Ramage and the Dido (23 page)

Now three hours had elapsed since Hill left the ship in a cutter. The lookouts had seen his boat arrive at the Fort but since then there had been no sign of movement. Ramage had suggested, if the French accepted the terms, that they should send out a couple of droghers, and the prisoners would be transferred to them: this would save the tedious task of rowing the prisoners ashore.

Finally, soon after noon, when the ship’s company had been piped to dinner, a lookout hailed that the cutter was now leaving the Fort. Twenty minutes later an angry Hill arrived on board.

‘Not surprisingly, the French are furious at losing the
Alerte,’
he reported to Ramage, ‘and they were determined to take it out on me. First of all I was marched on shore under armed guard and taken to the commandant of the Fort. He kept me waiting half an hour and then took two minutes to say it was a matter for the governor, whose residence is in the middle of Fort Royal. He seemed to think it was up to me to walk there, but I reminded him that we were discussing the fate of 233 of his own people. He then provided a carriage and escort.

‘The governor was not too delighted at seeing me, but at least he did listen carefully to my proposals. He said he wanted fifteen minutes to think about them, but he kept me waiting half an hour in an anteroom.’

Ramage interrupted impatiently. ‘Get to the point, Hill!’

‘Well, sir, he agreed to everything! He’s going to send three droghers out later this afternoon – I suggested two, but he insisted on three – under a flag of truce. And I have his agreement to the terms in writing, complete with the stamp of the Republic, “One and Indivisible”.’

‘Good work,’ Ramage said. ‘What were your impressions of Fort Royal?’

‘The blockade is bothering them. For instance, a wheel came off the carriage before we were a couple of hundred yards from the Fort, and from what the driver said when he went off to get another carriage, everything was just wearing out. The Fort is in a poor state, and the governor’s residence needs the attention of carpenters, and a few coats of paint. The people in the street look starved and unkempt, though there’s enough fruit growing on the trees.’

Ramage saw Aitken coming on to the quarterdeck and waved to him. ‘Hill’s foray was successful: the French accept our terms. They are sending out three droghers this afternoon, so we’ll be able to get rid of our prisoners.’

‘Are you keeping the captain, sir?’

‘No. He’s a pathetic specimen, anyway: he’s a martyr to stomach ulcers, so he tells me, and I suspect he thinks he’s going to die.’

‘Perhaps he is,’ Aitken said unsympathetically. ‘Ulcers can kill you just as surely as yellow fever, only they take a lot longer.’

‘I’ll tell him what you said: he needs cheering up.’

Aitken pointed to the frigate anchored a hundred yards to leeward of the
Dido,
all her boats hoisted out and lying astern on long painters. ‘I can’t get over how like the
Calypso
she is. Except for the paint. I don’t know when she last saw a pot of paint.’

‘That’s a fair indication of how our blockade is bothering them: the Tropics are no place to neglect a ship’s paintwork.’

‘No. But the
Alerte
really looks sad, as though no one loves her.’

‘Admiral Cameron will love her!’ Ramage said. ‘He’ll soon have her painted up and fitted-out with new standing and running rigging. I noticed most of her running rigging was stretched, and the standing rigging is more tar than rope. I had no idea our blockade was hurting them so much.’

‘I wonder if that seventy-four is in any better condition,’ Aitken speculated. ‘Not that I’m suggesting we try to cut
her
out,’ he added hastily.

‘I have been trying to make up my mind who to send to Barbados with the
Alerte.
We seem to be losing so many officers and men in prizes – men, anyway.’

Aitken gestured towards the brig, passing southwards two miles away on one leg of its sweep. ‘We could always send the
Scourge
along as well, and she could bring our people back.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Ramage said enthusiastically. ‘Well, that settles it: Kenton can command her and he can take Orsini. It’ll be good experience for them. Twenty men should be enough to handle her. It’s only a hundred miles or so, even if they’ll be hard on the wind. Now, if you’ll be good enough to pass the word to the
Alerte
that Kenton should be ready to transfer the prisoners to the droghers and then take command. He’ll need a chart and his quadrant. Tell him to pick twenty men from among the guards, and pass the word to Orsini too: he’ll enjoy the cruise.’

He thought a moment and then added: ‘Our boats will help transfer the prisoners to the droghers so that we have them all out of the ship before it’s dark.’

‘Orders for the
Scourge,
sir?’

‘Oh yes, hoist her pendant number and the signal for the captain. Luckhurst will have his orders written out before he gets here.’

The droghers arrived at three o’clock and anchored to leeward of the frigate, whose boats, along with those from the
Dido,
quickly transferred the prisoners. Hill had prepared written receipts for the drogher captains to sign, so there was a record of how many prisoners had been handed over to the French.

Soon the droghers were on their way back to Fort Royal, and the
Alerte
and the
Dido
hoisted in their boats. Ramage was thankful that part of the operation was over: little did the governor in Fort Royal realise how accommodating he had been…

With the
Alerte
and the
Scourge
on their way to Barbados, the
Dido
began to patrol across the mouth of the great bay, from Cap Salomon in the south to Pointe des Nègres to the north, a distance of six miles.

The French seventy-four – she was called the
Achille,
according to the
Alerte
’s
lugubrious captain – stayed in the Carénage, topsail yards sent down on deck and obviously not ready for sea.

‘We might just as well be blockading Brest,’ Southwick grumbled.

‘At least we don’t get a westerly gale once a week,’ Ramage commented. ‘And we don’t have an admiral peering over our shoulder.’

‘He’s not that far away. Who knows what orders the
Scourge
might bring back?’

‘He can’t be very upset with us at the moment: he was grumbling to me that he hasn’t enough frigates, and we’ve sent him two already.’

‘Wait a week or two and he’ll be complaining that we’re using up all the stores in Barbados refitting them,’ Southwick warned. ‘There’s no satisfying admirals: you ought to have learnt that by now.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Ramage said. ‘Anyway, there are no more frigates around for us to capture.’

‘No, but we’ll probably build a reef with our own beef bones, sailing up and down here keeping an eye on this fellow. How are we going to winkle him out?’

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know about winkles; he’s stuck in there like a limpet. We’re going to have to wait until he sails to escort a convoy in – whenever that is.’

‘We’re going to be heartily sick of this bit of coast by then.’

‘As soon as the
Scourge
gets back she can resume this close watch: we’ll spread our wings a bit.’

Down at mess number seventeen, Stafford was making a similar complaint. ‘Back and forth, six miles south and then tack, six miles north an’ then tack; I tell you, we’ll get dizzy afore long.’

‘Stop grumbling,’ growled Jackson. ‘When we’re in the Channel you’re always complaining it’s too cold and wet. Now you’ve got lovely weather and you’re still complaining. What’s the matter, tired of the sun?’

‘Not the sun,’ Stafford said defensively, ‘just the same view: we’re going to be lookin’ at it for the next six months.’

‘Why six months?’ demanded Rossi.

‘S’gonna take six months for that Frenchman to sail.’

‘Brest,’ Rossi said laconically. ‘Don’t forget we thought we were going to blockade Brest.’

‘At least there’s variety there!’

‘Variety!’ Rossi said scornfully. ‘Yes – a westerly gale alternates with an easterly one, so one day you’re close up with the Black Rocks and then you’re giving them a good offing. And for a change, it blows hard from the north and maybe there’s some snow, and the canvas freezes. I don’t notice any snow round here.’

‘All right, all right,’ Stafford said placatingly. ‘But when we’re on the Channel station at least we get fresh meat while we’re in port.’

‘Damnation!’ exclaimed Jackson. ‘Out here you get fresh limes, fresh oranges, and fresh bananas, as well as perfect weather – except for a bit of haze, and the occasional squall. You get cold, you put on a shirt: you get wet, and you’re dry in ten minutes.’

‘My oath!’ grumbled Stafford, ‘a chap can’t comment on the view without a lot of bullies jumpin’ on ‘im.’

‘And judging from the last few days, there’s plenty of prize and head money around,’ Gilbert said unexpectedly.

‘Don’t
you
start,’ exclaimed Stafford. ‘I’ve had enough from Jacko and Rosey.’

‘Well, you should be ashamed of yourself,’ Gilbert said. ‘Here you are, serving in a fine ship with a good captain and officers, we’ve had plenty of action in the last week, and now we have to wait for this ship of the line. You are too impatient, Staff.’

‘Well, I may be a bit impatient,’ Stafford admitted, ‘and I wouldn’t want to swap this for blockading Brest, but when is this Frog going to move?’

Gilbert ignored the ‘Frog’ epithet and said quietly: ‘If you were him and you saw what happened to the frigate, and you knew the
Dido
is waiting outside and commanded by the famous Captain Ramage, what would
you
do?’

‘I s’pose I’d stay where I was,’ Stafford admitted grudgingly.

Jackson said: ‘As long as he stays in there, you stay out here. Which would you prefer, being him trapped in there or us out here?’

‘All right, all right, you’re boarding me in the smoke,’ Stafford said. ‘Can’t a chap have a grumble now and then?’

Gilbert, to change the subject, said: ‘How much do you think we’re going to get for the frigates?’

‘Not so much for the first one,’ Jackson said. ‘She was armed
en flûte,
so she didn’t have many guns, nor a very big ship’s company. I can’t see the admiral or their Lordships allowing us much for all those plants – after all, no one knows what they are. Whoever heard of a mango? But anyway she wasn’t damaged, nor was this last one, the
Alerte.
We should get a fair price for her – apart from a coat of paint and new rigging, she’d pass for new. And a full crew means plenty of head money.’

‘Yes, but it’s not like the
Calypso
days: we’ve got a bigger ship’s company to share the money. Nearly three times as big.’ Stafford sounded as though he could burst into tears at the mere thought of sharing with the new men in the
Dido.
‘In the old days we were 225 or so in the
Calypso;
now there are 625 of us. I’m not very good at sums, but I reckon that means we get two-thirds less for every ship we capture.’

‘There’s a big “but”,’ Jackson said. ‘The bigger our ship, the fewer the casualties. And we could never have cut out the
Alerte
so successfully with the
Calypso –
we wouldn’t have had enough men. We cut out the
Alerte
so easily because we had enough men to swamp ‘em. If we’d been in the
Calypso
we’d have had only half that number of men. And we may not have carried her. Don’t forget that. There’s an advantage in being in a ship of the line.’

‘More deck to scrub and more brass to polish,’ Stafford said sourly. ‘That’s the only difference.’

‘And you’re alive to grumble about it,’ said Jackson.

‘The way you chaps keep nagging at me, I sometimes fink life’s not worth living,’ Stafford said, far from mollified.

‘You forget we have three frigates and one ship of the line within a month, and we’re still alive to collect our prize money,’ Rossi said. ‘So cheer up, Staff; you’ll have us all in tears in a minute!’

‘All right, all right; call me ‘Appy Staff and I’ll sit here making funny faces for you all.’

‘I’m glad we didn’t get sent to Barbados as prize crew in the
Alerte,’
Jackson said. ‘You never know when you’re going to get back to your ship.’

‘But they sent the brig this time,’ Gilbert pointed out.

‘Yes, and if there’s another ship short of men lying in Barbados they’ll talk the admiral into transferring you,’ Jackson said darkly. ‘Prize crews are anyone’s men, mark my words.’

‘Well, we’ve all been lucky – three frigates needing prize crews, and none of us picked,’ Stafford commented.

‘I reckon we can thank Mr Ramage for that,’ Jackson said. ‘He knows what I’ve just been saying. We’ll never see those fellows sent off in the first frigate again: someone will snatch them at Plymouth. That’s why Mr Ramage sent the brig to Barbados: he’s getting worried about the number of men he’s losing.’

‘When do you expect to see the
Scourge
back, sir?’ Aitken asked.

‘Under a week,’ Ramage said. ‘Give her a couple of days to get there – the winds have been light. And a day at the outside for the
Scourge
to put the prize crew back on board and sail. Give her a day or two to get back here and that’s your week.’

‘I’ll be glad to get those lads back. Rennick is sure someone in Barbados will steal his marines.’

‘Not this time, I think. We’re in good odour with Admiral Cameron or should be, anyway – and I think he will make sure we get our men back. It’s pretty obvious why I sent the
Scourge –
to bring all our men back.’

‘I hope you’re right sir,’ Aitken said. ‘I hate losing a single man.’

‘I think the Barbados ships are well manned: they probably send out pressgangs as soon as a convoy comes in from England.’

‘One can’t help feeling sorry for the men in the merchant ships,’ Aitken said. ‘Just imagine – arriving in the Chops of the Channel after a year out here and looking forward to seeing your wife and children, when one of our pressgangs comes alongside and whisks you off, to serve in one of the King’s ships until this war is over.’