Ramage's Prize (11 page)

“The Scilly Isles one,” Smith said. “You feel she should have put up more of a fight?”

“No, since I wasn't there I couldn't make a judgement. But I'm certain she could have made a greater effort to escape—after all, the Post Office has told commanders to run when they can, and with half a gale from the east the whole Atlantic was open to her.”

“I wondered about that,” Smith admitted.

“Well, what did you hear last night from the commander of the packet?”

“Captain Stevens reports a completely uneventful voyage of 43 days. He sighted two frigates south-west of the Scillies, and then nothing until he met a British sloop-of-war east of Barbados.”

“Has he any ideas—or suspicions?”

Smith shook his head. “He says there are so many enemy privateers around that the packets are bound to be captured.”

“Yet he came through safely—and saw only British warships.”

“It's only the exceptional case that gets through these days.”

“I know,” Ramage said soothingly. “Captain Stevens is probably upset over the losses anyway.”

“Philosophical, I should say.”

“Yet the other commanders and masters must be friends of his—after all, they're probably all Falmouth men.”

“Yes, but he tells me the French are still regularly exchanging prisoners fairly quickly.”

Ramage signalled to a waiter and ordered more coffee for himself and tea for Smith.

“So Commander Stevens is not much help.”

“I'm afraid not. Have you—er, made any plans?”

“Yes, and I want to discuss them with you.”

Smith leaned forward attentively, pushing aside a plate.

“I'm proposing to sail in this packet,” Ramage said.

“I rather anticipated that.”

“And I'll need three other berths: four in all.”

“Very well: that leaves six remaining.”

“Have any Naval officers applied?”

“No: eleven Army officers, and nineteen planters and businessmen.”

“Who were the Army officers?”

“A captain of the 31st Foot—and a lieutenant from—oh dear, I can't remember all the regiments.”

“Could you give a berth to the one that seems the steadiest and leave the others empty?”

“Of course,” Smith said eagerly, “That'll be the Captain from the 31st, name of Wilson. By the way, don't forget you have to provide your own food and bedding.”

“I haven't forgotten Captain Stevens makes a profit from me of fifty guineas without having to provide a slice of bread or a pillow-case.” A sudden thought struck him. “I presume that we pay when we arrive in Falmouth?”

“Oh no! You settle with me on behalf of the Captain before the ship sails!”

“Why?” Ramage asked flatly. “Tradition?”

“No—the commanders insisted on that as soon as the packets started being captured. I think they like to send the drafts home by a merchantman in convoy: it's safer than having it on board the packet and risking capture.”

“The gallant commanders can't lose,” Ramage said sourly, and then regretted the remark. Smith flushed but said nothing.

“When are the passengers supposed to board?”

“When do you propose she sails?” Smith asked, and the tone of his voice assured Ramage that the Postmaster now accepted his authority.

“Would noon the day after tomorrow be normal?”

“Quite normal. If you'd asked me, that's when I'd have suggested. It gives Captain Stevens enough time to provision the ship.”

“And give his men some shore leave,” Ramage said casually. Smith grinned. “Yes—a few hours to dispose of their ventures.”

Ramage realized he should have remembered that that alone would have ensured the men came on shore.

“Well now,” Smith said affably, as a waiter set down a teapot and a coffee-pot, “can you and your people be on board by nine o'clock in the morning? Your baggage can be stowed and you'll be settled in before she sails.”

“Excellent,” Ramage said. It would fit in perfectly with his timetable, and give him time to look over the packet and her crew before she sailed.

“The packetsmen,” Ramage added casually. “How is their leave arranged?”

“Captain Stevens usually gives half of them a few hours the first day, and half get the night on shore.”

“A dozen men at a time—oh well, they have Protections, too, lucky fellows; they can enjoy themselves without worrying about a press-gang picking them up!”

H
IS Majesty's packet brig
Lady Arabella
was on the special Post Office mooring right in front of Kingston itself, and the following evening four seamen were watching her from a waterfront bar. They had moved one of the two tables in the tawdry saloon to a spot where they could get the best view, tipped the potman lavishly and told him to stay away until they called him.

The bar was otherwise empty; in fact it was unlikely that three dozen seamen could be found in all the bars within two hundred yards of Harbour Street and not ten more in all the brothels. The reason was simple—the same four men had visited a few of the bars earlier and mentioned that there would soon be a hot press out because one of the ships of the line had just received sailing orders. It took only a few minutes for the word to spread among the men who belonged to the few merchantmen in the anchorage, and they vanished like summer mist at sunrise.

Now the only seamen in the city's bars were those with Protections tucked in their pockets or money belts. Some Protections, issued by the Admiralty, declared their holders to be protected from being pressed because of their jobs—ferrymen, for instance, who were often disabled seamen for whom a Protection was the nearest thing to a pension they were likely to get. Other Protections had been issued by the Government of the United States—or, rather, its Customs officers—and declared their bearers to be American citizens.

Although the documents issued by the Admiralty were rare, the American Protections were comparatively common: the Customs officer in any American port readily issued one to any man who swore on oath that he was an American citizen. There was nothing to prevent a man collecting one in each of a dozen different ports, and then selling the other eleven at a handsome profit. British seamen considered a change of name a small price to pay for immunity from the press-gangs.

One of the four men sitting at the table owned a genuine American Protection which was probably unique in Kingston that day because it truly described its owner as an American citizen: Thomas Jackson, a lean man with a cadaverous face and receding sandy hair, had indeed been born in Charleston, South Carolina, forty years earlier, and thus became an American at the age of twenty. The document—with the American eagle printed right across the top and signed with a flourish by “James Bennett, Collector of Customs for Charleston”—was now yellowed and foxed by tropical heat, creased and stained at the edges with salt water.

Thomas Jackson had carried it with him for more than three years, a genuine document which would stop a press-gang hauling him on board a British warship or ensure that an American consul would subsequently secure his release. Yet for more than three years Thomas Jackson had served in the Royal Navy, and for most of that time he had been the captain's coxswain. For nearly two years his Captain had been Lieutenant Ramage, and between the two men, so different in rank, age, temperament and background, existed that indefinable bond between men who have shared the same dangers and know that a French round-shot did not care whether it knocked the head off an earl's heir or the son of a Carolina woodsman.

Two of the other men, Stafford and Rossi, had served with Lieutenant Ramage for the same length of time; only the fourth, a coloured seaman named William Maxton, who came from Grenada at the southern end of the Windward Islands, was a comparative newcomer.

Will Stafford was a true Cockney, having been born in Bridewell Lane. He was now 27 years old and stockily built with a round and cheery face and curly brown hair.

An observant onlooker might have been puzzled by his delicate hands (the skin now coarsened by hauling on ropes) and a habit of rubbing thumb and forefinger together, as though feeling material. Before being swept into the Navy's net Stafford had been a locksmith, not a tailor, and he made no secret of the fact that much of his work on locks had been done by his sensitive fingers at the dead of night, unrequested and unpaid, though rarely unrewarded.

Alberto Rossi, nicknamed Rosey by his shipmates, was correctly described in muster books as having been born in Genoa and was twenty years old, plump and black-haired with flamboyant good looks. Like many Genovesi, Rossi spoke good English: hundreds of men from that great seaport had to seek employment in the ships of other nations because there were too few ships flying the flag of the Republic of Genoa, which had recently been occupied by the French and renamed the Ligurian Republic. Rossi maintained a bantering reticence about his reason for signing on in a British ship of war that happened to be in the harbour, although admitting it was the fastest and certainly the safest way of leaving the city without being asked embarrassing questions.

Although the other three had formed a tightly knit group under Jackson's leadership, and many times had risked their lives with their Captain, they had accepted Maxton when he joined the ship because of his cheerful intelligence. In turn, Ramage had come to realize that he could rely on the quartet. In common with most of the men of the Royal Navy they gave their loyalty not to a flag or a vague ideal, but to an individual they could respect. It was a spontaneous and natural loyalty; not the loyalty demanded by the harshly worded Articles of War.

“Jacko,” Stafford said suddenly, glancing round to make sure the potman was out of earshot, and wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand, “make sure I stay sober.”

“Don't worry.”

“But I do. I worry all the time. Just supposing these beggars don't come on shore from the packet. Say they don't get leave?”

“They will,” Jackson said reassuringly. “You saw the first half going back on board twenty minutes ago.”

“Aye, and three sheets in the wind, the lot o' them! Supposin' the Captain decides he don't want the rest of his men blind drunk, and belays their leave?”

“Then we'll go on board and pull ‘em out like winkles. Got a bent pin?”

Rossi tapped his mug of beer. “Seriously, Jacko, is a good question.
Accidente—
everything depends on it!”

“It's a good question all right,” the American said calmly, “but if they don't get leave and come on shore, we can't do anything: it's as simple as that. You saw the first half had their run on shore, just like Mr Ramage said, so why should anything stop the second half? There's plenty of time for them to get their twelve hours before the
Arabella
sails at noon tomorrow.”

“All right,” Stafford conceded, “let's say they're here and we've got ‘em all stupid drunk. Where's this bleedin' crimp supposed to meet us, so we can hand ‘em over to him?”

“Down the other end of Harbour Street. At the Sign of the Pelican. He owns it.”

“Can we trust him?”

“Yes, he's got only half the money and doesn't get the rest until morning. And I swore Maxie would slit his throat if he tried any nonsense.”

“But a dozen drunken packetsmen,” Stafford persisted. “Where the ‘ell is he going to lock ‘em up safe?”

Jackson sighed. “He's got a small building out the back like a big cell. Has a mahogany door on it two inches thick and a padlock as big as a melon. They'll be half drunk by the time we invite them along to the Pelican, and there it's free drinks on us. As they pass out we pass them out to the crimp who locks ‘em up in his cell. I had a good look at it—they can shout until their tongues wear out and no one'll hear them.”

“Like a purser's storeroom,” Stafford commented, “only he sells seamen to shipmasters!”

“And then?” Rossi prompted Jackson.

“With all the packetsmen locked up for the night we sleep at the Pelican, and the other eight of our lads join us with their seabags. Then at nine o'clock tomorrow morning we lurk around the landing stage and wait for the word from Mr Ramage to go out to the
Arabella
and take the packetsmen's places.”

Stafford shook his head doubtfully. “I don't like the idea of trusting that crimp.”

“Don't worry about him,” Jackson said contemptuously. “He'll do anything for money, and I've got it. He doesn't get the other half until we leave the Pelican to board the packet, and he's only to keep that cell door locked until he sees her sailing out past Fort Charles. Why, he's doing this sort of thing all the time, only usually he has to find the drunks to lock in his cell. Then he has to drag ‘em off to a merchant ship that's short of men, get them signed on and collect his money from the Captain before they've sobered up. I bet he's selling a couple of dozen men a day once a convoy starts forming up here.”

“Is just kidnapping,” Rossi exclaimed angrily, his accent becoming more pronounced. “Is a crook, this crimp!”

“Sure it's kidnapping,” Jackson said calmly, “and it goes on in every port in the world. It's selling seamen to shipmasters, just like a chandler sells rope and candles. But every seaman knows the minute he sets foot in a bar that if he gets drunk the ladies of the town will get his money and the crimps or a press-gang will get his body. It's the same in Genoa, isn't it?”

“No, is worse,” Rossi said soberly. “Too many seamen and not enough ships, so you lose your money after getting a knife between the ribs.”

“I'd sooner take me chance with a crimp,” Stafford said complacently. “But Jacko, ain't what we're doing a bit sort of—well, irregular? We must be careful not to do nothin' that'd get Mr Ramage into trouble.”