The Calypso was, Ramage reckoned, a hot-weather ship: he had captured her from the French in the Tropics, and she had fought most of her actions in the Tropics or Mediterranean. Her guns would probably warp or miss fire in the cold of the North Sea!
During a near-tropical evening, an hour before darkness and as the last of the cottonball clouds vanished for the night, there was no finer sight created by man than a well-ordered convoy. However patched the sails of the ships, they were brushed a reddish-gold by the setting sun, the heavy shadow on the eastern side of each hull and the light playing on the western making pleasing patterns. Because it was a falling wind, none of the ships was going fast enough to leave a turbulent wake to disturb the pattern of waves and all the ships seemed to be uncut gems set down on deep-blue velvet.
Standing here admiring the convoy as an object of beauty was almost dangerous because he nearly forgot that seventy-two ships were his responsibility: ships laden with valuable cargoes for a country at war and heavily insured, and with probably a couple of thousand men on board. And many women, of course: most of the larger ships carried passengers - plantation owners, tradesmen and soldiers and their wives returning to England. And Alexis, too, who might well at this moment be looking astern from that ship leading the starboard column - although it was unlikely that she could distinguish the Calypso from all the rest of the ships, even if she wanted to.
The quartermaster spoke quietly to the two men at the wheel as the ship wandered a few degrees to windward, and they hove down on the spokes, hoping the bow would swing back before the captain glanced round with a scowl. He never actually said anything but somehow, the quartermaster thought, that was worse: as though Mr Ramage had made an entry in some great ledger and one day he would bring them all to account.
The quartermaster on watch was a Lincolnshire man named Aston, one of the most agile men in the ship but also one of the plumpest. Like a fat pigeon, his body carried extra flesh wherever there was room for it. Although less than thirty years of age, he had jowls and paunch more appropriate to a cleric, although he had a sharper wit and a better understanding of his fellow men. Now he was concerned that the swinging bow should not distract Mr Ramage because he could see that the captain, alone at the quarterdeck rail, was miles away in his thoughts. Aston knew that Mr Ramage had more to trouble him than was a fair load on a man. Commanding a convoy of merchant ships would make a saint run amok, but on top of that there was this strange business of the Jason. Why had she opened fire?
Jackson was with the captain when the Calypso boarded her, and he had been back again with him, but if Jacko was to be believed, Mr Ramage still did not know why it had happened. There was one thing about Jacko - if he could not reveal something out of loyalty to the captain, he always said so. When he just did not know, he usually said so. So Aston was inclined to believe him now - that if there was any explanation at all, it was that the captain of the Jason had gone daft.
That would account for Mr Wagstaffe going over there - it was said he was in command now, which meant Mr Ramage had taken on himself the responsibility of replacing the captain, and Aston knew the Articles of War were hot and strong against that.
But even worse than all that, and something that Aston, recently and happily married, could understand very well, there was the worry about her ladyship: Jacko had heard that the Murex, taking her ladyship back to England, had just vanished after leaving them off Brest. A short enough distance - must be about a hundred miles and the weather was not out of the way. The Murex could have sprung the butt end of a plank and sunk like a stone: she could have been sunk by a French man-o'- war; or she could have been captured by a French privateer. It must be awful for Mr Ramage, just not knowing.
Aston was thankful that he knew his wife was at home in Lincolnshire, looking after his mother and tending the half-acre of land with occasional help from her young nephew. The boy was an idle youngster, but since Rebecca had cut off his meals for a day or two, then cuffed him once when he was insolent, he had mended his ways a bit. In fact Rebecca had been so provoked by him that once she turned him out of the house so that he had nowhere to sleep. He had gone off and told the parson a tall story and without even bothering to ask Rebecca, whom he had known since christening her twenty years before, the parson gave the boy a whack across the shins with his walking stick, made him sleep the night in the parsonage stables and sent him home again next morning with orders to beg Rebecca's pardon.
That sort of parson was good for a village, but all too many of them seemed to reckon that only the squire and his lady were likely to go to Heaven and the rest of the folk were not worth bothering about, damned because they were poor. Well, luckily the local parson was a good old chap because the fact of the matter was (and not even Rebecca knew much about it: she would go telling her mother, then it would be all over the village), thanks to Mr Ramage and the number of prizes they had taken, he had quite a bit of money now. And head money too, for all the prisoners taken. So when the war ended and he had all his prize money together, he was going to make old Swan an offer for Lower Farm. Eighty-four acres and good land. The tithe ran at seven pounds eleven shillings a year, but that field behind the wood was hard to get to and was just right to let out to grazing, leaving exactly seventy acres to farm and the rent would pay the tithe.
He had talked to Mr Ramage about it, and Mr Ramage reckoned Swan's price was about right and also reckoned letting that field for grazing would be a good idea. In fact he had suggested it. The captain said that one of the secrets of good farming was being able to get to all your land all the year round. Having a big field cut off by thick snow or thick mud meant you might as well not own it for many months.
Aston admitted he would never have seen it in that light, but it was true. Mr Ramage also said he would have his man of law go over all the papers with Swan when the time came and make sure everything was in order. That was Mr Ramage for you. Aston knew of other men that Mr Ramage had helped, and he never talked about it, or behaved any differently towards the men: he never expected more than a good day's work. What a landlord he would make!
Ramage, was inspecting the columns of ships, looking at each one through the glass, not from any particular interest but because he knew that for the next few weeks there would not be many more tranquil sunsets. In fact in the next few days he would have all the storm canvas stretched out on deck to be patched where necessary and to make sure the stitching holding the bolt ropes to the canvas was still in good condition. It was curious how the stitching of a sail or awning always rotted long before the cloth itself.
The poor old Calypso needed a new suit of sails, and the present ones should be struck below as spares. The trouble was that she was back at Chatham being paid off when the war started again after the Treaty of Amiens, and she had been hurriedly commissioned - which meant getting the yards across with new rigging, but the old sails were bent on again. The Calypso was merely one of many ships of war being commissioned in a rush, and Ramage had not been there to use cunning or influence to get new sails.
Nor was Captain Ramage himself much better off! One of his first calls in London would be on his tailor. Twenty guineas, probably more, for a full dress coat and epaulette (it was an economy being a post-captain with less than three years' seniority because he had to wear an epaulette on only one shoulder). Ten guineas for an undress coat. Five guineas for the gold-laced hat. Breeches, silk stockings, shirts, stocks, handkerchiefs . . . Silkin, his steward, had a long list which included table linen as well which needed replacing. Well, he did not complain about that: it was very irritating sitting down at a meal alone and restraining oneself, between courses, from poking the tines of a fork into a fraying patch. Silkin did his best to darn the patches, but new ones appeared every time the cloths were laundered.
He remembered Alexis's irritation, while they were having dinner on board the Emerald, when she noticed a tiny worn patch in the table cloth: she had frowned at the steward and glanced at it, and that was all. That was one of the advantages of being in a well-run merchant ship, which used fewer men for the same job than one of the King's ships, but the men probably worked harder because they were paid more and could be paid off at the end of a voyage if their work was unsatisfactory. They could also be picked up by a press-gang before the end of a voyage, too! Anyway, one frown from Alexis might be more effective than an outburst of anger from a post-captain!
He swung the telescope from L'Espoir to La Robuste and then to the Jason. All three ships were in good order, and for the moment none of the merchant ships showed any sign of dropping astern, although the sun had slipped well below the horizon. He had forgotten to look for the green flash. He had seen it hundreds of times in various latitudes, but it always amused him to watch for it, knowing that one blink at the crucial moment meant missing that bright green wink which lasted only a fraction of a second.
Young Kenton was standing over on the larboard side of the quarterdeck, having just taken over the deck from Martin. Ramage decided to go down to his cabin. Usually he did not like reading by candlelight in low latitudes because the flame made the cabin too hot, but they were now far enough north for it not to matter. More important, he had just found that the four volumes of letters edited by John Fenn and which he had bought three or four years ago and left in the bookcase, read more like novels than anything else.
Fenn (Sir John Fenn, he seemed to remember: was he not given a knighthood for his labours?) certainly gave the volumes a title which was accurate but hardly inspiring - Original Letters written During the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, by Various Persons of Rank and Consequence, and by Members of the Paston Family. To read the letters, as far as Ramage was concerned, was to be one of the Paston family of Norfolk at the time of the Wars of the Roses. Their neighbour was Sir John Fastolf, a soldier who fought at Agincourt (was that not in 1415?), and was changed by Shakespeare from a brave soldier in real life to the bawdy and drunken (but humorous) coward in some of his plays, the name changed slightly from Fastolf to Falstaff, a change too slight, Ramage thought, to avoid a Mr Shakespeare of today being called out by Sir John or one of his friends.
Still, Shakespeare's plays and the Paston family letters were (thanks to John Fenn) a joy to read. In fact he would be hard put to finish the final volume of the Paston letters before the Lizard hove in sight.
Gilbert looked puzzled as he tried to translate what was obviously a joke by Stafford. The trouble was that Gilbert's English had been learned in the eastern part of Kent, where country folk talked broadly and in a slow drawl, whereas the Cockney, Stafford, talked quickly, clipping words like a miserly tailor.
' 'Penten' - I do not understand it.'
Stafford, sprawled along the form beside the table, the bread barge in front of him, was roaring with laughter, and Jackson tapped him on the arm. 'That was all too quick for me, so how'd you reckon . Gilbert is going to understand?'
'He asked me if I went to church or chapel,' Stafford explained. 'I said I didn't go to either (he meant a'fore I came to sea) but that some o' my friends said their prayers in St George's Fields.'
'What's funny about that?' Jackson asked, and Rossi repeated the question, adding: 'You can hurt yourself inside, laughing like that.'
Stafford's features were now serious: he was faced with sheer ignorance, and he always delighted in instructing his shipmates. 'I was making a little joke, see, about goin' to chapel. To the chapel in St George's Fields. There's only one chapel there -' he began laughing, '- and that's the one belonging to Magdalen Hospital, see?'
'No,' Jackson said briskly. 'This looks like one of your long jokes that has us all falling asleep.'
'Yus, well, I'll shut up then and you can entertain the mess - song or story, eh Jacko?' Stafford asked sulkily.
'Oh come on,' Rossi wheedled, now intrigued at the idea of a chapel in a place called St George's Fields. 'Tell us about this saint. Why does he have his own chapel?'
'My oath,' Stafford said despairingly, 'I dunno, s'just a place darn the uvver end o' Blackfriars Road. Why's everybody suddenly interested in it?'
'Because of you,' Gilbert said mildly. 'You started to tell us a joke about it.'
Stafford ran a hand through his hair and sat up straight, a look of desperation about him. 'Chapel,' he said slowly, as though feeling his way through a fog. 'Church or chapel Gilbert asked, and I said some of my friends went to chapel in St George's Fields ...'
He rubbed his head, trying to restore the train of thought, but he had drunk his own rum issue and Gilbert had passed over his, and Jackson had paid him a tot for
