Now Ramage felt the cold of dawn and the more penetrating chill of fear. The black of night was fast turning grey; in a few minutes there'd be no need for lanterns on deck.
He stepped down the companionway and turned forward past the little cabins. As he went through the door in the bulkhead which divided off the officers' and warrant officers' accommodation from the forward part of the ship where the seamen slung their hammocks, he held the lantern higher, so it lit up his face. He had to crouch, since there was a bare five feet of headroom, but he'd learned long ago to walk with his knees slightly bent and back arched so he could keep his head upright.
The air was fetid: it was air breathed too long and too often by more than sixty men, and stank of sweat and bilge water.
Then he was abreast the first hammock which, its shape distorted by the body of the man in it, cast weird shadows as it swung to the roll of the brig.
'Harris,' Ramage said quietly.
The man sat up quickly, carefully keeping his head low to avoid banging it on me beams above him. He was, as Ramage had planned, in an uncomfortable and undignified position.
'Sir?'
'Harris, I can remember when I was a midshipman...'
He paused, forcing Harris to say:
'Yes, sir?'
'Yes, Harris, I remember one poor midshipman cracked his skull. Died five days later. There'd have been trouble if he'd regained consciousness and said who'd done it. He didn't though, and we managed to change a new hammock for the one cut down...'
Again he paused, and he sensed each of the other men in his hammock was feeling the same tension as Harris who, because Ramage's voice tailed off, was yet again forced to say:
'Yes, sir?'
Suddenly metal rasped against metal as Ramage drew his sword: the noise was unmistakable and, watching Harris's eyes following the blade as it came out of me scabbard, Ramage felt more confident.
'You've probably guessed the trick, Harris—we'd cut the hammock down. Only we made a mistake in the dark—instead of cutting it down at the feet end, we cut it at the head end, so the poor mid landed on his skull—not his feet...'
Harris said nothing: he was watching the sword Wade glinting in the light of the lantern as Ramage waved it as though it was a walking stick.
Ramage judged that this was the moment, and said suddenly and harshly:
'Lash up and stow, Harris—and all the rest of you. If you're not on deck in three minutes I'll cut every hammock down. Bring the lantern with you, Harris.'
Putting the lantern down on the deck, he strode back to the companionway. He'd given the order to Harris about the lantern on the spur of the moment but for a particular reason. And the tone of his voice showed them all—-he hoped —that it didn't occur to him they'd disobey.
On deck it was now light enough to see men moving along the top of the bulwark, paler grey patches against a dark grey screen, tucking in the hammock cloths.
Southwick came over.
'Most of these men are sullen, sir, very sullen. Jackson, Evans, Fuller an' Rossi are doing their best, but they've got to watch their step. How are things below?'
'We'll know inside a couple of minutes.'
'The lantern, sir?'
'I left it for Harris to bring up------'
'But------'
'Damn the Regulations, Mr Southwick; I have a reason.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
Snapping at Southwick hurt me old man's feelings, but Ramage was under too much of a strain to explain what seemed to him so obvious. No lanterns without a sentry was a necessary standing order to guard against the danger of fire; but for the moment the risk of fire was of little consequence weighed against getting Harris and the rest of them on deck.
He moved to one side so the mainmast did not obscure the forehatch, which he could just pick out as a square black hole in the deck forty or fifty feet away.
He watched until his eyes blurred. Was—he blinked a couple of times—yes, surely there was a square of faint light framed by the hatch coamings. Southwick tried to see what his captain was watching so intently.
Ramage blinked again and now he wasn't so sure: the hatch looked as black as ever. Suddenly it lit up, showing the shadow of a man with a hammock slung over his shoulder.
Of course it had darkened for a few moments because the man's body blocked out the light as he started up the ladder.
'Here comes Harris.'
'He's got some brains then,' Southwick grunted, 'and wants to keep 'em inside his skull. Was that yarn you were going to tell 'em about the midshipman dying true, sir?'
'No, but I nearly believed it myself as I was telling Harris!'
The lantern swung as Harris walked to the other bulwark and Ramage saw the rest of the men following. One by one they scrambled up and put their hammocks in the netting. Harris said something inaudible to the seaman next to him who edged along the bulwark and pulled out a rolled-up hammock cloth.
'So far so good,' Southwick muttered.
Ramage waited until the cloth was tucked in along its whole length, covering all their hammocks against rain and spray, men said:
'Muster everyone here if you please Mr Southwick.'
The Master bellowed the order and the men shuffled aft The shuffle told Ramage what he needed to know and what he feared: me men had stowed their hammocks, they were obeying the order to come aft to hear what he had to say, but mar was alclass="underline" they were still mutinous—the majority anyway.
He scrambled up on top of the capstan and said loudly: 'Gather round, men.'
And, he thought grimly, this is one of the moments for which all the years of training are supposed to have prepared me.
They grouped themselves in a half-circle facing aft. Apart from the faint moan of the wind, the rattle of halyards against the mast and the slop of waves against the hull, there was a sullen, brooding, menacing silence that could come only from a mob of discontented and potentially dangerous men: a silence like fog soaking cold and damp right through to the skin of the man facing them.
Ramage hadn't rehearsed a speech because his memory was so bad he usually forgot the words. Instead he usually memorized the main points he wanted to make. This morning there were just five.
'Well, men, you know by now I am your new Captain and Mr Southwick is the Master. I know some of you because we sailed together in the Kathleen. The rest I'll get to know very soon. And I have some news for all of you: news the Fleet won't be hearing for a while.
'Two days ago I was at the Admiralty receiving my orders from Lord Spencer, the First Lord. He told me I could tell you the Government has considered very sympathetically the delegates' requests for better pay, provisions and conditions in the Fleet. Because Parliament has to approve any changes, the Government is drawing up a new Act as quickly as possible.'
End of point one, and no reaction from the group, but they were listening intently.
'As far as all you Tritons are concerned, the Fleet's delegates will have to look after your interests—and I'm sure they'll do it well enough—because this ship is under orders to sail at once for Brest and Cadiz with despatches.'
End of point two and the men began murmuring: an angry murmuring, like disturbed bees. Ramage realized that in a moment someone—this fellow Harris for example—would take a pace forward and start haranguing the men. Then, as had happened in the rest of the ships, the officers—he and Southwick in this case—would be bundled on shore. Quiet words weren't working. Very well, now the gambler's bluff was being called.
'In the meantime,' he continued, his voice only slightly louder but the change of tone indicating the importance of his words, 'in the meantime, I want to remind you the discipline and conditions to be maintained on board this ship are those laid down in the Regulations and Instructions and in the Articles of War. No more and no less. But apart from them, let no one dodge his duty—it just means more work for the next man. And remember mis: if you'd been in Bonaparte's Navy, every single one of you would've been hanged by now.'