Stafford tried to repeat the word but said sympathetically: 'It's somefing you get from rich livin'? Perhaps mercury'll cure it, since it helps the venereals. Seems unlucky if you get it, having fought so hard for your money.'
Rossi laughed and waved a reassuring hand. 'No, Staff, is not a disease, a latifondista. Is a big landowner who lives somewhere else on the rents. He has tenants on his land.'
'Oh, so it's all right being one, then?'
'If you can afford it, yes. Maybe I'll be able to live a rich life in London knowing my tenants are working hard in, say, Piedmont, which is near Genoa.'
Jackson saw that Stafford was still puzzled and explained: ' 'Landed gentry' - that's what he'll be. Like the Duke of Shinbone living in Whitehall although his money comes from a big estate up in North Britain.'
Stafford's eyes lit up. 'Say, Jacko, if Rosey can live in London on his prize money like the Duke of Shinbone, what about me? I'd make a good Duke of Hambone, and I'd buy an estate nearer to London than North Britain. Somewhere down in Cornwall, say.'
'So you can watch the pretty ships sail out of Plymouth, eh?' Jackson said sarcastically. 'And all your pretty daughters can stand on the Hoe with their chaperones and wave the sailors goodbye!'
'It'd suit me,' Stafford said happily, 's'long as the sailors don't get too close.'
'Why so?' Rossi asked.
'I wouldn't trust those dam' sailors wiv my daughters,' Stafford declared. 'I know what they're like with pretty girls!'
Jackson shook his head. 'No dukes and latifondisti for me. Just a nice comfortable coaching inn; I just fancy myself as 'mine host'.'
'All that truckling to the rich gentry,' Stafford complained. ' 'Fetch some more port, my good man!' '
'Won't worry me because I'll be truckling them a big bill as well. And if they aren't the likes of Mr Ramage, then we shan't have any rooms available.'
'We?' Stafford asked derisively. 'So the Jonathan will take himself a wife, eh? Some poor and innocent English girl will get herself lured by your sweet American promises . . .'
'I'll keep 'em, that's for sure,' Jackson said, and Rossi recognized another lonely man who had come to terms with the unpleasant fact that he would never settle down in the land of his birth. That, Rossi knew well by now, was the penalty of travelling. A man crossed distant horizons and sometimes found beyond them lands which were greener or more welcoming . . . where it was easier to find a good job, a comfortable home, a sympathetic wife . . .Where one did not have to lock the door and secure the windows, nor risk arrest by secret poliee who spirited a man away so his family never saw him again. England, Rossi had long since decided, did not have as much sun as Genoa, but it bred the likes of Mr Ramage, and every man was born with as much freedom as he needed. And anyway he now had enough prize money to stay well clear of the clink ...
The Calypso seemed to be sliding into Carlisle Bay like a skater on ice: the light wind scattered wavelets across the half-moon bay. Looking over the side, Ramage was once again delighted by the deep blue of the sea gradually shading into the faintest of blues and greens as it shallowed and was edged here and there by coral reefs. He had spent enough time in the Tropics to be able to judge the depth of water by the colour - what seemed barely a fathom, hardly enough to float a jolly-boat rowed by half a dozen men, was often deep enough to let a ship of the line swim without risk. Still, when approaching an anchored flagship it was wise to have a man in the chains heaving the lead and singing out the depths in the monotonous voice that it was all too easy not to notice.
The gunner was standing by ready to fire the salute to the admiral (a rear-admiral received thirteen guns, but if he was also a commander-in-chief he received seventeen). Paolo Orsini, midshipman and rapidly growing into a lean and handsome youth, as well as being a fine seaman, was standing by with his telescope, ready to read off immediately first the flag which would reveal the exact rank of the flag officer and then the hoist of flags by which the flagship told the Calypso where to anchor.
The place indicated by a bearing and distance was usually where any reasonably competent captain would in any case anchor his ship, but admirals (or more likely those around him) liked to exercise the brief authority granted them by pointing out the obvious.
'Red ensign with a white ball,' Orsini reported and added, unnecessarily, 'the commander-in-chief is a rear-admiral of the red.' A few minutes later he followed that with: 'Flagship about to hoist a signal, sir,' having caught sight of a couple of seamen handling coloured bunting and preparing to hoist away at a signal halyard.
Ramage glanced forward to the fo'c'sle where Southwick was waiting with a couple of dozen seamen, like a shepherd standing on a hillock with his flock, ready to let go an anchor at the given signal.
More men were standing by, preparing to trim the yards and braces; others were at the shrouds, ready to swarm aloft to furl the Calypso's topsail. The fore and main course were already furled, and Ramage was taking the ship in under topsails. With the wind as light as this it was a slow job, but as far as Ramage was concerned few admirals worth their salt were impressed by young frigate captains tearing into crowded anchorages under a press of sail, anchoring and furling with a flourish. Too many admirals had seen too many anchored ships hit by new arrivals to offer any encouragement, and signalling a ship where to anchor certainly slowed down the gamblers and calmed show-offs.
Paolo read out the signal giving a bearing and distance, and by eye, without having to bend over the azimuth compass, Ramage saw that he had guessed correctly and the Calypso was already heading for the position, with her two prizes astern like two swans obediently following the cob.
Ramage lifted the speaking trumpet to his lips after giving an order to the quartermaster, who swiftly passed it on to the two men at the wheel. Slowly the frigate turned into the wind; another order saw the maintopsail furled, followed by the mizentopsail. As she headed into the wind it pressed on the forward side of the Calypso's foretopsail, pushing it against the mast like a hand on a man's chest and slowly brought the ship to a stop. Ramage then bent over the compass, checking the bearings given in the flagship's signal. He noted the distance, and waited for the Calypso to gather sternway. He walked to the ship^s side and looked down at the water. A tangled strand of floating seaweed which had been floating past now slowly stopped alongside and then began to move ahead. Or, Ramage corrected himself for the thousandth time in his career, the ship had begun to move astern. He gave another order to the quartermaster because now the rudder's effect was being reversed and, looking ahead to make sure that Southwick was watching him, he lifted his right arm vertically.
Seamen let go the anchor. The splash of its thirty-seven hundredweight, almost two tons, hitting the water was followed by the cable (it was hemp, seventeen inches in circumference, as thick as a man's lower thigh) which snaked over the side, leaving a haze of smoke at the hawse as its friction scorched the wood. Southwick watched from the bulwark and as it slowed and stopped for a few moments gave the signal for the men to snub it round the bitts. The Calypso, pushed astern by her backed topsail, which was being braced round to keep it square to the wind, then kept a steady strain on the cable, and Southwick gave the order to veer more. Finally he signalled to Ramage that the Calypso was safely anchored. The holding ground in Carlisle Bay was good, but in many islands weed on the bottom, or sunken palm fronds, made anchors drag.
Ramage shouted down to the gunner: 'Begin the salute!'
The first gun on the starboard side spurted smoke and its sharp crack - being unshotted there was no boom - echoing and reechoing across the bay sent the sleepy-looking pelicans into the air after their usual ungainly run across the surface of the water, and it set the black-headed gulls wheeling and screaming in protest at the interruption in their hunt for the fish scraps left by the pelicans.
Ramage could imagine the gunner muttering the time-honoured phrases used to time the salute - words which when spoken reasonably quickly took five seconds: 'If I wasn't a gunner 1 wouldn't be here . . . Number two gun fire!' And repeating the phrase to himself reminded him yet again that he must replace the gunner: the man was useless, running a mile faster than take a ha'porth of responsibility and completely unsuited to the Calypso. But changing a gunner was a tedious business: it was not a question of applying to the commander-in-chief, as one would to change an unsatisfactory lieutenant. No, a gunner was appointed by the Board of Ordnance, which of course was part of the Army. Guns and gunnery in the King's ships was the Army's affair - at least by tradition. Gunners were examined and given their warrants by the Board of Ordnance, which also arranged for the casting of guns and shot and provided the powder. Thus changing a gunner (or such an application by a ship's captain) was likely to be seen by the Army as a criticism, and the application would end up in the pigeon-hole reserved by the clerks for the paper to smother in dust.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen . . . and that was it: the commander-in-chief of His Majesty's ships and vessels upon the Windward Island station had received the salute due to him by a ship visiting his station from some distant part.
Southwick joined Ramage at the fore end of the quarterdeck and commented: 'I can almost see the sun reflecting on the telescope lenses! They must be wondering how the devil we collected those two!' He gestured to the two prizes now anchoring astern.
'Yes, any moment the flagship will hoist the signal for me to go over to report. But I want you to start getting our men back on board here from the prizes as soon as they have anchored. Just leave a dozen behind in each one.'
Southwick nodded: no explanation was needed because everywhere in the world any one of the King's ships was short of men, but here in the West Indies, where sickness was the enemy, not the French, many of the frigates and smaller ships were being sailed with half their official complement of men. Since sickness, mostly the black vomit, did not distinguish between officers and men, promotion could be rapid for both lieutenants and captains - but equally the appointments could be brief, and one of the most prosperous men in Barbados was the mason carving names and dates on marble headstones in the cemetery (the wording was carefully copied out and sent home to relatives).
'Boat leaving the flagship with a lieutenant on board, sir,' Paolo Orsini reported. 'Heading our way.'
'The admiral smells his share of prize money,' Southwick muttered as Ramage went below to his cabin to change his uniform and put on his sword. A brief but comprehensive 'Report of Proceedings' waited on his desk: it lacked only the name of the admiral, which he had yet to discover.
Ten minutes later a young lieutenant arrived on board and was brought down to the cabin, where he introduced himself as Lieutenant Newick. He told Ramage that the admiral wished him to make his report as soon as possible. 'The two prizes,' he said hesitantly. 'We had no idea that there were two such French frigates in the area, although we guessed we might see you.'
'Oh - why was that?' asked a puzzled Ramage. What could have brought him to the commander-in-chief 's notice?
The lieutenant looked embarrassed. 'Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it, sir. There's a letter from the Admiralty waiting for you, and the admiral had one at the same time. Came out in the last Post Office packet that arrived a week ago.'
'Let's go,' Ramage said. He could think of no reason why Their Lordships should be writing to him, but despite the heat of the tropical sun coming down through the Calypso's deck, he felt a sudden chill. The unexpected was usually unwelcome: so far he had learned that much about life.
