Before seeing the Deputy Postmaster-General, Ramage went to Government House to call on the Governor's secretary in his large and immaculately tidy office. Thankful to be sitting down in a cool and friendly room, Ramage chatted for a few minutes, politely refused a rum punch and then asked if he could borrow a copy of the Royal Kalendar for ten minutes.
The secretary was a few years older than Ramage and obviously assumed that any visitor had a favour to ask of the Governor. He looked relieved when he gave Ramage the small, thick volume. "Want to see how your name is rising up the Navy List?" he asked jovially.
Ramage laughed. "Progress is so slow that I need look only once a year!"
The Kalendar listed nearly everyone employed in Government offices at home and abroad, and gave many other details ranging from the ships of war in commission to the names of the staff of the City of London Lying-in Hospital. The information about the General Post Office (ranging from the fact it was "Erected by Act of Parliament, 27 December 1660, Lombard Street" to a list of nearly two hundred offices open for the delivery and collection of the Penny Post) covered eight pages.
Ramage saw that the political leadership was divided between two Joint Postmasters-General, Lord Auckland and Lord Gower, each of whom received a salary of £5,000 a year. The Secretary, Francis Freeling, received £500 a year - hardly overpaid. Except, he noticed in another section, Freeling was also the "Principal and Resident Surveyor", at £700 a year, which gave him a total of more than that received by an admiral ...
He ran a finger down the rest of the names and was surprised at the number and variety of jobs listed. They ranged from the receiver general to the superintendent and surveyor of mail-coaches; from the Postmaster-General's chamber-keeper to the deliverer of letters to the House of Commons (at 6s 8d a day - presumably he starved when the House was not in session).
The Post Office, in effect, was split into two sections, the Inland Letter Office and the Foreign Letter Office. The former employed four dozen sorters and more than a hundred letter-carriers (at fourteen shillings a week), but was far less complex than the Foreign Letter Office, whose comptroller was paid £700 a year - not much less than Sir Pilcher Skinner.
Twenty letter-carriers presumably delivered the incoming foreign mail to the Lombard Street sorters, and carried the bags of outgoing foreign mail to the various ports to be loaded on board the packets - to Falmouth for the West Indies, Lisbon and America; Weymouth for the Channel Islands; and Harwich for Hamburg.
There were five "mail ports" abroad and each had its Post Office agent (among them "J. Smith, Deputy Postmaster-General of Jamaica"), while elsewhere there were postmasters. And as he read their names, Ramage began to feel uneasy: the number of places listed brought home the enormity of the orders he had been given - from Quebec and Halifax at one end of the Atlantic to Surinam, Demerara, Tobago and Barbados at the other; from Hamburg and Lisbon on one side of the Atlantic to New York and Jamaica on the other.
He pictured the packets sailing from Falmouth to deliver bags of outward mail at all these places and collect the inward, and realized the Cornish port was the centre of a giant cobweb, the lines reaching out thousands of miles across the Atlantic. Not straight lines, but lines gently curved as they met trade winds, bent sharply as they rounded continents and islands, and sometimes forced back on themselves by gales and storms. Quebec, Halifax and New York were three thousand miles across the often stormy North Atlantic, much of it against strong headwinds; to Barbados was more than four thousand miles in a long dog-leg sweep past Spain and the west coast of North Africa, passing close to Madeira and the Canary Islands before picking up the North-East Trades for the long run across the Atlantic to a landfall at Barbados, with three hundred miles on to Antigua and .another nine hundred to Jamaica. Another packet sailed a similar route towards Barbados before turning south-west for Demerara and Surinam, on the continent of South America.
So much for the routes. He found his interest quickening as he came to the ships themselves. The Kalendar gave a list of "His Majesty's packet boats, with their stations", and beside each one was the name of her commander. There were twelve packets given for "W. India and America", but seventeen commanders were listed. Five had blanks against their names - had their packets been captured? But, Ramage groaned inwardly, some of the packet people had let their patriotism swamp their imagination - one packet on the Lisbon and three more on the Hamburg route were named Prince of Wales, and two called King George were listed under Hamburg. The only way of distinguishing them was by the names of their commanders.
Finally, reluctant to leave the coolness of the secretary's office to go out into the scorching sun and noisy, dusty streets for his visit to the Deputy Postmaster-General, Ramage turned over another page and glanced at the "Postage of simple letters in British pence". From Falmouth to any port in North America or the West Indies cost twelve pence, plus the inland postage to Falmouth. Thus a letter from London to New York or Jamaica cost eight pence to Falmouth and another twelve pence to cross the Atlantic. Sending a letter between the West Indies and North America - a part of the way round the edge of the spider's web, as it were - cost four pence.
Well, anything more he was to learn about the Post Office would have to come from Mr Smith. He gave the Kalendar back to the Governor's secretary, once again refused a rum punch, borrowed a pencil and some paper to make some calculations and left, tucking the papers in his pocket.
The Deputy Postmaster-General of Jamaica was a man with a mania for tidiness. Although the enormous outer office looked like a cross between a counting house and a warehouse, with sorters working on the local mail at a long bench along one wall and the canvas mailbags hanging from hooks along another, Mr Smith's own room was as neat as a column of printed figures.
He worked at a large, square, mahogany table on top of which smooth pebbles held down piles of papers whose edges fluttered in the breeze coming through the jalousie at either end of the room. The piles were spaced out with geometric precision, as if the pebbles were chess men.
On top of each pile under the weight was a neatly written label indicating what it contained, and a scrutiny of the labels showed the scope of Mr Smith's work. The largest pile was marked "Inward packetboats - lost", and next to it was "Outward packetboats - lost". Another large pile contained "Complaints - from committee of West India merchants", and next to it, "Complaints - from private citizens". Yet another said simply, "From Lombard Street, miscellaneous". Directly in front of him was a small pile which said: "From Lord Auckland".
In contrast to the neatness of his table-top, Smith was a large, gangling man with heavy features and large hands seemingly too clumsy to handle papers: they were, in size, the hands of a labourer. Yet Smith not only had one of the most coveted jobs in Jamaica - in peacetime, anyway - but he did it supremely well. He had it and, despite the influence and patronage of other claimants, held it because without him the Post Office's foreign section in Jamaica became chaos.
Unmarried, and with a widowed sister in Cumberland as his only relative, he lived for the mails. Until recently his life had had a series of fortnightly peaks. Every two weeks - in normal times - the packet arrived and he went on board to meet the commander, inspect the sealed bags of incoming mail, sign for them and supervise their removal on shore to his office before arranging for the outgoing mail to be brought out and stowed on board.
He was meticulous in having the mail sorted quickly - and equally meticulous in refusing to allow anyone but Post Office employees to be in the sorting-room while it was being done. The early days when impatient folk protested that his predecessor always allowed them to wait there for it were now long past.
He was equally meticulous in having the commander to dinner on the night the packet arrived. Although in any case he enjoyed the company of the lively Falmouth men, the long chats over glasses of rum punch after the meal also meant that he kept himself well informed about everyday events in England. Also the commanders had few problems, whether concerning their youngest sons, maiden aunts or their ships, that they did not discuss with him. Over the years he had become a distant uncle to most of the sons and daughters of the commanders, and his ambition when he retired was to live in Falmouth and enjoy the company of the large and closely knit "packet families".
His closeness to the commanders, and his meticulous habits, meant that at this moment his world was chaos: Smith was now a man with a job but almost no work. There were no bags of foreign mail to be officially sealed and labelled - no one was writing letters to England now, not until the Kingston Chronicle announced that a packet had at last arrived. And then, Smith thought gloomily, everyone possessed of pen and paper will write a score of letters and the commander will start complaining about the bulk ...
Still, Lord Auckland in a letter sent by the Hydra - instinctively he tapped the paperweight holding it down - had written reassuringly. It was not normally Lombard Street's policy to get involved with other Government departments - they were usually so lamentably disorganized - but from what he could see (reading between the lines, anyway) the Cabinet had decided that action over the heavy loss of packets was now up to the Admiralty. He was pleased and flattered to note that Lombard Street had seen (at last) that Jamaica was the real centre of the Foreign Mails on this side of the Atlantic, despite the claims of that damned agent in New York. Obviously the Admiralty agreed, but anyway Lord Auckland assured him that Sir Pilcher Skinner had been given orders to put one of his best officers in charge of a complete investigation.
Smith moved a paperweight half an inch to stop a particularly thin sheet from flapping too irritatingly in the breeze. Well, Sir Pilcher was a meticulous man, and the Deputy Postmaster knew he could rely on his choice of officer. There were two 74-gun ships in the harbour, each commanded by a senior captain. Presumably one of them would be given the job, and there were plenty of frigates. For the first time in weeks, Smith began to nourish a hope that his orderly world would return ...
Smith took out his watch. He'd wait another hour before leaving for lunch, although for all the good he was doing sitting here he might just as well have accepted Mrs Warner's invitation to her picnic. He admitted she frightened him a little. Although she was quite one of the most comely widows in Kingston, her constant invitations were embarrassing: people gossiped and chattered and all took it for granted that even a well-chaperoned young widow had only marriage in mind if she entertained a bachelor to dinner more than a couple of times in the year.
Someone was knocking at the open door, and he glanced up to see a young naval officer standing there. Ah, news from Sir Pilcher! That was the advantage of being a commander-in-chief; you had plenty of young fellows to run errands for you.
"Mr Smith?"
The Postmaster nodded.
"My name is Ramage. Sir Pilcher sent me.'
Again the Postmaster nodded affably, waiting for him to deliver the letter, or whatever it was from the Admiral.
"About the packets," the lieutenant said, coming right into the room.
This was rather irregular: Sir Pilcher was not the man to send verbal messages.
"What about the packets, pray?"
"Sir Pilcher said you could tell me about them. You have a letter from him, I believe?"
"No. At least, telling me what?"
"That I would be calling on you."
"Wait a moment."
Smith waved Ramage to a chair and bellowed: "Dent! Come here, Dent!"
A moment later an elderly clerk appeared at the door.
"Are there any letters for me?"
"Only this one, sir," Dent said, holding it up nervously.
"Give it to me! When did it arrive?"
"A couple of hours ago, sir; came by messenger."
"Then why the devil - oh, go away!"
Smith looked across at Ramage. "I'm sorry. It's from Sir Pilcher - give me a moment to read it."
He looked at the right-hand corner of the table for a paper-knife, extricated it from under a pile, and opened the letter with the precision of a surgeon. He read it twice, folded it again and reached out, his hand hovering between the labels "Outward packets - lost" and "Inward packets - lost". Finally he tucked it temporarily under "Lord Auckland", mentally noting that he would write a fresh label later.
He thought for a moment, and then looked up at the lieutenant. He's only a youngster, he thought crossly; obviously one of Sir Pilcher's favourites. There's no disguising that the Admiral's one major fault is pushing his favourites and giving them quick promotion. It wouldn't matter if half of them weren't young ninnies. This one doesn't look as much of a ninny as the usual run, but a lieutenant! Damnation, with the foreign mails at stake a rear-admiral would not be too much, even if his only task was to ask questions.
There were dark rings under the lad's eyes: late nights, heavy drinking, wenching ... Sir Pilcher's young lieutenants never seem to have done much fighting: those two scars over his right eyebrow - slipped with a glass of wine in his hand no doubt, or fell out of some trollop's bed: they aren't deep enough to be wounds.
Yet, Smith admitted to himself, the youth's eyes were intelligent enough: brown, deep set and almost frightening. He was handsome, too, if you liked that thin-faced aristocratic type; high cheekbones and a hard, firm chin.
The lad was looking at him, and Smith found himself feeling uncomfortable, as if he had been thinking aloud. A curious power seemed to surround the lieutenant, as though his body was merely the covering for a powerful spring. Smith found it hard to understand why a lad like this was content to hang around as one of the Admiral's lackeys.
"Forgive me, Lieutenant," Smith said finally, "I was preoccupied. All this is a great worry to me."
"To everyone," Ramage said politely. "Would you care to ...?"
"Yes, of course. Now, what do you want to know?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders.
"Everything! How the Packet Service is organized ... How frequently the packets sail... The routine for loading mails ... How long the voyage usually takes ... Who actually employs the commanders ... Does the Post Office own the ships..."
Smith threw up his hands. "But what's all that got to do with Sir Pilcher finding out how and why the packets are being captured?" He was conscious of Ramage's eyes boring into his brain.
"Then tell me, Mr Smith," he said gently, "where do you think I should start finding out 'how and why'?"
"Well, my dear fellow, that's your affair!" Really these young men had precious little sense of responsibility!
"Suppose it was your job, Mr Smith. Where would you start making your inquiries?" Ramage persisted, taking a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. "For example, the distances involved are quite considerable. Roughly 4,200 miles from Falmouth to Barbados, 300 up to Antigua, and another 900 on to Jamaica. From Jamaica back to Falmouth - well, let's take it from the Windward Passage. That's about 3,750 miles, depending on the wind."
Smith tapped the table impatiently. "I'm quite aware of the distances across the Atlantic Ocean, Lieutenant."
"Ah, but are we really concerned with distances, Mr Smith?" Ramage's voice was bantering now, and Smith wondered hurriedly why there had been such emphasis on the word. "We are trying to find something in the Atlantic Ocean, Mr Smith, so aren't we really concerned with areas?"
When the Postmaster nodded warily, Ramage said: "I hope you'll take my word for it that, because of the uncertain direction of the wind, a packet could sail some 250 miles either side of the regular route. In other words a packet on its way from Falmouth to Barbados could be lost in a rectangle measuring 4,200 miles by 500 miles. That" - he glanced at the paper - "is an area of more than two million square miles."
Smith said nothing.
"We'll ignore the leg from Barbados to Antigua, and say that for the 900 miles from Antigua to Jamaica the packet could be twenty-five miles either side of the direct course," Ramage continued. "A rectangle 900 miles by fifty comprises 45,000 square miles."
Smith was now jotting down the figures, and Ramage paused for a moment. When he saw the Postmaster had stopped writing he said: "Now for the voyage home from Jamaica. It's roughly 3,750 miles from the Windward Passage to Falmouth, and allowing the 250 miles either side of the direct route gives us nearly two million square miles. For the round voyage, Falmouth, Barbados, Antigua, Jamaica and back to Falmouth, we get" - he glanced at the paper again - "a total of more than four million square miles. Four million and twenty thousand, to be exact," he added: Smith was a man who would like exact figures. He waited while Smith wrote them down.
"Now, in good conditions a lookout at sea might sight a ship at ten miles - it'd be unlikely, but I'll be generous with the figures. That means he is looking from the centre of a circle twenty miles in diameter and scanning an area of about 300 square miles. Since a packet can be lost anywhere in more than four million square miles of ocean, I admit it's only of academic interest to divide it by the 300 covered by the lookout, but - I'm using the precise figures now - the answer is 13,400. Tell me, Mr Smith," Ramage said quietly, "where would you start your investigation?"
Smith smiled amiably, already regretting his sharp tongue. The lad was right, and he was prepared to admit it. "I'd start right here, Lieutenant, sitting in that very chair and asking me questions!"
As if to emphasize his change of heart he removed three paperweights and put the "Outward Bound - Lost" and "Inward Bound - Lost" piles of paper in front of him, with "Auckland" on top. Tapping them, he said: "All that's known about the losses is written here."
"Yes," Ramage said gently, "but first I want to know how the Packet Service functions."
The question still puzzled Smith: his whole life had been so wrapped up in the Service he could neither credit that there could be people who knew nothing about it nor really know how to begin describing it.
"The packets," Ramage prompted. "How long does the average passage take?"
"Forty-five days out to Jamaica, via Barbados, and thirty-five days back, sailing direct."
"Who actually owns the ships?"
"They're owned individually, usually by the commanders - by the commanders and their business associates, in some cases."
"And the Post Office charters them?"
"Yes, Lombard Street hires the ships."
"And the crews?"
"They are employed and paid by the Post Office: the commander and the entire ship's company."
"Even if the commander owns the ship?"
"Yes, he's paid a monthly wage as well as the charter fee."
"Who stands to lose if a packet is captured? Or pays for repairs if she's damaged in action?"
"The Post Office pays. Of course, the conditions are all set down in the original charter agreement, but in effect the Post Office carries the insurance."
"How many packets serve the West Indies?"
"Normally there are sixteen - that's the number needed to maintain a regular fortnightly service."
"And the losses in the whole war so far?"
"Thirty-two. Not all of them bound to or from the West Indies, of course. Twelve were lost in the first four years of the war. After that there was a lull, although towards the end of '97 three more were lost in a month. Then losses were irregular - until this year. We've lost nine so far, all West Indies packets."
"Where do the replacement packets come from?"
"Several new packets are building to Post Office specifications," Smith said, "but we are having to hire temporary vessels to make sure we have ten available."
"This year's losses - you have details?"
Smith sorted through his pile of papers and extracted one sheet.
"Here's the list."
Ramage saw that the Princess Royal had been lost in February from the Leeward Islands, the Cartaret from Jamaica homeward-bound in March, the Matilda also in March from Falmouth for the West Indies, three more in May, all homeward-bound from Jamaica, and two outward and one homeward-bound in June.
"You don't have the actual positions where they were captured?"
Smith shook his head. "The only information sent to me is given there."
"Out of nine, five were homeward-bound from Jamaica," Ramage said, slowly scanning the neat writing, "one homeward-bound from the Leeward Islands, and only three outward-bound from Falmouth..."
"That is correct," Smith said.
"Seems strange," Ramage mused, reading the list again.
"What does?"
"So many lost on the way back."
Smith shrugged his shoulders. "Easier to catch 'em going back - that's obvious!" Really, he thought, the youngster looks sharp enough but he doesn't seem to know much about the way these damned French privateers lurk around the islands!
"Why is it easier?" Ramage asked, his voice disarmingly innocent.
"Well," Smith said pompously, "far be it from me ... But obviously the privateers just hang around the Windward Passage! Probably waiting in the southern Bahamas."
Ramage folded the list and tapped the table with it. Quite reasonably, Smith was assuming the losses were due to privateers, yet assumptions at this stage were dangerous. "But they don't know the date a packet is likely to sail from here, do they?"
"Of course not! I hardly know myself until the last moment. It all depends when one arrives."
"So if they wanted to be sure of catching the Falmouth-bound packets, privateers would have to patrol all the obvious places all the time?"
"Obviously," Smith said, with something approaching contempt in his voice. He's recovering from the effect of those millions of square miles, Ramage noted wryly.
"But surely the mails bound for Jamaica would be more valuable? Anyway, no less valuable."
Smith shrugged his shoulders; the young fellow seemed to be asking questions just for the sake of it.
"The Jamaica packets," Ramage said. "They all come here from the Leeward Islands after calling at Barbados and Antigua. None comes direct from Falmouth?"
Smith nodded.
"So in effect we can picture two highways," Ramage said, running a finger along the table-top. "One goes from Falmouth across the Atlantic to Barbados, up to Antigua, and then right across the Caribbean to Jamaica, and the Jamaica packet sails along that, delivering and collecting mail at the various islands until she arrives here in Kingston about forty-five days after leaving Falmouth. The other runs north-east from Jamaica up through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola and out into the Atlantic and back to Falmouth and is used by the homeward-bound packets which take about thirty-five days to reach England."
Smith nodded. "That is so," he said patronizingly.
Ramage flicked some specks of dust off the hat resting on his lap.
"But I still don't understand why privateers would concentrate on the homeward-bound packets," he said almost absent-mindedly. "It would be so much easier to capture them between here and Antigua..."
"Nonsense!" Smith snapped. "It's hundreds of miles from here to Antigua. The Windward Passage is almost in sight of Jamaica."
"Ah," Ramage said dreamily, "but the poor privateersmen would starve if they relied on capturing only homeward-bound Post Office packets..."
"But they don't!" Smith protested. "There are plenty of small merchantmen and local schooners and droghers - they're being captured all the time."
Ramage shook his head. "No, they're not; that's what is so puzzling."
"What? Don't argue with me! Ask Sir Pilcher - the privateers snatch up almost anything that isn't in convoy," Smith said angrily, lifting up and putting down the smooth pebbles he used as paperweights.
"There's nothing for me to argue with you about, Mr Smith," Ramage said calmly. "Let's take it point by point, and you'll see what I mean. I'm sure we agree that at this moment there are probably dozens of small ships sailing alone between here and, say, the Leeward Islands?"
When Smith nodded impatiently, Ramage continued: "So if you commanded a French privateer you'd reckon to capture a few on that route? Of course," he said when Smith nodded again. "But you agree that, in contrast, the only ships that go up through the Windward Passage into the Atlantic are in heavily escorted convoys - which privateers rarely dare tackle - or homeward-bound Post Office packets?"
"My dear fellow, that's elementary; everyone knows that!"
"But that's why I'm so puzzled, Mr Smith. Why should privateers hang around the Windward Passage - where they risk running into one of Sir Pilcher's frigates - knowing the only prize they are likely to find is an occasional homeward-bound Post Office packet? Why not cruise between Jamaica and the Leeward Islands where - as you've just pointed out - there are always plenty of coasting vessels, as well as the occasional Jamaica-bound packet?"
When Smith said nothing, Ramage continued: "A French privateer captain gets rich by capturing coasting vessels laden with cargo which he can sell. With all due respect to the Post Office, a packet is a poor prize - a privateersman isn't interested in mail, which I presume a commander would in any case throw over the side before capture. All the privateersman gets is another ship whose only value is her speed, not her cargo or her carrying capacity. He'd find it hard to sell such a ship here in the Caribbean, so if he can't get enough men to fit her out as another privateer, a packet is hardly worth the bother of capture. Certainly not worth the bother of waiting, possibly for weeks, somewhere out there beyond the Windward Passage."
Ramage was now examining the inside of his hat, as though speculating whether he needed a new one, but in fact giving the Postmaster time to absorb what he had been told. Smith was staring at his pile of papers, his hands pressed flat on the table. He looked, Ramage thought sympathetically, like a doting husband unexpectedly confronted with evidence of his wife's unfaithfulness.
"It doesn't make sense," Smith whispered. "It must be a coincidence - yes, that's what it is, Lieutenant, it's a coincidence. You wait, the next packet they capture will be inward-bound; you'll see, she'll be taken between Antigua and here."
"Perhaps," Ramage said briskly, "but we can't afford to wait to find out. And the odds are against it, Mr Smith. Your own figures show that."
"Aye, they do," Smith admitted reluctantly. "I'd noticed the high homeward-bound losses, naturally, but I never thought about the privateers' motives ... You're sure of all that? What does Sir Pilcher think?"
"I don't know what Sir Pilcher thinks, but if I commanded a French privateer, I'd cruise between here and Antigua."
"Ah, that's what you might think, young man," Smith said, as if suddenly he had found a flaw in Ramage's reasoning that allowed him to reject the whole argument. "But if you'd ever commanded a ship you'd think differently."
"I've commanded a ship for more than two years," Ramage said quietly. "A few months ago I captured a couple of privateers off St Lucia and, more recently, a large privateer that made a night attack on the last convoy that came in..."
Smith looked up sharply. "My apologies," he said. "I've heard all about that last one - I didn't realize you were ... Is that why Sir Pilcher...?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders and grinned, knowing that at last Smith would trust his judgement. "The nearest he can get to turning a poacher into a gamekeeper? I don't know, but", he added, choosing his words carefully, "since you and I are the only people who've commented on this odd pattern of losses, it might be an idea if we kept it to ourselves for the time being."
Smith, flattered at being given such unexpected credit, although still far from sure of the significance of the pattern, gave a broad wink.
"Now," Ramage said, "you were saying that the Post Office employs and pays the crews of the packets. Do you happen to know how the French treat the men when a packet is captured? Are they dealt with in the same way as Royal Navy men?"
"No, the French have been very fair. They usually exchange them within six weeks or so - a commander was telling me only a few months ago that he was back in England within eight weeks of being captured. Now the poor fellow's a prisoner again."
Ramage nodded sympathetically. Six weeks ... the prisoners must have been taken direct to France; there would not be time to get them to Europe from the Caribbean. Was that significant? Or was Smith referring to isolated cases?
"Now, Mr Smith, imagine a letter written by - well, a London merchant to his brother here in Kingston. What happens to it between London and here?"
Smith sat back in his chair and relaxed: he was on familiar ground now, and beginning to understand why Ramage found the background as important as the foreground.
"Well, it'd probably be posted in Lombard Street, right in the City of London. It'd be sorted into the Jamaica bag. The bag - when it was full, or was due to catch a particular mail, since one sails every two weeks - would be sealed. Then it would be taken by coach to Falmouth."
"And then?"
"There it would be handed over to the Post Office agent, who is in charge of all the Falmouth packets. There'd be many bags for the West Indies - at least half a dozen for each particular island. In the meantime the packet would be ready on its mooring, fully provisioned and with the commander and crew on board. The agent would see the mails loaded and properly stowed."
"And then the packet would sail?"
"Well, before she actually sailed the searcher would go on board."
"Searching for what?"
"In case any seaman is carrying his own private cargo!”
"Of what?"
"Well, you know seamen. They try to bring out a few small items. They call 'em their ventures: leather goods, like boots and shoes, small bales of cloth for women's dresses - oh yes, and cheeses: they get a good price for cheeses!"
"Since you say they get a good price, Mr Smith, what does the searcher actually do? Just confirm that the men have their ventures?"
"My goodness no! His job is to stop them carrying anything!"
"But he's not always successful?"
"I don't think he's too strict: the men have been carrying ventures for so many years that it's become a tradition. The profit supplements their pay."
"But it's forbidden?"
"Oh yes - by a statute of Charles II, as a matter of fact."
Ramage stopped himself commenting that for the sake of discipline a regulation that was not enforced ought to be rescinded, and asked, "After the searcher has left, then what?"
"Well, the passengers are always embarked by now, of course, and the agent has had the mails brought on board. Then he musters the ship's company, gives the commander any last-minute instructions, and bids them a safe voyage. Oh yes, he also checks the trim of the packet, to make sure the mails have been properly stowed, so the ship isn't down by the bow or stern - that sort of thing."
"And then the packet sails for Barbados - whatever the weather?"
"She sails at once, as long as she can carry a reefed topsail. You can get out of Falmouth in anything but a south-easterly gale - but you know that well enough."
Ramage nodded: obviously that was why the Post Office had chosen Falmouth in the first place. "And then what happens to that letter?"
"Well, it gets carried to Barbados first. The packet then calls at two or three of the Windward and Leeward Islands delivering and collecting mail - Antigua would probably be the last - and then comes across the Caribbean direct to Jamaica."
"Where that letter comes under your care."
"Yes, indeed," Smith said grimly. "I meet the packet with the Customs Officers and the doctor, take off the bags of inward mail, and bring them here, where they are sorted again and delivered."
"What happens to the packet and the crew?"
"The commander provisions the ship, the men are allowed a few hours on shore - they all have Protections, of course, so they don't have to worry about press gangs - and then the packet is ready to sail again, when the fresh mails are loaded."
"Now," Ramage said slowly, "imagine the brother here is replying to the merchant in London."
"Well, it's much the same story in reverse, really, except that when the packet sails from here, she doesn't go back across the Caribbean: she goes out to the north-east, touching only at Cape Nicolas Mole on her way through the Windward Passage into the Atlantic and then direct to England."
"Why the different route?"
"Well, she has already delivered all the inward and picked up the outward mail at the other islands on her way to Jamaica."
"So apart from touching at the western end of Hispaniola, Jamaica is the last port of call before England?"
Smith nodded.
"And your searcher," Ramage asked. "Is he as diligent as the one at Falmouth?"
"No more and no less."
Ramage nodded in turn. "These ventures - do the officers...?"
"I hope you're not asking me officially. As Deputy Postmaster-General, I have no knowledge of any ventures in any packet. Between you and me, I think the officers also regard themselves as badly paid, and the little profit they might make - well, it balances the books without costing Lombard Street anything."
"I'd like to ask a question addressed to you, not the Deputy Postmaster-General," Ramage said. "Do you have any suspicion at all of what might be going on?"
"None," Smith said emphatically. "If I had, I'd tell you. I've thought of every possibility - from spies in the Department to passengers seizing the ships..."
"Treason?"
"Out of the question. The commanders and crews are eventually exchanged, and Lombard Street would soon hear. Anyway, the commanders own the ships. They have everything to lose."
"And when they are exchanged and get back to England, nothing they report has given Lombard Street any hint?"
"Nothing. The story is always the same: my last communication from Lord Auckland" - he patted the pile of papers -"makes the point again: each packet was overtaken by a privateer and attacked and forced to surrender after sinking the mails."
Ah, thought Ramage, so we do know for certain that it is privateers...
"Casualties must be quite heavy."
"No, I'm thankful to say they aren't. The commanders have orders to run, not linger and fight: that's a long-standing policy established by Lombard Street: the packets rely on their superior speed."
"Hardly superior, surely, if so many are captured?"
Again Smith shrugged his shoulders. "I am merely telling you the Post Office's policy, Lieutenant. The West India merchants, for example, think otherwise: they want the packets more heavily armed, so they can fight back."
"But Lombard Street doesn't agree."
"No. They prefer the policy of a speedy escape."
I wonder, Ramage thought, how many packets have to be lost before Lombard Street admits its policy is wrong? He asked, "Who specifies the size and type of ship? I've noticed most of them are similar."
"They were of different designs before the war: whatever the contractors - which usually meant the commanders - wanted. Then Lombard Street specified that they should be the same design - 179 tons burthen, with a ship's company of twenty-eight men and boys, and armed with four 4-pounders and two 9-pounder stern chasers. And small arms, of course."
"Not much against a privateer."
"No, but remember that the instructions to the commanders are, in effect, 'Run when you can; fight when you can no longer run; and when you can fight no longer, sink the mails before you strike.'"
"Tell me, Mr Smith, since the 'run when you can' policy has obviously failed, why hasn't the Post Office tried larger and more heavily armed ships?"
"The Post Office doesn't want to be a party to privateering!" Smith said, smiling. "Early in the war there was some trouble because a few of the packet commanders were not above going after a prize themselves - and Lombard Street couldn't allow such risks with the mails."
"One last question," Ramage said. "When is the next packet due?"
"Using the forty-five-day passage rule, she was due here yesterday. If she hasn't been taken I'd expect to see her at the latest within the next seven days. But I'm not hopeful; in fact I'm refusing to accept mail or passengers for her."
Ramage stood up and thanked Smith. He had the curious feeling that there was a clue in all the information he'd been given, but discerning it was like trying to recall details of a half-remembered dream.