Ramage's Prize (45 page)

But Our Ned was shaking his head. He drew a finger across his throat in an unmistakable gesture.

“It was our only hope,” Ramage said lamely, “we'll be off Cabo Finisterra in a few hours.”

“I know that, sir; that's why I got the Marchesa out tonight.”

T
HE first person to sight the English coast four days later was Rossi, and his hail from the masthead that he could just make out land broad on the larboard bow secured him the guinea Ramage had offered earlier in Lisbon. It also confirmed Southwick's latitude sight at noon, when his calculations put the ship 35 miles south-west of the Lizard.

Two hours later, as the
Lady Arabella
surged along before a brisk west wind, with a scattering of cloud, they could see enough from the deck to recognize the high land of the Lizard, now slowly drawing abeam as the packet headed for Plymouth.

“Probably the first time she's not rounded the Manacles and slipped into Falmouth,” Yorke commented. “Could probably find her own way in.”

And every mile up the River Fal would have taken Ramage closer to St Kew, to Blazey Hall, where his father and mother would be waiting, anxious to know what had happened in Lisbon; whether he and Gianna were safe. Suddenly he felt an almost overpowering nostalgia for his home, mingling with a deep love for Gianna, who even now was standing beside him at the taffrail.

More than a year had passed since he had looked astern over the taffrail of the
Triton
brig at the Lizard dropping below the horizon. Since then, he blushed at the recollection, he had had a couple of affairs, ones which left no nostalgia, only pleasant memories—and been nearly killed four times. Five, if you included the bosun's attempt. And he had lost the
Triton
after a hurricane. Yes, it had been a busy time and the months had passed quickly. But the next few days would pass slowly enough to make up for it.

So now, although off the Portuguese coast he had despaired of ever doing so, he was looking at the Lizard again, and with him were Southwick, Jackson, Stafford, Rossi, Maxton and a few more of the
Triton
's original crew.

The Lizard meant all things to all men. The last sight of England for many great sailors—and pirates and smugglers and scallywags too. Drake had looked back on it at the beginning of his last voyage—and had been buried at sea off Portobello, thousands of miles away on the Spanish Main. Henry Morgan, freed from arrest after ingratiating himself with Charles II, who had then made him a knight, looked back on it as he returned to Jamaica to become its governor and continue as the most successful pirate the Caribbean had ever seen.

It had been the last sight of an oppressive country—countries rather, since many on board were Dutch—for those in the
Mayflower;
the first sight of the country he was supposed to conquer for the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the troops embarked in the Spanish Armada.

And, he grinned to himself, a welcome sight for Lieutenant Ramage and for the Marchesa di Volterra, otherwise Gianna, otherwise a small and black-haired girl with a mouth slightly too large for classical beauty, and deep brown eyes, and bosoms whose promise kept him awake at night, and a temper which could be imperious or flare like Etna on a dark night, and a love which knew no limits …

He suddenly realized Southwick was standing in front of him. “Sorry sir,” the Master said, guessing that the sight of the Lizard was stirring up memories, “but we can bear away, to north-east by east, and if the wind holds we'll pick up the Eddy-stone an hour after daybreak.”

“Very well,” Ramage said, “and I'd better get below and start preparing the paperwork.”

Plymouth … the Commander-in-Chief, if he was there, otherwise the Port Admiral, would be waiting for a sheaf of returns, since the
Lady Arabella
was sailing under Admiralty, not Post Office orders. Ramage cursed because he did not have the necessary stationery. Now he had to try to remember the headings on the dozen and one standard forms he was expected to have filled in and ready on arrival.

Anyway, the worst of the paperwork was done: the most important was the report for Lord Spencer. The mutiny had simplified everything, Yorke pointed out: Ramage had written half the report before it started and had been sitting at his desk preparing to complete it only a few minutes before the
Lady Arabella
's bosun sneaked in with a pistol in each hand. The mutiny should convince the First Lord that there was treachery in the Packet Service.

What he now had to do was to prepare a report for the Commander-in-Chief, or the Port Admiral, which revealed nothing! Enough to satisfy his curiosity, but not enough to endanger secrecy. The List of Prisoners was complete—not often a ship commanded by a naval officer arrived at Plymouth with prisoners all of whom were British. A list with a hundred French or Spanish names, yes, that was a commonplace, and boats would soon take them over under Marine guard to the prison hulks lying in the Hamoaze. But a list of British prisoners, all accused of mutiny, one of murder and another of attempted murder—that was rare.

He went to his cabin, sat at the desk and unscrewed the cap of the inkwell, lodging the wide-based bottle between two books against the rolling of the packet. After trying unsuccessfully to recall what he had read in the slim volume of the printed ‘Plymouth Port Orders,' he thought of the ‘Portsmouth Port Orders' which he had more recently read, since that was the port from which he had sailed with the
Triton.

His mind was still a blank … “… a correct statement of their defects, deficiencies of sails, rigging and stores, specifying every particular …” The phrase came to him, though he could not remember from which port orders.

He took a sheet of paper from a drawer and in the top right-hand corner wrote, “His Majesty's packet brig
Lady Arabella.
” If it had been his own ship—one he would continue to command—he would have discussed the report carefully with Southwick, because the list of defects and deficiencies meant that a survey would be held and—if the penny-pinching dockyard agreed to them—they would be put right. But any defects and deficiencies found after the survey would not exist, as far as the dockyard was concerned: all port admirals and dockyard commissioners sang the same chorus: after that survey, “no second survey will be allowed …”

In the case of the
Lady Arabella,
though, the Port Admiral would probably forward the report to the Post Office, and there it would grow dusty on some shelf.

He scribbled a few lines, mentioning the rot found in the ship, and referring to Southwick's attached survey—he must remember to attach it! Much had already given him a list of stores remaining, and he had Stevens' original lists. The lists of sails and rigging were routine.

Although if the dockyard felt the packet was its concern the survey would give the master shipwright plenty of work, there was nothing wrong with the rigging for the surveying master to fuss about, apart from “fair wear and tear.” Ramage only hoped the commissioner would not want the sails taken on shore for survey; he had too few men for that, and commissioners begrudged even a moment of their time, let alone that of a dozen of their men …

Leave of absence. He had to make an application to the Admiral before going up to the Admiralty; admirals were almost as harsh with commanding officers leaving their ships without written permission as with seamen who deserted by swimming on shore at dead of night.

“List of prisoners to be transferred to the prison ship.” He took the list from a drawer and put it with the survey. “List of invalids to be transferred to hospital.” Well, the bosun would not need the sick ticket normally given to a genuinely sick or wounded seaman: he needed only a Marine guard.

Weekly accounts, “specifying the numbers borne or petty and able, separately …” He took out his muster book and copied out the details normally entered on a special form. He had made out a paybook that would end up in the Navy Office in London, where the clerks would have a fit because the entries were not on the usual printed forms. Well, by the time their complaints had filtered back to Plymouth, Ramage hoped he would be at sea again.

Finally he wiped the pen and screwed the cap back on the inkwell, putting them both in a drawer with the reports and lists. Then, cursing himself, he remembered he had not done the most important one of all, the report to the Admiral in Plymouth: the one explaining why a Post Office packet anchored in the Hamoaze was manned by eleven navy seamen, commanded by a naval officer, and with nine of its original ship's company in irons and a tenth wounded.

One way and another, he thought grimly, the Admiralty's lawyers—perhaps even the law officers of the Crown, now no doubt sitting comfortably in their offices in London—were going to be scratching their heads in a few days' time.

It took him half an hour to write a ten-line report to the Admiral, and to save himself writing yet another letter he included in the last paragraph a request for leave to go to London to report to the First Lord “according to orders previously received.”

Picking up his hat, he made his way on deck to find a frigate coming up fast astern, but he knew her Captain would have recognized the
Lady Arabella
as a Post Office packet as her hull started lifting over the horizon, even though he would be wondering why she was passing Falmouth. In such a position, the correct answer to the private signal would be enough.

By nightfall the
Lady Arabella
was under topsails only, deliberately slowing down so that two hours before dawn Rame Head would be fifteen to twenty miles ahead. At midnight Mr Much, who was on watch, turned up all hands until a good deal of shouting from the darkness revealed that the packet was in the midst of a small fishing fleet out of Fowey. By six o'clock next morning Rame Head was fine on the larboard bow and the Eddy-stone Rock was on the starboard beam, Mr Smeaton's great lighthouse standing up stark in the early light, a hundred feet high.

The Tritons were allowed to go below for fifteen minutes, three at a time, to shave and smarten themselves up for entering harbour, and at nine o'clock the
Lady Arabella
rounded Penlee Point to reach across Cawsand Bay and into the Sound.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet was at sea: that much was obvious to Ramage since his flagship was not at anchor and the port was almost empty. That made things a lot easier. Port admirals were usually busy enough not to want to bother with anything that did not directly involve them, whereas commanders-in-chief seemed to take a malicious delight in badgering any ship not under their direct command.

No sooner had the
Lady Arabella
anchored than Jackson identified the Port Admiral's flagship—an old vessel acting in effect as a floating signal station, since the Admiral had an office in the Dockyard. A moment later Southwick was pointing out that they did not have enough men to guard the prisoners and at the same time row Ramage in the packet's boat to the Admiral's office. The old Master seemed to regard hiring a local boat for such a task as an insult to the ship, and because the local boats usually waited at the West Pier he had to hail a frigate's boat that was passing and ask the Lieutenant in it to send a boat out.

Although it had been a long time since Ramage was in Plymouth, he vaguely remembered that the coach usually left for London at half past six in the evening. However, since Yorke and Much would be travelling with him, he would have to hire a carriage: there was no hope of getting three seats on the London coach at such short notice, and anyway he wanted to get to London without stopping. He was thankful that Gianna was anxious to go to St Kew to reassure his parents that they were both safe: he had expected to have to persuade her not to accompany them to London.

He saw Yorke and asked, “You're all packed, I hope?”

“All ready. Just waiting for the Customs before I strap my trunk. What are your plans for London?”

“Well, I'm going to report to the Admiral as soon as I've dealt with the Customs officers. Then I'd like to hire a ‘chaise and be on our way.”

“That suits me. Much is coming with us, I presume?”

Ramage nodded, but warned, “Providing we can get horses, I want to stop only for meals.”

“Is that wise?” Yorke asked. “There's no point in you arriving at the Admiralty so tired you can't think straight. An extra day for the journey won't hurt. After all, we spent weeks waiting in Lisbon …”

Yorke was right, of course. The Port Admiral would report to the Admiralty that they had arrived, and the nightly messenger would take the report to London on horseback. If they arrived at the Admiralty two or three days later, that would be time enough. A night's sleep before they set off from Plymouth would be good for all of them.

Two hours later, having said goodbye to Gianna, who intended spending the night on board, giving Southwick a chance to hire a carriage to take her to St Kew next day, Ramage reported at the Port Admiral's office.

The portly and jovial owner of the King's Arms came up to Ramage's table and gave a slight bow—a lieutenant's bow, Ramage suspected; it would be six inches lower for captains and twelve or more for admirals—and said, “The carriage is ready, sir, and the baggage has been loaded.”

Ramage looked round at his guests, Yorke and Much. “Has anyone an appetite left?” When both men shook their heads, he said to the innkeeper, “That was an excellent breakfast: now, if you'll bring me the bill …”

Fifteen minutes later the door of the carriage slammed shut, the coachman cracked his whip and yelled, “Hup, hup, hup now!” and in the darkness before dawn the coach clattered along the cobbled street in Briton Side heading for the Exeter Road. They had, Ramage thought gloomily, another 250 miles to travel before they reached the Admiralty: they would change horses a couple of dozen times, and stop to pay the toll at twice as many turnpikes.