As Ramage watched the lighter eastern sky push the darkness westward he felt his anger growing with the whole of the present system of command in the Royal Navy. It meant that no captain depending on his regular pay to support a wife and family dare take a risk where failure could blast his career. There were a few exceptions - very few indeed, and Rear - Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson was the only one who came to mind at the moment.
The officers who could and did take risks with their careers in order to save lives tended to be men who had private incomes. Alexander Cochrane, for instance, who was heir to the Earl of Dundonald, and although there wasn't much money in the family, it was just enough to make sure that Cocky would not starve if the Admiralty court - martialled him over one of his wilder exploits. Not that so far they had any reason to bring him to trial; he took quite fantastic chances - but he succeeded and his men worshipped him.
There were of course stupid officers, rich and poor, who took risks simply because they lacked brains; the kind of men who gambled every penny they had on the turn of a dice without realizing that, even if they won, the low winnings compared with the high stake they could lose made the risk absurd - . No, he was thinking of intelligent men; men like Aitken, who had travelled a long way from a widowed mother and that grey stone cottage in Perthshire; who had managed by sheer ability and bravery to get well up to windward in his career, but who in a very few years would be unable to risk losing it.
Which, Ramage thought bitterly, boiled down to the fact that all too often the commander-in-chief and the Admiralty judged success by the size of the butcher's bill. An action in which a French frigate was captured by a British one which lost fifty men killed and a hundred wounded was regarded as a great victory, without anyone questioning whether the casualties were necessary. After all, the French frigate was captured . . . capture the enemy and no one questions the casualties. But capture the same frigate with only half a dozen casualties and the captain was given little credit, authority shrugged its collective shoulders and commented that the French were poltroons.
Perhaps it was the right attitude: Their Lordships could not be expected to weep because a hundred men died in a battle. If they did, the Admiralty would cease to function; no one would dare give orders. No admiral could order a ship into action if he stayed awake at night thinking of all the women who would be widowed, all the children made fatherless, as a result of his order. Admirals had to have hard hearts, and in his experience most of them did anyway, as well as an appreciation of captains responsible for payments into their prize accounts.
The trouble arose when a captain knew his ship's company too well; when he knew each man's quirks and habits, recognized his accent out of a dozen others, knew of his hopes and fears, perhaps had been asked for advice concerning some wayward wife or errant son. Then the question of taking a risk and hazarding his future did not apply. The captain was involved: he was the father of a large family.
Take Jackson, for instance. The muster book merely listed him as Jackson, Thomas, American, born in Charleston, Carolina, volunteer. Then there was Stafford, William, born in London, prest, and Rossi, Alberto, born in Genoa, volunteer ... There were up to fifty other men now in the Calypso who had served with him for two or three years and sometimes more; who had been with him, for example, when the Kathleen cutter was rammed by the Spanish three - decker and reduced to kindling; had been in the Triton brig in various actions and saw her end up dismasted and wrecked on a coral reef . . . Yet men like Jackson, Thomas, had been with him when he rescued Gianna from the beach in Tuscany, with Bonaparte's cavalry galloping at them and Jackson making weird noises in the darkness which scared off the horses.
There was so much to remember; so many shared experiences with these people, men like Southwick, for instance, and more recently Aitken, Wagstaffe, Baker and young Lacey astern there in La Creole. If any one of these men was killed in battle he would mourn them like - like what, a brother, a nephew, an uncle? No, like one of his men; a curious relationship that encompassed all the others. With Southwick, for example, there was the combination of an eccentric uncle and an erratic nephew. Jackson, tall and sinewy, his sandy hair thinning, was like the most valued of family retainers. Officially he was the captain's coxswain, but over the years he had become the equivalent of bodyguard and head gamekeeper. Jackson had saved his life several times; he had saved Jackson's. There were no debits or credits, only mutual respect.
And Stafford. Not to put too fine a point on it, Will Stafford was a bright - eyed young Cockney picklock at the time the pressgang took him up, but even if his boyhood had been spent burgling, the result as a young man was a fine seaman, fearless and loyal in a way that reminded Ramage of old stories of knightly chivalry. Stafford could just about write his name with much effort and tongue protruding, but he would give his life for his friends, men like Jackson and Rossi. He had an engaging way of mispronouncing words, and Jackson patiently corrected him.
Rossi was the third man about whom Gianna always enquired in her letters. Plump, black - haired, olive - skinned and jolly, he was a Genovesi; had left Genoa in a hurry, hated the French with a deep bitterness, was proud - and completely loyal to his adopted country. He was a volunteer and, as far as Ramage could make out, had joined the Navy because it gave him the best opportunity of killing Frenchmen. He had left Genoa before the conquering French arrived there to set up a new republic, and no doubt the city records would show that the authorities did not believe the story that Ramage had heard - that Rossi had killed the other man in self - defence - but Ramage took the attitude of most captains: that a man's life before his name went on the ship's muster list was his own affair.
Rossi was inordinately proud of Gianna: proud that the woman his captain loved (that was no secret in the ship) was Italian. He might have a slight and secret reservation because she was not a Genovesa, but Volterra was in Tuscany and near enough to be acceptable. He would not have accepted a Neapolitan, a Sicilian or a Roman, and might have been doubtful about a Venetian, but a Tuscan was a neighbour, almost a paisana. Almost, but not quite; Tuscany was a different state; simply close to the Republic of Genoa.
Both Stafford (to whom she was invariably 'the Marcheezer', with Rossi trying to correct him, although the Cockney's tongue was incapable of uttering 'Mar-kay-zer') and the Genovesi regarded her as the most beautiful woman they had ever seen, and Ramage wondered if they speculated whether she would marry the captain. Ramage sensed that Jackson had no doubt, but Jackson's relationship with Gianna was slightly different: he had been with Ramage when they had searched an Italian town for a doctor to save the life of (as they thought) a dying Gianna.
A bellowing beside him made Ramage go rigid with surprise, but it was Wagstaffe answering a hail from the main - masthead, whose lookout then reported: Horizon clear to the south and west, sir, only thing in sight is land to starboard.'
It was almost as if the ship shrugged and sighed with disappointment. Southwick sniffed, Wagstaffe rapped his knee cap with the speaking trumpet, a frustrated Aitken muttered some Scottish oath, and in the half - light it seemed that the men slumped at the guns.
No French frigate. She was still at Aruba. He looked astern - La Creole was so close it seemed her bowsprit and jib - boom would soon ride up over the Calypso's taffrail. Lacey's lookout - Ramage could just make him out, a fly clinging to the mainmast - would also be reporting an empty horizon, and the schooner's men would be equally disappointed.