Ramage's Prize (9 page)

But as he sat with the three men, he found himself wondering if the Post Office and the Board of Admiralty had considered the homeward-bound losses significant: Lord Auckland had not mentioned it to Smith: Lord Spencer had made no comment to Sir Pilcher.

“Magic,” Yorke said suddenly. “The French are using magicians. Wouldn't surprise me to hear the Ministère de la Marine has had a hot press out for them for the past couple of years.”

“Aye,” Southwick said, “it must be something like that. It'll be my birthday in a month or so, and since I could have fathered both you young gentlemen I'm not saying how old I'll be. But if you'll forgive me for saying so, sir,” he said to Ramage, “this story of the Post Office packets is the weirdest yarn I've heard, an' I've heard a few in my lifetime!”

Yorke was tapping his teeth with a thumbnail. “So the Post Office compensates the owner if a packet is lost,” he said, almost to himself.

When Ramage nodded, Yorke commented: “So no underwriters are involved?”

“I doubt it. You know more about marine insurance than I, but I can't see the Government reinsuring on the open market.”

“Nor can I; they would have to pay a pretty premium! And I have a feeling that before paying out underwriters would ask more pointed questions than the Inspector of Packets, who is probably an underpaid quill-pusher who has never been to sea.

“He hasn't,” Ramage said. “I checked that with Smith. It's purely an administrative job. He has the book of rules and makes sure everyone abides by them.”

“But what questions could he ask?” Southwick ran a hand through his white hair. “No one doubts the packets are captured by privateers; no one's suggesting they sink, because the lads are exchanged.”

“True enough,” Yorke admitted, “but are there really that number of privateers on either side of the Atlantic?”

Ramage shook his head. “I doubt it very much. In fact Sir Pilcher has had a frigate at one end or other of the Windward Passage continuously for the past two years, and for the past twelve months they've sighted almost nothing.”

“There's only one way of finding out what goes on,” Southwick said bluntly, “and that's to man a packet with proper fighting seamen, not these Post Office gentlemen raised on a bread-and-milk diet of running away. You take command, and we all sail for England …”

“That's a damned good idea!” Yorke exclaimed. “I'll come as a passenger.”

All three men were looking questioningly at Ramage who smiled grimly and shook his head. He had reached that conclusion long before leaving Smith's office, but he had no hope of persuading either the Commander-in-Chief or the Deputy Postmaster-General to agree.

“My last question to Mr Smith was ‘When is the next packet due?'”

“And what was his answer?” Southwick growled.

“His exact words were, ‘Using the 45-day passage rule, she was due here yesterday.'”

“That doesn't necessarily mean she's lost,” Yorke pointed out. “Bad weather, light winds …”

“No, I agree,” Ramage said, “and Smith gives her up to a week. But he's not accepting any passengers or mail …”

“Look on the bright side,” Bowen said cheerfully. “If she comes in, you really don't think Sir Pilcher would agree—and give you three dozen former Tritons to man her?”

Ramage shook his head again. “The knight's move,” he said enigmatically. “It's the only way to find out what's happening, but …” He thought for a few moments, then said: “I can get the men—Sir Pilcher has already promised me a dozen Tritons without knowing what I wanted to do. But the Post Office would never agree …”

Yet another idea was forming vaguely in Ramage's mind; a possible improvement on the one that formed in Smith's office. “You're serious about going back in a packet?” he asked Yorke.

“Not in an ordinary one,” Yorke said emphatically. “After what we've just heard I'd sooner wait and go in a convoy. If you can get your hands on one, that'd be different.”

The idea was now slowly taking shape, like a buoy emerging from a fog bank. “We might all four be passengers.”

“What—you wouldn't be in command?”

“Perhaps not. After all, we don't know what happens, do we? It might be better to have a normal packet sailing in the normal way. With a few passengers—us, and perhaps some others.”

“What, no Tritons, sir?” Southwick was shocked. “The four of us wouldn't stand a chance.”

“A packet has—by Post Office regulations—a ship's company of 28 men and boys … that includes the commander, master and mate.”

“But even so, sir …”

“But if a dozen of her men were given a few hours' leave and didn't return by sailing time … and the Navy offered a dozen seamen to help out …”

“By Jove,” Yorke said gleefully, “that's it!”

“As far as the Post Office commander and the rest of the crew are concerned, they'd be just a dozen seamen taken at random from one of the King's ships. That wouldn't seem odd because the chance of finding a dozen merchant seamen in Kingston at half an hour's notice is nil—particularly if one or two of the ships o' war had sent out press-gangs a few hours earlier …”

“Lack of secrecy, that'd be our best ally,” Yorke said. “Make a great fuss if the packet comes in—be sure the newspaper announces it, and so forth—so that the French will hear.”

Ramage nodded slowly. “We might even use the newspaper to reveal—accidentally, of course—when she's due to sail.”

“Aye,” Southwick said, “have the Postmaster announce that all letters for England have to be at the Post Office by nine o'clock in the forenoon on a certain day. That'd warn anyone who was half awake that she's sailing by noon.”

As they talked, Ramage became convinced that the idea was not only a good one, but the only one likely to bring results. Then Yorke caught his eye and said flatly:

“You suspect treachery, don't you?”

The words reached into Ramage's mind and jogged something: something lying there since the visit to Smith's office but which still refused to emerge. “I'm not sure. At the moment I suspect everything—and nothing.”

“But as you've outlined it, you're covering yourself against it.”

“Of course, but treachery from any direction, not just on board the packet.”

Southwick was shaking his head. “It'd have to be treachery on board all the packets lost so far,” he said. “I can't really …”

“No, I suppose treachery doesn't seem likely,” Yorke admitted. “But privateers nabbing packet after packet doesn't seem likely either.”

“What happens if the packet doesn't come in?” Bowen asked, in his usual down-to-earth manner.

“We'll have to think again,” Ramage said with a lightness he did not feel.

“All that chess,” Southwick muttered. “She has to come in …”

Ramage had just washed, shaved and dressed next morning before going down to breakfast when a knock at the door revealed a lugubrious servant who handed him a letter with the announcement that it had just been delivered by hand. As he fumbled in his pocket for a coin and gave it to the man, Ramage noticed the Post Office seal on the letter.

It was from Smith and said: “The lookout on Morant Point has sent word that a vessel believed to be the packet was sighted to the south-east at daybreak, and I'm hastening to pass on the good news to you.”

Ramage sat on the bed, feeling strangely excited. The lookouts at Morant Point, at the east end of Jamaica, had seen enough packets not to be mistaken: Smith's “believed” was probably no more than a bureaucrat's inability to write anything definite.

One thing is certain, he thought bitterly. Although persuading Sir Pilcher to agree to the plan would be very difficult, Smith would never agree. The natural reluctance of a bureaucrat, and Post Office pride, made it dangerous even to suggest it. Dangerous in case Smith's refusal resulted in a definite order from Sir Pilcher forbidding it … He went along to Yorke's room, banging on Southwick's door as he passed and calling him to join them.

Yorke was having trouble shaving. “This damned strop,” he grumbled. “My hand slipped and I've almost cut it through!”

Southwick chuckled. “Take your chance with the hotel's barber!”

“Prefer to shave myself,” Yorke said crossly, “it's part of the ritual of waking up!”

“You gave a hail, sir,” Southwick prompted Ramage.

“They've sighted the packet.”

“Well I'm damned!” The Master ran his hand through his flowing white hair like a shopkeeper demonstrating a mop. “I thought the French had got her.”

“You're going off to Sir Pilcher?” Yorke asked.

“Once she's anchored. I'd sooner be able to point to her than talk to him of a ship that's out of sight.”

Yorke nodded approvingly. “That's a good idea. Out of sight makes it—well, abstract almost. By the way, should I dash down and see Mr Smith about a passage?”

“No, I'll arrange all that. Incidentally,” Ramage added, “I must warn you that it'll cost you fifty guineas and you provide your own food as well as bedding.”

“Food? Why on earth does the passenger supply food?”

“I don't know,” Ramage said, “and nor does Smith. It's an old tradition, though food is provided outward-bound. If it's any consolation, the fare back to Falmouth is four guineas less than the fare out!”

“The whole thing intrigues me,” Yorke said, busily lathering his face. “The packets for Lisbon, Gibraltar and Malta provide food each way.”

“Each way,” Ramage said, “but Smith tells me the fare homeward from Gibraltar costs ten guineas more than outward, and from Malta it's five guineas extra.”

“Tradition, too?”

“No—he says victuals cost more in Gibraltar and Malta than Falmouth.”

Yorke snorted. “More likely they know they have passengers on board at pistol point!”

“Don't you charge more in your ships?” Southwick asked

“No fear. Same either way. And we provide food and bedding.”

He wiped the razor and began shaving, his voice distorted as he stretched the skin of his face. “By the way, I've been thinking of your passenger idea. I can see a disadvantage.”

“That I end up in England?”

“Yes. You might end up in England and have nothing to report to the Admiralty.”

“I know, but I don't think it matters.”

“Doesn't matter? But surely—”

“The only place I'll find the answer is at sea in a packet, that's for sure. And being at sea in a packet means departing from one place and arriving at another.”

“Still—” Yorke began doubtfully.

“At least it'll mean a packet got safely back to Falmouth,” Southwick said.

“And you'll have had a quiet voyage playing chess with Bowen,” Ramage said.

Southwick's face dropped as if he was suddenly seeing the packet's progress across every minute of latitude and longitude as a game of chess with the doctor.

“I'll put up a silver cup,” Yorke said. “‘The Western Ocean Trophy.' The winner is the man with the most games as the packet enters Falmouth.”

“I'll add fifty guineas,” Ramage said. “How's that for encouragement.”

“Fine, sir,” Southwick said gloomily. “Trouble is, it'll only encourage Bowen, not me.”

Ramage was talking to the Deputy Postmaster-General in his office when a clerk brought word that the packet had just been sighted passing Fort Charles.

“Do you want to come out with me?” Smith asked.

Ramage shook his head. “No—for the time being I'd prefer it if no one on board the packet knew that there's an investigation under way. You haven't mentioned to your staff …”

“To no one.”

“Good, but find out what you can from the commander—if he saw privateers, has news of more losses and so on.”

“She left Falmouth before the
Hydra
sailed,” Smith pointed out. “Six days before. And she's come via Barbados.”

“Of course,” Ramage said, irritated that he'd forgotten. “So they'll have no hint that …”

“None at all.” Smith looked at him shrewdly. “You know, Lieutenant, you sound as if you suspect them!”

Ramage was thankful that he had decided not to take Smith into his confidence.

“No—after all, they're one of the packets that
hasn't
been captured! And what would a packet crew gain by being captured?”

He spoke in a casual voice but watched Smith, who was sorting his inevitable piles of papers as he answered. “Gain? Why, nothing! In fact everything to lose—remember their little ventures that so shocked you.”

Indeed, Ramage thought, ten guineas invested by a seaman in ventures would be more than six months' pay for these men and more than a year's pay for a man serving in one of the King's ships.