'Exactly the same. If they get sick or starved it shows on their skin, y'know. It goes dull; no gloss to it. Give 'em a few days on bread sopping with palm oil and they soon shine up.'
Suddenly Ramage snapped: 'Fetch m'sieur capitain.' Wheeler gave a start and automatically put his hands on the desk to stand up, before recovering and sitting back in the chair. There was a pallor now under the brown, leathery skin of his face; the eyes were shifty; the skin over the skull taut and bloodless under the tan.
'Sorry, Capting, I don't speak Spanish. Or was it French?'
The smell, the crude deception, the horror of what he knew was below deck, finally sickened Ramage: rubbing the scar over his brow, he could see Wheeler only in a red fog of anger. He knew he could shoot the man with no compunction and was glad he wore only a sword.
'This ship is a prize to His Majesty's brig Triton, Wheeler.
She's French. You're probably the mate, or possibly the bo'sun. As far as I'm concerned you're French too, though for all that Yankee accent I suspect you're English, which would make you a traitor instead. Anyway, you- haven't missed my point, I trust------'
'Don't move, your life ain't worth a candle!' Wheeler snarled, and his right hand came up with a pistol. The thumb moved forward and as it went back there was a click as he cocked the pistol. 'Nor the puff to blow it out.'
Ramage shook his head. 'I'm sorry. Wheeler, it won't do. Don't be a fool------'
'I've nuthin' to lose,' Wheeler almost shouted, revealing an accent Ramage couldn't place more specifically than Midland, 'the Royal Navy's been looking for me for years!'
Ramage spoke loudly and deliberately.
'You won't gain anything by threatening me with a pistol.'
'No?' jeered Wheeler. 'Well, I ain't threatening, I'm promising! Correct Mr Lieutenant, I'm not the Captain of this ship; I'm the mate, but I have a share in her. Correct, she's really French; those papers are forged. Correct she's now a prize to His Royal Majesty King George the Second------'
' "The Third",' Ramage corrected mildly, glancing up at the skylight, trying to gain time.
' "The Third", then, not that it's going to make any difference to you. Correct, I'm as good as your prisoner. And I'll go further—if I was ever brought to trial I'd swing from the foreyardarm, so I've nothing to lose; but so help me God, I'm not going to quit this world alone, Mr Lieutenant. I'm taking you with me.
'If it hadn't been for you I'd have retired rich in my old age. I've a house in Charleston—and every brick of it paid for. Not bad for a man who had "Run" put against his name in the muster book of a British ship o' war only six years ago, eh?
'So say your prayers, Mr Ramage. Your old father's going to mourn you. Yes, I remember him; even served in his ship once. Five, Mr Ramage, start saying your prayers, Mr Ramage, 'cos when I've counted five you're going to be dead, and it's only fitting to give a man time to make his peace.'
He raised the pistol and Ramage was looking straight into the muzzle, which seemed to grow in size as he watched. Wheeler was holding it canted slightly to his left, to be certain the priming powder in the pan covered the touch-hole and there'd be no chance of a miss-fire.
'One, Mr Ramage,' he said, and the first joint of his index finger whitened as it tightened slightly round the trigger. 'Two... I don't see those eyes dosed in prayer ...'
And suddenly Ramage was very frightened and oddly resentfuclass="underline" it was a waste—he was going to the, and so stupidly, at the hands of a trapped deserter.
'Three
After all that... rescuing Gianna, the Belette affair, capturing the Spanish frigate, ramming the enormous San Nicolas at Cape St Vincent----- 'Four...'
Only a few seconds. Gianna would----- A sharp, ear-shattering explosion, a faint crash of broken glass, but mercifully no pain.
Wheeler's hand fell to the table still clutching the pistol and he leaned forward, his head dropping on to his arms as though he was tired.
Ramage, suddenly realizing the pistol had not fired, saw half the man's face was torn away. A moment later more glass fell from the skylight overhead; two feet and then the legs came into sight through the hole, and Jackson dropped on to the desk.
'You all right, sir?'
Ramage swore violently.
'You left that damned late, Jackson!'
The American looked crestfallen. 'Didn't think he'd go through with it, sir. I reckoned he'd stop at three and try to strike a bargain. I had to back and fill round the skylight so my shadow didn't show.'
'Bargain! Bargain—what, with his pistol aimed------'
Ramage shouted, breaking off as he realized the shock was making him lose control of himself, 'Had a bit of trouble on deck, too, sir,' Jackson said laconically, jumping off the desk. 'As soon as I heard him say who he was I had to signal the Tritons to cover the Frenchies —and I was scared stiff there'd be a shot fired. If there had been...'
Wheeler would have shot him straight away, Ramage realized.
'Very well, Jackson, let's get on with it. I want those papers collected and taken over to the Triton—don't let the blood soak them. The real ones are in the sideboard, but clear the desk as well.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sitting in his cabin on board the Triton and reviewing the last couple of hours as he filled in the log, Ramage realized how little his brief written report to Admiral Robinson would tell of the story, because it was impossible to visualize unless you had been on board a slaver.
She was La Merlette of Rouen. Her owners had a cynical sense of humour: 'La merlette'—a hen blackbird. Built ten years ago, 260 tons burthen and ninety feet long on deck, she carried 375 slaves... The captain was a happy and portly little Rouenais who'd immediately stepped forward and revealed his identity when he realized Wheeler had been shot dead.
He was proud of his ship, rueful that his subterfuge had failed, and as he took Ramage round on a tour of inspection was equally proud of the way the slaves were cared for. He could, Ramage thought, have been a vintner proudly displaying his cellar of wines.
And that wasn't a bad simile either, for below deck La Merlette was like a long, narrow and low cellar. The ship was divided into five sections. Forward, the seamen lived in the fo'c'sle and each had a bunk, but since there was less than four feet of headroom, the captain explained, they usually slept on deck at sea in the tropics.
Abaft the seamen's accommodation was the space for the male slaves: a forty-feet-long compartment the width of the ship. Even staring at the slaves, lying, squatting and sitting, Ramage could hardly believe it. There was less than five feet headroom, so he had to crouch as he walked. Running the full length of me compartment on each side were two shelves, the lower about a foot from the deck, the second two and a half feet above the first, and each a few inches wider than the length of the slaves lying on their backs side by side, feet outboard, heads towards the centre-line.
Ramage looked closely at the first few slaves—the only ones he could see clearly since the light from the hatch hardly penetrated more than a dozen feet. They were all secured by hinged metal collars round their necks. Each end of the collar was bent out at right angles to form a flange and had a hole in it. In the shelf beneath each slave's head a slot was cut in the wood so that both flanges when pressed together went through it and a padlock was slipped through the holes from the underside.
Each slave could move his arms and legs—though little good it did, since the collar held his head and he was close between fellow-slaves. A canvas scoop—a windsail—was fitted at the after-hatch to catch the following winds, and the forward hatch was open, forcing a draught through the length of the compartment.