Goddard had ended with his voice ringing through the cabin in what he assumed was an assured and righteous tone, and again Alexis caught Ramage's eye and by an almost imperceptible lifting of her eyebrows asked: "Do we have to listen to that another twelve times?"
An equally almost imperceptible nod of his head assured her and, as if that was the signal, Jenkins turned to the captain on Goddard's right, the most senior.
Holding out the Bible for him to rest his hand on, Jenkins showed the card and the captain, giving his name as John Swinford, repeated the oath. A stocky but lean-faced man, blue-eyed and speaking in a clear but not fussily precise voice, Swinford seemed shrewd - but he was at the right hand of a man who could do him harm by telling tales to the commander-in-chief although that was true for all the captains, Ramage reminded himself.
Jenkins was about to move round to take the next most senior captain, sitting on Goddard's left, when the rear-admiral said: "Carry on down that side of the table - I'm sure that God doesn't recognize the seniority in the Navy List."
Several of the captains gave appreciative smiles but Ramage sensed that had Goddard been a popular man there would have been outright laughs where now there were almost wary grins.
As Jenkins went on to the next captain, James Royce, Ramage sat back and watched Captain Shirley. The man was sitting perfectly still. On the deck under his chair he had several books, one of which Ramage recognized as being the master's log and another, from its shape and size, a captain's journal. He held a pile of several papers on his lap and two or three of them had seals.
What was curious, Ramage thought, was the fact that the man remained absolutely motionless: he did not move his head to follow Jenkins's progress round the table with the Bible, he did not glance at Goddard, and the cabin might well have been empty instead of crowded with witnesses and spectators. He never glanced at Alexis; he did not appear to see the knot of officers whom Ramage recognized as from the Jason. In fact Shirley did not seem to be in any way connected to the present proceedings. It was as though they were all in the front seats in church, but a man sat alone in a pew at the back, ignoring the preacher and never joining in the responses, and completely oblivious of the stirring notes of the organ.
Remote. That word alone described Shirley, and Ramage realized that when he had seen him on board the Jason the man was probably not ignoring what went on round him, he was just detached from it. Most men with papers in their lap shuffled through them at tedious times like these, when Jenkins or one of the captains droned on, going through their own part of the trial ritual. Any other man might look down at the pile of books to reassure himself that he had not forgotten one. But not Shirley. Remote, yes but, Ramage now realized, the remoteness of carved marble or - he could picture one without effort - a scavenging bird waiting on a tree stump.
Jenkins finally administered the oath to the last captain, sitting on Goddard's left, and this brought him into position for the last part of the trial ritual. Goddard stood up and said to the deputy judge advocate: "Give me the Holy Evangelist - now, with your hand on it, make your oath."
Jenkins took a deep breath and with a sanctimonious expression on his face intoned: "I, Hubert Jenkins, do swear that I will not, upon any account, at any time whatsoever, disclose or discover the vote or opinion of any particular member of this court martial, unless thereunto required by Act of Parliament, so help me God."
Taking the Bible from Goddard, Jenkins strode back to his chair with all the self-importance of a bishop's wife. He shuffled through his papers again and, still standing, announced: "It is now my duty to read the letter of accusation against the prisoner."
He gave the paper a brisk shake, as though removing an unsightly crease. "The letter is addressed to the commander-in-chief at Plymouth and is dated on board His Majesty's frigate the Jason at sea. It begins: 'Sir, I beg leave to acquaint you that this day, Captain Nicholas Ramage, the commanding officer of His Majesty's ship Calypso, frigate, did board my ship with a party of his men and did remove me from command, putting in my place one of his own lieutenants, in breach of the spirit of the Articles of War. I request that you will be pleased to apply to the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty for a Court Martial to be held upon the said Captain Nicholas Ramage for the said offence, I am, etcetera and etcetera, William Shirley.' "
Jenkins then sat down with the smug look of a man who considered the important part of his task had been done. The captains had been assembled and ranged round the table in order of seniority; they had all taken the oath; and (unknown to Ramage) because this was now regarded as an important trial, Jenkins had taken affidavits from the witnesses who would be supporting the charges against Captain Ramage and, in accordance with the regulations, had given copies to the commander-in-chief and to Rear-Admiral Goddard as president of the court-martial, "but no other members of the court". The court-martial statutes, as Jenkins knew well enough, made no provisions for copies to be given to the accused. For the time being the affidavits, like grenades, waited in the pile of papers in front of him for the appropriate moment for them to be lobbed into the proceedings.
Goddard looked round the cabin and said abruptly: "All witnesses are to withdraw, except for the first witness in support of the charge."
The scraping of chairs and forms made Ramage realize that several of the men who had been sitting on the chairs and forms and who he had assumed were merely spectators were in fact Shirley's witnesses. He guessed there were two or three dozen, perhaps more. Ramage saw Southwick, Aitken, Bowen, Wagstaffe, the other junior officers and Jackson with three more seamen heading for the door, followed by Sidney Yorke. Ramage was suddenly conscious of a curious hush in the cabin and glanced round to see that Goddard and most of the captains at the table were watching Alexis. If she remained seated, she was simply a spectator, perhaps the wife or daughter of some important person that no one knew; if she left the cabin she must be a witness.
Although she knew none of this, Alexis unwittingly added to the tension. Anxious not to be associated with her brother and wanting to avoid getting caught up in the crowd of men at the door, she waited until the last moment, and then slowly stood up and walked out of the cabin, every man's eyes on her. She knew it and enjoyed it, but had only one of those men been watching, the man sitting in the chair with the provost marshal behind him and the only captain not wearing a sword, she would have walked with the same elegance.
As the Marine sentry now standing guard just inside the cabin shut the door and then stood to attention, Goddard looked across at Shirley (for the first time, Ramage realized) and asked: "Your first witness is ready?"
Shirley slowly stood up. "Yes, indeed, sir."
"Call him, then," Goddard said, already showing signs of impatience.
Shirley beckoned the lieutenant sitting at the end of the front row of chairs who walked across the cabin uncertainly, as though treading on ice. Shirley pointed to a spot a yard or so from Jenkins's chair, where the deputy judge advocate was already waiting with the Bible and a piece of card.
"Put your right hand on the Holy Evangelist and recite this oath." He held up the card and the lieutenant, every movement uncertain and his brow shiny with perspiration, read in a monotone and at great speed: "The evidence I shall give before this court respecting the charge against the prisoner shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God."