"Do you think Stevens ever exercises his guns' crews?" Yorke asked quietly.
Ramage shook his head. "We know he hasn't this voyage. I'll tell Jackson to find out."
That night, as the two men sat in their cabin after supper, Yorke came back to the subject. "If we meet a privateer...?"
Ramage sighed: it was a question he had been turning over in his mind since before they left Kingston, and Yorke had not missed the significance of his earlier reference to "If we fight..." Still, there was no point in keeping his thoughts secret. "I can't decide."
"You mean you won't fight?"
"Well," said Ramage carefully, "I'm trying to leave the welfare and safety of you and our splendid soldier friend out of the calculation..."
"Agreed, and no ill feelings."
"Thanks," Ramage said wryly. "The reason is simply that my orders are to find the cause and halt the losses."
"I know that!" Yorke did not try to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“Well, can you tell me the point at which I'll find the 'cause'? What happens on board when a packet is attacked by a privateer-"
"She surrenders," Yorke interrupted. "Even the Post Office knows that much!"
"Maybe she does. Maybe she tries to escape. Maybe she's boarded. Maybe the privateers shoot the rigging away. We don't know for sure."
"There are the reports of the commanders who were captured and exchanged."
"Oh yes - but were they speaking the truth? Although we haven't seen any of the reports, we've no reason to think they weren't - but we don't know for sure."
"What's all this to do with whether or not we fight?" Yorke demanded impatiently.
"The short answer is, the other packets didn't have three extra officers - five if we include you and the gallant Captain Wilson - and a dozen well-trained seamen from one of the King's ships."
"Perhaps that's why they were captured!"
"Exactly. And that's why I'm damned if I know whether we'll fight or not. If we drive off a privateer, what will we find out about the 'cause'? We might get a completely distorted picture. So far we can only guess at what's involved - you once said it must be magic! Well, our very presence - helping with the fighting, I mean - might stop the magic working."
"It might also stop the Arabella being captured - I've no wish to have my throat cut by a privateersman."
"Leaving aside the sanctity of your throat for a moment, isn't that the point? If I'm going to find the answer, wouldn't it be best to let Stevens do what he'd do if we weren't here? And we watch?"
"Who," Yorke said with heavy sarcasm, "reports your finding to My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty after the privateersmen have cut your throat?"
"They haven't cut packetsmen's throats, but anyway I've gone over all that so many times - lying here early in the morning, while you snore in your bunk..."
"Do you want my advice?"
"No," Ramage said emphatically. "Most certainly not; your advice would coincide with what I'd like to do. And what I'd like to do would probably stop me carrying out my orders."
"You think I'm going to advise fighting?"
"Aren't you?"
"No. I speak with all the wisdom culled from forebears who have spent a thousand years soaking up good whisky and eating tons of porridge."
"Speak before those ancient Scots turn in their graves!"
"My advice coincides with what you've decided without realizing it: not to make up your mind until we meet a privateer. Her size, the weather, her position, the way Stevens and his men react: all these will affect the issue."
Ramage nodded. "I've been telling myself I'm afraid of a definite decision, but-"
"That is making a definite decision," Yorke interrupted. "You've decided that the proper decision can't be made until the situation occurs. Until a privateer attacks, in other words. That's definite enough!"
"I'm blaming myself for letting you risk your neck. You should have waited for the convoy."
"Thanks," Yorke said sourly. "I get scared from time to time, but the fact is I came in the hope of seeing some action. Can you imagine how boring it is commanding a merchantman in a convoy? Leading ship in the fifth column ... two cables from the ship on either side, one cable from the next astern ... week after week ... And planters and their wives as passengers, the men sodden with rum and quarrelsome by suppertime and the women frozen in embarrassment..."
"At least you have the company of frozen women. In a ship of war..." Ramage said unsympathetically.
"What have you told Southwick and Bowen?"
"About an attack? Nothing so far."
"Supposing it doesn't happen?" Yorke asked, beginning to undress and pulling his nightshirt from under the pillow. "Just to cheer ourselves up!"
"Well, when we get to Falmouth I see you into the London carriage, and sail again in the next packet for Jamaica."
"Stevens seems fairly cheerful," Yorke said casually. "At least, he isn't as worried as I'd have expected."
"No, I'd be happier if he was more worried." And that, Ramage thought, is something I've only just realized. All the packetsmen on board the Lady Arabella know the odds are heavily against them reaching Falmouth safely, yet only Much seems at all worried. And only Much is unpopular ... Impossible to think why there should be any relationship between the two facts, yet the Lady Arabella seems to be a ship full of contradictions.
"I'm sleepy!" said Yorke. "If this weather holds, we should be in Falmouth a week from today."
"Or St Malo," Ramage said soberly. "It might be an idea to sew some guineas into the padding of our coats - just in case. Living out on parole is probably expensive..."
"Parole!" Yorke sniffed. "They'll never allow you parole! For all the trouble you've caused the French so far, it wouldn't surprise me if they've put a price on your head!"
Chapter Ten
On the following Sunday, when Stevens told the passengers in his usual abrupt manner that there would be Divine Service at eleven o'clock, Ramage had the impression that Sundays would be ignored if Stevens had his way, but that the Mate forced him to conform.
Certainly at the services on the previous Sundays, Mr Fred Much had read the lesson with all the fervour of a revivalist preacher and sung the hymns with a loud and surprisingly good tenor voice. Our Ned also had a good voice, but after watching the Mate's son for a few minutes at the first service, Ramage was reminded of the word unctuous.
Ramage glanced at the mirror and gave his stock an impatient twitch. It annoyed him to have to change into uniform but Southwick and Wilson made a point of it, and at least it gave the cloth an airing - the weather was still humid and warm enough to make mildew grow quickly. He clipped on his sword, picked up his hat and went on deck.
The Lady Arabella was running up to the north-east before a brisk quartering wind, an all-plain-sail breeze from the west with billowing clouds startlingly white in the early autumn sunshine. The seas rolling eastward were the deep blue of the broad ocean and stippled with just enough white horses to emphasize the irregularity of the waves.
He watched as two seamen carried up a small table and set it down just forward of the binnacle box. A short length of line hung down from the underside of the table-top and one of the men passed the end through an eyebolt in the deck, heaved down taut and made the rope fast so that as the ship rolled the table could move only a few inches. A third seaman walked up with a Union Flag which he carefully draped over the table. The altar was now ready.
Mr Much carried out a large brass-bound Bible - Ramage, standing aft by the taffrail, guessed it was the Mate's own copy - and placed it carefully on the table. He then turned and spoke to one of the seamen, who immediately went towards the Captain's cabin. He returned a few moments later, said something to the Mate, and then went on to call the ship's company aft for church. As soon as the men were grouped round the altar, freshly shaven and hair combed and tied in neat queues, Stevens appeared in white nankeen trousers and a dark grey coat, with his usual Sunday black hat perched squarely on his head. He had a weary gait which reminded Ramage of a sad prelate who had long ceased trying to placate a nagging wife.