Ramage and the Dido (8 page)

‘How is her ladyship? Are you still at The George?’

‘She’s well, and yes, we are still there.’

‘I still haven’t met your wife,’ Rossiter grumbled.

‘We haven’t seen much of each other since we were married,’ Ramage said. ‘I had just started some leave when I was given command of the
Dido.’

‘You’re hinting that you don’t want me to order you to sleep on board yet.’

Ramage laughed and said: ‘My furniture won’t be delivered until tomorrow. At this moment the cabin, coach and bedplace are bare of anything except the 12-pounders.’

‘I’ve never met a young husband at a loss for a reason to sleep on shore,’ Rossiter said amiably. ‘Let me know as soon as you receive orders from the Admiralty.’

The sails were swayed up to the yards by slings and bent on during the day: heavy and hard work. Southwick commented: ‘It’s a miracle how much we’ve got done so far: fitting-out a ship of the line with a frigate’s complement is like being on a treadmill.’

‘The boats with the pressgangs came back just after the midday meal, a delighted Aitken reporting to Ramage: ‘We got ninety-seven men altogether. Clapton’s busy getting their names down in the Muster Book. At least half of them should be prime seamen.’

‘Let’s hope we’re as lucky with the Cape convoy. It’s due in tomorrow.’

‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t,’ Aitken said. ‘Kenton said there were not many other gangs out.’

‘The admiral said he would send over some men. A hundred from the Cape convoy and fifty from the admiral, and we’ll be able to sail.’

‘We were lucky to get our full complement of Marines,’ Aitken commented. ‘Rennick says they’re well trained, and he’s quite content with the two lieutenants.’

‘I’m more concerned with his four sergeants and four corporals: they are the backbone of the force,’ Ramage said.

‘We’ll soon know,’ Aitken said. ‘I’ve got them bending on sails, and hoisting them up from the sail room is just the work for those Marines – some of them are giants.’

‘How many of the new men are volunteering?’ Ramage asked. ‘When I last saw Clapton, most of them were taking the bounty. I think about one in ten was being put down as “pressed”.’

Every man brought on board by a pressgang was given the chance of ‘volunteering’ and thus qualifying for the bounty paid to volunteers. It meant that ‘vol.’ was put against his name, instead of ‘p’ for pressed. Apart from being paid the bounty, it did not affect the way that a man was treated in the ship, but it did mean that a volunteer usually served more willingly – he had none of the resentment often felt by a man who had insisted on being rated ‘pressed’.

Ramage, feeling bored, said: ‘Let’s make an inspection of the ship. Then I’ll fill in the Daily Report and send it across to the admiral. He seemed quite content when I saw him this morning. Anyway, he did not complain.’

As he followed the first lieutenant out of the cabin and crossed the halfdeck, Ramage began to feel depressed again: the ship looked a mess. There were heaps of canvas, more rolled up sails waiting to be swayed up to the yards, and the decks were filthy. There was no need to comment on them to Aitken: there was no room to scrub them because ropes and sails took up every spare inch of space. Frayed ends of rope littered the gangways, thrown down as men cut them off the coil. They had various names: cows’ tails – which they resembled – or ‘Irish pennants’, a title no doubt unfair to Ireland.

At least the guns looked tidy; they stood against the ports, tackles and breechings secure, the barrels shiny with a coating of new black gun lacquer and the carriages and trucks newly painted in yellow. The 32-pounders were damned big guns, he thought, his eye much more accustomed to the
Calypso
’s
12-pounders.

But the
Dido
was a ship of the line: if she ever fought in the line of battle she would be expected to give a good account of herself, and most of the punch would come from those 32-pounders.

Up on the fo’c’sle painters were giving the last few dabs to the belfry, but the ship’s bell itself was in need of polishing. Ramage could see from the way that Aitken eyed it (as though it had an unpleasant smell) that he could not wait for the painters to get out of the way and the paint to dry enough for him to set men to work with brick dust restoring a polish to the tarnished metal.

The huge mooring bitts were freshly painted; the knightheads and catheads, too, had been carefully touched up. But the
Dido
did not look like a ship yet. In fact, Ramage decided, she looked more like a warehouse where a lot of gear had been dumped on the floor without rhyme or reason.

‘When do you expect the new fifth lieutenant, sir?’ Aitken asked unexpectedly.

‘I should have thought he’d have arrived by now. He’s the last of the officers.’

‘I wonder if he will fit in,’ Aitken speculated. ‘We were lucky with Hill; he’s settled down very well, and gets on with Kenton and Martin. And Southwick, too. I think the old boy is quite fond of him.’

‘Yes, he has a nice dry sense of humour,’ Ramage said. ‘And plenty of initiative.’

‘We’re lucky that all three of them have plenty of that. And young Orsini, too.’

‘Yes. I am going to make him a master’s mate. That’ll keep him ahead of these other midshipmen.’

Ramage was unusual in always referring to them as ‘midshipmen’: it was usual to refer to them as the ‘young gentlemen’, although their official rank – how they were listed in the Muster Book – was midshipmen. For years now Orsini had been the only midshipman on board the
Calypso,
and for that reason had quite unconsciously built himself up a privileged position, because it was usual for a frigate to have up to a dozen midshipmen on board. Ramage did not have a very high opinion of their usefulness, and Orsini had been lucky because, being the only one, he had been given extra responsibility, quite apart from the fact that his mathematics and navigation received Southwick’s undivided attention, although mathematics were never going to be Orsini’s strongest subject.

The huge foresail had been hoisted up and topmen were busy overhead securing it to the yard. The mainsail was already bent on to its yard and the maintopsail was being secured. Ramage was thankful that the shot for the 32-pounders, 24-pounders and 12-pounders had been left on board: collecting them from the stores and hoisting them in would have been a miserable job for the men. There was only the powder to come. For safety’s sake every ship being refitted unloaded her powder into the powder hulks – a precaution against fire causing catastrophic explosions that could lay waste much of Portsmouth.

As Ramage and Aitken continued their inspection of the fo’c’sle, one of the new midshipmen came hurrying up. ‘Mr Kenton’s compliments, sir, but the new fifth lieutenant has just arrived on board.’

‘Tell him to get his gear below and present himself in the cabin in fifteen minutes,’ Ramage said.

As the boy hurried off, Ramage commented to the first lieutenant: ‘Talk of the Devil…’

They went down to the messdeck, and Ramage was glad all the ports were open, creating a draught to get rid of the smell of paint. He looked round at the guns, tables and forms. The painters had been busy with the guns and carriages; the tables and forms were well scrubbed. Overhead rammers, sponges and wormers were held up in racks, restricting even more the limited headroom.

Aitken looked around him and said cheerfully: ‘It’s a far cry from the
Calypso,
sir.’

‘Yes, nearly three times the number of men. And quite a few more guns.’

‘I hadn’t realised how big a seventy-four was until I found myself responsible for having it painted,’ Aitken said wryly. ‘And trying to run the ship with a frigate’s complement of men isn’t easy.’

‘Well, you’ve the Marines and the West Indiamen to help you now,’ Ramage said.

‘I’m afraid they’ve arrived when the worst part of the work has been done.’

‘More credit to you.’

‘Much of the credit is due to Southwick: he’s been invaluable, especially in rigging the ship. He’s forgotten more about rigging a seventy-four than I’ll ever know.’

‘Well, learn as much as you can; it may be a three-decker one day!’

Aitken sighed. ‘I hope I’ve been posted by then: I don’t think I could stand the strain if I was still a first lieutenant!’

Ramage took out his watch. ‘I had better get along to the cabin and see this new officer.’

There were many cabins in a ship, but only the captain’s cabin was always referred to by everyone as ‘the cabin’. Ramage walked under the halfdeck and through the coach into the cabin, thankful that tomorrow his furniture would arrive, and he would have chairs to sit in, and a desk to use.

The Marine sentry suddenly knocked on the door and called: ‘Lieutenant Hicks to see you, sir.’

‘Send him in.’

Ramage sat down on the breech of the starboard 12-pounder and watched as a thin-faced young man with fair hair slouched into the cabin. He was white-faced and pimply: he was round-shouldered and walked as though he expected to keep on glancing over his shoulder to see who was following him. He was, Ramage decided at once, one of the King’s bad bargains.

‘Hicks, sir, fifth lieutenant.’ He handed over a sheet of paper that was his orders. Ramage noticed they were dated six days earlier.

‘Welcome on board, Mr Hicks,’ he said coldly. ‘I notice your orders were given some time ago. Where were you when you received them?’

‘In London,’ Hicks said airily.

‘You did not hurry yourself.’

‘But I did, sir. I came straight to Portsmouth.’

‘Taking six days? Did you walk?’

‘No, I’ve been staying at the Star and Garter.’

‘You’ve been what?’ Ramage asked quietly.

‘At the Star and Garter, sir. I knew the ship was still fitting-out, so there was no hurry.’

Ramage knew he would be hard put to keep his temper, but he said, his voice still dangerously quiet: ‘Fitting-out needs the full co-operation of every officer. Why did you think you need not hurry?’

‘I was in a card school,’ Hicks said in an offhand way. ‘The stakes were high – all of us have just received a payment of prize money from our agent.’

‘So instead of reporting for duty, you stayed on shore gambling?’ Ramage asked incredulously.

‘Gambling and losing,’ Hicks said. ‘I’d lost so much I had to keep on playing in the hopes of recouping.’

‘And you failed?’

Hicks nodded. ‘I went down for seven hundred guineas.’

‘So you then decided it was time to join your ship?’

Hicks shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m not finished with it yet, sir. I need permission to leave the ship before dawn tomorrow, sir, just for an hour or two.’

Ramage stood up and stared at the lieutenant, hardly able to believe his ears. ‘What, do you want to go riding?’

‘No, sir: one of the men I was playing, my biggest creditor, has called me out.’

It took Ramage only a few seconds to consider his answer. ‘I do not permit my officers to duel.’

‘But sir, I have no choice. I can’t pay up seven hundred guineas and I can’t refuse the challenge.’

‘Let me be sure I understand you, Hicks. You’ve been accused of cheating, you owe seven hundred guineas, and you’ve been called out?’

‘That’s it, sir. If I don’t fight I’ll be branded a cheat and still owe seven hundred guineas.’

‘Who has challenged you?’

‘The second lieutenant of the
Hyperion
frigate, sir. He’s famous as a duellist,’ he added uncomfortably.

‘And the weapons?’

‘Pistols, sir, at ten yards.’

‘If you accept the challenge, you’re a dead man, Hicks, and more important I’m short of a fifth lieutenant.’

‘I know, sir,’ the young man said, sounding trapped. ‘The trouble is that this isn’t the only gambling debt I have, and he’s threatened to go to my father – after the duel.’

‘After you’re dead, you mean.’

‘Probably, sir. But quite a few people have been to my father, and he’s refused to pay any more debts.’

‘I can’t say I blame him. Gambling like this is a disease, Hicks. How long have you been at it?’

‘Two or three years, sir. I won at first.’

‘By cheating?’

‘Well, taking every advantage I could,’ Hicks said lamely.

Ramage said, his voice cold, ‘This means my new fifth lieutenant is a cardsharper who has been caught out cheating and called out. And you have the thundering cheek to ask me if you can leave the ship for an hour at dawn tomorrow morning!’

‘But I don’t have any choice, sir: my luck has run out.’

‘That will teach you to rely on luck. Any man who does that is a fool. That will be all. Tell the sentry to pass the word for the first lieutenant.’ Hicks waited, as though he had more to say, and then, white-faced, turned on his heel and left the cabin.

When Aitken arrived Ramage, who had resumed sitting on the breech of the 12-pounder, said: ‘This new fifth lieutenant: a bad bargain, I’m afraid.’

‘How so, sir?’

‘He’s a cardsharper who has been caught by a lieutenant from the
Hyperion
frigate and called out. He’s due to fight at dawn tomorrow.’

‘So we’ll need a new fifth lieutenant,’ Aitken said unsympathetically. ‘Well, we’ve got on quite well so far without one.’

‘This fellow has been in Portsmouth for days. He’s been staying at the Star and Garter, gambling away some prize money. He lost seven hundred guineas, cheated and was caught. Not his only gambling debt, he tells me.’

Aitken groaned. ‘Why do we have to get him? We’ve been lucky up to now.’

‘Well, we have two problems. How to prevent him fighting this duel, and how to get him changed.’

Aitken said grimly: ‘Let him fight the duel and the second problem might solve itself, sir: with him dead the Admiralty have to replace him.’

‘No officer of this ship is going to fight a duel,’ Ramage said stubbornly. ‘Not even a grubby cardsharper. The question is how we stop him. We have to do it in such a way that it isn’t a question of him refusing the challenge, though why we should be concerned with his squalid honour I don’t know. He was sitting gambling at the Star and Garter with orders to join the
Dido
stuffed in his pocket.’