Ramage sat at his desk with Southwick as usual in the armchair beside it (in deference to his age, not his rank, since he was only a warrant officer among commission officers) and Aitken and Wagstaffe on the settee.
They had returned from the Salvador del Mundo an hour earlier, had a brief meal after removing their swords and changing into older uniforms, and then met in the cabin to talk about the trial.
Ramage found himself in the unexpected role of an apologist for Admiral Goddard, because constantly he had to remind himself that he was not still a lieutenant among lieutenants who were able to abuse admirals among themselves. As a post-captain he had to maintain a semblance of discipline and respect - ironical, when he thought of the officer concerned.
"What is the court considering, eh?" Southwick exclaimed. "Those captains will never stand up to the admiral, you can be sure of that."
"Captain Swinford - and Captain Royce, too - seem to me to have had enough of him," Ramage said mildly.
"Sir, do you think they're going to blast their futures on your behalf? It's a big jump from commanding a 74-gun ship to marching around on a three-decker, and when Their Lordships choose the names, anyone about whom there is the slightest gossip might as well resign his commission and buy a half-share in a privateer."
"Don't forget that when we first served under him, we knew him as Commodore Nelson and many senior officers disliked him. Now he's Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson . . ." Ramage said.
"Aye, and even more senior officers dislike him."
"Yes, but the Board of Admiralty were more persuaded by Cape St Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen," Ramage said.
"If you'll excuse me, sir, fiddlesticks. He was pushed forward (quite rightly) by Lord St Vincent. Don't forget the row among the admirals, especially Admiral Mann, when as a very junior rear-admiral he was given the Mediterranean Fleet. No one else could win a victory like the Nile, but after that those who disliked him now hate him because they've a few quarts of jealousy to add to the brew."
Aitken said: "I think you're wrong Southwick. Obviously your general criticism is correct, but there are exceptions. Lord Nelson is one; Rear-Admiral Goddard might be another -"
"Not in the same breath!" exclaimed Southwick. "Please!"
Aitken grinned and explained: "I'm talking about the exceptions, who can be heroes or scoundrels. Seems to me that here we have one of each. Just as Lord St Vincent stuck by an unpopular commodore and put him in the way of promotion, someone has stuck close to Rear-Admiral Goddard, although I don't know who -"
"The Court," Ramage interposed quietly.
"So we have the King against us," Aitken mused.
"All this talk doesn't get the evidence down in the minutes," Wagstaffe pointed out.
"We were talking about what influence those twelve captains will have," Ramage reminded him.
"I'll put a little money on Captain Swinford," Southwick said. "He was a good man when he commanded the Canopus and he was standing up to the admiral at times."
"My oath!" exclaimed Aitken heatedly, "none of them were really standing up to him. We still have only one mention of the broadside in the minutes and not the slightest hint of Captain Shirley's madness despite Miss Yorke. In the minutes, remember that. Nor anything about the Jason's officers being locked up in their cabins. In fact I don't know what the devil was left in the minutes."
"Don't worry about the minutes," Ramage said calmly, "minutes are for commanders-in-chief and the Admiralty to read after the trial - which means after the verdict. No matter what anyone might say and however much presidents might order stricken out, minutes are only useful as records, and for appeals. No matter what happens, I shan't appeal."
"So the only thing that matters is the verdict, 'Guilty' or 'Not Guilty'. And that verdict is going to be decided by those twelve captains."
At that moment Kenton arrived at the door to announce that Mr Yorke's boat was within hail, having approached in the lee of a 74-gun ship and out of sight, and he would be on board in a couple of minutes.
The moment Sidney Yorke walked into the cabin, preceded by the lugubrious Marine sentry's announcement, Ramage knew that something had happened: the man's face was drawn and the tropical tan now turned the skin an unhealthy yellow.
The young shipowner greeted the four men in the cabin and then nodded towards the coach. Ramage stood up and led Yorke into the smaller cabin, shutting the door behind them.
"It's Alexis," Yorke said, and for a moment Ramage was startled because he thought Yorke had already said that, and then realized he had imagined it.
"What happened?"
What could happen at an inn? Robbers, sudden illness, the building catching fire - perhaps their boat capsized: the boatmen plying for hire were -
"When I got back to the King's Arms expecting to find her there after giving her evidence, I was handed this note by the innkeeper."
He gave Ramage a single sheet of paper which had been folded and sealed with a wafer.
"My dear Brother," it said. "I should have talked about this with you but I was afraid you would try to dissuade me. If Nicholas is left at the mercy of that scoundrel Goddard, he will be found guilty, and I understand he would then have to be sentenced to death because the court has no alternative. I am therefore going to London because there lies authority. I shall be well along the road by the time you read this - your affectionate sister . . ."
"What 'authority' do you think she has in mind?" Ramage asked.
Yorke shrugged his shoulders. "She was very angry with Goddard - I gather he threatened to have her thrown out of the court. Most unwise of him to get athwart Alexis's hawse: even I don't!"
"Is it all right if the others know?" Ramage asked, gesturing towards the three men waiting the other side of the door.
"Of course! I just wanted to tell you first."
They went back into the cabin and before Ramage sat down he told the three officers: "Miss Yorke has gone to London on my behalf."
A startled Southwick said: "What is she going to do?"
"We're not at all sure, but from the way she dealt with Goddard today, I can imagine her coach and four turning into Downing Street!"
"Don't laugh," Sidney Yorke said. "She knows Henry Addington very well: in fact the last time she saw him was at Number Ten a few months after the signing of the Treaty of Amiens. She gave him quite a fright: she told him exactly what she thought about anyone who signed such a treaty with Bonaparte. He took it very well, I must say. Knowing what sycophants he usually has round him, that was probably the first time he'd heard the truth for a long time!"
"Could she really be going to see the prime minister?" an awed Wagstaffe asked.
Sidney Yorke pulled a face. "My sister knows an extraordinary number of people and she has a way of saying the most outrageous things without causing offence. In fact some people seem to like it."
"Should think so," Southwick muttered, "particularly if the way she settled the admiral's hash is anything to go by."
"I'm sorry I missed that," Yorke said, "but I had to wait in that damned cabin in case I was wanted as a witness."
"Well, she was magnificent," Ramage said. "One moment an empress and the next a tigress. Poor Goddard never knew whether he was going to be frozen by a regal stare or ripped by a hidden claw!"
"The courts sit again next Monday," Southwick said. "She'll have barely reached London by then. And then she has to see people."
"I inquired at the King's Arms," Yorke said. "Five days to London in a coach and four. Alexis hired her own coach - the postchaise costs tenpence a mile, with tips and turnpikes. She'd have saved money by buying her own coach!"
"There's the new telegraph from the Admiralty to Portsmouth," Aitken said. "They say they can get a message to the Admiralty and a reply in thirty minutes."
"Aye, a very brief message, providing there is no fog between the signal stations, all nine of them. Ten, counting the Admiralty itself," Southwick said.
"Is that true - half an hour?" Yorke asked.
Southwick nodded. "Yes, and the Admiralty is extending it along the coast to Plymouth. This telegraphic apparatus is a very simple thing to operate."
"And I'll bet that Southwick knows where every one of the stations to Portsmouth is built," Ramage said, "and plans to walk along the line of them from London, and then on to Plymouth and back, as soon as he's retired!"
Southwick looked puzzled. "How did you know that, sir? Not walk, though; I mean to do it on horseback."
"I guessed," Ramage said. "You once told me you had just copied out a list of where the stations were. Why would you want such a list, if not to follow the line of them?"
As Southwick nodded in agreement, Yorke said: "Where on earth are they?"
Like a child anxiously waiting to recite his poem at a party and once started unable to stop, Southwick said proudly: "From the Admiralty to Chelsea, Putney, Cabbage Hill, Netley Heath, Hascombe, Blackdown, Beacon Hill, Portsdown and then into Portsmouth.
"Then it is now being extended with stations at Chalton, Wickham, Town Hill, Foot Hill, Bramshaw, Pistle Down, Charlbury, Blandford, Belchalwell, Nettlecoombe, High Stoy, Toller Down, Lambert's Castle, Dalwood Common, St Cyres, Rockbere, Haldon, Knighton, Marley, Lee, Saltram, and then over to Plymouth Dock . . . how about that!"
Yorke had been listening carefully. "Yes, that would make one of the finest rides in England. There are other parts of the country where it'd be more beautiful for, say, twenty miles, but for a two-hundred-mile ride you couldn't beat that."
"When might we expect Miss Yorke back again?" Wagstaffe asked Yorke, "assuming she will need a couple of days in London?"
"Five days up and five back, plus two, which is twelve days," Yorke said. "Which means she can't get back until a week after the trial is over, even allowing that she'll drive the coachmen hard and may well sleep in the coach, stopping only for meals and change of horses."
Southwick nodded his head in agreement. "I can't see that young lady wasting time."
"No, she has hardly any luggage. Mine host at the King's Arms tells me that Alexis hired a coach and four and set off with one piece of luggage and a brace of pistols."
"A brace of pistols?" exclaimed Ramage. "A good idea for a young lady travelling alone, but where did she get them?"
"Oh, we always carry a brace each when we take a voyage," Yorke said. "Who knows, the commanding officer might go mad, apart from the risk of pirates, Frenchmen, privateersmen -"
"- and descendants of buccaneers," Ramage teased.
"It's because of our forebear that we are always well prepared," Yorke admitted with a grin. "Our forebear became rich because the Dons were never prepared. Anyway, you might well feel sympathy for the footpad or ravisher that stops Alexis's coach."
Ramage gave a shiver. "I'd rather not. I've never grown accustomed to being shot with a pistol, and by such a beautiful markswoman would be too painful. However, to get back to the point: what can we do now?"
"Have you anything else to present to the court in your defence?" Yorke asked. "Anything else for next Monday?"
"Nothing. Shirley will make his closing statement for the prosecution and then I make a statement outlining my defence, and the court is cleared while Goddard and his twelve captains consider the verdict. Then, when they've decided, I'm marched in again escorted by the provost marshal - who, incidentally, turns out to be a nice young fellow - and all the witnesses and spectators who are interested follow me in."
"And we all wait for the verdict to be announced," Yorke said.
Ramage laughed. "No. You've forgotten the trial you attended in Port Royal. I'll know the verdict the moment I walk through the door. I just look at my sword on the table: the hilt towards me means not guilty, the point, guilty. I then have a few anxious minutes waiting to see under which Articles of War I'm found guilty. You don't know them like the rest of us, but some carry a mandatory death sentence."
"So if the court ... ?"
"If the court finds me guilty on any one of those, it has no choice but to sentence me to death."
Yorke looked grim. "I wonder if Alexis is thinking only of that?"
Aitken said quietly: "She asked me for a copy of the Articles of War, and I gave her one, sir. I hope I did the right thing. And I marked the ones under which you're charged."
"You were quite right," Ramage said, and remembered Alexis's question in court about the charges, when Goddard had dropped the question rather than read through all the relevant Articles of War. So Alexis had known all the time: she had started provoking Goddard from the moment she began giving evidence.
He had to admit that seeing her sitting in the row of spectators' chairs, he regarded her as a very elegant ornament, much as one might be proud of a fine portrait in oils on one's dining room walls. He had (he went hot at the thought) only called her as his last witness from fear that she would be offended if he left her out. Ye Gods: one day, when they were old and grey and reminiscing, he would tell her how close she came to never being a witness. But after being a lively witness she was now making a madcap dash to London in a coach and four with a brace of pistols close at hand. Gianna would have done that - and Gianna was at this moment probably dead, killed by one of Bonaparte's police agents. Sarah would have done it - but she had almost certainly died in the Murex. Would he always bring death to the women he loved?
The rest of the week passed slowly. The last days of autumn brought zephyrs which ruffled wavelets to make the sea look like hammered pewter. Each morning the Calypso's cutter under Jackson's command went to fetch Sidney Yorke from the North Corner of the dockyard - the name given to the part close to the Gun Wharf and where North Comer Street met the jetty.
Yorke enjoyed leaving the King's Arms and walking the road from Plymouth itself, passing between the barracks and squares named after famous generals and skirting the Post Office as he strode down Cumberland Street to the noisy Market Place, where most things from cabbages to penny nails were being sold from the stalls.
Along Catherine Street and turning left a few yards into Fore Street brought him to the Dock Gates which seemed, improbably, to be guarded by the chapel just inside. A few more yards along Queen Street in the shadow of the dockyard walls brought him to the landward end of North Corner Street, with the jetty and the Calypso's cutter at the bottom.
Walking along the streets, some cobbled, some surfaced with bricks, he passed men pushing laden carts and wheelbarrows, carrying baulks of timber, striding along with an adze over the shoulder or swinging a caulker's maul with, in the other hand, the wooden box of caulking cotton with its wide handle forming a seat.
A few sailors hurried along pulling a cart laden with coils of new rope intended for one of the ships anchored in the Hamoaze; a file of Marines marched to the sergeant's monotonous "leff. . .ri'. . . leff .. . ri'" - where were they going, he wondered?
He felt an air of unreality; everything seemed insubstantial, as though he was walking in a dream. The sun was still weak at this time of the morning but cast chill shadows across the narrower streets. The town of Plymouth Dock, he thought, comprised more angular buildings than any other place he knew, and every one of them caused a shadow.
Yet despite this strange remoteness affecting him, there was a sense of purpose about the dockyard area as a whole: workmen heading for the Dockyard gates, each man with his own tools and most of them with their midday meal wrapped in a bright bandanna; the seamen running with a cart, shouting and yelling, teasing each other and hurling well-meant abuse at men from other ships; the marching Marines, serious of face and giving the impression of a moving panel of white diagonal lines, a tribute to hours of pipeclaying. All had obvious links with the ships of war at anchor.
It all had a sense of purpose until he thought about the enormous Salvador del Mundo moored out there in the Hamoaze, and the Calypso riding at a single anchor. Could a man like Ramage, wounded several times, who had captured from the French the frigate he now commanded (apart from capturing the famous Diamond Rock, commanding the approach to Fort Royal the capital of Martinique), the hero of many attacks on the French in the Mediterranean, now be in desperate danger?
What was wrong with a system under which such a man could be tried for his life by his own people and, as far as Yorke could make out, be almost certain of being executed by them? Why was the Navy, no matter who represented it, about to do what Bonaparte most certainly would do, given the chance - kill Captain Ramage?
Ramage had written to his father, the Earl of Blazey, and told him not to attempt to interfere. Nicholas was obviously frightened that the old political vendetta which had made his father a scapegoat could somehow be renewed, so that the old man could be harmed. Could it? Yorke was far from sure. He only knew that any politician would always do unspeakable things to save his own political skin. Making a career out of murder, or prostitution, or burgling, or pimping, was against the law: society in its wisdom had decided that each was wrong. Politics came into the same category, but since politicians were also lawmakers, there was no law regulating politics; the only limit placed upon them was the natural contempt of honest men. Yorke for a moment felt sorry for a man who had taken up politics. Possibly in the early flush of youth the man had intended to do great things: then, probably quite slowly, he found that men outside politics whom he respected did not exactly shun him, but kept him at a distance, as though shamefully hidden beneath tailored breeches and silk coat he had the scabs of some vile disease.
Byng was fifty years ago. And today? Certainly members of the present government were intellectually barely equipped to run some of the stalls he was now passing in the Market Place. Addington, for instance, the prime minister, was a man so weak and vacillating that no one in his right mind would leave him in charge of a greengrocery stall.
Yorke recalled bitterly that Alexis might in fact be calling on the wretched man in three or four days, trying to persuade him to do something. Yorke was far from sure what Alexis had in mind, and he was beginning to realize that Nicholas and his officers were just being polite.
Yes, they were deeply touched that Alexis had impulsively hired a coach and four and was at this very moment hurrying to London; they were very grateful for her spirited appearance in court. They appreciated that Yorke was waiting to give what evidence he could to help.
Yorke now realized that the "but" was that nothing Alexis could do would be in time. She would hardly have arrived in London by the time the court sat again next Monday; by Monday evening, or Tuesday morning at the latest, the court would have returned its verdict and Nicholas would have been found guilty or not guilty. And that would be that.
Yorke had the feeling that they thought Ramage would be found guilty and sentenced to death, but that the Admiralty would order a reprieve. Poor Alexis. Yorke knew by now that his sister loved Ramage but, more important, had during the long voyage home from the West Indies, when she had seen a good deal of him as a guest on board the Emerald or when they were dining on board the Calypso, accepted that she had lost him before she found him, because he was married to another woman. Alexis had come to know that woman through the occasional remarks of Ramage and his officers, and as she had learned of the circumstances of the two of them meeting at some island off Brazil, and the honeymoon cut short by Bonaparte's police, she had come to admire her.
At the moment she was trying to save him because he was a friend of the Yorkes who needed help; but she was also trying to save him for Sarah, whom she had never met. Perhaps - who really ever knew all the details of a person's motives? - she had wild hopes that if anything had happened to Sarah (which seemed highly probable) she could take her place. Whatever Alexis was about now, though, she did not know (fortunately, he thought) that on board the Calypso brave men had in fact finally given up.
And there was the Calypso's cutter, with Jackson standing at the top of the slippery steps ready to help him down. What did Jackson think? And Stafford and Rossi and all those other men who had fought beside Ramage and who never cared whether he was right or wrong, but only that he was their captain?
If their captain was in danger of his life in a French prison, they would be ready to follow Aitken and Southwick and the others in whatever desperate rescue attempt they decided to make. Now their captain was in deadly danger from his own people: from the very senior officers whom these seamen were supposed to respect.
As he said good morning to Jackson, and commented on the fine weather, the sun and the calm sea, he felt he wanted to do something violent: words had failed them all. He realized that he could watch Goddard fall into the sea and flounder around and drown, and his only emotions would be contempt and relief, in that order.
When Yorke arrived on board the Calypso and was met at the entryport by Ramage he was startled to find him grinning and obviously in high spirits, even though today was Sunday and tomorrow the trial was due to open again on board the Salvador del Mundo. There was one thing he had long ago learned about Nicholas, going back to those days when they were together on board the Post Office packet (which was when he first got to know and appreciate men like Southwick and Jackson). When a situation became what most men would regard as desperate, Ramage was likely to become ribald. Danger seemed to rouse him so that he brought zest to even the most routine activities. Loading a pistol, laying a sword blade on the wheel of a grindstone, all these became for Ramage not the prelude to some desperate adventure likely to put a term to his life but the bouquet which would bring a contented smile to a wine connoisseur. His modesty was not false: when he did something brave it genuinely embarrassed him to be congratulated because an action that seemed normal to him would be heroic for most other men.
"You have that contented look, mixed with excitement, of the cat that has stolen all the fish from the pantry and still has some left!" Yorke said.
"If she'll forgive the expression, our cat seems to have arrived!"
Yorke looked puzzled and Ramage led him below to the cabin, sat him down in the battered armchair, and gave him the letter which had been lying opened on the desk.
Yorke saw from the superscription that it was from the commander-in-chief, dated and timed earlier that morning, and telling Ramage:
I have received instructions from my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to postpone your trial for one week, and you are hereby informed that your trial will therefore be resumed seven days later at the same time in the morning . . .
"What do you think that means?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "It could mean that Goddard has been taken ill with the colic, or the commander-in-chief wants to prepare the great cabin of the Salvador del Mundo so that his wife can give a vast first-of-the-season ball in my honour ..."
"It could," Yorke agreed, "or perhaps the dockyard has run out of quills and ink so that Jenkins cannot delete evidence from his minutes, but I think there might be some other explanation. When did you get this?" he asked, waving the letter.
"The provost marshal brought it out an hour ago."
"Well, tell me; I'll never guess what it's all about."
"Alexis," Ramage said. "Obviously she's arrived in London."
"Alexis? What on earth has she got to do with this letter? She'll be in London in a day or so, yes, but this letter was written here in Plymouth."
"Ah, you're probably not the first brother who underestimated his sister. But let me tell you what I know, then we can speculate about the rest. The provost marshal (you met him, that young Lieutenant Hill) has been sitting behind me for the whole trial and he realized what Goddard is trying to do, so although officially he is my jailer, Hill is secretly on my side.
"Early this morning he was ordered by flag signal hoisted on Mount Wise to report to the commander-in-chief. He hurried on shore and was given this letter to deliver to me.
"Being an enterprising young fellow, he had a gossip with the commander-in-chief's secretary, who was somewhat ruffled and only too glad of a chance to describe how he had been called from his bed shortly after dawn - on a Sunday, too! - by a messenger who had ridden with an urgent signal from Portsmouth for the admiral.
"Apparently the Admiralty had sent a signal to Portsmouth by the telegraph - taking a matter of minutes - with orders that a messenger should immediately ride with it to Plymouth and deliver it to the commander-in-chief. The poor fellow has been riding for hours and has had a devil of a job getting fresh horses. Luckily there has been a moon, so that he could keep to the road at night.
"When the secretary - roused out when the messenger arrived - saw the instructions on the outside of the letter, signed and sealed by the port admiral at Portsmouth, he called his lord and master from his bed. The admiral read the signal, expressed his displeasure, and dictated that -" Ramage pointed at the letter, "- to the secretary, giving him precise instructions for getting it delivered to me. They're all the facts I know."
"So now we speculate, eh?" Yorke grinned cheerfully. "You start, because you know more about the bureaucracy than I."
"Well, why should the trial be postponed for another week? Goddard has already delayed things for a few days, because of the Coronation anniversary, and he wanted to square his own yards with the captains forming the court, and perhaps he also wanted to have a quiet chat with the commander-in-chief."
"Then, why the delay?" Yorke asked.
"I'm asking the question, not answering it! The question is whether or not the delay ordered by the Admiralty is the result of something done by Goddard or by ..."
"Alexis?"
"Yes. I'm putting my money on Alexis and the Admiralty. I think she reached London earlier than we expected, and has been harrying authority on my behalf."
Yorke nodded his head slowly. "Yes... but why a week's delay? What happens at the end of that week?"
Ramage laughed. "One thing, for sure: Alexis will have arrived back here with her brace of pistols!"
"Yes," Yorke said seriously, "but surely the Admiralty wouldn't delay anything for even seven seconds because of Alexis. I love my sister and have great faith in her abilities, but let's be realistic!"
"They may not be delaying anything for her but perhaps they're delaying the trial because of something she's done."
"Like seeing Lord St Vincent, or perhaps even Addington?"
"Or blowing up Parliament or attending a levee and complaining to the King,"
Yorke gave a dry laugh. "You can joke about it, but I can see her doing one of those things. All of them, even."
"I wasn't really joking, either," Ramage said. "I can see her, prodding with her parasol. I seem to attract women who can flatten mountains by pointing at them."
"When you get women under your spell, they're inspired to do wild things."
"Oh, that's it, is it? Pity I can't do the same to admirals."
"Ask Alexis to point at Goddard: perhaps she can flatten him too."
"Why the delay, though?" Ramage mused. "A week. Seven days. What can happen a week from tomorrow that can't happen tomorrow?"
Yorke stood up and took the backgammon set from a cupboard. "Obviously the Board of Admiralty have something in mind, otherwise they wouldn't have ordered the delay."
"Don't make any mistake about the Board," Ramage said, helping Yorke set out the backgammon. "The Board of Admiralty and a backgammon board have much in common; both depend on the roll of a die. At least, sometimes I'm sure that's what Their Lordships use."
"Who exactly are 'the Board'?" Yorke asked.
"Well, originally there was the Lord High Admiral, but from Queen Anne's time the office has been administered by commissioners - the 'Board of Admiralty', also known as 'My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty', or 'Their Lordships'. I don't think there's a set number, but for the last few years anyway there have been the First Lord, who is usually a politician, and six other members, three of them naval officers and three politicians.
"It so happens that the present First Lord is an admiral of the white, Earl St Vincent, but he succeeded Earl Spencer, a politician. Lord St Vincent has no patience with politicians, so I imagine the prime minister gives him a free hand. Knowing the admiral, I can't imagine him deferring to Addington."
"Are the other naval members of the Board all admirals?"
"Usually, but not always. One of Lord St Vincent's present Board is Captain Markham, whose name must be seventy-five or so from the top of the Post List, while Lord Spencer's had two or three admirals."
"And the whole Board meet to make major decisions?"
Ramage shook his head. "No, a 'Board decision' needs only three members present. I think it is three but it may be four. Commissions, appointments, and orders, that sort of thing, usually have three signatures, sometimes four. I know that three or four Board members call in at the Admiralty in the late afternoon each day to sign documents and letters, but certainly with Lord Spencer - and I am dam' sure even more so under Lord St Vincent - the First Lord makes the major decisions and the Board members sign at the bottom of the relevant pages."
"No discussions, then?"
"Oh yes, the members usually meet daily in the Boardroom. Not all the members, necessarily, but usually the First Lord and two or three members and the Secretary to the Board, who is an important person with a good deal of influence. He gets paid a thousand pounds a year more than the First Lord! It's his job to keep the minutes of the Board meetings and see that decisions are turned into actions. Letters to the Board are addressed to him, and letters from the Board are usually written and signed by him in its name."
"What about the letter?" Yorke asked, nodding at the paper now on Ramage's desk. "Did he sign that?"
"No, because it's from the port admiral here," Ramage explained, "but I expect the original signal to Portsmouth was signed by him."
Ramage, who had finished setting out the counters, handed a leather dice cup to Yorke. "Shake," he said. "Unless you want to find a gipsy to tell our fortunes, let's concentrate on the roll of the dice."
The second week passed with numbing slowness. Yorke usually came over to the Calypso for dinner which was served about two o'clock, and Ramage tried to busy himself each morning with the paperwork necessary when the King's ships were at anchor in one of the King's ports.
Every port admiral had his own quirks as well as his own idea of what information he needed daily from the anchored ships. Most port admirals had their requirements printed in book form: a copy of the Plymouth Port Signals and General Orders was one of the first things Southwick obtained after the Calypso had anchored. Apart from the signals, which ranged from requiring a variety of people "to repair on board the Flag ship, or ship whose number is shown or pointed out by compass signal" to the last one, which was to "Return the Book of Port Signals and Orders to the Flag Ship", the orders were almost bewildering in their attention to detail. And Ramage guessed that in the present situation several people on board the flagship or in the Dockyard were keeping an eye on the Calypso, waiting for her captain to omit sending in even one of the daily returns listed in the book.
One of the earliest orders in the book, Ramage had noted, laid down that "Admirals, captains and commanders are to attend courts martial in frock uniforms with white breeches, unless otherwise ordered."
The rest were mostly routine. "A return according to the prescribed form, is to be made daily to the Admiral, of all men impressed the preceding day: and it is to be observed that men are not to be impressed from outwardbound vessels . . ." In order to prevent any person being improperly taken out of His Majesty's ships, "no stranger shall be admitted on board till the real object for which he comes is made known" - a regulation to protect seamen from being seized for actual or alleged debt. Hard on creditors, perhaps; but a tradesman giving a sailor credit was an optimist.
Ramage, flicking through the pages of the orders, was always surprised by their scope. "Foreign seamen taken into the Service, if found to be married in England, the circumstance to be inserted in the ship's books." And, a page later: "All sick seamen, and Marines, are to be sent to the hospital in the forenoon . . . and are not to be victualled on board for the day they leave the ship" - whereas "Commission and warrant officers (except in the cases of accident or urgent necessity) will not be received at the hospital, unless their tickets are approved by the Commander-in-Chief."
Not all the instructions concerned a ship swinging at anchor and Ramage wondered if a port admiral had inserted one particular order as the result of his own experience or an Admiralty order: "It being a practice with the enemy, when they made a capture, to keep an Englishman in the Prize, to make answer when hailed by a British ship, particular caution is to be observed that no inconvenience occurs by this deception."
A ship's boats were not - except in urgent necessity - to be away at mealtimes: that avoided men missing their food. Working parties leaving the ship were "to have their breakfast before they are sent on duty". Well, he noticed, a captain or first lieutenant observing all the reports he had to make might reflect that those same irritating port orders also gave the men several safeguards.
On Sunday morning, knowing it was his only chance of finishing the remaining paperwork before the trial began again next day, Ramage reached across the desk for the pile of letters, completed forms, reports and surveys placed there the previous evening by his clerk, and started reading through them before adding his signature. He looked at the first one which, with luck, might be the dreariest of them all. "Account of Vouchers for Provisions" it was headed, but the page was divided to allow many more details. "When dated . . . When signed . . . Where signed ... To Whom delivered" were the main questions, but eleven more columns needed precise details of weights and measures - "Bread, pounds . . . Rum, gallons . . . Wine, gallons . . . Beef, pieces . . . Pork, pieces . . . Pease, bushels . . . Oatmeal, bushels . . . Butter, pounds . . . Barley, pounds . . . Molasses, pounds . . . Vinegar, gallons."
The figures meant nothing to Ramage, although once he signed the voucher he would be responsible for its truth. Well, the purser and the master, Southwick, would have cast them up. He signed at the foot of the page and reached for the next sheet of paper.
Signing papers was preferable, he supposed, to listening to Admiral Goddard. No, it was not! Crossing verbal swords with that wretched man certainly had won him no victories in the Salvador del Mundo's great cabin, but Ramage was satisfied that he had put up a good fight. Unfortunately, every time that his sword pierced the wretched man and should metaphorically have drawn blood, Goddard refused to allow it to register. Stabbing Goddard was like fighting a duel with a straw-filled sack.
He signed his name and reached for the third. "Cooper's affidavit to Leakage of Beer" - 120 gallons of small beer had leaked from two casks "as mentioned in the survey hereunto annexed". Ramage checked - yes, the second page was the survey to which the cooper was swearing the affidavit. Ramage signed and reached again.
"Vouchers for slops purchased" - the Calypso's purser had been restocking: now the frigate was in a cold climate the men would want to buy warmer clothes. For a year they had been wearing duck and many of them spent most of the day without shirts. Ramage read through the list. "Jackets, one hundred, at 10s. - £50; waistcoats, one hundred at 4s. 3d. - £215s. 0d.; shirts, one hundred, at 5s. 3d. . . ." He noted that trousers were 3s. 2d. a pair now, shoes 5s. l0d. and stockings 3s. ... He signed and wished he did not feel so drowsy. The unaccustomed lack of movement of the ship and the noises of a big anchorage, with guard boats rowing round all night, prevented him from sleeping properly. The noise and, he had to admit, worry about the trial . . .
Yorke should be along very soon. Ramage had conducted Divine Service an hour earlier and although in port he usually tried to brighten up the morning with a short sermon, today he had fallen back on the Articles of War. By regulation they had to be read aloud to the ship's company once a month, and most captains used them instead of a sermon, or homily. Ramage had been startled by the fervour of the men in singing the hymns. The way the men sang hymns was always regarded as a good yardstick for measuring how contented they were, but Ramage had never had to wonder whether or not he had a contented ship's company. Anyway, today the men bellowed the hymns, and it was clear they were hurling defiance at the port admiral, Rear-Admiral Goddard and anyone else connected with the trial. There was nothing Ramage could do to make them sing in a more restrained fashion and, damnation take it, he did not want to. But this display of loyalty left him worrying about Sarah: feeling empty when he puzzled about her fate, yet thankful she was not sharing the doubts and fears of the trial. He knew he had better not trust either his own voice or choice of words in a brief sermon, and he had ploughed through the Articles of War in a completely neutral voice. Even then he had been startled by the men's low murmuring, little more than the noise the wind made in the rigging, or the faint sawing of a yard when the ship rolled at anchor, as he read the Articles under which he was charged.
One more page, one more signature. He scribbled a signature and reached for the piece of cloth to wipe the pen. Suddenly, without any call by the Marine sentry, the flimsy door of the cabin was flung open.