But the indomitable Sir Jason had come out (with embittered wife, servants terrified of sickness, many tons of furniture to feed the termites and a vast amount of enthusiasm) in the next available ship and stayed ever since.
Ramage, weary of the gossip, only partly listened to the rest of the tale: in nearly two years Sir Jason had established something approaching a Florentine court: he expected (and received) the obeisance of the Lieutenant Govenor, Chief justice, Attorney General, Solicitor General, Provost Marshal, Judge of the Vice Admiralty Court and various other functionaries, right down to the Fort Adjutant and Barrack-master, the Chaplain and the Collector of Customs.
He'd also been rewarded with the undying hatred of those who, on receiving their appointments in London, had promptly appointed deputies who had gone out to Grenada (at half the salary) to carry out the actual work while they themselves stayed in London, using the remaining half of their salaries to supplement their incomes.
But Sir Jason had put a stop to that—the same ship that brought him to Grenada took back to London stem warnings to the absentees that in time of war all office-holders should be in die island, not their deputies. When one or two of mem had not even bothered to reply to his peremptory letters, he had written directly to the Secretary of State who—according to Wilson—quickly weighed up which could make the most trouble, opted for Sir Jason and bundled the errant office-holders off to the island.
But poor Sir Jason (by this stage in Wilson's narrative Ramage was more than sorry for the Governor): after six months he had finally realized that not only did Grenada 'society' rate somewhere around the level occupied by bodes and valets in less fashionable London houses, but it was about as intelligent, interesting and vicious. His wife, who had spotted mat within a fortnight of arriving, now re-minded him of it daily.
The widespread revolt in the island before Sir Jason arrived, from March 1795 until March 1796, when die Frenchman Fedon led die slaves in a bloody insurrection, had only served to magnify Sir Jason's inadequacies as a Governor, whatever his skill as a man of business, and was one of the reasons why Wilson had been installed as military commander with—as he pointed out with some bitterness— the usual instructions from the Government which gave him all me responsibility for me island's defence but no powers to carry it out Since the Governor's mistakes and vacillations had not brought any reprimands from London, Sir Jason regarded Wilson not as the military commander but as the man responsible for seeing that all the troops were smartly turned out in the Governor's honour on every possible occasion. In fact the soldiers were known locally as 'Fisher's Fusiliers'.
'No manoeuvres allowed,' Wilson commented sourly. 'Governor's orders, of course, in case they get their uniforms torn. The damned men haven't marched five miles in the past twelve months—except to parade at die Governors receptions.'
Out of all this, Ramage was interested in two facts: first. that Sir Jason's social uncertainty had turned him into such a snob that (according to Wilson) his constant companion was the Royal Kalender, with the pages containing the arms and mottoes of the peers of the realm, family names and heirs, almost worn out during the time he'd taken to learn them all by heart. And secondly, with this overbearing snobbishness went a querulousness which sprang from his complete lack of understanding of the functions of a governor.
A formidable combination.
And a moment later Wilson bore out Ramage's fears, complaining it was impossible to get Sir Jason to make any of the major decisions which only the Governor could make.
Through fear of making the wrong decision (which he hid by a pretended disdain of what he preferred to label as mundane matters beneath his notice) he made none. The result of such inaction, Wilson said bitterly, was often worse than a wrong decision...
Wilson had begun his story about Sir Jason in the carriage taking them both up to Government House; but the latter part had been continued in one of the Governor's drawing-rooms with Ramage standing at the window and looking down at the harbour and lagoon below. Ramage glanced at his watch and then at Wilson slumped in an archair puffing a second cigar.
Within minutes of the Triton anchoring off St George Ramage had gone on shore and up to Fort George to see Wilson who, in the four days that Ramage had been away, had obviously undergone a considerable change of heart.
Where Ramage had originally met rudeness, he now found genuine politeness; in place of an arbitrary 'You'll-do-as-I-say' manner he found a man anxious to hear his views, ideas and plans. And after hearing Ramage's theory that a spy was at work in Grenada he spent five minutes pacing up and down his office, heels grinding on the stone floor as he turned, and using language generally monopolized by cavalry officers' grooms in the privacy of the stables.
To Ramage's surprise he discovered—when Wilson stopped because the effort made him too hot and breathless— that the object of the Colonel's wrath was not the privateers but Sir Jason Fisher.
The reason was even more surprising—after the Triton sailed Sir Jason had become even more querulous (hitherto regarded as impossible) when he discovered that apart from failing to call on him, Ramage had sailed for Martinique, leaving orders endorsed by Wilson that the laden schooners waiting in the harbour were not to sail until the Triton returned.
Wilson was summoned to Government House where, for more than an hour, the Governor had treated Grenada's military commander more like a barrack-room orderly. .
But Wilson bad refused to budge over the sailing orders: as he explained to Ramage, realizing he bad not the authority himself he'd looked up the regulations and discovered that among those who had was the 'Senior naval officer upon the Station' and among those who had not was the Governor— for once a fortunate oversight by the constitutional lawyer who had drafted the original regulations.
When he had pointed all this out to Sir Jason, the Governor had been outraged, swearing he could overrule an admiral, let alone a lieutenant. Could, he declared wrathfully and, damnation take it, he would.
Fortunately, after Wilson had left, the man had obviously resumed his habit of avoiding decisions, so the schooners had not sailed. In the meantime Wilson had copied out the relevant section of the regulations and later handed it to Ramage.
Now, as Ramage waited with Wilson for the Governor, he began to grow impatient: Sir Jason had received them with a chilly hauteur—or what the poor fellow thought passed for it—and, as soon as they had sat down, excused himself 'for a few minutes' on the score of 'having urgent work to attend to'. The only trouble was, as Wilson was quick to point out when the door dosed behind the man, that he had sounded more like a butler excusing himself for a few minutes while he refilled a coal scuttle.
Nearly thirty minutes... Ramage had a lot to do. It was now three o'clock and it would be dark in less than four hours. One more schooner had finished loading and Wilson had already warned him that Rondin was making trouble, apparently offended that Ramage had not told him he intended going up to Martinique in me Triton. 'How long is he going to keep us waiting?' Wilson growled.
For an answer Ramage walked across the room and tugged the red bell cord. To me devil with governors; his orders came from the Admiral and time was short enough without wasting it on the Sir Jasons of this world.
'May I use your carriage?' he asked the Colonel. 'I'll send it back as soon as it's taken me to the Careenage.'