And there were Ramages whose bodies had been brought back from distant battlefields to rest in the vaults of various branches of me family; and Ramages lost at sea in the King's service whose very existence was recorded now only by memorial tablets inside the churches.
Thinking of his forebears, it seemed the actual moment of death was not important to record: you died when those who lived forgot your existence. Gloomy thoughts... and he pictured the bird flying over the River Camel stretching away to me port of Padstow. Once one of Cornwall's great ports, it was now being strangled by a sandbar across its entrance—the work, so the local folk had it, of a jealous mermaid—and well named the Doom Bar, because any ship missing the narrow channel through it on the west side (keeping so close to the rocks her yardarms almost touched them) was indeed doomed.
He recalled the flood stream rushing over Doom Bar and up the Camel to cover the sandy stretches exposed by the low tide, floating the schooner lying aground at Wadebridge itself and delighting the ducks and swirling round the granite buttresses of the old bridge. And a mile or so up the valley, laced with sunken lanes, Egloshayle, where on a moonlit night the villagers gave the church a wide berth for fear of seeing a white rabbit with pink eyes—a rabbit who left the man who went to hunt it dead by the church, his chest full of the shot with which he'd loaded his musket And not far away Tregeagle, where one house had regular visits from the ghost of a Cavalier, spurs ringing, curly hair loose over his shoulders.
From Egloshayle the road ran north-eastward to St Kew Highway, with St Kew itself standing back from it. And within a circle of five or ten miles were the villages through which he had been driven as a small child in his father's carriage and later ridden his own horse—Blisand, Penpont, Michaelstow and Camelford, all skirting Bodmin Moor ... He remembered rides from Camelford across the Moors to the two great peaks of Roughtor and Brown Willy, towering nearly 1,400 feet over the surrounding countryside as if the guardians of all Cornwall.
And Gianna would be at St Kew within a few days with his father and mother...
Southwick, standing in front of him, had obviously just asked a question, which he repeated as Ramage looked at him blankly.
'Grating or capstan, sir?'
'What?'
The Master had seen the Lizard disappear from view too often not to guess Ramage's thoughts were either on his home beyond the Lizard or of the Marchesa, and he rephrased the question.
'The floggings tomorrow, sir: shall we use a grating or the capstan?'
'Capstan,' Ramage said automatically, and Southwick thanked him and walked away.
Why choose the capstan? He'd replied without thinking but answered his own question at once. In larger ships it was usual to take one of the gratings covering a hatch and stand it vertically against the bulwark or the fo'c'sle bulkhead. The man to be flogged was made to stand spreadeagled against the grating, and his hands and feet were lashed to it, the gridded wooden bars making it easy to pass the seizings.
Because he was held hard up against the gratings, Ramage had noticed, he could not move an inch to absorb any of the crushing weight of the blows.
But using the capstan, a common practice in smaller ships, was different. The capstan bars, each six feet long, were slotted into the capstan to project horizontally, like the spokes of a wheel lying on its side, at the height of a man's chest— at just the right height to push against For flogging, only one bar was shipped and the man stood as though pushing, only his chest was hard up against the bar, his arms stretched along it on either side.
He was then secured to it by seizings round his wrists and just above his elbows; but the rest of his body was free: he could, by arching his back, move an inch or so, just enough to ride the lash. Little enough, but perhaps it helped.
Evan Evans was putting a baize bag down on the deck after completing the second cat and picking up the third handle. And down below, guarded by Marines, Dyson, Brook-land and Harris would be... Ramage began pacing the deck again, wishing for once Southwick was walking with him, prattling away about nothing in particular.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Next morning after the bosun's calls shrilled and the order was passed—and obeyed—for 'All hands aft to witness punishment', Ramage went up on deck in his best uniform, sword at his side, to be greeted by Southwick, similarly dressed.
The capstan was midway between the wheel and the mainmast, instead of right forward, as in larger ships. Being set aft meant it could be used for hoisting the heavy lower yards as well as for weighing anchor.
The Marines were already drawn up in two files, one on each side of the capstan, with the ship's company formed in a three-sided square round it, the fourth side being the quarterdeck.
With Southwick he inspected the ship's company and was surprised to see they were smartly rigged out in clean shirts and trousers, hair newly combed and re-tied in neat queues, and freshly shaven. Then, with their corporal, he inspected the Marines. Their red jackets were spotless, cross-belts stiff with pipeclay, brass buttons and buckles gleamed, their muskets immaculate, the metalwork looking oily but dry to the touch, the woodwork buffed to a high polish.
Ramage then returned to stand just in front of the wheel. A bright sun shone fitfully through broken cloud, the ship was gently rolling and pitching, the tiller ropes creaked as the men turned the wheel a spoke this way and a spoke that to keep the Triton on course for the rendezvous with Admiral Curtis's squadron. His clerk handed him a sheet of paper and a copy of the Articles of War, and the Marine corporal —who was not carrying a musket since his main role for the moment was to be master-at-arms—stood beside me prisoners.
Flogging a man was more than a punishment; it was a ritual, a long and complicated rigmarole that Ramage could not alter or shorten, whatever his personal feelings. And as he stood there, his left hand on the scabbard of his sword, holding the Articles of War in his right, the three prisoners standing to attention in front of him, the sails overhead drawing in the north-west wind and knowing that below, locked in his desk, were secret and urgent letters from the First Lord to three of his admirals, he recalled a letter from his father congratulating him on passing his examination for lieutenant. He couldn't remember the exact wording but the gist of it was still fresh in his mind.
If you are to be a true leader—a man others follow because he is a natural leader, not just a legal one who has to bolster his authority with his commission and the Articles of War—you will, apart from obeying, have to give orders that make you angry and resentful; nuke you feel that the Articles or the Regulations are too inflexible, forcing you to act unjustly or unreasonably.
Do not forget, however, the Articles and the Regulations have evolved since the Navy first began. No set of rules can cover every eventuality—otherwise lawyers would be out of business. There will be injustices; but when you command your own ship, the crew will be watching you. They know when a shipmate's punishment is just or unjust. If it is well deserved, neither the man nor the ship's company will complain. If it is not, they will soon let you know in a hundred small ways. But of this you can be sure: if you show any signs of weakness—then they'll treat you unjustly, and you'll only have yourself to blame. A weak captain leaves the ship's company at the mercy of harsh officers. A good captain requires the same obedience from his second-in-command as from the youngest boy on board...