Ramage’s Prize

"Well, if there's nothing to worry about, then I can come with you."

"But a King's ship can't carry passengers," he said lamely, and then remembered the phrase in his orders, written in specially by Nepean to cover people like Yorke who were passengers from Jamaica.

She sensed he was only making excuses and stood up. "I'm going to see Mr Frere. I shall tell him to order you to take me. Ah - you didn't know I knew about that, did you. But when he decided to tell that frigate to get ready, he explained to me that an ambassador can give orders to the captain of a ship. He says the task of the Navy and the Army is to carry out the policies of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Is he correct, Lieutenant?"

He was, and Ramage knew he would be wise to agree now, rather than force an issue she was bound to win.

"Darling - it will be dangerous."

She shrugged and pointed to her left shoulder. "The French shot me once - remember?"

"Of course I remember. I'll never forget the night in that damned boat. I thought you were going to die."

"Did you?" She sounded surprised. "Oh, Nico, you shouldn't have worried. Anyway, you hadn't fallen in love with me then," she said matter-of-factly.

"How do you know? I nearly went crazy. Why I-"

"When did you fall in love with me, then?" she asked curiously. "It was still dark. You saw me for the first time - oh, about midnight, and I was shot soon after."

"What does it matter?" Ramage snapped, thoroughly exasperated.

"Oh! You say you love me and grumble because you worried about me one night - one night," she repeated, her voice rising, "when I worry about you every night of the year. How can you love me when you can't even remember when it happened?"

"I'll look it up in the ship's log," Ramage said angrily. "Now, get packed and let's go on board, otherwise you can wait for the next packet."

"Ha, listen to him," she said furiously. "You bully - oh, to think I wanted to rescue you! I wish they hadn't passed the Act. I'd have stayed in England and you'd have rotted in a French prison for years and years-"

He put his arms round her and kissed her. "And you'd have slowly turned into an old walnut..."

The two burly boatmen groaned and swore as they lowered Gia

"It's only one trunk," Gia

Knowing that his mother did not believe in travelling with the minimum of luggage, Ramage shuddered at the thought of what Gia

Finally the trunk was lashed down and the boatmen looked at each other in bewilderment. There was now little room left for two passengers in the small boat, which made up with brightly coloured paintwork what it now lacked in stability.

Ramage pointed to the forward thwart, and when the men protested that Gia

Five minutes later, with the two of them wrapped in the cloak, the lugsail hoisted and drawing, and the two men aft, one handling the sheet and the other at the tiller, the boat was heading for the Arabella.

The French mate is going to be puzzled, Ramage thought: instead of Kerguelen and the two Britons returning, there's only one Briton with a strange lady and an enormous trunk...

As the boat tacked for the last board that would bring her down to the Arabella, Ramage noticed that the packet's boat was secured astern by its painter. Perhaps Kerguelen had sent it back, with orders to the crew to return later when he and Yorke had sampled enough of what Lisbon had to offer.

Ramage pictured Southwick's face when he looked down into the boat ... The Master's attitude towards Gia

The privateersmen weren't keeping a very good lookout: not a man in sight on deck. Well, once the boatmen hooked on he would be able to rouse out a couple of seamen to help with the trunk.

The Arabella was a pretty ship: nice sheer, graceful yet powerful. Sad to think of all that rot aft, hidden under the paint. I hope that damned rudder holds, he thought to himself...

Forty yards to go. He turned to Gia

Suddenly there was a deep bellow: "What ship?"

"Triton!" A startled Ramage shouted in an automatic answer to the time-honoured challenge from a King's ship; a reply indicating the captain was in the boat. He realized his mistake just as Gia

As he helped Gia

Ramage introduced the Frenchman, and then Yorke, Bowen, Much and Wilson, and Gia

The privateersmen, delighted onlookers, cheered heartily and a moment later the Tritons joined in.

"Mr Souswick," she said, and Ramage remembered she always had trouble pronouncing the name, "you look five years younger!"

"Thrive on trouble, ma'am, and I want to say how glad we are to see you."

"Because I am more trouble, eh, Mr Souswick?" The Master went red as Gia

She looked round. "Jackson! Stafford! And you Rossi! Sta bene? Piu grasso - you eat too well in the Royal Navy!"

Within a minute or two Gia

Kerguelen slapped him on the shoulder. "You never expected to see a crowd of French cut-throats acting as Cupid's assistants, eh?"

"And you never pictured yourself as Cupid," Ramage said with a grin, "but thanks. Whose idea was the reception committee?"

Kerguelen shrugged his shoulders. "Yorke and I decided to come back early and have a cabin tidied up ready. I freed all your men, incidentally. Then-"

"How did you know she would be sailing with us?"

"Even an Englishman couldn't be so unromantic as to let her return in the Princess Louise" Kerguelen said sarcastically. "Anyway, by the time the cabin was ready, Southwick and that American were so excited they started holystoning the decks, and then my men asked what was going on. When I explained that your - ah, fiancée - was coming on board, they joined in, and as soon as the ship looked tidy they all vanished below, and half an hour later they were shaven, hair tidied and rigged in clean shirts and trousers."