"But the packetsmen - how could you be so sure they'd overstay their leave?"
"Seamen get drunk," Ramage said vaguely. "You know that perfectly well."
"Curious how Jackson and his men were waiting for you on the quay, though!"
Ramage glanced up in alarm. "How did you know that? You couldn't see from on board, could you?"
Yorke roared with laughter. "So you have a guilty conscience! No, that was just a guess. You fell for it, though."
Ramage began to untie his stock. "Don't play tricks like that," he said. "My nerves won't stand it!"
Yorke put a hand on his shoulder, his face now serious. "You take the most devilish risks at times. You're lucky to have people like Jackson and Southwick." He paused for a moment. "And Stafford and Rossi and Maxton ... and Bowen ... the whole damned lot, come to think of it. Do you realize those men would do anything for you, and damn the consequences?"
Ramage looked sheepish. "I suppose they would - I've never thought about it."
"You should," Yorke said, a harshness creeping into his voice. "You should, in case one day you ask too much."
"They've all risked their lives half a dozen times for me," Ramage said defensively. "You can't ask more than that."
Yorke shook his head. "You're wrong. You're asking more if you ask an honest man to lie on oath."
"We've thirty-five days or more to argue that point, so leave it for now," Ramage said, pulling off his shirt. Neither man spoke again as they changed their clothes.
When they went through to the saloon a few minutes after the gong had sounded for dinner and joined Bowen, Southwick and Wilson, they found only five places had been set. Mr Much was on watch, the steward said; Mr Farrell, the surgeon, was ill in his bunk, and Captain Stevens always dined alone in his own cabin.
Chapter Eight
When the Lady Arabella finally reached the western end of Hispaniola and beat into Cape Nicolas Mole to make her one stop before stretching north into the Atlantic, there was only one frigate at anchor. While the mail was being brought out, Captain Stevens had himself rowed over to her, returning half an hour later to announce to no one in particular that she had been patrolling the Windward Passage and as far out as Great Inagua for the past two weeks without sighting any privateers. However, he said, there were the usual rowing galleys skulking in and out of the inlets round the coast, waiting to catch someone in a calm, so they had better keep whistling for a good wind.
Within three hours of arriving the packet was under way again, heading north through the Windward Passage to pass the island of Great Inagua before reaching out into the Atlantic. Stevens chose the difficult Crooked Island Passage rather than tackle the Caicos Passage, which usually turned into a beat dead to windward in the teeth of the Trades.
The route was a fitting one for a ship leaving the Caribbean, Ramage thought to himself, combining all the beauty of the Bahamas with most of its dangers. As the packet beat her way through, zigzagging against a brisk breeze blowing out of an almost garishly blue sky, the deep mauve of the ocean turned light blue near any of the many banks before changing to dark green over a rocky bottom or light green over sand. Brown patches warned of rocks with only a fathom or so over them; brown with yellowish tinges told of coral reefs.
Flying fish came up as silver darts to skim a few inches above the sea, rising over crests and dropping into troughs with effortless grace and rhythm; occasionally a shoal of small fish glittered in the bright sun as they leapt out of the water for a few moments in a desperate attempt to escape from some darting predator. What seemed to be a line of dark bottles on top of a low sandy cay suddenly moved as pelicans, drying themselves in the sun, decided that the packet frightened them and hoisted themselves into the air at the end of a long, ungainly run.
The islands themselves varied from Great Inagua, fringed with reefs, low and flat except for a few hills, and the home of pink flamingoes, to Crooked and Acklins Islands, forming a great bight with rolling hills and growing so many herbs that Columbus had referred to them as "the fragrant islands".
Everyone on board the Lady Arabella knew that once the last of the Bahama Islands dropped below the horizon there would be no more land to sight until the packet reached the chops of the Channel, more than three thousand five hundred miles to the north-east.
Up forward, the dozen Tritons were beginning to settle in. The packetsmen's initial resentment that a dozen of their shipmates had been left behind in Kingston was beginning to wear off - or, rather, was being aimed at Captain Stevens and the Mate.
Just before supper on the fifth day out from Cape Nicolas Mole, Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were sitting on the foredeck with one of the packetsmen.
Stafford said: "You was born in London."
The man grinned. "Islington. Me dad took me down to Falmouth when I were a nipper."
"Thought so," Stafford said. "See, Jacko, I recognized 'is accent."
"So did I," Jackson said ironically. "How do you like Falmouth, Eames?"
"Well enough. Busy when a packet arrives or sails, and nice and quiet the rest of the time."
"How long have you been in the Arabella?"
"Just this voyage. I change about."
The idea of changing ships at will was so strange to a Royal Navy man that Stafford said, "Just think of that! Why change, though?"
Eames shrugged his shoulders. "I squeeze another voyage into the year."
"How so?" Jackson asked.
"Well, the Arabella's hard put to make three round voyages in a year, counting docking time, repairs and so on. I like to make four."
"Why? Don't you get paid just the same when she's docked?"
Eames avoided Jackson's eyes. "Oh yes, we get paid just the same. It's just that some of us like the hot weather." He gave a little giggle. "And all the sunshine makes the money grow."
Jackson looked puzzled. "Doesn't make mine grow," he grumbled.
"Ah," Eames said knowingly, "you've got to know what to plant - aye, and where to reap."
"I'm a sailor, not a farmer!"
"Ah," Eames said. "An' that's the difference!"
A call for all hands stopped Jackson asking him any more questions, and when Stafford grumbled later, Jackson said quietly, "We don't have to rush things; it'll be a month before we get back to England."
While Jackson and Stafford talked with the packetsman, Ramage was making his first visit to Captain Stevens' cabin. Although they had met on deck several times and chatted briefly about the weather or the day's run, Stevens had ignored the passengers until, five days out from the Mole, he invited Ramage to his cabin for a drink before dinner.
"My apologies for not asking you sooner," he said, gesturing to a small settee built athwartships against a bulkhead. "Here, let's push that box out of the way so there's more room for your feet."
The box was one of two small wooden crates crudely made of unpainted wood, the heads of the nails already rusting, and from the ease with which Stevens moved it, its contents were light. As if guessing his thoughts, Stevens explained: "Tobacco - some really choice Jamaica leaf. I usually bring a few pounds back for a friend that appreciates it. Have to be careful where I stow it because it absorbs the smell of things like spice - or bilgewater!"
"Now," he said, opening a locker to reveal a row of bottles sitting snugly in a fitted rack, "What's your pleasure? Whisky, rum or gin - and I still have some fresh limes left."