On the shore just short of the reef two island schooners were lying over on their sides like stranded whales, hove down at the careenage by tackles to their masts so their bottoms could be cleaned. Smoke from the nearer one showed she was being cleaned by the old-fashioned method of breaming, men running flaming torches made of reeds along the planks, melting the old coating of pitch and burning off the weed and barnacles. The other one was already cleaned off, and Ramage could visualize her crew smearing on a thin layer of new pitch before coating it with a mixture of sulphur and tallow, in the age-old battle to kill the teredo and gribble worms who used the planking as both a home and a life-long meal.
Two small cutters were unloading a cargo at the quays; a third was alongside a schooner to which it was transferring its cargo. Obviously the cutters collected freight from the smaller bays and harbours round the island and brought it to St George, where it was transhipped to me larger schooners plying between me islands.
A second schooner farther along the quay was being loaded from carts, the crew hoisting up sacks with a tackle from the mast. A third, beyond it, was almost fully laden. Even from five hundred yards away Ramage could hear the shouting and yelling of a couple of dozen men heaving at the tackles, and pulling and pushing the sacks as they swung on board in a welter of good-natured confusion. To a prying eye, he noted as he turned away, it was obvious all three schooners would be ready to sail in a few hours.
The sun's glare forced him almost to close his eyes as he took off his hat to wipe away the perspiration; then he hitched at his sword belt, straightened his stock and walked towards the military commander's office in the fortress.
The sentry detailed to escort him from the guardroom at the entrance gave an audible sigh of relief, obviously impatient with young naval officers stupid enough not to stand in me shade.
*
Colonel Wilson, upon whom the Governor leaned heavily for advice, was a man who loathed the tropics, loathed his office in Fort George, loathed Grenada, and was within a few paces of loathing all naval officers solely because, unlike his, their stay in the island was always brief.
All this Ramage had already heard in Barbados, but most of it was obvious within a few moments of entering his office after being announced by the sentry—a crudely-contrived insult, Ramage noted, since it was a matter of courtesy that an A.D.C. should have been available the moment the Triton anchored after firing her salute.
'What's your name?' the Colonel barked by way of a greeting. 'What's your business?'
Obviously the Army was no different from the Navy in the low proportion of officers who were also gentlemen.
'Ramage, sir; Lieutenant, commanding His Majesty's brig Triton. You'll have heard your guns replying to our salute as we arrived.'
'Your business?'
A round, red face mottled with purple; two bloodshot, watery eyes astride the bridge of a bulbous nose; enormous ears like handles on a jug; nominally clean-shaven though obviously his razor had been resting for a couple of days; a mouth once firm but the lips now slack and petulant; hands large, flat down on the desk and displaying filthy nails; the cuffs of his shirt dirty and those of his uniform frayed... Snuff had been spilling down the front of his coat for weeks.
Although a half-empty bottle of rum, a glass up-ended over the top, was clearly the most important item on his desk, Ramage realized that the man's shoulders were the most significant part of him. Obviously they had once been braced back with a military erectness; but now they were permanently hunched forward and sagging. He was a symbol of tropical boredom and ill-health. He'd probably seen three-quarters of his regiment dying from sickness and drowned in rum his disappointment at not getting promotion.
Yet the dark rings under the eyes and deep vertical wrinkles each side of his mouth were not entirely due to drink. Probably there was a nagging wife in the background, a woman whose social aspiration had overtaken her husband's ability to buy or obtain promotion. All these things had charged a high price against the Colonel's physique...
But Ramage knew he had to work with the man: his orders were so worded by Admiral Robinson (purposely? he wondered) that although he had to protect the schooners and deal with the privateers, the military commander was responsible for what went on inside the harbour. Which, Ramage suddenly realized, meant that the Colonel could interpret them to say he decided when the schooners sailed.
'From Admiral Robinson, sir,' Ramage said quietly, placing a sealed envelope on the desk.
'Wait outside while I read it.'
Ramage flushed, paused a moment and men turned on his heel, closing the door quietly behind him, and determined to make all allowances for the man's three years' service in Grenada. Three or four minutes later Wilson bellowed for him to return.
'Don't know what the Admiral's doing, sending me a youngster and a brig,' he snapped. As he folded the letter he added sourly. 'Can't show you these orders, they're secret, but------'
'I've already seen them,' Ramage couldn't help interjecting. 'The Admiral showed them to me before they were sealed.'
'Most irregul------' The Colonel broke off, obviously realizing it was unwise to criticize the naval Commander-in-Chief. 'Very well then, you'll sail at once and begin your patrols. Don't want your damned sailors roistering round the town------'
'I think, sir------'
'Don't interrupt—and don't think. I do the thinking. I give the orders.'
The insult was crude, but more important was that the Colonel obviously knew he was overstepping his authority and was testing how far he could go. Ramage sensed that if he was to achieve anything in the next few weeks, now was the time to regain some of the initiative.
'I have my orders from the Admiral, sir. Part of them is referred to in his letter to you, which I've just delivered.'
He paused to let Wilson absorb the point and then added quietly: 'The rest, which aren't referred to, concern the way in which I deal with the privateers, so if you'll forgive me I'll take my leave and------'
'Now Lieutenant,, don't rush things: far too hot for that!'
Wilson lifted the glass off the bottle, took another from his drawer and began pouring.
'A drink, perhaps? I want to hear the news from home. Did you bring any mail or newspapers? All the ladies'll want to hear of the latest fashions.'
The change of face was too much for Ramage.
'No mail or newspapers, sir. And it's a little early for me to have a drink, so if you'll------'
'I won't, so sit down again. Sorry for my temper: never good at the best of times and this schooner business is wearing me down. Dam' Governor sends me notes daily; a deputation of ship-owners is due here this afternoon—the fifth in five weeks. Plantation-owners trot up to Government House every day and since I'm only a soldier I can't do a dam' thing about it except listen to the same old story and make the same old excuses.
'Two bloody frigates patrolling up and down the islands for a couple of months and never sight or sound of freebooters. In fact they more than hinted there weren't any— that the schooners were sailing off and handing themselves over to the French or Spanish. So just when I'm expecting the Admiral himself with a squadron, you arrive! Not your fault; not blaming you, m'lad.'
He paused for a breath, took an enormous gulp of rum, and Ramage noticed the dark patches on his coat showing how much the Colonel was now perspiring: it was running in streams down his forehead, being diverted along his eyebrows, then trickling down his cheeks. Yet the room in the Fort was cool from the breeze. Unwillingly, Ramage began to feel sympathetic: the Colonel was a convenient whipping boy for everyone.