confining us all.'
'But he had just identified the Calypso as an enemy and planned to attack her!' Ramage protested.
'Yes, sir,' Blaxton said soberly. 'That was the trouble: he was completely mad.'
Ramage waited for Goddard to order that remark to be deleted from the minutes, but the Rear-Admiral was slumped in his chair, apparently dazed.
'So by the time the Calypso arrived, the commission and warrant officers had signed eight of these 'admissions', or confessions. What about the two signed by the rest of the ship's company?'
'They were admissions of 'mutinous assembly' on various occasions, and Captain Shirley told the men that under Article nineteen death was the only punishment.'
'So everybody signed? What about the men who could not write?'
'They put down a thumbprint and an 'X', and this was witnessed by shipmates who could write. Captain Shirley had the clerk copy the names out of the Muster Book: it was no more difficult than a weekly muster.'
'So in all how many 'admissions' did Captain Shirley have?'
'I don't know offhand, sir. We mustered more than two hundred, so there must have been more than five hundred signatures.'
'But why,' Ramage insisted, 'did you all sign so freely when you thought Captain Shirley was mad?'
'The officers signed that first admission because they were frightened that they had in fact taken part in a 'mutinous assembly' and they thought Captain Shirley would bring them to trial. Later, when they became absolutely certain that he was mad, they knew that with the surgeon dead they could never prove it, and Captain Shirley used that first admission to force them - to blackmail them, I now realize - to sign the later ones.'
And that just about covers Captain Shirley's madness as far as I am concerned, Ramage thought: from now on the Board of Admiralty has to decide what to do with him. There was just one last episode to clear up.
'When the Calypso was first sighted from the Jason,' Ramage said, 'you gave evidence that she was immediately identified.'
'Yes, sir: she has a distinctive shape since she's French-built, and we all knew of her because she's your command, sir. And she was flying the correct challenge, and we could see her pendant numbers.'
'But Captain Shirley did not agree with the identification by his officers?'
'No, sir. He didn't doubt she was the Calypso; he just insisted she was an enemy ship.'
'Even though he was told I commanded her?'
'He never doubted that, sir,' Blaxton said, looking embarrassed. 'He just said that everyone knew you were a traitor.'
'Describe what happened in the Jason after the Calypso was within five hundred yards.'
'Well, sir, Captain Shirley sent the men to quarters and the guns were loaded with roundshot. He had told the gun captains to aim for the hull. In fact,' Blaxton explained, 'the men agreed among themselves to aim high, even though Captain Shirley had just threatened them with the admissions. Well, we approached larboard bow to larboard bow, as though both ships intended to pass within hail. All the officers had been sent down to the gunroom under Marine guard, and Captain Shirley had the deck to himself. At the -'
'Wait,' Goddard snapped. 'How do you know this? You were under guard in the gunroom.'
'No sir: if you recall,' Blaxton said politely, 'the midshipmen's berth in a frigate is separate, forward of the gunroom. Anyway, we four midshipmen remained on deck.'
'Please continue,' Ramage said.
'At the last moment, Captain Shirley turned the Jason to larboard and bore across the Calypso's bow, as though he intended to ram, and as we passed he gave the order to fire.'
'You heard him and the actual raking?' Ramage asked.
'Yes, sir: everyone in the Jason heard.'
Ramage turned to Goddard and said quietly: 'I have no further questions to put to this witness.'
Goddard nodded. 'Let him listen to the minutes being read back, and then he can sign them.'
When Blaxton had done this, Ramage said to Goddard: 'Does the court wish me to make a statement in my defence?'
Goddard shook his head wearily. 'That will not be necessary.' He looked down the table at Jenkins. 'Clear the court,' he said. 'We will now consider our verdict.'
Lieutenant Hill had not returned from taking away Shirley, and Ramage walked to the door of the great cabin, meeting Alexis on the way.
'It worked,' she murmured, and as they paused, waiting for the crowd of spectators to leave the cabin, she added: 'It worked just the way I dreamed it would when I slept in your bed at Palace Street.'
'You have slept in two of my beds now,' he said, and then had to turn politely as Captain Markham walked up, smiling and with his hand outstretched.
'What he did on board the Jason takes more courage than attacking a ship of the line,' Markham commented to Alexis, taking her arm and leading her out of the cabin.
'Yes, I know,' she said, 'but what happens now?'
'Captain Shirley will be examined by doctors: I'm sure he's not fit to stand trial. The Jason's officers and men - nothing will be held against them.'
'And that poor surgeon?'
'Murdered by a madman: it doesn't help him much, but that surgeon probably saved the Jason,'Markham said soberly.
'And - and what about Nicholas? About Captain Ramage, I mean?'
'He'll go back in there in a few minutes and find his sword hilt towards him, showing he is acquitted.'
'And then?'
'Well,' said Markham, smiling at Alexis, 'for the moment he seems to be in good hands; but very soon he will have to take the Calypso to sea again.'
