privateer. Well, the war's over now, so I suppose your letter of marque has expired, or whatever it does when a war ends. But your prizes are your affair - after all, even if the war was still on, they'd still be no concern of mine.'
'I'm glad to hear you say it,' Hart said.
'Oh indeed,' Ramage said, as though politely delighted that Hart agreed. 'I have my orders from the Admiralty and I really can't get involved in anything else - not without orders from their Lordships.'
'Might one ask if your orders will keep you here for long?' Hart asked cautiously.
Ramage shook his head and resumed the search for fluff on his coat. 'There's no secret about my orders: I've come here to survey the island and map it, and make a chart of the anchorages.'
'Why? Are the Admiralty going to start using it?'
'Use it?' Ramage said scornfully. 'I doubt it! Who the devil could find it! Anyway, it's a long way to anywhere else. No, Ascension is good enough for the Cape and John Company ships.'
'Why the sudden interest in Trinidade, then?'
'It's not a sudden interest in Trinidade,' Ramage said, with another yawn. 'The war is over, but the Admiralty have to keep a certain number of ships in commission, especially frigates. So they are sending several of them off to survey various unusual places. I expect one has gone to St Paul Rocks and another to Fernando de Noronha, for example. And probably Ascension; the charts for them are terrible, I know.'
'So how—' Hart was interrupted by Tomás asking what was being discussed. Hart told him that Ramage was not concerned about the privateer; that he wanted to avoid any responsibility, and that he was only concerned with carrying out his orders, to survey Trinidade.
'How long does he plan to be here?'
'I'll ask him.'
'You had better tell him why he cannot interfere with the prizes.'
'But he does not intend to anyway.'
'If he is going to be here long,' Tomás said, obviously controlling his impatience with Hart, 'it is only a matter of time before someone from one of the prizes raises the alarm. Anyway, this Ramage will expect to be invited to dinner by the other masters. When no invitations come, even he will get suspicious - if he can stay awake long enough.'
Ramage managed to keep his face blank at this unwitting praise for his acting. But what on earth was Tomás talking about?
'How long do you reckon on staying here, then?' Hart asked.
Ramage held out his hands, palms uppermost, in a gesture well understood by all Latins. 'Who knows? How big is the island, how long will my surveyors and draughtsmen take with their maps? How long will my lieutenants take with their soundings? Two months, four, six? Blessed if I know. I should think you'll be long gone before we've finished.'
Hart nodded, but was obviously puzzled how to carry out the important part of Tomás's instructions.
'Captain Ramage,' he said, a more formal note in his voice. 'About these prizes of ours...'
Ramage raised an eyebrow. 'Your affair, my dear chap. If you take prizes that's your responsibility. The courts decide, as you know. You might have trouble over those two British ships, of course - unless they'd been captured by the French, and you recaptured them. But I'm not the judge and I'm sure you know all about the Prize Act.'
'Oh yes, don't worry your head about that, sir,' Hart said, a confidential note in his voice. 'No, what I was going to explain is that of course we have prize crews on board each of the ships.'
'Oh yes, I assumed that.'
'Yes, and our men have orders,' Hart said casually but there was no mistaking the warning, 'to kill all the passengers the minute they see there's any danger of losing a ship.'
'What, if the prize crew run a ship on a reef, they murder the passengers? Hardly seems just, I must say.'
Hart clucked like a disappointed schoolteacher. 'No, no, no sir, not that sort of danger. I mean if they saw there was any chance of their ships being recaptured...'
'Can't see who'd try to do that,' Ramage said, obviously puzzled. 'After all, the war is over. Why, that'd be an act of piracy, surely?'
A contented smile spread over Hart's face. 'Why, of course, sir, that's exactly what it would be, and that is why our prize crews have those orders; we have to be on our guard against piracy.'
Again Ramage looked puzzled, scratching his head with one hand and tugging at the knee of his breeches with the other. 'Yes, but I can't see how killing the passengers keeps pirates away.'
'Oh, I see what you mean, Captain, but if you just think of it as insurance, you'll understand.'
'Ah yes, just insurance. Very wise too: never sail underinsured, somebody once told me. 'Beware of barratry by master and crew and pay the premiums promptly' - that was what he said, and it's wise advice, don't you think?'
'Indeed it is,' Hart patiently agreed, 'and we have the officers and men staying in a camp on shore.' He turned to Tomás, saying in Spanish: 'I have told him about the hostages and he sees nothing wrong about us having prizes. He might be a brave man - he must be, to have his reputation - but he's a fool. He's swallowed our story like a pike taking a minnow. So we can wait for our friends with more prizes, and then we can all sail in one convoy, leaving this pudding to finish his survey.'
'Good, so now be helpful: tell him where to get fresh water. Then he will not be suspicious.'
Hart waved away the idea. 'It is not necessary, Tomás. He is not short of water, or he would have asked us about rivers and springs. No, believe me, I understand these people. We say goodbye now and go.'
'Lead the way and say the right things then,' Tomás said, and anyone listening but unable to speak Spanish would not have realized that the big black had been giving orders.
Fifteen minutes later Southwick was sitting in the armchair, Aitken leaned back on the settee with his hat beside him, and Ramage sat at the desk, looking far removed from the vague, hesitant and languid individual who had talked to the privateersmen.
'What was the flag of truce all about?' Southwick asked.
Ramage looked at Aitken, who shook his head. 'I think they thought we might have known what they were doing,'
Ramage said. 'The sight of one of the King's ships sailing into the bay must have startled them. But as we didn't have our portlids up and guns run out, they were puzzled too. By coming out under flag of truce, perhaps they thought they were safeguarding their own necks.'
'I couldn't understand the Spanish parts, sir,' Aitken said, 'but why did Hart take so much trouble to translate for that black while ignoring the other two?'
'The black is the leader,' Ramage said. 'He's the deep one; ten times the brains of Hart.'
Southwick gave a deep sniff and Ramage guessed that he was impressed by the black's shrewdness. 'What was his name? Thomas?'
'The Spanish version. Hart speaks reasonably good Spanish and good French.'
'Comes from the West Country,' Southwick commented. 'Bristol, I reckon.'
'Probably, because he said the Lynx hailed from there,' Aitken said. 'Mind you, it's a fake name, I'll be bound.'
Ramage let the two men gossip for a few more minutes because, having just had a shock when they did not expect it, they needed some idle talk to let their thoughts settle. Then the questions would come poking up, like fish in a stream looking for flies. Finally Aitken coughed and both Southwick and Ramage looked at him.
'When that fellow Hart said that their prize crews had orders to kill the passengers if the ships were in danger, sir, what did he mean?'
Ramage's face hardened and his brown eyes seemed more sunken than ever, his high cheekbones becoming more pronounced and his narrow nose more beaklike.
'We were being warned. Hart was telling us that they have armed men in each merchant ship, guarding the passengers, who are in fact hostages. He said the officers and men are on shore 'in a camp'. That means there are a dozen or more hostages in each vessel, and if we make any attempt to recapture any of the ships or attack the Lynx, they'll simply massacre the hostages.'
'Stalemate,' Southwick said crossly.
'I wish it was,' Ramage said. 'At the moment the privateers hold the pistol at our heads. We can do nothing. That devil Tomás has probably given orders that if we so much as wave a musket, all the hostages get their throats cut. Remember, a privateer carries a large number of men solely to provide crews for the prizes. I doubt if the Lynx needs even one man from an original crew to sail a ship, so the officers and men could be thrown over the side. I've no idea if they'll bother to ransom the hostages - they might think it too much effort and risk for too little profit.
'They'll sell each ship and cargo for cash to unscrupulous owners anxious to increase their fleets. Paint out the old name, line in a new, hoist fresh colours and no one will ever guess that's a ship which apparently vanished while the war was on.'
Southwick nodded admiringly. 'Privateers in wartime and pirates in peace. More profitable in peacetime - they're not at the mercy of the Admiralty court judge's valuation of a prize: they get the full market value with no deductions for agents, court fees and bribes. And, being pirates, they can disregard a ship's colours - look at the ones they've got out there: French, Dutch and British. No Spanish, though; perhaps this fellow Tomás draws the line at that!'
Ramage shook his head. 'That man has no loyalty to anything. There are no Spanish simply because there are so few Spanish ships at sea. Wait until the Lynx's sister ship comes in - she may have picked up a Don.'
'Well, what are we going to do?' Southwick asked angrily. 'We can't just look at these devils knowing that the ships are prisons for the passengers.'
'We can send the men to quarters and weigh and sink the Lynx. Mind you, you wouldn't have the bars in the capstan or the portlids raised before every hostage would be dead,' Ramage said quietly.
Aitken said: 'What do you propose, sir?'
'Let's wait a few days and just watch. We'll put the surveyors on shore each day, and you can send off Martin and Orsini in boats to take soundings and start that chart. Get the privateersmen accustomed to seeing our boats bustling about - but keep away from the prizes. Not obviously; just don't let any boat pass within hail.'
