Ramage's Prize (39 page)

“Hmm, you'll be charging people soon. A guinea to dance with the crazy Italian lady,” she said with a sniff. “Mr Yorke, I shall give a ball—and you can be my partner as often as you wish. But you must both excuse me now; I must see how Rossi is getting on with our dinner. He's having trouble with that wretched seaman, Nicholas.”

“I'm not surprised. Two cooks in one kitchen!”

“Cook!” she exclaimed crossly. “That other man is an assassin!”

With that she left the cabin and the two men sat in almost complete darkness. It was not classical beauty, Yorke mused; it was a great deal more than that. Classical beauty tended to be cold. Her mouth was too wide and her lips too warm, if you measured her by those standards. Her eyes too large—and too lively. Her skin was golden, not the alabaster white and pink that classical beauty dictated. Yet if she walked on to the floor at one of the Prince of Wales's famous grand balls, every woman present would demand to know who she was, and hate her for being there!

“You'll have dinner with us?” Ramage asked.

“No, I'll eat in the saloon with the others. The Captain of one of the King's ships dines alone—unless there is a charming passenger on board. You don't need a chaperone for your first evening together!”

The excitement of her first day at sea had left Gianna tired, and as soon as dinner was finished and Rossi had cleared the table she had smiled ruefully at Ramage and said she was going to bed. Ramage took her to her cabin and then went up on deck to have a chat with Southwick, who was on watch.

The Portuguese coast was now a thin black line low and vague on the dark eastern horizon. Ramage had decided quite deliberately not to beat far out into the Atlantic; instead he planned to clear Cabo Finisterra by only a few miles, even though the Spanish bases of Coruña and Ferrol were just a short distance round the Cape to the eastward. British frigates—if not a sizeable squadron—were keeping a close watch on them even as the
Arabella
stretched along the coast, and the packet would probably be safer close in.

After a glance at the slate recording the
Arabella
's recent courses and speeds, Ramage looked at the two helmsmen, their faces lit faintly by the light in the binnacle box, nodded to Southwick and went below to his cabin again. The Master had been given his night orders, which he would later pass on to Much: orders which covered any likely eventuality. A major wind shift or change in its strength, sighting another vessel, doubt concerning the ship's position—any of these circumstances and many more would result in the Captain being called.

In the meantime Ramage was now feeling sleepy and decided he might well spend an hour or two beginning a draft of his report to the Admiralty. He took the lantern from the centre of the cabin's forward bulkhead, where it lit up the table, and hooked it on the bracket on the starboard side of the bulkhead, so that he would see to work at the desk.

For the next hour he wrote and crossed out, tore up complete pages and started again. The
Arabella
was rolling; not heavily, just enough to make it necessary to wedge the inkwell. He was thankful the desk had been built athwartships against the bulkhead, so that he faced forward: it made it less tiring than if he had to face outboard.

The sentry tapped on the door and said quietly, to avoid rousing the occupants of the other cabins, “Mr Yorke, sir.”

Ramage glanced up as the door to his left opened in response to his reply.

“Want a game of chess?” he asked mockingly.

“Don't you start,” Yorke said wearily. “I've been fighting off Bowen for hours. He seems to think that Southwick standing a watch is a deliberate plot on your part to keep him away from the chessboard.”

“I doubt if Southwick minds,” Ramage said, getting up from the desk and going to sit in a chair by the table on the other side of the cabin.

“Don't be too sure,” Yorke said sitting in a chair beyond. “Your Master is getting the disease. He beat Bowen in three consecutive games just before we left Lisbon.”

“Oh? I didn't hear about that!”

“I'm not surprised: Bowen was too startled, and Southwick couldn't believe it himself. I think Bowen was getting careless.”

“If you'd like a drink …” Ramage gestured to the locker in which bottles sat in racks.

Yorke shook his head. “No, I want to sleep lightly tonight.”

When Ramage raised his eyebrows questioningly, Yorke said: “The packetsmen … I don't trust that bosun an inch.”

“I imagine he's borne that cross since he was a baby and first reached out of the crib to pick his father's pocket,” Ramage said dryly.

Yorke glanced at Ramage's desk, on which there were several sheets of paper, and the open inkwell. “I shouldn't be interrupting you.”

“Plenty of time for that: I was starting a draft of my report to the First Lord.”

“I saw Much tickling his chin with a quill.”

“I've told him to write a report to me, so I can enclose it.”

“He seems to have as much enthusiasm for quill-pushing as you,” Yorke commented, picking up one of the two pistols lying on the settee. “I see you don't follow your own instructions, Captain. This isn't loaded! Mine are loaded and ready!”

Ramage pointed to the box on the settee. “There's powder, wads and shot …”

“Armourer—that's the only job I haven't had since I've been with you,” Yorke said caustically. “I'd make a good armourer, you know,” he confided. “I love guns. Not as instruments to kill”—he snapped the lock a couple of times to check the spark from the flint—”but just for good craftsmanship. Not one of these Sea Service pistols, of course; but a pair of good duelling pistols by someone like Henry Nock.”

He took the powder flask, slid back the rammer and methodically loaded the gun.

“I feel the same way.” Ramage said. “A gun is inert; just a piece of metal with a flint and some wood attached to it. By itself it can't move or kill anything: it can't do a damned thing unless someone picks it up.”

“Ah—an interesting point,” Yorke commented, beginning to load the second pistol. “Who is the killer—the gun that fires the shot or the man who squeezes the trigger?”

Ramage sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “That's a fatuous point which isn't worth mentioning, my friend, let alone discussing. No—” He stopped and listened for a moment. The rudder still creaked as the wheel turned a spoke or two this way or that, keeping the ship on course: he could picture the quartermaster checking by the dim light at the compass and muttering something to the men at the wheel. The lookouts were watching in the darkness, and Southwick would be strolling up and down. He had heard the sentry outside the cabin cough once or twice. A sail occasionally flapped as the packet pitched and momentarily spilled the wind. The hull creaked as all hulls did. He was not sure what he had heard: perhaps only a distant seagull giving a squawk of alarm as it sighted the ship.

“No,” he continued, idly taking one of the pistols, while the light from the lantern threw the shadow across the cabin, “just take this as an example. Old ladies and parsons regard them as inventions of the Devil: evil contrivances which kill men. Yet it's the man that's evil, not the gun. A gun is no—”

That noise again, and a slight thump which could have been a piece of wreckage bumping the hull, and from the way Yorke glanced towards the door Ramage knew he'd heard it too. When he raised his eyebrows questioningly Yorke turned down the comers of his mouth, shrugging his shoulders. Then a plank creaked.

There were many beams and planks, lodging knees and hanging knees, frames and stringers creaking in the ship at this very moment, but only one particular plank creaked like that.

A butt in one of the planks in the corridor had sprung close to Ramage's door—he remembered stubbing his toe on it and cursing violently, startling the sentry. And as he stood there, his toes tingling with pain, he had pushed down on the plank and it had creaked: a high-pitched creak—more like the squeak of a loose plank in a staircase than the usual deeper creaking made by the ship, which by comparison was a series of groans. He had intended to have the carpenter's mate put in a couple of fastenings to secure it.

Surely the plank would creak like that only if someone stood on it? But the sentry would see anyone there, unless he was leaning with his right shoulder against the bulkhead, facing to starboard. Still, it could be the sentry himself, or Bowen or Wilson going on deck for some fresh air. Ramage knew he was getting jumpy and leaned over to put the pistol back on the settee. At that moment he heard a soft grunt and a gentle thud.

Without realizing it he continued moving upward so that he was on his feet and heading silently for the door, pistol in his hand, almost before registering that the grunt came from a man's throat. Yorke followed him a couple of seconds later.

Ramage gestured to him to stand to the left of the door, where he would be hidden if it was opened, and himself stood the other side, flat against the bulkhead. He watched the handle.

The light was so dim from the lantern over his desk that it was hard to see the wooden latch. Yes! It was lifting slightly … and anyone wanting to see if he was lying in the cot at the afterend of the cabin or sitting at the desk on the starboard side would have to open the door at least a foot. And men entering a room or cabin tended to look first at the level of their own eyes.

Gently he lowered himself until he was crouching.

A black crack began to show as someone slowly opened the door, careful to do it gently for fear of a creaking hinge. The crack widened … an inch, two inches … four … five … Whoever it was could see part of the cabin but not the cot or the desk. Eight inches … nine … he could probably see the empty chair by the desk now … eleven … twelve … he could see the whole of the desk and must guess the Captain was lying in the cot.

Suddenly the door flung open wide and the bosun jumped into the cabin, a pistol in each hand, shouting at the cot, “Don't move!”

It took him a few moments to realize that there was no one in the heavily shadowed cot, and as he began to look round Ramage shot him in the leg. The flash of the gun blinded him for a second and the noise boomed in the tiny cabin, but as the bosun pitched forward another man with a pistol took his place, saw Ramage crouching with an empty gun smoking in his hand, and sneered, “Now it's your turn, Mister Captain! We need your help to capture this ship!”

Ramage stood up slowly and glanced down at the bosun. The man was lying on his face and had let go of both pistols as he tried to clutch the wound just above his knee.

Ramage knew that if he wanted to live he needed time. “Do you, indeed?” he said icily, recognizing the seaman as a man called Harris. “Do you want me to give the officer of the watch a written order? Or would you prefer me to ask the Admiralty?”

“None o' that smooth talk,” Harris said harshly. “The shot will have roused that bloody slave-driver Southwick. I'm warning you, if he tries any nonsense, you get yourself shot. You're our
second
hostage, Mister Captain—sir,” he added derisively.

Suddenly Ramage realized that there were only two of them: the bosun and this man Harris. They must have crept from their hammocks—or sneaked from their stations—without the Tritons spotting them, clubbed the sentry at the door and been planning to seize the ship by taking Ramage as a hostage.

By marching him on deck with a pistol at his back, they guessed they could force Southwick to surrender the ship as the price of saving Ramage's life. Then they would head for a Spanish or French port to hand over the ship and get what they expected would be freedom. They had probably—what a terrible irony—thought the gibbet awaited them at home in England, never for a moment … all at once he realized that Harris had just referred to a “second hostage.” Who was the first?

“Come on, Mister Captain, let's get on with the business a'fore the bosun bleeds to death. Remember, one false step and you're a dead man.”

Hoping Yorke would continue to play a waiting game, Ramage decided to find out as much as he could. “You're a brave fellow—you and the bosun. Just two of you taking a ship, eh?”

“Not difficult for packetsmen,” Harris sneered. “No, not just two of us: the rest of the lads are ready, waiting for me to pass the word. Then we'll show Mister Bloody Southwick some sail handling—aye, and navigation too. Ever been to Coruña, Mister Captain Ramage? Ever been in a Spanish prison?”

“No. But I imagine you've been in an English one.”

“Never—an' there'll never be no risk o' that again; I'll take my oath on it!”

“I'll take my oath that you're wrong,” Ramage said conversationally. “Do you know Mr Yorke, by the way?”

“What, the passenger? No, why?”

“I just wondered. You are Harris, aren't you, bosun's mate?”

“Aye, that's me. Now, let's—”

“Don't turn round, Harris; otherwise you'll be shot dead,” Ramage said conversationally. “Mr Yorke is standing right behind you with a loaded pistol in his hand.”

The man froze, the white showing all round his eyes. Then he relaxed. “That's a silly trick. You can't catch a packetsman like that. And we've got the Marchesa as well—didn't know that, did you. Got the pair of you, we have!”

At that moment the muzzle of Yorke's pistol pressed into the back of his neck.

“We
can
catch a packetsman, you know,” Yorke said jauntily, and cocked the pistol so that Harris felt the metallic click travel down his spine.

Again the man froze and Ramage saw his eyes straining to look behind him. In a swift movement Ramage stepped to one side and seized the man's gun. Outside the door he heard the plank squeak several times and as he turned he saw Southwick peering cautiously through the door, holding a musketoon whose muzzle in the shadows seemed to bell out as large as a cavalryman's trumpet and which a moment later was jammed into Harris's stomach.