Hungerford led the way down the companionway and directed the Calypsos to their seats. The master of the Earl of Dodsworth sat at the centre of his table, his back to the sternlights, with the Marquis on his right and the Marchioness to his left. Aitken was on the Marquis's right, Southwick at the Marchioness's left, with a woman passenger separating Martin from Aitken and Orsini from Southwick. Strictly speaking, Southwick as a warrant officer was junior to Martin, but Southwick clearly was one of the Marchioness's favourites.
Ramage found himself seated exactly opposite Captain Hungerford, with Sarah on his right and Bowen beyond her. On his left was another woman passenger who, had Sarah and her mother remained in India, would have been the most beautiful woman on board the Earl of Dodsworth, and she seemed to accept her secondary role with good grace, seating herself as Ramage slid her chair with an ease that most women would envy and a softly breathed warning to Ramage not to hurt his arm.
As soon as everyone was seated, Hungerford rose and took a deep breath. 'My lords, ladies and gentlemen: I have three tasks before we begin this dinner. First, for the benefit of our guests, our bill of fare. Pease soup, as you who have voyaged with us so far know very well, is a speciality of this ship and I dare claim it as unique. We have legs of mutton, and can only apologize that it isn't lamb, but our ewes proved barren. There are fowls for those who like white meat, hogs' puddings, hams, duck, pork and mutton pies -' he paused to consult a list '- corned round of beef, mutton chops and potatoes, removed by plum pudding. And port wine, sherry, gin, rum and of course porter and spruce beer..
Ramage glanced at his officers. Martin and Orsini were glassy-eyed with the prospect and Aitken was obviously hearing John Knox inveighing against gluttony and preparing to ignore him. Southwick had that comfortable smile one associated with Friar Tuck, and was surreptitiously undoing a button of his coat.
Captain Hungerford continued: 'So much for what is to be placed before us. I now welcome our guests, only three of whom are known to the majority of you.' With the skill of a man who for years had known that one of the most important tasks of a John Company master was to make the passengers feel comfortable, he then introduced the Calypsos, starting with Ramage and ending with a confident Orsini.
'These are the men to whom we owe first our lives and second our freedom. I believe Captain Ramage (incidentally he does not use his title, so I am being neither familiar nor disrespectful), first boarded this ship in a rather unusual way, and the second time was very very unorthodox -' he paused while the passengers laughed and then cheered and clapped '- so it is my pleasure on behalf of all who voyage in the Earl of Dodsworth, to give you our thanks.'
Ramage was aware of some scraping and scuffling behind him, particularly puzzling because some of the passengers were deliberately not looking in that direction while four or five others' curiosity was winning. Aitken, Southwick and his other officers facing into the saloon were openly staring.
He felt Sarah's hand clasp his beneath the tablecloth and press it (reassuringly? sympathetically? affectionately? It was impossible to tell, and a moment later it was withdrawn). Then Captain Hungerford, unable to restrain a grin, said: if those seated at the other side of this table will turn and face in the direction I am looking...'
Stewards appeared from nowhere to turn the chairs, and as soon as a puzzled Ramage sat down again, facing the length of the saloon with a table to the left and another to the right, he saw in the space between them Wilkins's easel, the one the carpenter had made for him. A green baize cloth covered whatever canvas was on it.
Hungerford said: 'Lady Sarah ...' and she stood up, as though to perform a role for which she had been prepared, and walked to the easel, standing to one side. 'It gives us all great pleasure,' Hungerford continued, 'to ask you, Captain Ramage, if you will accept this as a small token of our gratitude. It will show you something which, I am told, you did not actually see for yourself. If you will go up to the easel...'
She was waiting by the easel and watching him, and the look in her eyes seemed to be giving him some secret message he dare not believe. When he was within three or four paces of the easel she leaned across and removed the cloth with the grace of a provocative dancer, and he found himself on the Calypso's quarterdeck watching the Lynx exploding in a great ball of fire. The painting was so real that in the instant of surprise he nearly flung his arms over his face to protect his eyes from the bulging flame. He looked away and caught her eyes and knew he had not been mistaken those few moments earlier, but there was so much confusion: the Calypso's guns spewing smoke and flame, the Lynx exploding, Sarah's face so close, and -
Quickly he stepped back, bewildered, and almost at once he saw Wilkins and realized that the artist had given him a few moments in which he could pull himself together. Two steps and he was grasping Wilkins's hand, congratulating him, and there was a sudden uproar of cheering, clapping and the clinking of knives tapping glasses. Then they were all shouting 'Speech, speech, speech!' and he turned back to explain to her that for a moment the ball of fire had blotted out everything, and her eyes said yes, she knew, but noblesse oblige, and if it helped she loved him, and one day he would know all about that military uniform . . .
He turned back towards Hungerford. 'I don't know what to say.' He stopped and everyone in the cabin realized that he was simply speaking his thoughts aloud. 'The beginning was just like that, then it all went black . . .'
Suddenly he swallowed, stood straight because the deck-head in the saloon was high, and with what seemed to many of the passengers an easy nonchalance, bowed and said: 'On behalf of myself and every man in the Calypso, I thank you for commissioning, and Alexander Wilkins for recording on canvas, this instant in our lives. I shall always treasure it, and it will hang in my family's house in London so that when in future any of my Calypsos want to come and look at it again, or any of you good people, you have only to knock on the door. I cannot guarantee that I shall always be there because, as you know, I am in the King's sea service, and I fear the present peace will be brief...'
CHAPTER TWENTY
The two surveyors came to his cabin next morning with the draft of the new chart of Trinidade and its waters. With Southwick's help they had determined the exact latitude, and the longitude as close as the Calypso's chronometer would allow. Their task, though, was simple enough. White unrolled the parchment and pointed to the numbers representing heights on land and depths in the water.
'We have to name the hills, bays and headlands . . . We'd like you to choose the first ones, sir! At least, one or two bays have been named already, but...'
Ramage glanced up. 'Who named them?'
'Well, sir, the Marquis and his family - and, well, sir, the passengers in the Earl of Dodsworth!'
Ramage pulled the chart round and stared at the writing. The bay in which they were anchored had, pencilled in, 'Ramage Bay', while the headland forming the southern corner had been called Ramage Head. The next bay to the west, where the only accessible stream for fresh water ran into the sea, had been called 'Calypso Bay'. The beach which the survey teams had used was now 'Potence Beach' - a grisly mixture of French and English, since potence was French for a gallows.
'What will Lord St Vincent think of me if he sees my name written all over the chart?' he demanded.
'The Marquis, sir,' White said hurriedly, 'we mentioned that to him, and it seems he knows the First Lord very well, and had already drafted a letter to him about what you did. Now he's going to say that he insists . . .'