Murmuring 'If you'll excuse me,' to Bennett, he read the copperplate handwriting and stylized wording. The phrases were dignified, those used by their Lordships and admirals for scores of years. They added up to the fact that whatever happened the man giving the orders took no responsibility for the results, while the man receiving them had no choice... However, in this case Admiral Clinton had obviously consulted Steel's List and found that Ramage was senior to Bullivant, and the orders, which of necessity were phrased with no knowledge of what was the matter, gave Ramage authority 'to rectify, make good, issue orders and otherwise do what is required for the benefit of the King's Service in relation to the vessel herein described'.
Ramage folded the orders and tucked the paper down the front of his shirt. 'If you'll excuse me,' he said to Captain Bennett and used his pen to sign the receipt for the orders and for the Signal Book which the young secretary had been holding out.
As he climbed down into the cutter he felt himself being pulled in two directions. Up to the north, something strange was happening to the Calypso, a ship he had come to love and a ship's company he regarded as his own family. Out to the west, L'Espoir was carrying Jean-Jacques and fifty other victims of Bonaparte to Devil's Island, which meant harsh imprisonment probably ended eventually by a quick death from the black vomit.
Ramage watched as the small cutter was hoisted on board and heard Swan preparing to get the Murex under way again. The extra dozen seamen would mean the Murex could stretch to the northward under courses as well as topsails.
As soon as Swan came aft, Ramage handed him the new copy of the Signal Book. 'Have someone sew up a canvas bag and find a weight to put in it. That Signal Book must be kept in the bag and the whole thing thrown over the side if ...'
'Yes, sir,' Swan said. 'Anyway, now the ship isn't deaf and dumb any longer!'
'We might regret that,' Ramage said. 'The admiral will be changing all the signal numbers now the French probably have Murex's original book.'
'Oh no, sir, I forgot to tell you. I was on deck when the mutiny started and the Signal Book and private signals were on the binnacle box. I managed to throw both over the side before the mutineers got control of the ship. I'll take an oath on that, sir.'
Ramage sighed with relief but said: 'I wish you'd told me that earlier. The admiral is already choosing the number to add to all those in the Signal Book, and drawing up new private signals.'
'Well, I know the penalties for signals, so...' Swan said, and both men knew the phrase usually added to them when they were issued. The new private signals handed over by the admiral's secretary, Ramage noted, had two paragraphs of warning: 'The captains and other officers to whom these signals are delivered are strictly commanded to keep them in their own possession, with a sufficient weight affixed to them to insure their being sunk if it should be found necessary to throw them overboard ... As a consequence of the most dangerous nature... may result from the enemy's getting possession of these signals, if any officer... fail in observing these directions, he will certainly be made to answer for his disobedience at a Court Martial...'
Which was why Swan wanted to make it clear that he had disposed of the signals. But he would certainly be tried - a court-martial could clear a man of any suspicion just as well as it could find him guilty.
'You have witnesses?' Ramage said. 'You may need them.'
Swan said: 'Yes, I understand, sir. Phillips saw me, and the two men at the wheel, who did not mutiny.'
'Good, they'll be sufficient. Now, let's start carrying out our present orders. First, steer north-northwest, and warn the lookouts to watch for two frigates, one French-built. Both of them are well to the north of the fleet. We have to visit the northernmost one, the French-built.'
'Like your last ship, the Calypso,' Swan said, smiling at the thought.
'She is the Calypso,' Ramage said, and gestured towards the taffrail. As the two men walked up and down the windward side, out of earshot of the men at the wheel and the quartermaster, Swan pausing from time to time to shout orders through the speaking trumpet to get the brig under way, Ramage described what had happened, and why the Murex was being sent to the Calypso.
'Captain Bullivant,' Swan said. 'Just made post, obviously. We served together as lieutenants in the Culloden.'
'A pleasant fellow, eh?' Ramage said, realizing that Swan would be careful not to criticize one captain to another but hoping the man would realize that he needed to know as much as possible.
'He had his friends,' Swan said carefully. 'His father is one of the biggest contractors to the Navy Board.'
'I heard about that,' Ramage said. 'Salt meat, isn't it?'
'Yes, sir,' Swan said, unable to keep a bitter note out of his voice. 'You know, a cask of salt beef, and stencilled on the outside it says "Contains fifty-two pieces" ...'
'And when the master counts them, there are only forty-seven,' Ramage finished the sentence. 'And although every ship in the Navy notes it down in the log - the contractor's number on the cask and the number of the pieces short - and although the log goes to the Admiralty and the Navy Board can trace the contractor in each case from the number, nothing is ever done about it.'
'But the Bullivants of this world and the people they bribe at the Navy Board get richer,' Swan said, thankful that the new temporary captain of the Murex needed only a pointing finger, not a detailed chart.
The two men walked over to the binnacle, and after a look at the compass card and a glance up at the luffs of the sails, Ramage nodded to the quartermaster.
He was, Ramage noted, one of the original men of the Murex, but Swan had already said that he was only an ordinary seaman. He wondered why the Murex's captain had not rated the man 'able'. Perhaps he had a bad record, a good seaman but a heavy drinker. All too many men disobeyed the regulations and 'hoarded their tot' - instead of drinking their daily issue they kept it until the end of the week so they could get very drunk. They knew before they put aside the very first tot that if they got drunk they would probably be flogged, but all too many seasoned topers reckoned a dozen with the cat-o'-nine-tails a fair exchange for ending Saturday night in an alcoholic stupor.
With the wind almost on the beam, the brig was sailing fast. Already the line-of-battle ships making up the fleet were on the Murex's starboard beam, and in half an hour they would be well aft on the quarter, their hulls beginning to sink below the horizon, hidden by the curvature of the earth.
There was little for him to do until the Blackthorne and the Calypso were sighted, so he went below to talk to Sarah. As soon as he saw her sitting on the settee, he remembered the family's London home in Palace Street. There Mrs Hanson, the butler's wife, was also the housekeeper, and Ramage had once heard her describe a disgruntled person as 'on the turn, like yesterday's milk in a thunderstorm'.
Sarah's expression showed that she was far from happy; Mrs Hanson would regard it as definitely curdled. No wonder the Admiralty Instructions forbade officers to take their wives to sea in wartime!
'So you're back,' she said bleakly. 'Are we bound for Plymouth now?'
'No, not yet,' he said. 'One of the frigates with the fleet is the Calypso and -'
'But she's yours!' Sarah exclaimed, suddenly coming to life.
He shook his head. 'With war breaking out so quickly and the First Lord having to send out a Channel Fleet, he would have taken every ship that could get to sea. Obviously the Calypso had not been paid off, so as I wasn't there a new captain was sent down and he took her round to Plymouth to join Admiral Clinton.'