Dudley Pope: Ramage’s Mutiny

Ramage's eye caught the flash of red on Fort Barclay as a sentry turned in the sunlight beside the small stone magazine built on the inland side of the battlements. Now he could see the breeches of the guns gleaming black as the sun lifted the shadows. Twenty-six guns, with a dozen more in the Horseshoe Battery on the other side of the entrance. Ramage wondered if any of them had ever fired against an enemy. It would be a brave Frenchman who tried to force his way in, because there was also the masked battery just at the back of the beach facing the entrance, twenty more guns concealed by sand dunes and shaded by palm trees, poised like a cat waiting in front of a mouse hole in the wainscoting.

At the moment the masked battery covered Admiral Davis's flagship, the 74-gun Invincible, which was lying with her anchors towards the entrance and her stern held by a cable which ran to the beach and was secured to another anchor half buried in the sand, left there permanently for the big ships.

Footsteps behind him brought Ramage to his feet and he turned to find the Admiral and Captain Edwards, who commanded the Invincible, blinking in the sunlight as they came out on to the balcony. The Admiral nodded cheerfully.

"Ha, mornin', Ramage; sittin' here admirin' your prizes, eh? Can't see the cordage for the guineas, no doubt! "

Henry Davis, Rear Admiral and "Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Ships and Vessels upon the Windward and Leeward Islands Station", was in a cheerful mood; a condition which Ramage guessed had been brought about by an equally calculating look at the prizes - and the knowledge that a commander-in-chief took an eighth share in the prize money. A young captain might find glory in the gunfire, Ramage thought sourly, but all too often promotion depended on his contribution to his admiral's prize account.

The Admiral gestured to Ramage and Captain Edwards to sit down and lowered himself into a rattan chair with the usual care of anyone who had spent much time in the Tropics and knew of the sabotage which termites wreaked. He passed a bundle of papers to Ramage: "The inventory of the Surcouf and the valuation. I'll buy her in, of course. She's three years old, so £14 a ton is a fair price. Seven hundred tons, which means £9800 for hull, masts, yards, rigging and fixed furniture. I think the Admiralty and Navy Board will approve that."

"And the rest of her equipment, sir?" Ramage asked.

"Normal valuation based on prices at Jamaica dockyard, " the Admiral said briskly. "That's the valuation in England plus sixty per cent - the price they charge merchant ships." He pointed to the papers he had just given Ramage. "The figure is there - about £7500, I think. A total of just over £17, 000 for the whole ship. It'll work out less for La Comete, " he added, waving towards the careened frigate. "She's three years older and damaged. Then you have the schooner and the seven merchantmen. A tidy sum for you and your men. The two frigates bring you nearly £10, 000, with £5000 shared between the lieutenants, master and surgeon . . . Why, the seamen will get £50 each - the equivalent of four years' pay! "

"They earned it, " Captain Edwards commented. "And that doesn't include the merchant ships and head money."

"I know they earned it, " the Admiral said crossly, "and they'll earn it twice over by the time they've carried out the orders I'm preparing for Ramage. Now, " he said impatiently, indicating that the subject of the prize money was closed, "how long before you'll have that Surcouf commissioned?"

Although Ramage had guessed this was the real reason why he had been ordered to report to the Admiral, it was a difficult question to answer. The Admiral had originally promised to shift the ship's company of his last command, the Juno, to his new one, but the Juno had not yet arrived in English Harbour. No doubt Aitken, the First Lieutenant who had been left in command off Martinique when Ramage transferred to the Surcouf with a prize crew, had a perfectly good reason for the delay in reaching Antigua, but in the meantime Ramage was left with only forty men.

So far he had met with nothing but obstruction from the dockyard's master attendant, bosun and storekeeper - who were probably scared stiff in case this sudden influx of work resulted in demands for stores which would reveal their peculations - but this was usual, not worth even mentioning to the Admiral.

"About a week, once I get all my Junos. That's providing we use the French guns, sir. If we shift them and have to get out all the shot -" he broke off as Admiral Davis waved aside the idea. The two navies used different sized shot, but providing the Surcouf carried enough for her next operation it did not matter.

"Provisions?" demanded the Admiral.

"Three months on the French scale, sir, and three months' water."

"Very well. The Juno should be in within a day or two - I can't think what's delayed that young fellow: hope he's not going to be a disappointment. Anyway, a week from the time she arrives, eh?"

His round face was lined, and the thick black eyebrows which jutted out of his brow like small brushes were drawn down, giving him a quaintly fierce appearance, like a truculent shoeblack. "Now, her name. I don't like Surcouf; no need for us to celebrate a dam' French pirate."

"Calypso! " Ramage was startled to find he had spoken the word aloud and hurriedly added: "Perhaps you would consider renaming her 'Calypso', sir."

"Sounds all right, but I've forgotten my mythology. What does it mean, eh?"

Captain Edwards stretched out his legs with the air of a man whose subject had just been reached on the agenda. "When Odysseus was wrecked he was cast up on the island of Ogyvia, where Calypso lived. She was a sea nymph, sir. They - er, they lived together for several years, and when Odysseus eventually wanted to leave and go home, she promised him immortality and eternal youth if he stayed."

"But he refused, wise fellow, " the Admiral commented. "Can think of nothing worse than living forever. Anyway, that's the woman you had in mind, eh Ramage?"

"Yes, sir -"

"Why?" the Admiral interrupted bluntly. "You seemed to have the name ready on the tip of your tongue."

"No sir, I didn't know you intended renaming her. I was thinking yesterday that the Jocasta frigate was rather like Odysseus, only she's held by the Spanish in a port on the Main -"

"Very fanciful, " sniffed Admiral Davis, "but your job will be to get her out."

Edwards grinned. "Zeus ordered Calypso to release Odysseus, sir. Perhaps Ramage had you in mind as Zeus: you give the Calypso frigate orders to release Odysseus - or, rather, the Jocasta frigate."

"It all sounds just as vague and confusin' as Greek mythology always was when I was a boy, " the Admiral grumbled, "but the name sounds right enough. Better than that damned French pirate. Very well, Calypso she is."

"Thank you, sir, " Ramage said politely, turning slightly so that the sun was not in his eyes. It was getting hot now; the heat was soaking through his coat and he had tied his stock too tight: his neck would be raw in places before he could leave the Admiral's house and loosen it.

Admiral Davis was frowning at the back of his sleeve, as though suspicious that the gold braid and lace was really pinchbeck. He seemed almost embarrassed. But Ramage knew that admirals were never embarrassed by anything they had to say to a junior post captain - in his own case one of the most junior in the Navy List. When he left England a few months ago his name had been the last on the List. Since then perhaps a dozen more lieutenants had been made post and their names would now follow his. Promotion was by seniority, which meant being pushed up from below, helped by a high mortality among the names above you on the List: there was nothing like a bloody war to hoist you up the ladder.