Ramage's Devil

'The cutter is ready to be hoisted out, sir,' Swan reported. 'Two of the Frenchmen, seeing how short-handed we are, volunteered as boat's crew. Six men should be enough in this wind and sea.'

Ramage nodded. 'Someone is standing by to help Bridges with the flags?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And you can guess what the first signal will be.'

'I think so, sir,' Swan said with a grin.

The two frigates, one approaching from the north and the other from the northeast, were a fine sight: both had all plain sail set to the royals and Ramage guessed the one to the northeast was commanded by the senior of the two captains - the other was deliberately letting her reach the brig first.

Sarah, standing beside him and wearing her hastily repaired dress, said quietly as she watched the frigates: 'Should I go below, out of sight?'

'Most certainly not!' Ramage said. 'I'm anxious to show off my new bride! No,' he added, 'we have no signal book and very few men, so we want these fellows to guess at once that something's wrong. We don't want them to rush past hoisting a string of flag signals giving silly orders we can't read.'

'Can they give you orders?'

'Yes, if they are senior. If they were made post before me, in other words.'

'If their names are above yours in the List of the Navy? How will you know that, without looking them up in Mr Swan's copy as soon as you are introduced?'

Ramage grinned complacently. 'I know the names of the thirty or so lieutenants who were above me in my year, and all those in the two preceding years, so it's not too difficult!'

'What do you think will happen now? I was just beginning to look forward to the idea of getting back to London.'

'I don't know. It might be difficult to persuade the Admiral that fifty French Royalists being transported have any importance.'

'Who will the admiral be?'

'I don't know. Lord St Vincent commanded the Channel Fleet until the change of government saw him made First Lord. Now the war has started again, who knows...'

'Perhaps Lord Nelson. You know him, so it shouldn't be too difficult...'

'Perhaps, but I doubt it. After Copenhagen, I don't think the public - which means the politicians - would want to see him doing blockade duty. You don't have to be a brilliant tactician to blockade Brest.'

'No, but you need to be a brilliant tactician if the French fleet sails from Brest and you have to stop it!'

She was sharp-witted and wide awake. Ramage had to admit that, and said: 'You're right, and from what we saw in Brest, that admiral over there' - he nodded towards the British ships of the line beating up towards Ushant - 'will have to stay awake.'

The French coast was beginning to drop below the horizon: the coast of gaunt, high cliffs was now little more than a thick pencil line on the eastern horizon.

Sarah gestured towards it: 'I think our honeymoon is officially at an end now. Have you enjoyed it, dearest?'

'If honeymoons are always as exciting as this, I think I will get married more often!'

She wrinkled her nose at him. 'I didn't care much for the company, but I enjoyed seeing France.'

'Ah, yes, the French way of life. One of the most complex of life's puzzles: how can such selfish people create such an interesting atmosphere? It must be a quirk of the weather,' he added teasingly. 'Take away the wine and the cheese and what do you have left?'

'Lots of gendarmes at the barrières!'

Swan coughed as he approached. 'The easternmost frigate, sir: she's hoisted the Union at the mizen topmasthead and our pendant.'

'Very well, acknowledge and hoist out the cutter.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Swan paused a moment, looking embarrassed.

'Well?' Ramage said, eyebrows raised. 'Say it!'

'I was wondering, sir, if you'd sooner wear breeches - I have a spare pair left which would fit.'

'No - they'll have to put up with a sans-culotte. They're good French fisherman's trousers, and this smock - why it smells more of potatoes than fish!'

A slatting of canvas made Ramage glance up to see the frigate tacking to the northwest. He guessed she would stand on for a mile or so, tack again until she was half a mile to windward of the Murex, and then heave-to.

'They've not heard about the mutiny,' Ramage said loudly and both Swan and Sarah swung round.

'They haven't, sir? How can you be sure?'

'Guns,' Ramage said laconically. 'Neither ship has her guns run out. Not the way you'd approach a mutinous ship.'

And probably all her captain wants to know, so he can make a signal to the admiral and show that he is awake, is what ships we have sighted recently in the area, because we look as though we are on a regular patrol.

The Murex's cutter was hoisted out, Ramage was on board and the men bending their backs to the oars by the time the frigate had hove-to. At the last moment Swan had shouted down that she was the Blanche; that the lookout had been able to read her name on her transom and one of the seamen had recognized her.

Fifteen minutes later the cutter was alongside; the Blanche's seamen caught the painter the first time it was thrown (by Auguste, Ramage noted) but missed the sternfast, but even before the officer of the deck began shouting Ramage had jumped for the battens and was scrambling up the side.

At the top, the moment he stepped on deck, a lieutenant stood in front of him.

'Stand aside, blast you: your captain is the first up!'

The senior officer was always the last in and the first out of a boat, and instead of the expected young lieutenant falling over his sword and with his hat awry, here was a man dressed more like a fisherman!

'I am the captain,' Ramage said quietly. 'Before you -'

'Master-at-arms!' roared the lieutenant, 'get this man out of my way!'

'- before you make a fool of yourself, lieutenant,' Ramage repeated without changing the tone of his voice, 'I suggest you listen because I shan't tell you twice.'

The lieutenant, tall and plump but with a weak mouth and chin hinting at self-indulgence, paused a moment and for the first time looked at Ramage's face. The deep-set eyes, the slightly hooked nose, the thick eyebrows ...

'Who the hell are you?'he demanded.

Ramage realized that this must be the frigate's first lieutenant, and the captain would be down in his cabin.

'Most of the ship's company of that brig mutinied last week and ran her into Brest. I and a few others recaptured her and sailed her out last night. Now, either fetch your captain or take me to him.'

'And who the devil do you think you are, to give me orders.'

'My name is Ramage.'

'Well, you can dam' well - Ramage? Lord Ramage?'

The man in fisherman's clothes just nodded his head.

'Oh my God, sir, I had no way -'

'I know that. Your captain ... ?'

'Of course, sir, at once.'

'Who is he?'

'Captain Wells, sir. Captain John Wells.'

The man then ran the few steps to the companionway, watched open-mouthed by the Blanche's master and a lieutenant of Marines, who stood too far away to hear the conversation but had seen their first lieutenant move like a recoiling gun.

Wells ... John Wells. No, that name was not in the last list of post-captains that Ramage had seen, so he must have been made post after Ramage and therefore was junior to him. That was one hurdle cleared; there was nothing like a little seniority ... And it probably meant that he was senior to the other frigate captain, too. It should not be too difficult to get a dozen men to help sail the Murex.

'If you'll come this way, sir...'

The lieutenant combined nervousness, doubt, uncertainty and embarrassment into an interesting melange which manifested itself in him taking off his hat, turning it round completely, and putting it on again.