The Ramage Touch

The French plans could be wrecked by burning or scuttling the ketches, but for the moment young Paolo was temporarily in command of the Fructidor, striding up and down the tiny quarterdeck in his second-best uniform, dirk hanging at his waist, telescope tucked under his arm, and trying to keep his prize crew of half a dozen men busy coiling ropes and swabbing the decks. Aitken had forbidden him to start the men scrubbing and holystoning, though the planking was as stained as the floor of a bankrupt wine shop.

The Calypso's new fourth lieutenant, William Martin, was temporarily prizemaster of the Brutus, and he too had been dissuaded from setting his men to work to remove a year or two's grease and wine stains. Ramage thought that Martin was settling in well - apart from his confounded flute. It was hardly surprising that his nickname was "Blower"; he must have lungs like a blacksmith's bellows.

"Blower" Martin had joined the ship at Gibraltar, replacing a bag o' wind called Be

Ramage still missed Baker. When they had captured the island of Curaçao he had a good set of officers: William Aitken was first lieutenant, Baker second, Wagstaffe third and young Kenton fourth, with Renwick commanding the Marine detachment. Considering that the Calypso herself had not been engaged, but only a boarding party, the casualties had been heavy - himself bowled over with a musket ball in the left forearm and a scalp wound, Renwick with a ball in the right shoulder, and Baker killed outright. So Aitken had remained first lieutenant, he had made Wagstaffe second, Kenton third, and this elegant young nincompoop Be

Ramage was not sure what had gone on in the gunroom during the Calypso's Atlantic crossing, but Be

When Ramage had reported to the port admiral next day and asked for a replacement, the admiral had bellowed (he rarely spoke in anything less): "Count yourself lucky to have got rid of that lapdog of Admiral Foote's. Wonder you accepted him. Still, your fellows made his life a misery - and now I'm landed with him. There's no commanding officer I dislike enough to inflict with him, so he goes back to England as a passenger by the next ship and Their Lordships can find him a berth - if they confirm his promotion. Now you want a replacement, eh?"

Ramage had agreed politely that the Calypso stood in need of a fourth lieutenant.

"What happened to your original one?" the admiral demanded.

"Promoted to third, sir."

"What happened to the third, then?"

"Promoted to second."

"And the second ?"

"Killed in action, sir."

"Hmm. So you can't be as bad as your late fourth lieutenant implied. He told me you were always changing officers. I'm asking because you are going to be landed with one of my. favourites. He's a good lad, passed for lieutenant five months ago, plays a flute -"

"Aflute, sir?"

"Yes, you know, a hollow stick with holes drilled in it. You blow into it with your mouth like this." The admiral gave a passable imitation of an old dowager sucking a bitter lemon. "Very tuneful."

"Er - I'm just wondering, sir," Ramage said warily, "if this young man really is suited to a frigate: after all, it -"

The admiral roared with laughter and slapped the table in front of him with a hand the size of a leg of mutton. "Damme, Ramage, if you don't have the sheepish look of someone trying to jilt the parson's daughter! Don't fret - this lad's a favourite o' mine because he's good and because his father is the master shipwright at the Chatham yard. He built his own skiff when he was eight and rowed all the way to Sheerness on its maiden voyage." The admiral looked directly at Ramage. "I have fresh orders for you from Their Lordships, and I know what they are. I want you to take this lad because he can learn a lot from you - if he lives long enough."

"Those sort of orders, sir?"

"What? Oh no, I'm thinking of the lad. He's too keen, if anything. You've learned already there are two kinds of keen officers - those who get killed in a blaze of glory, and those who survive in a blaze of glory. I see new hair growing over a pink patch on your scalp, there are a couple of scars over your right eyebrow, and you're holding your left arm stiffly, so you've been wounded a few times - unless you were careless when getting out of some trollop's bed. I'd say you haven't made up your mind yet - or fate hasn't, rather - exactly which of the two you are. If you survive, and young 'Blower' Martin does, too, I hope he'll go a long way with you."

"Blower" Martin had since proved to be a very capable and popular young officer: his nickname was intended to tease because he could make a flute do almost everything except actually talk, and many an evening as the Calypso struggled eastward along the Spanish coast against light head winds young Martin had started playing with perhaps a couple of people listening, and ended up with nearly every off-watch seaman in the ship squatting nearby, perched on guns or just lying back on the deck planking. Sometimes they danced, applauding themselves between tunes.

Thin-faced with wavy brown hair, slightly built and nervous and jerky in ma

Like Paolo, he had to make the best of a prize at anchor, but that would be exciting enough. Ramage recalled the first time he had ever been sent off in command of a prize as a young midshipman. For a few hours he felt the greatest sense of freedom that he could ever remember - but the feeling had lasted only until sunset. Then the prospect of a long, dark night had brought doubts and fears . . . confidence had vanished, black clouds on the horizon looked like the outriders of the most terrible storm, the sea had suddenly become vast and the prize had shrunk. His confidence returned with daylight, and he found he had learned his first real lesson in leadership - that it was a lonely business, but no more difficult in the dark.

Lonely, but exhilarating: here he was sitting in an armchair in the coach of a frigate he had captured and now commanded, and he was back in the Mediterranean with the kind of orders he had always dreamed of getting. They said, in effect, that for four months you sail round the Mediterranean and sink, burn or destroy everything that presents itself. . .

An idea flitted across his mind and he took out his keys as he went to the desk and removed the canvas bag in the locked drawer. The neck of the bag had several brass grommets worked into it, so that the line passing through them could close it up. Inside was a small ingot of lead weighing three or four pounds - enough to sink the bag and its contents if it was thrown over the side in an emergency. Some captains preferred a wooden box suitably weighted and drilled with holes, but he liked a bag: it was easier to throw and more certain to sink. There was the story of a captain who threw the box containing all his secret papers into the sea but forgot to lock it so that the lid popped open when the lead weight sank it just as the enemy boarding party approached. The signal book, the private signals for three months and his order book had all floated to the surface, where they were fished out by the French. The captain had been court-martialled as soon as the French exchanged him, and dismissed the service. The Admiralty did not give you a second chance where secret papers were concerned . . .