"Ramage's Diamond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pope Dudley)

CHAPTER THREE

Ramage wiped his pen and put it away in the drawer as he waited for the ink to dry on the page of his Journal. The figures he had written in under the 'Latitude In' and 'Longitude Made' columns showed that the Juno had almost reached 'The Corner', the invisible turning point just short of the Tropic of Cancer where she would pick up the North-east Trade winds to sweep her for 3000 miles across the Atlantic in a gentle curve to the south-east that would bring her to Barbados.

The 'Journal of the Proceedings of his Majesty's ship Juno, Captain Nicholas Ramage, Commander', told the story of the voyage so far in terms of winds, courses steered, miles run from noon one day to noon the next, and apart from the column headed 'Remarkable Observations and Accidents', mercifully almost blank, told the Admiralty all it wanted to know.

As he flicked over the earlier pages, Ramage thought that the journal told very little of the story. His Log and the Master's faithfully recorded the time when the Lizard sank below the horizon astern, the last sight of England for many months - the last sight ever for some of the men on board. It mentioned the westerly gale that caught them off Brest and drove them into the Bay of Biscay, noted the three occasions when they sighted other frigates and made or answered the challenge, recorded the time that the tip of the island of Madeira was sighted and its bearing ... But it made no mention of the afternoon, with the Lizard still just in sight, when he had finally lost his temper with the whole ship's company, mustered them aft, and given them a warning.

For the first few hours after weighing from Spithead it had seemed that the men were trying, that they realized they had grown slack under the previous captain and were anxious to make amends. But as the Juno beat her way out to the Chops of the Channel they had eased off and became sullen. A topsail had been let fall with a reef point still tied so that the canvas ripped; evolutions that should have taken five minutes had taken twenty. In fact it seemed that all the work was being done by the dozen former Tritons.

Aitken and Southwick had done their best and he could not fault the other three lieutenants. The new Marine Lieutenant, Rennick, had a firm grip on his men, who were always smartly turned out. Yet there was an insidious sullen air on the mess deck, and that afternoon Ramage had vowed to get rid of it. With the glass falling and the Juno thrashing her way westward out of the Channel, he mustered them aft and, using a speaking trumpet to make his voice heard above the howl of the wind, he had given them a solemn warning.

The day after they reached 'The Corner' he would inspect the ship from breasthook to archboard; he would exercise them aloft and at the guns with a watch in his hand. If at the end of the day he was satisfied, then the rest of the voyage to Barbados would be a routine cruise; but if he found so much as a speck of dirt in even one of the coppers, if furling a topsail took thirty seconds longer than it should, if there was any hesitation or delay over emergency procedures (and here he was warning the officers more than the seamen), then he promised them 3000 miles of misery, when they would beg for a flogging to get some relief.

Only Southwick and the former Tritons had known he was not ruthless enough to carry out such a threat, but he could rely on them not only to warn the Junos that he was capable of doing so, but to embroider the threat that even the toughest of them would turn uneasily in their hammocks every night as the Juno made her way south-westwards to 'The Corner'.

Now 'The Corner' was less than thirty miles to the south, and unless this present calm patch lasted the Juno should pass the magic spot, twenty-five degrees north, twenty-five degrees west, during the night. Tomorrow would be the day the ship's company were dreading. Yet he was certain the threat had worked; for many days now Aitken and Southwick had been licking them into shape. They had reefed and furled in all weathers, sent sails down on the deck in half a gale and hoisted them up again, sent down yards for imaginary repairs and swayed them up again as black squalls drove down on them. The men had loaded guns, run them out, fired them and loaded them again until they were ready to drop. They had been roused in the middle of the night for fire drill, hoisting up the fire engine and rigging head pumps to fill the cistern, then roused again to repel imaginary boarders, man the chain pump or find imaginary leaks. They had been startled by orders to round up and pick up a man (a dummy the sailmaker had made out of a hammock) who had fallen over the side. That, Ramage reflected, had been a disaster; the seaman ordered to keep an eye on the 'body' had confused it with a large patch of floating seaweed, and the sailmaker had to make another 'body' which even now was waiting for the moment Ramage chose to repeat the manoeuvre.

Eventually Aitken had begun reporting much better times for sail handling, and the sullen atmosphere had gone. Perhaps the sunshine helped; they were now almost in the Tropics and the cold and damp of the Channel were but memories. Tomorrow he would know. Never before had he been forced to treat a ship's company like this - but never before had he inherited a ship from a drunken captain and first lieutenant, when the normal methods of training and leadership had proved useless.

It was ironic that this present calm patch was prolonging the agony: from what both Aitken and Southwick reported, the men viewed it with all the apprehension of a flogging through the fleet. Well, the Juno still had not reached 'The Corner' and found the Trades, although it looked as though she was going to be lucky this time. There was always an element of luck in it. Sometimes the North-east Trades arrived on time but many ships had to carry on south, down as far as the Cape Verde Islands, before picking them up. This time the wind was fitful and still mostly north, but for the past two days it had often veered north-east for an hour or two and, just as Ramage, Aitken and Southwick were congratulating each other that the Trades had arrived, it would suddenly back north and there would be a flurry of sail trimming. But they were nearly in the Tropics: the imaginary line in the heavens marking the Tropic of Cancer was almost overhead.

The sea was a fresh, deep blue, and the spray was warm. All the men new to the Tropics were keeping an eye open for their first sight of flying fish. The canvas awning was now rigged over the quarterdeck, and by ten o'clock in the morning the deck was getting hot. In a few days, another four or five degrees farther south, the deck would be uncomfortably hot by nine in the morning and no man, whether barefoot or wearing boots or shoes would want to stand still unless he was in shade. Paint would flake more quickly, the pitch in the deck seams that at Spithead had been brittle and cracking would be sticky, and long thin cracks, or shakes, would appear in the masts as the sun dried the wood out, and no amount of oiling would prevent it. Furled sails would have to be kept aired, otherwise they mildewed overnight; cold-weather clothing that had not been carefully washed before being stowed in seabags would sprout rich, remarkably coloured mildew, which seemed to flourish on food stains.

Already Bowen was treating half a dozen men for bad sunburn, men with very sensitive skin who had been affected before Ramage forbade anyone to be on deck without shirts for three hours either side of noon. Despite these problems caused by the hot sun, it was good to have the ship well-aired with scuttles, skylights and ports wide open; the sun, almost overhead at noon, penetrated parts of the Juno that had not seen sunlight since the ship was last in the Tropics.

As he dried his razor and put it away in its leather case, Ramage reflected that one of the few advantages of commanding a ship the size of a frigate was that the Captain could usually have hot water for shaving. Today was an exception, and his own fault, since he chose to get up a couple of hours before the galley fire was lit.

The Juno was bowling along in the darkness - groaning along, some might say, since her timbers creaked as she pitched in a sedate seesaw motion. The Trade wind had settled steadily from the north-east and with luck they would now carry it all the way to Barbados. With the following wind came the following seas and the pitching and rolling, so that water slopped out of a basin filled more than a third full and fiddles had to be fitted to the tables - narrow battens which were the only way of preventing plates and cutlery sliding off.

He could hear the rudder grumbling as the men at the wheel kept the frigate on course, and ropes creaked as they rendered through blocks. The pitching was just enough to make the lanthorn flicker as the flames tried to stay vertical - and enough to make him sit down as he prepared to pull his stockings on.

Monday morning and the first full day after passing 'The Corner'. Well, the ship's company knew what it meant. The silk of the first stocking was cold; they would have to be a few hundred miles farther south before clothes always felt warm at this time of the day. He smoothed out the wrinkles and reached for the second one, No, there would be few men on board who were looking forward to the approaching dawn. He had not been entirely fair to the men in those early days: he had discovered, by way of his coxswain, Jackson, that the drunken captain had not been the only cause of the Juno's condition. The one before him had been slack, had rarely made more than a cursory inspection of the ship, and his seamanship had been lamentable. Orders to reef or furl as a squall came up were usually given too late, so that men were injured and sails were ripped. As far as Ramage could make out, the men had spent most of their time repairing sails. And discipline had been almost non-existent.

This had inevitably thrown all the responsibility on to the other officers. Had they been good men they might have been able to manage, but they were poor specimens who played the game of favourites, hoping that by toadying to a few chosen seamen and petty officers they would have a nucleus who could be relied on. As a result, the rest of the men became the scapegoats for everything that went wrong. Naturally enough, the ship's company had split into two groups, one large and one small, the victimized and the favoured, and they had hated each other. Then that Captain had been replaced by the drunkard who had cared nothing for the way the ship was run and who had brought his own drunken First Lieutenant with him. Apparently this had finally proved too much for the other officers, who had begun drinking from sheer frustration.

Because they were frequently drunk, or ill-tempered next morning from the effects of it, the victimization had become worse. The majority of the ship's company had been reduced to sullen hulks of men who did not give a damn whether a single reef point was left tied so that a sail ripped when it was let fall, and the officers did not give a damn either, knowing that the Captain would not back them up if they tried to punish delinquents.

Ramage wriggled into his breeches, pulled on a shirt, tucked it in and buttoned up the flap. By the time Captain Ramage came on board and read himself in, the men had no faith in captains, no faith in officers and precious little faith in petty officers either, because many of them had taken advantage of the situation to indulge in bullying and they too had played favourites. It was easy enough for a bos'n's mate to 'start' a seaman he did not like, giving him a slash across the back with the rattan cane that was his badge of office. A 'starting' took only a second but the pain lasted for hours, and the bruise for several days.

By the time Ramage had learned all this he had been more than thankful that Lord St Vincent had let him have Southwick and the dozen Tritons and sent him Aitken. Perhaps the First Lord had known more about the situation in the Juno than Ramage realized. The Admiral was reputed to be able to see through a three-inch plank, apart from being a stern disciplinarian - very stern. As a captain he had become famous in the Navy for the fact that his ship invariably had the smallest sick list of any; he was ruthless in his determination that the ship should be kept well-aired below, that the men's bedding should always be clean and dry, that they should have fresh vegetables whenever possible (it was said that he paid for them out of his own pocket at times).

As Ramage tied his stock he wondered if His Lordship had deliberately chosen him for the Juno, with all her problems. There were several 32-gun frigates in Spithead and Plymouth and any one of them would have been suitable for the West Indies. But it hardly mattered now what had been in His Lordship's mind; the fact was that Captain Ramage now commanded the Juno and even if he had inherited two years of problems created by previous captains, the Admiralty would not give a damn: he was the commanding officer and the ship's efficiency was his concern and his alone. If he could not knock the ship's company into shape there were dozens of other captains at present unemployed who would leap at the opportunity. Captains with distinguished records, brave men and fine seamen, men who were relegated to half pay simply because there were not enough ships to go round. For every dozen captains ready and willing to go to sea, there was probably only one ship.

He picked up his coat and flicked the spirals of bullion on the epaulet. A ship's company judged its captain on performance: he was judged a fair man if he enforced discipline fairly. Contrary to what many people on shore thought, a ship's company did not like an easy-going captain - he left them at the mercy of bullying officers and petty officers. They liked a captain who ran a taut ship and enforced a consistent discipline. In other words, if a seaman hoarded his tots of rum for a few days, contrary to regulations, got drunk and was caught, then the punishment was a dozen lashes. But it had to be a dozen for any man who got drunk, not a dozen for one man and two dozen for the next.

Taut and consistent discipline: that was vital. Lack of consistency, from all accounts, had cost Captain Wallis his life in the Caribbean a year or so ago. He had been a strange man who apparently delighted in having men flogged and was utterly arbitrary. He had ordered one man four dozen lashes for drunkenness and let another go unpunished on the same day. He had court-martialled one man for attempted desertion and then freed another. It had gone on like that for months in the Jocasta frigate until the ship's company had become like wild animals trapped in the jungle, frightened and reduced to fighting for survival against an unpredictable captain. One moment he might smile at them, the next he would order them six dozen lashes (though the regulations permitted no more than two dozen).

The Navy was shocked when the news had eventually filtered through that a number of the ship's company had mutinied, murdered Wallis and his officers, leaving only the master and a midshipman, and sailed the ship down to the Spanish Main, handing her over to the Spaniards at La Guaria. Then a few men who had not taken part in the mutiny escaped and managed to get back to Barbados and Jamaica with the whole miserable story of Wallis's behaviour. Although captains had not dared speak their thoughts aloud - obviously mutiny could not be tolerated - few had sympathized with the dead Wallis. Fortunately many who might have eventually shared his fate learned a lesson in time.

Ramage picked up his hat, snuffed out the lantern and left the cabin, acknowledging the salute of the sentry at his door as he climbed up the companionway. On deck it was still a starlit night, the air fresh but not yet warm, the crests of the waves picked out as swirling lines of phosphorescence. The men would not expect the inspection and drills to start before half past eight and it would do no harm for those on watch to know that the Captain was on deck freshly shaven at half past three, even before they began to wash the decks.

Aloft the great sails showed as black squares blanking out the stars. On deck there was no movement except for the two men at the wheel, the dim light from the binnacle just showing their features. Near them was the quartermaster, and Ramage knew that lookouts were watching the whole horizon, one at either bow, one at the mainchains on each side, and one on each quarter. He walked aft and as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he saw that Aitken was the officer of the deck.

The First Lieutenant was pacing up and down the larboard side, leaving the starboard side to Ramage, who decided to take a turn round the ship. He walked forward, careful not to trip over various eyebolts, tackles and coils of rope. That was one thing about a tropical night, it was rarely ever really dark. A figure moved as he reached the mainchains - that would be the lookout stationed there. As the Juno surged forward on the long swells her bow wave reached out diagonally in the darkness as far as he could see. Occasionally a flurry of phosphorescence showed a large fish swimming away, or darting after its prey. The lookout on the starboard bow recognized him in the darkness - it was Rossi, the Genoese seaman who had served with him for more than three years.

'Nothing in sight?' Ramage said conversationally.

‘Two dolphins playing under the bow, sir. You can see them - look there!'

Through the half port Ramage saw two pale green shapes moving fast through the water, crossing back and forth across the bow, missing the stem by only a few feet.

This was a good opportunity to talk to Rossi about young Paolo. The boy was full of high spirits and anxious to learn seamanship, but there was no way of teaching him properly. The other midshipman, young Benson, had been at sea eighteen mouths or more and his knowledge of mathematics and navigation was advanced enough for him to work with the Fourth Lieutenant. Paolo still had much plain seamanship to learn before he buckled down to mathematics and navigation. Ramage was determined that the boy should first become a prime seaman, able to knot and splice, lay out on a yard in a gale of wind and furl a sail, serve a gun and handle a boat. In a ship the size of a frigate, there was only one way to give him that kind of training, and that was put to him in the charge of a good seaman.

Rossi was the right man for the job. He and Paolo could talk Italian together and Rossi had the shrewd and pleasant manner that would make it work, as well as being a prime seaman. More important, perhaps, was that to Rossi the Marchesa was almost a goddess. He was one of the dozen or so former Tritons about whom Ramage had to give news whenever he wrote to Gianna.

It took only two or three minutes to describe what he wanted done. With a man like Rossi there was no fear that he would take advantage of the job by seeking extra favours. He was proud to be chosen, he liked the boy, and was confident it would work. Choosing Rossi had yet another advantage: since both he and Paolo were Italian, it would not make the other Tritons jealous. Several of them shared the same feelings for the Marchesa and would have been proud to instruct her nephew.

With Paolo's immediate future settled, Ramage continued his walk round the ship. There was a slight dampness in the air, just enough to soak into the tiny particles of salt in his coat and make it smell musty, as though it had been in a wardrobe all winter. The ship surged under the press of sail, the long and low swell waves picking her up on the forward side of their crests so that she hissed along like a toboggan, then leaving her to pitch gently and subside as the crests passed under her, speeding on to the westward as though trying to catch up with the wind.

James Aitken walked up to the binnacle for the twentieth time during his watch and glanced at the compass. South-west by a quarter west, though he did not expect the men at the wheel to hold the ship to within a quarter point; indeed, nothing annoyed him - or the Captain - as much as men turning the wheel back and forth unnecessarily, since the rudder moving from side to side acted like the brake on the wheel of a cart. Now the ship was well balanced, with the sails trimmed to perfection, and although she wandered off course for a minute as a swell wave lifted her, she usually came back as the crest passed on. The quartermaster noticed his movements and glanced anxiously at the helmsman, and then up at the sails and out to the dogvane on the bulwark, where the corks and feathers on a line streamed from a small staff to give the wind direction,

Aitken would not be sorry when the Third Lieutenant relieved him: today was the famous day when the Captain had promised them an inspection and exercises the like of which they had never seen. Aitken's heart had sunk when he heard the Captain's announcement to the ship's company off the Lizard. He had estimated then that it would take a couple of months to knock the ship's company into shape. Now he thought that there was a fair chance they would get through today without too many disasters.

What had bothered Aitken was the men's attitude when he - and the other officers for that matter - joined the ship. The drunken sot who had previously commanded her had not only let the ship go to pieces - the devil knew what he did with the paint the dockyard supplied, for it certainly had not been applied to the ship, and it was not in the storeroom - but he had let the men go to pieces, too. It took a long time to train a ship's company, but they could go to ruin in a month if they were not kept up to scratch.

It was like a reputation: he remembered his old uncle Willie Aitken, a pillar of the Church in Perth if ever there was one. He had been a widower with a parcel of land, and his fences were always mended so his sheep did not stray: he was a great believer that good fences made for good neighbours. He had a reputation for driving a hard bargain but a fair one, and never a man in Perthshire could say he had ever been slow to pay his bills. But at the age of fifty Uncle Willie had taken up with a housemaid: not one of his own, but a neighbour's, and within a week Uncle Willie's reputation was not worth a handful of sheep's wool hanging on a briar. He had ended the affair within a week, but by the time he went to his grave twenty years later his reputation was only just cleared.

Perthshire seemed ten thousand miles away, and Dunkeld twice as far. As he walked away from the binnacle he thought of his home in the lee of the ruined cathedral at Dunkeld, with the River Tay sparkling and gurgling nearby, bitterly cold and alive with trout. Many a trout he'd tickled as a boy and cooked over a bonfire, and never did fish taste so delicious, even though one side was usually burned to charcoal and the other side raw. It had been a hard life as a boy, since his father had been away at sea for one and two years at a time, and his mother had to rule her family of three boys and three girls with the sternness of a drill sergeant, and there was never enough money. Until he had first gone to sea he had not known what it was to wear clothes specially bought for him: as the youngest son he had always had the clothes which his older brothers had outgrown.

That was something Captain Ramage had never experienced - there was obviously plenty of money in his family - yet you would never think it from the way he behaved. He was not mean but he lived simply and had simple tastes. He always set a good table when he invited any of the officers to join him for dinner, but there was none of the ostentation that Aitken had so often seen in wealthy captains. The patronizing comment about a vintage wine, for instance, knowing that a poor damned lieutenant's only knowledge of wine was probably the 'Black Strap' issued instead of rum when the ship was in the Mediterranean.

Aitken had heard some stories about Captain Ramage's father, too, the Earl of Blazey. Men said that as a captain and as an admiral the nickname of 'Old Blazeaway' was used with pride and affection by everyone who served with him, from the cook's mate to the most senior captain, and that it was a nickname earned not only because of his behaviour in battle but because he commanded ship, squadron or fleet sternly and justly, and woe betide anyone, cook's mate or captain, who did not measure up to his standards.

The son had puzzled Aitken at first. The son of a man who held one of the oldest earldoms in the kingdom and who had been one of the country's most famous admirals could have expected very rapid promotion if he chose the Navy: captain's servant or midshipman in ships whose captains would ensure he had the finest training; appointment as a master's mate the moment he passed his examination for lieutenant and waited until he was twenty, the lowest age he could serve as a lieutenant. And the day after he was twenty he would receive an appointment as lieutenant, and probably in some flagship so that he was readily available the moment a vacancy occurred in one of the ships of the fleet for a more senior lieutenant. By the time he was twenty-three or so, he could reckon to be made post, after having spent a year or two commanding a smaller vessel. He might have the necessary knowledge of ships and men but, Aitken reflected bitterly, it was rare: 'interest' mattered more than seamanship.

That had not happened with Mr Ramage; so much was obvious. He had commanded several ships as a lieutenant but Aitken knew that if 'interest' had been at work he would have been made post at least a couple of years ago, whereas in fact he had been made post only a few days before taking command of the Juno.

When the word had reached him from the First Lord's office that he was to be the Juno's new First Lieutenant, Aitken had been delighted: Lord St Vincent had certainly always kept his word that he would look after the son of the master of the first ship he had ever commanded. But as soon as he heard that the Juno's new commanding officer was to be Captain Ramage he had grave doubts. He had heard enough stories to know that he was brave - foolhardy, some had said - and a good seaman, but Aitken had been worried by two things. The first was why he had never used his title, and the second was why he had not been made post earlier. Perhaps his reputation for being a fine seaman was simply talk.

It had taken only a few hours to get the answers: the Juno was hardly clear of the Wight before he realized that this young Captain - he guessed they were about the same age - was not only a fine seaman, but a fine instinctive seaman, which was quite a different thing. There were few men who really had the feel of a ship, who could make a vessel do what they wanted with the vessel's co-operation. That was the secret; handle the ship like a horse, so you guided it, not fought it. And know the weather. Mr Ramage often said quietly that he thought it was time to furl topsails, or reef, when clouds on the horizon would not have worried Aitken, and sure enough an innocent-looking patch of grey cloud would suddenly turn into a screaming squall that would have ripped the sails from the yards but for the Captain's instinct. Back in Dunkeld, Aitken thought, it would have been called the second sight.

The three lieutenants who had joined the ship at the same time agreed with what Aitken had told them off the Lizard. They had grumbled at the Captain's announcement, and said that what he wanted was impossible and that they needed more time. But Aitken had told them flatly that they were lucky to be serving in the same ship as this Captain - and this Master, for old Southwick had more seamanship in his little finger than most men had in their whole bodies.

Having satisfied himself about his new Captain's seamanship, Aitken had set out to discover, as discreetly as possible, why he was never known in the Service as Lord Ramage. Old Southwick, who had served with him for three or four years, soon gave him the answer: senior officers without titles sometimes became vindictive about junior officers with, and few hostesses knew where to seat titled juniors in relation to their untitled seniors.

Aitken saw now that Lord St Vincent really had been keeping his promise: he had deliberately chosen the Juno for him, knowing he would be under Mr Ramage. If the stories he had read in the Gazette were authentic, serving with Mr Ramage could bring you honour or it could get your head knocked off by a roundshot. It was not so much that he went looking for trouble but that he seemed to be given tasks that, even reading the dry-as-dust accounts in the Gazette afterwards, must have been almost impossible to achieve. He must get singled out for them. Well, whatever the reason, it meant that Mr Ramage was more than likely to have a detached command; orders which would mean that the Juno would carry out some special service in the Caribbean and not be attached to Rear-Admiral Davis's command at Barbados. For the whole of Aitken's life at sea so far he had served in ships attached to a particular command, usually working with a fleet in the Channel or Mediterranean . . . Dull work, and irritating, too, because any slackness was sure to be spotted by the flagship, and even if whatever drew down the admiral's wrath was not slackness but one of those mishaps that are bound to happen - a rope snagging on a cleat, a seaman slipping on a wet deck, a rips sail ripping from luff to leach - no excuses or explanations were accepted. Indeed, it was a stupid or unsure captain or lieutenant who even bothered to offer one.

Aitken thought about the coming day and took off his hat to wipe his brow. Mr Ramage was walking round the deck now, and he tried to think of the manoeuvres the Captain was likely to order him to perform in that quiet voice of his. All tbe usual sail-handling he knew the men would perform well - better than he could have hoped even a week ago. But from the talk he had heard, from the stories that Southwick had told him of past operations, Mr Ramage had a reputation for doing the unexpected. Admittedly Southwick's stories had all been about doing unexpected things against the French and Spanish, but any captain wanting to test his ship's company was likely to order something unexpected too ...

The truly remarkable thing, for which Aitken was thankful, was the change that was coming in the men's attitude. Efficient ships were always happy ships with firm but just captains; men like Captain Herbert Duff, with whom Aitken had once served. Captain Duff had insisted that all his officers had at least one pair of silk stockings - to be worn when going into action. When he heard that the Fourth Lieutenant could not afford a pair, Captain Duff had passed along a new pair as a gift. Silk stockings were not just some quirk on Captain Duff's part; the old Scot had explained in his dry Aberdeen accent that silk made it easier for the surgeon: a leg wound while wearing woollen stockings usually meant that scraps of wool were driven into the wound and often led to gangrene, while silk never did. Aitken shrugged his shoulders at the memory: poor old Captain Duff had been cut in half by a 24-pounder shot that went on to lodge in the mizenmast ... Suddenly he realized a figure was standing next to him and the familiar quiet voice said: 'There's a bad fire in the Master's cabin, Aitken... a good start to a Monday morning, eh?'

It took the young Scot a few moments to switch his mind from Captain Duff's death to the realization that Captain Ramage's promised day had begun early. As he began shouting the sequence of orders that set the calls of the bos'n's mates shrilling he tried to remember everything written in the Captain's Orders under the heading of 'Fire'. They had practised it twice, off Ushant and again off Madeira, and Aitken's mind became a blank as men began running across the deck in the darkness, swarming up from below. But he knew another minute of this and there would be complete confusion unless he began giving specific orders - and there was Mr Ramage standing by the binnacle, the watch in his hand illuminated by the binnacle light.

Aitken snatched at the speaking trumpet beside the binnacle box and began shouting, his broad Scots accent emphasized by the excitement and the trumpet: 'Boarders, engine and firemen to the quarterdeck; look alive there!' He paused a moment and then ordered: 'Boarders to starboard; firemen with your buckets to larboard!'

Ah, at last the Marines had woken up: there was the Marine officer - puffing and blowing, he was much too fat - and making for the poop, where they were to stand under arms. Now Baker, the Third Lieutenant, was waiting beside him, still in his nightshirt with breeches dragged on and his hat jammed askew on his head. And there's a thing, Aitken reflected crossly: the Captain's Orders said the First and Third Lieutenant were to go wherever the fire was and direct operations there, with the Captain taking the conn. But Captain Ramage was just standing by the binnacle and at that moment he turned, as if reading the First Lieutenant's thoughts, and said: ‘Regard me as dead in the fire, Mr Aitken...'

Aitken turned to Baker: 'Find Mr Southwick and go with him to the seat of the fire. It's in his cabin so maybe he's there already. Tell him I'm staying here at the conn. Hurry, man!' He thought a moment and called hurriedly: 'Tell him the Captain died in the fire and I am in command!'

All the other officers and warrant officers should have gone to their proper stations - but had they studied and remembered the Captain's Orders? He weighed up the risk of giving too many orders against the danger of men wandering around having forgotten what they were supposed to be doing, and jammed the speaking trumpet to his mouth.

'Gunner to the magazine ... Bos'n and carpenter to their store rooms . . . Master-at-arms to examine the tiers and then report to me here . . . Carpenter's mates with their mauls and axes to the larboard gangway ...'

What had he forgotten? Where the devil was Wagstaffe, the Second Lieutenant? - he and the Fourth Lieutenant, Lacey, were in charge of the pumps and hoses. He saw the two midshipmen waiting behind him, ready to run errands. He thought for a moment and chose Orsini. 'Run and find Mr Wagstaffe. Ask him how soon the pumps will be ready and whether he has the hoses led down to the Master's cabin yet, and report back to me.'

The boy hurried off and Aitken saw the Captain bend slightly so he could see the face of his watch by the binnacle light. Or was he looking at the compass?

'How are you heading?' Aitken snapped at the quartermaster. As soon as he knew they were still on course he took a quick glance astern to make sure no squalls were sneaking up in their wake and gestured at the other midshipman. 'Benson, find the Surgeon and tell him to report to me here.'

Even before the boy had time to point the First Lieutenant heard Bowen behind him saying gently: 'I did report, Mr Aitken, but you probably did not hear me.'

'Very well,' Aitken said, and realized it was time he had a report from where the fire was supposed to be: he did not want some over-eager idiots chopping away at bulkheads. 'Benson, get down to the Master's cabin and ask the Third Lieutenant for an immediate report!'

The whole business was a disaster; that was the only thing that Aitken was sure about. A good ten minutes must have elapsed since Mr Ramage appeared alongside him in the darkness and a real fire in the Master's cabin would probably have reached the magazine by now, since it was just below, and blown the ship to pieces.

At least the engine was now in place; he could see that much. Head pumps were rigged over the side and hoses were being led across the deck like long twisting snakes. Kinks in them, no doubt; there always were. He glanced aft - there were the Marines lined up with the Lieutenant in front of them. Well, even if he was a fat fellow no one could fault his efficiency.

The head pumps! Damnation, they were rigged over the side: there was not a faint hope their hoses would suck at the speed the ship was going: they should have been led below to the cistern - and had the carpenter started to let water into the cistern ready for the head pumps to pump it up to the tank on the engine? Did Mr Ramage want him to flood the cistern or - he was about to walk over and ask him when he remembered the quiet 'Regard me as dead in the fire . . .'

He looked round hurriedly for a reliable messenger and saw Orsini scurrying towards him. The boy saluted and said excitedly: 'Mr Wagstaffe says the pumps are ready, sir, but Mr Southwick's compliments, sir, and he says the fire is out!'

Aitken managed to stifle a sigh of relief: obviously the Captain had given the Master instructions earlier. He saw the Captain looking at his watch and then waving for him to come to the binnacle. At that moment a horrified Aitken saw the two helmsmen spinning the wheel, bringing the ship round to starboard and up into the wind: already the fluttering of the sails was turning into thundering claps and as the First Lieutenant turned to shout at the two men, Ramage said, his voice loud to make himself heard and holding on to the binnacle box as the ship began to roll: 'The tiller ropes seem to have parted, Mr Aitken ... I’ll take the conn.’

By dawn Aitken and the rest of the ship's company were exhausted. One party had no sooner clapped emergency tackles to the tiller as topmen furled the topsail and the great mainsail and foresail were trimmed to get the strain off the rudder, allowing Aitken to report to the Captain that the ship was under control again, than Ramage had ordered the ship to be hove-to, using the tiller tackles, and a cutter hoisted out to starboard, rowed round the ship carrying ten Marines, and recovered on the larboard side.

When that had been done - with the decks still strewn with hoses and the engine sitting by the mainmast, well lashed down and its handles resting like a seesaw - Ramage had told the Second Lieutenant to take the conn. Aitken relaxed and was thankful that while they had been working on the tiller tackles he had remembered to make sure the lookouts were sent aloft just before dawn. He watched Ramage walking forward to the companionway and envied him: no doubt his steward would soon bring him a cup of hot tea.

But at the top of the companionway Ramage paused, looked ahead and turned suddenly to the Second Lieutenant. 'Mr Wagstaffe - I see breakers ahead. Your masts have gone by the board, so youll have to anchor,' With that he disappeared down the companionway.

Wagstaffe stared helplessly at Aitken. Since they were in the middle of the Atlantic, more than a thousand miles from land in any direction, they were nowhere near ready: the anchors were secured with preventer stoppers, the cables were ranged below, bucklers closed off the hawse-holes so that seas did not sweep through them and flood into the ship.

Aitken paused a moment. It was obvious that the Captain intended that Wagstaffe should carry out the first moves to deal with this particular emergency. He shrugged his shoulders and said: 'You are the officer of the deck; we'll be on the rocks in a few minutes unless you do something!'

The moment Wagstaffe recovered from his surprise, like Aitken before him at the fire alarm, he seized a speaking trumpet and began bellowing orders. The First Lieutenant was about to take over - the normal procedure once the officer of the deck had discovered the emergency and given the preliminary orders - when Orsini came scurrying up from below. The Captain was to be informed, he told Aitken, the moment they were ready to anchor.

The next ten minutes, as far as Aitken was concerned, had been chaos or, at best, partly-controlled confusion: seamen working in almost complete darkness in the tier had wrestled with the cable, which was seventeen inches in circumference and 720 feet long, stiff and heavy - it weighed nearly four tons. The buckler closing the hawse had been removed so the end of the cable could be led out and round the bow and secured to an anchor and finally, hours later it seemed, Aitken was able to hurry below to report all was ready.

He found Ramage sitting at his desk, a pile of papers in front of him. The First Lieutenant recognized them - the routine reports that would have to be ready for the Admiral when the Juno arrived in Barbados: muster tables giving details of every man in the ship's company, slop book showing what each had bought from shirts to tobacco, sick book, returns from the bos'n, gunner and carpenter concerning their stores...

Ramage glanced at his watch as Aitken began his report and scribbled the time on a piece of paper, commenting sourly: 'I'm glad they weren't real breakers.'

‘I’m sorry, sir,' Aitken said miserably, 'but it was an unexpected - er, evolution.'

'Quite, but it's the unexpected that sinks ships,' Ramage said, his voice neutral. 'Very well, carry on: unbend the cable and ship the buckler - and you'd better get the decks cleared. The ship looks as though the men from the Westminster Fire Office have been fighting a burning street.'

Aitken went back to the quarterdeck with mixed emotions: resentment, annoyance at his own shortcomings, anxiety over what was to come ... It was still only half past six and on a normal morning the ship's company would by now have washed the decks, polished the brightwork, spread the awnings, and be waiting for the order to lash up and stow hammocks. Instead they had gone through a complete fire drill in the darkness, rigged emergency steering, and prepared to anchor. And all the Captain said was: 'You'd better get the deck cleared,' and made a sarcastic remark about one of the fire insurance companies. Of course the hoses were still all over the deck and the tackles were still rove in the tiller flat, although unhooked now and snaking all over the ward room. How the new rope in those damned blocks had twisted and kinked. That was one lesson he had learned - never use new rope in purchases for emergency steering: the men had to use handspikes to untwist them,

As he stopped by the binnacle he thought again of the Captain's words: 'It's the unexpected that sinks ships.' He had to admit there was some truth in it: those twisted purchases had wasted valuable minutes; in fact in heavy weather the ship would have been broached half a dozen times before they'd cleared them, and one bad broach could have left the Juno dismasted. And the mistake he'd made with the head pump hoses, and the delay in filling the cistern: by the time the engine was ready, flames would have reached the magazine. At least there had been no actual mistakes in preparing to anchor. Yet he had to admit that the risk of fire was present every moment of the day and night; it was the one thing that, with half a ton of powder in the magazine, could in half a minute transform the Juno into scraps of floating timber. And tiller ropes parting - that could happen unexpectedly. He could not seriously dispute that there were twenty hundredweights in the ton of truth that the Captain had just spoken: you had to keep a sharp lookout for the unexpected.

He realized that Wagstaffe was standing in front of him. 'Did the Captain say anything?' the Second Lieutenant asked nervously, keeping his voice low.

Aitken nodded warningly towards the skylight over the cabin. 'Clear away the hoses, pumps and engines, get the tackles cleared away in the tiller flat, then carry on as usual.' As he walked aft to the taffrail he wanted to add, beware of the unexpected, there's a whole day of unexpectedness ahead of us yet.

He looked astern, watching the Juno's swirling wake and, on the distant eastern horizon, a long low bank of cloud behind which the sun had risen but was not yet visible. The band of cloud looked hard and menacing, as though bringing a gale of wind that would last a week, but Aitken knew from experience that it was a trick of the Tropics; once the sun had some heat in it the cloud would melt away, leaving a clear sky. Then, slowly and steadily, the Trade wind clouds would form up like balls of white wool rolling westward in orderly lines, and the decks would get hotter as the sun rose higher and higher.

Then suddenly he understood completely what the Captain was doing. That last remark was not just a casual comment intended to spur on the ship's First Lieutenant. Everyone on board, except perhaps Southwick, had expected today's exercises to comprise sail handling and gunnery, rounded off with a thorough inspection of the ship's paint and brightwork. Now he realized that the Captain already knew how good (or bad) the men were at reefing and furling - he saw them doing it all the time. He already knew, from his regular Sunday morning inspection, the condition of the paintwork below. The Captain had known all along what Aitken had only just recognized - the real efficiency of a ship's company was not shown by the speed at which sails and guns were handled; it was the way they dealt with a completely unexpected situation that mattered. In fact, whether sailing the ship in a tropical breeze or taking her into action against the enemy, it was all that mattered. By the showing so far, Aitken reflected ruefully, the Captain must be bitterly disappointed.

He heard the bos'n's mates piping through the ship, following the shrill notes with dire threats to anyone who did not hurry to lash up his hammock. On a morning like this, woe betide any man who lashed up his hammock so carelessly that the long sausage of canvas was too fat to pass through the special measuring hoop.

The top edge of the clouds to the east were now lined with gold. Muster and stow hammocks . . . clean arms . . . the watch on deck to coil ropes and spread awnings while the watch below cleaned the lower deck . . . then, promptly at eight o'clock, breakfast. And after that, what had the Captain in store for them?

After breakfast, Ramage had given the order to beat to quarters and the boy drummer, excited by the occasion, had handled his drumsticks with all the flourish of the conductor of an orchestra. The gunner collected the bronze key to the magazine and disappeared below, head pumps were rigged and water squirted over the decks ahead of men sprinkling sand. Gun captains collected the locks for their guns, priming wires, trigger lines, boxes of quill tubes and flasks of priming powder. Tackles were overhauled, guns run in, and handspikes, rammers and sponges unlashed. Small tubs were put between the guns, ready to soak the sponges: other tubs with notches cut at intervals round the top were placed nearby and short lengths of slow matches, in effect slow-burning fuses, were tucked in the notches, the glowing ends hanging down safely over the water but ready for instant use should the flint in a lock fail to make a spark.

As soon as me men were standing by the guns ready for the order to load, and with Southwick at the conn and each of the four lieutenants standing by his division, Ramage sent for the gunner.

Johnson came up from the magazine with the big key in his hand as proof that he had left the door locked. He was a tiny man with iron-grey hair and although the skin of his face was wrinkled as an old leather boot he usually wore a cheerful expression. Now, as he reported to the Captain, he looked worried: he had seen what had already happened this morning and dreaded to think what surprises were in store for his little kingdom of guns, powder and shot, ranges and trajectories, flintlocks and slow match.

'We'll inspect the guns, Johnson,' Ramage announced, and led the way. At the first gun he pointed to two of the gun's crew. 'You two stand fast and the rest of you go and stand by on the fo'c'sle.' He did the same at the next gun and repeated it until only two men stood by each of the frigate's twenty-six maindeck guns, the rest of the men now crowded on the fo'c'sle. Then he led the way back to the quarterdeck, passing the word for the First Lieutenant and followed by a puzzled Johnson, who kept looking at the men grouped forward and shaking his head.

As soon as Aitken joined them Ramage said: 'We are in battle, we've suffered heavy casualties, and the men at the maindeck guns are all you have left - forget the 6-pounders. When I give the word, you'll fire two broadsides to larboard and two to starboard.'

'But sir,' the gunner protested, 'two men can't run out a gun, it's much too heavy!'

'Tell that to the French, Mr Johnson,’ Ramage said grimly. 'Imagine that we are trapped, running between two enemy ships, and our only chance of surviving is keeping up as rapid a rate of fire as possible.'

'But sir -' Johnson broke off as he saw Ramage rubbing the scar over his brow, and then taking out his watch. The First Lieutenant gestured to the gunner to follow him and hurried down to the maindeck taking Orsini with them.

Southwick walked over to Ramage and grinned, removing his hat and running his fingers through his flowing white hair. 'It's been quite like old times so far today, sir,' he commented.

Ramage nodded. 'Except that we learned all these things the hard way!'

'Aye, and I'm beginning to wonder if that gunner has ever been in action before. He seems a conscientious man, but 'twould seem to me he lacks experience."

‘He's been in action half a dozen times, but only a few casualties,' Ramage said. ‘That's -'

He broke off as Orsini hurried up, saluted and reported that they were ready to open fire.

'My compliments to Mr Aitken,' Ramage told him, 'and tell him to open fire when he is ready.'

Ramage was curious to know what Aitken and the gunner had contrived, but he had decided right from the start that today he would be an onlooker; an observer with a watch in his hand. Later this afternoon he would have a word with the ship’s company, and then the officers would be invited down to bjs cabin while Southwick acted as officer of the deck. He would hold an inquest on what did happen and what should have happened, and in front of him would be the sheet of paper with times written on -

There was a shout from forward and several guns on each side fired, the sharp explosions followed a moment later by the heavy rumbling of the trucks rolling across the decks as the guns flung back in recoil. Ramage saw that alternate guns had fired: the remainder were still run out.

The spurts of smoke merged into oily yellow clouds drifting forward in the following wind and some of it, swirling across the group of men on the fo'c'sle, set many of them coughing. Ramage glanced at his watch and waited as men hurriedly sponged them and began to reload. Then the remaining thirteen guns fired and Ramage, stifling a sigh of relief, glanced across at Southwick, who was nodding his approval.

Aitken and Johnson had done the right thing. They had obviously had all the guns loaded - two men at each gun could manage that. Then two men from alternate guns had helped the two at the next to run out and fire - that accounted for half the broadside on each side. Each four men had then run out the remaining guns, which had fired the second half of the broadsides.

So far, so good: the real test was how long it would take two men to reload each gun and then repeat the whole performance. But the important thing, Ramage knew, was that Aitken and Johnson, faced with two choices, had picked the right one. They could have run all the guns out and fired a full broadside, or they could divide them. Either way was effective but Ramage had a particular reason for preferring the divided broadsides. A ship firing full broadsides but at long intervals revealed to the enemy that heavy casualties had slowed her rate of fire. However, dividing the broadsides meant that at least some guns were firing frequently - and making a lot of smoke which would certainly obscure all the gun ports and probably conceal from an excited enemy that the real rate of fire was very slow. In battle it might prove decisive: at a critical moment for the Juno the enemy might sheer off, convinced they were doing no good. It will be interesting to hear the explanation of Aitken's choice, Ramage thought; it is easy enough to do the right thing for the wrong reason...

Ten minutes later the guns had been sponged out and secured, the magazine locked, rammers and sponges lashed, tubs emptied and stowed and men were busy washing away the sand which had already dried on the deck from the hot sun. Ramage thought of the other orders which he could give to test the ship's effectiveness in battle - rigging out boarding nets, hoisting grapnels to the yardarms ready to run alongside an enemy ship and hook them in the rigging so they could board, making the men shift guns from one position to another - but he was satisfied. The men were working with a will and the officers were wide awake. Later there would be extra questions for the officers, and he already knew what they would be.

Finally the Juno's decks were clean, the brasswork shone, ropes were coiled neatly, leather buckets were back on their hooks. The time had come to begin his inspection, accompanied by Aitken and Southwick, with young Benson following, armed with a pencil and notebook ready to write down any faults that Ramage might find. It took two hours, and by the time he had finished Ramage was hot and weary: below decks the heat was stifling, even though ventilators and wind sails were rigged. The ship was making six knots but the Trade winds were blowing at a little more than fifteen, giving a breeze of only nine knots across the deck: not enough to make a decent cooling draught through the ship.

Ramage had to admit that the general condition of the Juno was a credit to Aitken, even if not to the Portsmouth Dockyard. Paint bubbles on beams and planking had set Ramage digging with a knife that revealed patches of rot; many beams and some futtocks should have been doubled before the ship left Spithead for the West Indies. Benson scribbled hastily as Ramage made his comments, and Aitken had been shamefaced at some of them. Most of the axes stowed ready for wreck-clearing or any other emergency were not only blunt but had their blades pitted and scarred where at some time or other they had bitten into metal. More than half the tomahawks and cutlasses which would be wielded by a boarding party would not, as Ramage had commented acidly, have cut into a ripe paw-paw, and while the heads of boarding pikes were neatly black-enamelled most were so blunt they would hardly drive through a rip sail, let alone a thick-skinned Frenchman.

Finally, back on the quarterdeck, Ramage had taken Benson's notebook, glanced at it and given it back to the boy. 'Can you read your own writing?' he asked incredulously, and when the midshipman, his face crimson, said he could, Ramage ordered him to go down to the midshipmen's berth and make a fair copy.

The First Lieutenant waited anxiously, wondering what orders would follow. Ramage looked at his watch. 'Well, carry on, Mr Aitken. It's half-past eleven - clear decks and up spirits, and make sure the men get their dinner promptly at noon: I don't doubt but they have a good appetite.'

'And this afternoon, sir?' Aitken asked timidly.

Ramage laughed drily. 'We'll let Mr Southwick write in his log, "Ship's company employed A.T.S.R.",' he said referring to the time-honoured abbreviation for 'As the service required'. Then he added: 'I want to hear that grindstone at work: axes, tomahawks, pikes and cutlasses. Check them all. And have Mr Johnson check every musket and pistol...’