am under arrest in your custody,” Ramage said in a low voice. “Any discussion of the case is most improper
–
you must realize that.”

Hill nodded, although it was obvious that his thoughts were far away. “Is there any chance after the trial,” he asked diffidently, “that you'll have a vacancy for a lieutenant in the
Calypso
, sir?”

Ramage smiled to make sure that Hill realized his proffered olive branch had been accepted. “Is there any chance after the trial that I'll still command the
Calypso
?”

Ramage was startled when Southwick and the other two began folding up their pieces of tarpaulin and glanced up to see that the great hull of the
Salvador del Mundo
was alongside them like a cliff face. Jackson was bringing the cutter alongside an elaborate entryport at which a sentry with a musket stood on guard. As two seamen hooked on with boathooks and held the boat alongside, Ramage climbed on board but before he had time to glance around him a voice in the gloom said sharply: “All boats must be secured at the boat boom.” By the time the man had finished the sentence Ramage could just distinguish him: a lieutenant perfectly dressed and wearing a sword. At that moment Ramage felt a flush of temper surge through him, as though someone had opened a furnace door. Everyone, it seemed, was setting out to bait Captain Ramage, but since Captain Ramage had spent most of the last ten years serving at sea in the Mediterranean or West Indies, none of these Channel Fleet people could know him, so their malice was being led or inspired by someone else.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Ramage said politely, turning round and ushering Hill back into the boat and following him. To Jackson, just waiting for the last of the officers to board the
Salvador del
Mundo
before moving out to secure the cutter from the great boom which stuck out from the ship's side and from which boats were streamed, like horses tied to a rail outside an inn while their owners were inside having a pint of ale, Ramage said: “Carry on, Jackson, get a painter made up on the boom.”

Jackson had served with Ramage too long to hesitate: seeing his captain coming back into the cutter was enough to warn him that something unusual was happening, and he snapped an order which had the seamen pushing off the cutter.

The gap between the cutter and the ship had grown to six feet when a lieutenant appeared at the entryport shouting: “Hey you! You have to come on board!”

“Ask him to whom he's shouting,” Ramage said to Hill.

Hill, now a different man and realizing that even if he was under arrest, Ramage was still a post-captain
–
and a distinguished one
–
knew that lieutenants bellowing like that were asking for trouble.

But the lieutenant was a friend of Hill's, and Hill knew the reason for the behaviour, and thinking quickly he stood up and shouted back angrily: “Don't yell at me like that. There's a trial due to start in less than two hours' time. Do you expect us to swing under the boatboom like bumboatmen?”

The
Salvador
's lieutenant stood, jaw dropped. “Come on, man!” Hill snapped. “You'll have a dozen captains alongside you within the hour
–
as long as you remember to hoist the court-martial flag.”

“Very well then, bring your prisoner on board. But the cutter can return to its own ship.”

“Most of the men on board, including those at the oars, are witnesses,” Ramage murmured. “If this sort of thing goes on, I shall have a long list of protests to make to the president of the court, with a copy sent to the commander-in-chief.”

“And I wouldn't blame you, sir. Could you ask your coxswain to put us alongside again, sir? This fellow is a fool.”

This time Hill was the first out of the boat, holding the scabbard of his own sword with his left hand, and with Ramage's sword tucked firmly under his left arm.

“The provost marshal upon the occasion and his prisoner, Captain Ramage,” he said briskly. “Bring your men to attention!”

The Marine had already recognized Ramage and stamped to attention. The lieutenant was now examining a list with great concentration, but by now Hill had learned that Captain Ramage was usually several steps ahead of such games and beckoned Ramage to accompany him, making sure the witnesses followed.

“There's a cabin set aside for you, sir,” Hill explained, “and another for the witnesses.”

“I'd sooner walk round up on deck,” Ramage said. “It's a glorious day and this ship interests me.”

“Of course it does, sir!” Hill said. “This is the first…?”

“Yes,” Ramage said and because Hill's question was unintentionally ambiguous left it at that.

When one saw the ship from a frigate, the name
Salvador del Mundo
, Saviour of the World, seemed
–
well, more than a little pretentious. But now, standing on the maindeck, one could see that the Spanish builders and the Spanish navy had built a ship of which they could be proud. She seemed more like a great cathedral of wood which should be standing four-square on the ground. Here in the Sound on a calm day it was hard to believe she could ever be fighting for her life in an Atlantic storm, barely able to carry a stitch of canvas and with great seas sweeping over the bow and thundering their way aft, and the planking working so that water spurted through the seams and dozens of seamen cranked the bilgepumps. Nor, standing here and knowing that the other ship must be just as impressive, did the name
Santisima Trinidada
, the Holy Trinity, seem so pretentious (or, to a Protestant ear, so blasphemous).

Curious how different countries have different styles in naming their ships. The British seemed to name ships almost at random; sometimes they used that of an old ship which had been scrapped, but if the ship was a prize they often kept the original foreign name, the rule apparently being only that seamen should be able to pronounce it.

Ramage could think of very few British ships in service which had been named by the Admiralty after a man or woman, apart from members of the Royal Family. Merchant ships and privateers were often named after their owners (or their wives). Certainly no names had any religious significance, except for prizes like the
Salvador del Mundo
. Who but the British, he thought, would have the 110-ton
Ville de Paris
as the flagship of the admiral commanding the Channel Squadron? She was not even a prize, but had been built recently in a British yard! At Chatham, in fact. Admittedly that
Ville de Paris
, which was almost as big as the
Salvador
, was named after a predecessor captured from the French, but Ramage could not imagine a French fleet sailing from Brest with the admiral's flag flying in a French-built ship called the
London
. Still, apart from a few big ships associated with places, the French seemed to have just as haphazard a way of naming ships as the British. The arrival of Bonaparte had made little difference, except that since the Revolution there was now a
Ça Ira
. The only danger of such a name was that the ship might sink in a storm, or be captured by the enemy…if the
Ça Ira
(a 112-gun ship, if he remembered rightly) was captured by the British, would Their Lordships keep the name? It would be a huge joke, although the King was said not to have a very strong sense of humour.

He suddenly realized that Hill had been deliberately walking towards the fo'c'sle, as though to lead him forward, and the familiar squawking of rope rendering through blocks, and then the flopping of cloth in the wind, made him glance up.

A hoist of three flags were now flying
–
the uppermost was a white flag with a blue diagonal cross on it
–
number two. The second, triangular and divided white and red, was the substitute, indicating that the upper flag was being repeated, so the signal so far was two two. The lower flag comprised three vertical stripes, blue, white, blue, and was number three. So the whole signal was number 223, and Ramage did not have to look it up in the signal book:
The flag officers, captains and
commanders, and all other persons summoned to attend a court-martial, are to assemble on board the ship whose signal is shown after this has been answered.

An italic note below the signal in the book said:
NB
.
The ship in which the court-martial is to be held, is immediately to hoist a union jack at the mizen peak.

Ramage looked aft and saw the Union Flag being hoisted. Tiresome, he thought, that an official volume like the
Signal Book for the Ships of War
should make such an elementary mistake as calling the Union Flag a “jack” when it most certainly was
not
being used as a jack, which was a flag flown on a staff at the bow.

“The Union at the mizen peak”
–
seamen's jargon for a court-martial, and as well known as being “stabbed with a Bridport dagger”, which was another way of saying being hanged, and a tribute to the fine hemp rope made at the town of Bridport.

“Sorry, sir,” Hill said apologetically, “I was hoping you would not see or hear any of that.”