'Sidney's wrong, oh so wrong,' she said, the words tumbling over each other, tripped by sobs. 'You had to take command, otherwise who knows what other mischief that madman will do. He's terrified his officers. He's a mad dog!' she exclaimed, turning to her brother. 'Don't you realize that? You shoot mad dogs, you don't let them run off to attack the neighbour's children!'
Yorke held out both hands despairingly. 'I'm sorry, Nicholas, you seem to have run into more trouble on board the Emerald than you had in the Calypso.'
Ramage reached up and held Alexis's hands. 'No, I wanted to hear what both of you thought. You've put your finger on it, Sidney: you've seen the choice I had, and you think I made the wrong one. You, Alexis, think I made the right one. But so far you're the only people who see clearly that there were only two choices. The rest of them - Aitken, Southwick and probably Bowen, although I haven't seen his report yet - are too close to the problem and,' he gave a grim laugh, 'too loyal to me to consider that I might be wrong.'
Yorke held up a warning hand. 'No, both you and Alexis have misunderstood me. I say you made the wrong choice in getting involved. I repeat, you made the wrong choice. But knowing you and considering what's at stake, the choice you made is the only honourable one for a naval officer. It's just not the sensible one. But if I'd been in your place I hope I'd have done the same thing, although I'm a coward and doubt it. But it frightens me to think of the trouble this man Shirley could cause you in England if he can convince people he is sane.'
'I'm not so much bothered by that as wondering what patronage he has,' Ramage said. 'His patrons can cause the trouble. A court of inquiry might clear him and then pressure on the Admiralty from his patrons could get me brought to trial on some trumped-up charge.'
'Why don't you send him off to England?' Alexis said impetuously. 'Let him go on and say nothing more about it. Don't report to the Admiralty or anything. Just act as though it never happened.'
'There are about two hundred men on board the Calypso and two hundred more in the Jason. All of them know what happened, even if Shirley has cast a spell on his men. There are seventy or so ships in the convoy and two other frigates, L'Espoir and La Robuste. Up to a couple of thousand men, in other words, who will gossip. Oh yes, I'm sure if I asked them the Calypsos would keep their mouths shut, but is it a thing that a captain should - or can - ask of his men? No. Apart from anything Shirley might do, there will be gossip and rumour and speculation and exaggeration ... the story will be around Plymouth within hours of our arrival; the Admiralty will soon know about it.'
Yorke poured himself more lemonade with sufficient deliberation to make Ramage watch him.
'When you chased after the Jason and went alongside her,' Yorke asked, 'you had guns run out, and all that sort of thing?'
'Yes, in fact we boarded her. Just managed to stop the men firing in time. As I told you, we thought she had been captured by the French.'
'Yes, I just wanted you to repeat all that. You don't see what a madman (with all his witnesses terrorized, somehow or other) can make of that?' Ramage shook his head, puzzled at the tone in Yorke's voice.
'No - it seems natural enough that the Calypso should assume that any ship that fired a broadside at her must be enemy.'
'That's not what I mean. A madman (or anyone trying to hide a mistake for that matter) could claim that you were attacking one of the King's ships. Deny the broadside and accuse you: any sane man covering up a mistake would say that. I hate to think what embellishments a madman could add.'
Ramage offered Alexis a handkerchief but she shook her head, gathered up her skirts and left the cabin.
'I'm sorry,' Ramage said lamely. 'I've wrecked your day with my problems.'
'On the contrary, I'm glad we were here to listen to them. You know that anything ...'
'Yes, I know,' Ramage said humbly, almost resenting that for the first time that he could remember he was in this position. 'I'm sorry that Alexis had to be involved - and I've just upset her by offering a handkerchief. I was trying to help.'
Yorke laughed unexpectedly, and it sounded to Ramage like a conspiratorial laugh; everyone in the room laughing at a family joke. 'My dear Nicholas, there speaks an only child. Indeed, there speaks a man without a sister. So help me, there speaks a man who must have been spending his life with some very unusual women. Alexis, bless her heart, is not upset with you!'
'Then why ... ?'
'She was so completely engrossed in your story that she forgot she had been crying. When you offered her a handkerchief she suddenly realized her face was tearstained and that she probably looked more like an upset schoolgirl than the grande dame she would rather Captain Lord Ramage saw.'
'Grandes dames frighten me. Anyway, Alexis would stop all the conversation in any salon merely by walking through the door.'
'I know that because she's been on my arm so many times when it's happened. But you can't convince her. She thinks the conversation stops because her dress is unsuitable, or she is wearing too many or too few jewels, or her hair is in the wrong style. . . there's always some damned thing!'
'I may have no sisters, but you sound like the eternal brother!'
'When you have a sister as beautiful and vulnerable as she is, and both parents are dead, believe me, you are mother, father, chaperone, brother and trustee, with a few other roles thrown in from time to time.'
'Like matchmaker!' Ramage said lightly.
'I wouldn't mind that,' Yorke said. 'Unfortunately, I have to be just the opposite. When Alexis complains that someone's attentions are becoming 'tedious' - the ultimate sin in her calendar - I have to warn him off.'
'I can just imagine you being stern!'
'Stern be damned. One young buck, a captain in a fashionable regiment and the heir to a barony and a fortune, wanted to call me out! Swore that it was lies, and I had Alexis locked up so that she could not see him. Gave me a choice of pistols or swords!'
Intrigued at the picture Yorke had drawn, Ramage asked: 'How did you get out of all that?'
'Oh, I chose the coward's way out. Rang the bell for a maid, sent her for Alexis, and told her that unless she gave this tradesman's son his congé, I'd have to meet him at dawn and kill him, except that I had a strict rule against duelling with tradesmen's sons.'
'And that did it?'
'As far as this dandified soldier was concerned, yes: he retreated with a red face. Alexis then nearly fought a duel with me!'
'What on earth for?'
'Oh, she felt sorry for the fellow (after I'd got rid of him) and said there was no need to throw 'trade' in his face just because his father owned half a dozen mills in Lancashire and recently bought a title.'
'She had a point,' Ramage said sympathetically.
'You're as bad as she is,' Yorke complained. 'I'm the innocent party carrying out his sister's orders, and the damned soldier wants to spit me on the end of an épée or put a pistol ball in my gizzard. All because my sister gets too flirtatious and -'
'- and what?' Alexis said from the door.
'I was telling Nicholas about that wretched soldier who thought I'd locked you up and wanted me to get up at dawn and clang swords or pop pistols with him.'
'Oh yes, you really did behave disgracefully towards that poor fellow,' she said.
Yorke looked at Ramage and sighed. 'Don't encourage her,' he said, 'otherwise she'll expect me to send him a case of claret with an apologetic note.'
She had changed into a close-fitting wine-red dress, so close-fitting that Ramage found himself wondering how she had got into it. Her hair was now swept up in a style which emphasized her profile, and she looked every inch the calm hostess: not a hint of a stifled sob, her eyes clear.
Ramage suddenly realized that she was watching his eyes.
'A good maid is worth a queen's ransom,' she said and smiled. 'Dinner is being served in five minutes.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
In his cabin on board the Calypso, Ramage was sleepy from too large a dinner but otherwise clear-headed because he had refused all wine and the Yorkes had not pressed him. He waited for Bowen to make himself comfortable in the armchair; both Aitken and Southwick sat on the settee.
Bowen had only just returned from the Jason: he had not waited to change his spray-spattered breeches, although his dry boots showed he had paused to get out of ones which had been sodden by the water in the bottom of the boat.
'You mentioned a written report, sir,' Bowen began tentatively. 'At least, I thought at first that you did. I now realize that I was completely mistaken: that all you really wanted was a verbal report on any conversation I might have with Captain Shirley.'
Ramage sat back and considered carefully what Bowen had just said. He had told Bowen to go over and examine Captain Shirley, and return to write a very detailed report on the man's condition which he should sign, with one of the Calypso's officers witnessing his signature. Name, date and location. Now, Bowen is saying, in a roundabout way, that he did not hear him refer to a written report. Something has happened, or Bowen has discovered something (or not discovered it) that he does not want to put into writing and he is trying to avoid involving Aitken and Southwick in anything that can later be construed as conspiracy.
'Yes, indeed, you were mistaken,' Ramage said. 'Well, now we're all together can I offer any of you gentlemen a drink?'
They all shook their heads. 'I was offered enough on board the Jason to have floated her out of a drydock,' Bowen said. 'Those gunroom officers . . .' He shook his head at the memory. 'The third lieutenant stuck his head in a bucket of sea water before going on watch.'
'To make his hair curl, or does he find it puts him in the right mood for handling the ship?' Southwick inquired.
'To sober himself up enough to walk comparatively straight. It's not a bucket but a tub: they have one outside the gunroom door. One day someone is going to be so tipsy he falls in and drowns, unless the Marine sentry fishes him out.'
'Come now, Mr Bowen,' Ramage said, assuming a suitably formal manner. 'Tell us about your visit to the Jason. It must make a pleasant change for you to visit another of the King's ships. I trust you were also able to deal with any medical matters arising since the death of the Jason's surgeon.'
'Yes, indeed, sir. Nothing like a dead surgeon for increasing the sick list. There's not a man in that ship, from the captain downwards, who hasn't got an ache or pain somewhere since the day they buried the surgeon. That is why I've been such a long time,' he explained to Ramage. 'I've treated more men on board the Jason in an hour than I've had sick in the Calypso in six months.'
