Dudley Pope: Ramage’s Mutiny

"Well, the Jocasta is in there, and whether she's ready or not we have to find a way of winkling her out." Ramage was curious to hear what Southwick, a firm devotee of board-'em-in-the-smoke tactics, might propose.

The Master scratched his head, using the same motion that a seaman might employ to ruffle the head of a mop before wetting it in a bucket. "You always set a lot o' store by surprise, sir, but I can't see how we can surprise 'em at Santa Cruz. Why, that Captain Eames went just close enough to make them as jumpy as a shepherd hearing a fox barking at lambing time.

"No chance of making an accurate landfall in the dark and sending in boarding parties by boat - the current along the coast is too strong for that, " he added. "But if we arrive off the coast in daylight we'll be spotted, wherever we are, and the word will be passed to Santa Cruz. If the wind's fair for sailing in through the entrance channel, it's foul coming out. Towing out two frigates one way or the other past those forts - well, that doesn't bear thinking about. Even cavalrymen galloping along the beach on either side could use us for target practice. "So that leaves us with . . ."

Ramage waited several moments, and then prompted him: "Leaves us with what?"

Southwick tugged a large lock of hair in frustration. "To tell you the honest truth, I'm damned if I know. In fact I'm beginning to have some sympathy for Captain Eames. What have you in mind, sir?"

"First, you'd better save some sympathy for me. Second, don't get fixed ideas. The chart shows the whole thing is impossible, and I think that's what defeated Eames: he kept thinking about the chart, so he was beaten before Santa Cruz hove in sight."

There was a sudden shouting on deck and both men hurriedly moved to the skylight to listen. Ramage caught some of the words and heard someone running down the companionway to report. "The Juno's in sight, " he said. "We'll have our men on hoard by nightfall."

The sun had dipped below the ridge of hills that ended in Fort Barclay and twilight was beginning to fade the colours when a boat from the Invincible came alongside with a midshipman carrying a message from Admiral Davis. It was a brief one, telling Ramage that the Calypso had been given the number 132 in the List of the Navy. From now on any flag signal made to her would be prefixed with the number 132, and she would also use it to identify herself - after enough time had elapsed for other ships to be notified, of course. As he wrote her name in the signal book, Ramage saw that she fitted in a blank space (previously filled by a ship sunk, captured or sold out of the Navy for scrap) between the 110-gun Caledonia and the 80-gun Cambridge.

The second part of the Admiral's message ordered him to report on board the flagship, and Ramage guessed that it was not until the Admiral gave the order to make a signal for the Calypso's captain to come on board that it was realized that she had no number to go with her new name.

Ramage took the sword from his steward and buckled it on while Southwick bellowed for the Captain's coxswain and had a boat brought to the gangway. Why on earth did the Admiral want to see him now? The mosquitoes came out in thick clouds just as the sun set and usually vanished an hour later. It was in the nature of admirals, Ramage thought angrily, to want to see junior captains at mosquito hour. By the time he arrived on board the Invincible he would be itching from a couple of dozen bites.

Southwick was waiting at the gangway. "The quartermaster says that Mr Aitken is still on board the flagship, sir." He lowered his voice and murmured: "He tells me - why he didn't report it before I don't know - that one of the Invincible's boats filled with Marines went over to the Juno and came back with four men in irons . . ."

The tone of the Master's voice made it clear that he knew Ramage would draw the same conclusion: Aitken had trouble on board, and armed Marines taking away men in irons was most likely to mean a mutiny. Yet the Juno had anchored well away from the Invincible. If there was a threat of further mutiny on board surely the Admiral would have re-anchored her within range of the flagship's guns?

Mutiny among the Junos? The thought left him numbed. It couldn't happen; those men would never mutiny. Yet four men taken to the flagship in irons spoke for itself. Had Aitken turned out to be a petty tyrant the minute he was given temporary command? It was just as unthinkable that the crew of a frigate should mutiny and murder the captain and officers and hand the ship over to the enemy - yet the Jocasta was in Santa Cruz at this very moment, proving that the unthinkable was not impossible.

"The Admiral probably wants to question you about them, " Southwick said miserably, echoing Ramage's thoughts. Four men. Who were they? He could not guess the name of even one of them. He climbed into the boat and nodded to his coxswain to cast off.

Thomas Jackson was an American who, like Southwick and the boat's crew, had served with Ramage for several years. Sandy-haired and lean, the coxswain was usually a cheery man. Now his shoulders were hunched and he avoided Ramage's eye. The normally happy Italian Alberto Rossi, the irreverent Cockney Will Stafford - all the men in the boat looked as though they were rowing off to the flagship to be flogged round the fleet. They too had seen the Invincible's Marines and drawn their own conclusions.

As he sat in the stern sheets slapping at mosquitoes landing on his wrists and face, Ramage turned to Jackson. "Did you recognize the prisoners?"

"No, sir, " the American said. "The light was going. I had a look with the bring-'em-near but they were in leg-irons and that made 'em crouch down a bit. The Marines were shovin' them, too."

By now the boat was leaping through the water and Ramage felt very close to the men. They had been carefully chosen over a long period and all of them had been in action with him many times. He found he had to think carefully to remember just how many times and was glad of the distraction. Jackson had been with him when the Sibella frigate sank under them in the Mediterranean; he had helped rescue the Marchesa from Bonaparte's cavalry, and had regarded himself as Cupid's assistant ever since; with him again in the Kathleen cutter (when Southwick had joined) while they captured the dismasted Spanish frigate; a survivor when the Spanish ship of the line rammed them at Cape St Vincent ... it went on and on.

Suddenly Ramage shivered: Paolo was on board the Juno! Had he been hurt in the mutiny? He had recently survived three bitter actions in a week; but he was an impetuous boy, yet to celebrate his fourteenth birthday. "The Marcheezer's nevvy, " that was how most of the Junos described Paolo Orsini, and he had become a favourite, not only because he was the Marchesa's nephew but because he was quick, willing, cheerful and fearless. None of the men knew that he was the heir to the kingdom of Volterra and would become its ruler if the Marchesa died without having children.

If the Marchesa died . . . England was four hours ahead of Antigua, so by now she would be in bed and asleep. She was living with his parents, but would they be down in Cornwall or at the London house? If his father had anything to do with it they would be at St Kew; the old Admiral had little liking for London life.

Gianna, too, preferred the country: it was as if all her memories of the life she had led in that great pile of a palace at Volterra had vanished. There a dozen servants came running at her slightest gesture and her ministers listened with grave faces to whatever decision she made concerning the citizens of her kingdom. It was potentially heady stuff for a young girl, but she was born to it. She had ruled - and successfully - from the time her father and mother had died within weeks of each other. When Bonaparte's Army of Italy had swept south she had fled -into the arms of Lieutenant Lord Ramage who, with Jackson, had just survived the sinking of the Sibella, the frigate sent from Corsica to rescue her.