Large or small, right or wrong, it was here in this room that the decisions were made that governed the activities of more than six hundred of the King's ships whether they were cruising the coast of India or the Spanish Main, blockading Cadiz or acting as guardship at Plymouth. If the ships were the fighting body of the Navy, he reflected, here was its brain, working in a long room which had three tall windows along one wall and was panelled with the same oak used to build the ships.
And Ramage saw it was an impressive room which had absorbed something of the drama and greatness of the decisions Their Lordships had made within its walls during the last five score years or more, sitting at the long, highly-polished table occupying the middle of the room.
The high-backed chair with arms at the far end was obviously me First Lord's, and the pile of paper, quill, silver paper-knife, inkwell and sandbox in front of it indicated he probably used the Board Room as his own office.
Ramage, intrigued by several long cylinders looking like rolled-up white blinds and fitted on to a large panel over the fireplace, walked over and pulled down one of the tassels. It was a chart of the North Sea. A convenient way of stowing them. Then he noticed the whole panel was surrounded by a frieze of very light wood covered with carvings of nautical and medical instruments and symbols of the sea.
The instruments were beautifully carved, standing out in such relief it seemed he could reach up and use any one of them. An azimuth overlapped an astrolabe; a set of shot gauges hung over a pelorus; a cross staff used by the earliest navigators was partly hidden by a miniature cannon. And, emphasizing the importance of good health in a ship, especially on long voyages of discovery, the snakes and winged staff symbol of Aesculapius and a globe of the world.
There was what seemed to be the face of an enormous clock on the wall opposite the First Lord's chair, but instead of two hands it had a single pointer, like a compass needle. Instead of numbers round the edge, there were the points of the compass, while the map of Europe painted on its face had the axle of the pointer exactly where London was.
He saw the pointer was moving slightly, ranging between 'SW and 'SW by W. It was the dial that his father had long ago described to him and which, by an ingenious arrangement of rods and wheels, showed the direction the wind vane on the Admiralty roof was pointing.
And it was very old—that much was clear from the map which showed the North Sea as 'The British Ocean'. Calais appeared as 'Calice' while the Stilly Isles were simply labelled 'Silly P.
Each country was indicated by the arms of its royal family, and even a casual glance showed Ramage that some of them had long since vanished, removed from their thrones by death, intrigue, revolution or conquest.
As he reached for his watch he noticed the tall grandfather clock beside the door through which he'd entered. Ten minutes past nine. The figure '17' showed in a small aperture carved in the face—the date, 17 April. Ingenious, yet the clock was obviously very old: the wood was mellow, the metal of the face—which was surrounded by elaborate gilt work—had a rich patina, the mirror on the door was dulled with age, like old men's eyes.
Ramage remembered something his father had told him about the clock: it was made----- 'Good morning!'
Ramage spun round to find Lord Spencer had come through a door at the far end of the room which had been indistinguishable against the panelling.
'Good morning, my Lord.'
Ramage shook the proffered hand.
'Your first visit to the Board Room?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I guessed as much, though your father knew it well enough. Were you admiring the clock or bemoaning the unpunctuality of the King's ministers?' Spencer asked banteringly.
Ramage grinned. 'Admiring, and trying to remember what my father told me about it. And admiring the whole room.'
'I love it,' Spencer said frankly. 'I use it instead of my own office. I'll be your guide before we sit down to settle your business.'
The words were spoken lightly, but for Ramage they had an ominous meaning. Certainly the first Lord was being affable enough, but the family had suffered enough at the hands of politicians for him to be wary.
'Let's start with the clock. Made by Langley Bradley, the man who made the one for St Paul's Cathedral. It's been telling the time and date for nearly a hundred years, so the mirror'—he bent down to grimace at his own image—'has re fleeted every Board meeting since this place was built in 1725.
'These carvings over the fireplace—pearwood, by Grinling Gibbons, as you've probably guessed. He did them in the 1690$ and they were probably taken from Wallingford House, which was knocked down to make room for this building.
'And how do you like our wind dial? I can glance up and see if a nice west wind is keeping the French shut up in Brest, or if there's an east wind on which they might slip out. In fact until I became First Lord I never realized what danger an east wind brings to this country, giving every enemy fleet from the Texel to the Cadiz a chance of getting out of port. Or what an ally we have in a west wind, penning them in like sheep!'
Because of his father, Ramage had known the Spencer family since boyhood. Never very well, but enough to allow the First Lord to relax with a lowly lieutenant for a few minutes.
And now he was impressed with the older man's obvious enthusiasm for his job as First Lord of the Admiralty. But for all that he was a politician; any day a Government reshuffle might promote him to some other post or demote him to some well-paid sinecure like the President of the Council for Trade and Plantations. Or to complete eclipse if the Government fell—which he guessed it might do over the Spithead affair. Yet since Spencer was appointed First Lord three years ago he'd become both popular and respected: an unusual combination. '
If the Board Room was about seventy-five years old, Ramage reflected, it meant members sitting at that table had given the orders which sent Anson on his great voyage round the world in the Centurion. And Captain Cook on three voyages revealing the extent of the Pacific Ocean. And sent Admiral Byng—much too late and with a small and ill-equipped squadron—to defeat off Minorca. Then, as the resulting public outcry threatened to topple the Government, had obeyed its order to make Byng the scapegoat and brought him to a mockery of a trial which led to him being shot by a firing squad on the quarterdeck of the St George at Portsmouth.
And, he realized with a shock, from here had gone the orders sending his own father to the West Indies in command of a similar squadron in similar circumstances. Following the inevitable defeat, similar orders for a court martial had been given and for similar reasons—though his father had been disgraced as the price of the Government staying in power, not shot...
Spencer must have read his thoughts because, his face expressionless, he said casually: 'Yes, some great and some shameful decisions have been made in this room. I can't claim credit for any of the former nor undo any of the latter.'
Ramage nodded, since no answer was needed, but he felt a considerable relief because Spencer had said more than mere words. The trial of Admiral the Earl of Blazey had been a cold-blooded political manoeuvre, but it had also split the Navy.
That had been inevitable because many officers were active in politics or linked by family ties or patronage with leading political figures. They had been quick to strike at the Government of the day through his father—and not a few took advantage of an opportunity to satisfy their jealousy of a young admiral already famous as one of the Navy's leading tacticians. Although several of these men were now dead or superannuated, there were still many in high positions who carried on the vendetta against the Earl's family—helped in turn by the younger officers who looked to them for promotion—and the vendetta had extended to the Earl's son and heir, Ramage himself.