Dudley Pope: Ramage's Diamond

His Lordship had finally sat back in his chair and said: 'Your father keeps well?'

When Ramage said that he did, the First Lord commented: 'He will be pleased at your promotion. It hasn't gone unnoticed here that the Earl had never tried to use his interest on your behalf: he left you to earn your promotion. Now you've got it, take care you always deserve it.' His face became stern again. 'I've said this to you before, and so has my predecessor in this office, and I say it again: you've done some good work and you've been devilish lucky. But if you are going to rise in the Service, you've got to stop disobeying or stretching orders. You got away with it half a dozen times or more as a lieutenant, but now you have been made post all that's changed. You are supposed to be a mature and responsible man, and that's how you'll be held to account. Discipline, Ramage; that's what holds this great Service together.'

He had stood up and held out his hand. As Ramage shook it the old man said: 'I'm no believer in rapid promotion. At each step fewer men are chosen, and it is part of my job to make sure they are the best. This is going to be a long war, and if we are to win it, our captains must be the finest in the world.'

Ramage had left the Admiralty walking a foot above the ground. A post captain with a frigate! But he had not crossed the cobbled courtyard to pass through the gateway into Whitehall before the exhilaration subsided, and he pictured himself doing convoy work in the Caribbean, work only slightly less dreary than shepherding Atlantic convoys.

He picked up the pen and for the next hour wrote rapidly, rarely crossing out. Then he put the pen down and read through the Orders from start to finish. They were longer than he intended, but luckily they were still shorter - crisper, anyway - than many he had read in the past. He would let Southwick go through them before the clerk made a fair copy.

That put an end to paperwork for a day or two, though there would be a mountain waiting for him on board the Juno. The stores and equipment had to be signed for, certifying that they were on board, quite apart from the papers needed for getting to sea. The whole damned Navy floated on a sea of paper ...

He went over and picked up the case of pistols. They were not as ornate as Gianna would have liked - though only because she wanted a present that was beautiful as well as useful - but they were splendid examples of the gun-maker's art. Opening the lid he looked at the two guns nestling in their recesses. They were well made, and so were the accessories: the shot mould was sturdy, not something that would rust quickly after constant heating; the flasks were shaped so that they fitted the hand; the lever which was pressed down to let out the right measure of powder fitted the thumb perfectly. He closed the box. He ought to start checking through his clothes; Hanson would have to pack the trunk tomorrow, and he had only the morning to buy anything he lacked.

A quiet knock on the door interrupted his thoughts and Gianna came into the room, pausing for a moment in shadow. In that moment Ramage went a thousand miles in space and back three years to the time he had first seen her: she had suddenly flung back the hood of her cloak and stood there watching him: candlelight had glinted in hair shining blue-black like a raven's feathers and shown a beautiful face with high cheekbones and large, widely-spaced eyes, a mouth a little too wide and with lips too full and warm for classical perfection. A face that could be coldly imperious or warm and generous. He had thought of Ghiberti's carving of 'The Creation of Eve' on the east doors of the Baptistry in Florence, the naked Goddess with the bold slim body and small jutting breasts . . . But the Eve standing at the door was holding an envelope and even before she spoke he recognized the heavy Admiralty seal on the back.

'A messenger just brought this: your father signed the receipt,' she said without expression. 'I hope it doesn't . . .' she did not finish the sentence but Ramage knew what she meant. The letter might say he was not to have the Juno after all. Gianna would be sorry for his sake yet delighted if he went on half-pay for three months or so - she had seen little enough of him since she had reached England from the Mediterranean.

He broke the seal and opened the letter. It was from the Board Secretary, Evan Nepean, and began with the usual time-honoured phrase, 'I am directed by My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty ...’ He read through to the end. It took five lines of flowing prose to say that he was to leave for Portsmouth in time to arrive on board the Juno by noon on Wednesday, take command according to the commission already in his possession, and be under way by Friday. Why the Admiralty should suddenly decide to order him on board two days earlier Ramage was not told.

'Stop making faces and shrugging your shoulders,' Gianna said impatiently. 'What does it say?'

'I must leave for Portsmouth first thing tomorrow –‘

'But that is two days early!'

"Something must have happened.'

'Nonsense, it is just that some silly man in the Admiralty is impatient and thoughtless - why, you've had only a few days' rest after carrying out those last terrible orders. Lord St Vincent should be -'

'Cara mia' he interrupted, 'there are hundreds of captains but only a few frigates. I am very lucky.'

He heard his father's heavy tread outside and the Admiral, a worried look on his face, came into the room. 'They haven't changed their minds, have they?'

Ramage gave him the letter and when he read it the Admiral shook his head. 'You have trouble down there, my boy. I don't think Admiral Mann was exaggerating when he told me that your predecessor's court martial was a messy affair and that most of the officers should have been tried at the same time. The fellow was only in command six months, but in that time he let the ship's company go to pieces. A bad business. And you have to be under way by Friday with new officers . . .'

Ramage nodded and Gianna knew that she was temporarily forgotten: already Nicholas's face was animated as he called for Hanson to help him pack. Father and son were alike. Looking at the Admiral, she could see how Nicholas would be in thirty years' time - if he wasn't killed in this damnable war. Both were slim - the Admiral was putting on a little weight but would never let himself get plump - and it made them seem taller than they were. Both had the deep-set brown eyes and aquiline nose of the Ramages - most of the men in those family portraits at St Kew stared down at her out of their frames with those same eyes and made her shiver: those forebears were all dead, and yet the painters somehow kept them alive, the great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers ...

Nicholas was nervous; she saw he was rubbing the upper of the two scars over his right eyebrow. Each was the result of a wound; on two separate occasions he had been lucky not to have his skull split open by the enemy. For a moment, before she could crowd the picture from her imagination, she saw him lying in a pool of blood on the deck of a ship, dying from a third wound. She crossed herself: she had this terrible fear that if the picture kept appearing, then it would happen.

The Admiral took her arm and led her from the room. As they walked down the stairs he said gently: 'It is always worse for the people staying behind. Watching Nicholas beginning to pack makes me realize what my wife must have gone through so many times...

'But it is so unfair,' she burst out. 'They give him such fantastic orders. That last affair - fancy sending him to France! How he escaped the guillotine I shall never know, and it goes on and on and on. This war will never end!'

'Nicholas chose the Navy, my dear,' the Admiral said quietly as they reached the drawing-room and his wife stood up and came towards Gianna, her arms outstretched. 'Nicholas now has to leave first thing tomorrow,' he explained. 'Naturally Gianna is upset.'