Aitken grinned happily: the gunner was the only man in the whole ship whose mere appearance could put him in a temper.
Ramage went below, waited for Aitken, and then led the way along the passage leading to the magazine and powder room. The passage had the silent, cold feel of the entrance to a vault but, like the rest of the area, it was specially constructed.
To begin with, both the magazine and powder room were called officially the 'hanging magazine', because not only were both built below the waterline, but they were placed four feet lower than the deck level, like a large inset box, so that anyone entering had to go down several steps. More important, in an emergency it could be flooded with seawater and both magazine and powder room would be submerged instantly, along with the powder, whether in case, barrel or flannel cartridges.
The passageway and both magazine and powder room had the floors plastered with mortar, and over that had been laid a dry lining of narrow strips of deal planking, little more than lathes. Then all three had been lined with lead sheeting weighing five pounds to the square foot, Ramage recalled inconsequentially as he tapped with his knuckle, making sure that none of the sheeting had 'crept', coming away from the lathes-and-mortar base.
At the end of the passage the magazine door (which was also the entrance to the powder room) was hung with heavy brass hinges which were secured with copper screws. The big lock was made of solid copper, and the huge copper key (which always made your hand smell if you had to carry it) was normally kept by Aitken and issued to the gunner only on the captain's orders.
The only illumination came from the little light room, a wedge-shaped glass cupboard, accessible only from outside, in which stood a lantern which shone into the magazine with its flame separated from the powder by a thick glass window.
Ramage stood back to let four sailors pass him with cases of powder. The dim, yellow light of the lantern showed that the passageway was clean and none of the sheeting bulged on the sole, bulkheads or deckhead. Once the seamen had left the magazine, Ramage walked in. With its many shelves, which would soon be filled with flannel cartridges for the 12-pounders and the carronades, the magazine was completely lined with thin copper sheeting: a further precaution against sparks but, along with the lead, giving added protection against rats gnawing their way into the magazine and then chewing the flannel of the cartridges, allowing powder to spill.
The only reminder that from time to time an enemy could threaten the magazine was the rolls of thick felt, for the moment held up by tapes against the deckhead, out of the way of the men carrying powder, but in action the blankets of felt would be unrolled, to hang down, soaked with water, heavy curtains to prevent the flash from guns or an explosion from penetrating the magazine and blowing up the ship.
The last curtain had a small aperture cut in it: in action, each powder cartridge would be passed through it to a waiting powder monkey, who would hold up his wooden cartridge case and, with the flannel bag thrust in, push down the lid before hurrying back along the passageway past the wet felt curtains, and making his way back to the gundeck.
Ramage and Aitken, inside the magazine, inspected the copper. Several sheets near the doorway were a rich reddish-gold: they had been renewed in the past few days. The powder room beyond - where both Ramage and Aitken had to back and fill so that their own shadows did not obscure what they were trying to inspect - also had some new sheeting.
When Ramage commented on it, Aitken said: 'I took the opportunity when we had all the powder out. I asked the gunner if he had anything needing to be done down here, but he said no. So I made my own inspection. No sheet was actually worn through, but a dozen or more were paper-thin and would soon go . . .'
'That damned gunner,' Ramage said. 'I did nothing about him ...'
The run down the Thames and out into the English Channel always excited Ramage, not because he enjoyed navigating between the sandbanks which littered the twisting channels, where being an instant late in tacking or wearing round a buoy or getting caught in stays (or even misjudging the strength of the current) could put the ship hard aground, but because of the names.
Start with the Yantlet, at the western end of Sea Reach. Very well, that took its name from the Yantlet Flats, over to starboard, miles of mud and ooze. But Yantlet? There was no village on the chart; simply a small creek of that name.
East and West Knock, off Shoeburyness. Knock - like knock, knock? Out to the Great Nore again and then steering south-east for the Four Fathom Channel, leaving the long tongue of Red Sand to larboard, to come into the Kentish Flats and then bear up to the north-east into the Queen's Channel to avoid two long stretches running parallel with the coast, Cliffend Sand (off Reculver) and Margate Sand.
And then the reach into Botany Bay, off Foreness Point, and a haul on the sheets to pass North Foreland, the eastern tip of the county of Kent. Botany Bay? The next to the west was called Palm Bay, but what could be botanical, backed by the wicked white cliffs that formed the Foreland itself?
Then Broadstairs Knoll, into the Old Cudd Channel and down the Gull Stream, to pass inside the Goodwin Sands and across the Downs, the comparatively sheltered anchorage favoured by ships of war and merchant ships waiting to go up to the port of London or the Medway.
Southwick was in his element in these waters: he knew the Thames and the Downs 'like looking at my face in the morning'; he rarely glanced at the chart and, although the leadsman stood ready in the chains, rarely called for a cast of the lead.
The Calypso stretched down from the South Foreland, seeming to delight at being at sea again, her copper-sheathed bottom clean, the new topsails and topgallants stretching into shape, the wind flattening out the creases and pressing the canvas into fair curves.
The wind, Ramage noted thankfully, was beginning to veer as they rounded the South Foreland and hardened sheets to bring Dover into sight. By the time Shakespeare Cliff was on the quarter and Danger Rock on the beam, the wind had settled into the north-west.
'If it stays there,' Southwick said jubilantly, pointing at the windvane stuck on the weather bulwark capping, a rod with lines at the top, each with a cork tied to it studded with feathers, 'we'll be in St Helens a'fore His Lordship has time to sail in the Victory!'
'Don't count on that,' Ramage cautioned. 'His Lordship has the light of battle in his eyes: he wants a couple of dozen of the Combined Fleet destroyed. That'll give him wings, as well as teeth.'
The Calypso was rising and falling easily to the crests, occasionally butting a large one into sheets of spray which flung up to darken the foot of the foresail and send streams of water over the planking, rivulets of water twisting and turning with the pitch and roll as they ran aft along the deck. Ramage could feel the salt spray tightening the skin of his face and once, when he incautiously rubbed his eyes, the dried salt made them sting.
Now for the long stretch across the shallow bay known to seamen as Hythe Flats, with Roar Bank and Swallow Bank just inshore of Dungeness Point at the southern end.
Halfway across Hythe Flat, Ramage looked at the chart. Yes, although it was not marked in, Aldington was now on the beam, four miles or so inshore of the long stretch of beach (with Martello towers like beer mugs every few hundred yards) in front of Dymchurch.
Were those towers any use? Would they be, rather, if Bonaparte tried to land his troops? The original Mortella Tower in Corsica, manned by thirty-three French soldiers, had held out against the British for weeks; the design was copied by the gentlemen at the Horse Guards (although for some reason the name was altered to Martello), with seventy-four of them built along the coast facing France. Father had inspected one, and he said they cost £7,000 each and had two storeys. The ground floor was the magazine and the upper accommodation, with a swivel gun or howitzer on the roof. With walls nine feet thick on the seaward side they must be proof against enemy gunfire but brutally cold for the garrisons in winter . . .
Now they were round 'The Ness'. He looked across the dead flat Romney Marsh, where the smooth fields were occasionally punctuated by a church tower or steeple with a small cluster of the village round it, and saw where the land rose sharply at the back of the Marsh, like a long cliff. Somewhere there, if only he knew exactly where to look with the bring-'em-near, was Treffry Hall. Had Sarah come home yet, or was she still staying in Palace Street? Curiously he hoped she was still in Palace Street: it was depressing to think that she might be over there at home and this very minute looking out of one of the windows, across the Marsh and towards the Ness, not knowing that that tiny speck on the sea was the Calypso . . .
Now, almost a copy of Hythe Flats, Rye Bay curved inshore, with Broomhill Sands, Camber Sands and finally Winchelsea Beach before swinging out again at Fairlight, with another dozen miles to Beachy Head.
Names and history . . . just a few miles ahead of the Calypso the ships of the Norman King William had landed on the Sussex beaches, to meet Harold at what William later called Battle, and where he built an abbey to show his gratitude to the Almighty . . . that was almost 750 years ago. Over two hundred years ago the Spanish Armada had sailed up here, to anchor off Calais, some forty miles astern of the Calypso, and there Sir Francis Drake had set about them with fireships. That was the trouble with sailing up or down the Channel: one's thoughts kept foundering on reefs of history. There was an advantage in being someone like Southwick, to whom history was something that happened yesterday. What happened the day before yesterday (and earlier) was forgotten.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Up on the fo'c'sle the Italian seaman shivered and said to Jackson: 'Is cold, this autumn. How long before we get into warmer weather?'
'That Italian blood o' yours has been thinned out with too much wine,' Jackson said unsympathetically. 'Cadiz isn't very far south: won't be much warmer than here.'
'Al diavolo!'Rossi swore. 'We'll be there all winter blockading these stronzi. They don't intend to come out and fight. Why should they - safely anchored in Cadiz, yards sent down, sails stowed below for the rats to eat, whores waiting in the streets ...'
'Rosey's getting bloodthirsty,' Stafford commented.
'Your mother's cooking,' Rossi said amiably.
'Yus, she fed our plump friend like he was a chicken bein' fattened for Christmas,' Stafford said proudly, his Cockney accent sounding hard when compared with Rossi's deeper Genoese accent.
'I warned Rosey what would happen if he went home with you for his leave,' Jackson said.
'We 'ad a good time, didn't we Rosey! Even had 'im admitting London ale was as good as wine. Mind you, by then 'e couldn't tell gin from 'oly water.'
'I hope you've repented by now,' Jackson said banteringly. 'You're setting a bad example for the foreigners!'
'My oath!' Stafford exclaimed. 'And where did you get to on your leave, my American friend? Bet you didn't set Louis, Auguste, Gilbert and Albert much of an example. Never could understand why four innocent Frenchmen should go on leave with you. Sin, that's what you was seeking.'
'What about you and Rosey?'
'We weren't seeking it; it was seeking us,' Stafford said quickly. 'There's a difference.'
