Yorke stood up and took the backgammon set from a cupboard. "Obviously the Board of Admiralty have something in mind, otherwise they wouldn't have ordered the delay."
"Don't make any mistake about the Board," Ramage said, helping Yorke set out the backgammon. "The Board of Admiralty and a backgammon board have much in common; both depend on the roll of a die. At least, sometimes I'm sure that's what Their Lordships use."
"Who exactly are 'the Board'?" Yorke asked.
"Well, originally there was the Lord High Admiral, but from Queen Anne's time the office has been administered by commissioners - the 'Board of Admiralty', also known as 'My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty', or 'Their Lordships'. I don't think there's a set number, but for the last few years anyway there have been the First Lord, who is usually a politician, and six other members, three of them naval officers and three politicians.
"It so happens that the present First Lord is an admiral of the white, Earl St Vincent, but he succeeded Earl Spencer, a politician. Lord St Vincent has no patience with politicians, so I imagine the prime minister gives him a free hand. Knowing the admiral, I can't imagine him deferring to Addington."
"Are the other naval members of the Board all admirals?"
"Usually, but not always. One of Lord St Vincent's present Board is Captain Markham, whose name must be seventy-five or so from the top of the Post List, while Lord Spencer's had two or three admirals."
"And the whole Board meet to make major decisions?"
Ramage shook his head. "No, a 'Board decision' needs only three members present. I think it is three but it may be four. Commissions, appointments, and orders, that sort of thing, usually have three signatures, sometimes four. I know that three or four Board members call in at the Admiralty in the late afternoon each day to sign documents and letters, but certainly with Lord Spencer - and I am dam' sure even more so under Lord St Vincent - the First Lord makes the major decisions and the Board members sign at the bottom of the relevant pages."
"No discussions, then?"
"Oh yes, the members usually meet daily in the Boardroom. Not all the members, necessarily, but usually the First Lord and two or three members and the Secretary to the Board, who is an important person with a good deal of influence. He gets paid a thousand pounds a year more than the First Lord! It's his job to keep the minutes of the Board meetings and see that decisions are turned into actions. Letters to the Board are addressed to him, and letters from the Board are usually written and signed by him in its name."
"What about the letter?" Yorke asked, nodding at the paper now on Ramage's desk. "Did he sign that?"
"No, because it's from the port admiral here," Ramage explained, "but I expect the original signal to Portsmouth was signed by him."
Ramage, who had finished setting out the counters, handed a leather dice cup to Yorke. "Shake," he said. "Unless you want to find a gipsy to tell our fortunes, let's concentrate on the roll of the dice."
The second week passed with numbing slowness. Yorke usually came over to the Calypso for dinner which was served about two o'clock, and Ramage tried to busy himself each morning with the paperwork necessary when the King's ships were at anchor in one of the King's ports.
Every port admiral had his own quirks as well as his own idea of what information he needed daily from the anchored ships. Most port admirals had their requirements printed in book form: a copy of the Plymouth Port Signals and General Orders was one of the first things Southwick obtained after the Calypso had anchored. Apart from the signals, which ranged from requiring a variety of people "to repair on board the Flag ship, or ship whose number is shown or pointed out by compass signal" to the last one, which was to "Return the Book of Port Signals and Orders to the Flag Ship", the orders were almost bewildering in their attention to detail. And Ramage guessed that in the present situation several people on board the flagship or in the Dockyard were keeping an eye on the Calypso, waiting for her captain to omit sending in even one of the daily returns listed in the book.
One of the earliest orders in the book, Ramage had noted, laid down that "Admirals, captains and commanders are to attend courts martial in frock uniforms with white breeches, unless otherwise ordered."
The rest were mostly routine. "A return according to the prescribed form, is to be made daily to the Admiral, of all men impressed the preceding day: and it is to be observed that men are not to be impressed from outwardbound vessels . . ." In order to prevent any person being improperly taken out of His Majesty's ships, "no stranger shall be admitted on board till the real object for which he comes is made known" - a regulation to protect seamen from being seized for actual or alleged debt. Hard on creditors, perhaps; but a tradesman giving a sailor credit was an optimist.
Ramage, flicking through the pages of the orders, was always surprised by their scope. "Foreign seamen taken into the Service, if found to be married in England, the circumstance to be inserted in the ship's books." And, a page later: "All sick seamen, and Marines, are to be sent to the hospital in the forenoon . . . and are not to be victualled on board for the day they leave the ship" - whereas "Commission and warrant officers (except in the cases of accident or urgent necessity) will not be received at the hospital, unless their tickets are approved by the Commander-in-Chief."
Not all the instructions concerned a ship swinging at anchor and Ramage wondered if a port admiral had inserted one particular order as the result of his own experience or an Admiralty order: "It being a practice with the enemy, when they made a capture, to keep an Englishman in the Prize, to make answer when hailed by a British ship, particular caution is to be observed that no inconvenience occurs by this deception."
A ship's boats were not - except in urgent necessity - to be away at mealtimes: that avoided men missing their food. Working parties leaving the ship were "to have their breakfast before they are sent on duty". Well, he noticed, a captain or first lieutenant observing all the reports he had to make might reflect that those same irritating port orders also gave the men several safeguards.
On Sunday morning, knowing it was his only chance of finishing the remaining paperwork before the trial began again next day, Ramage reached across the desk for the pile of letters, completed forms, reports and surveys placed there the previous evening by his clerk, and started reading through them before adding his signature. He looked at the first one which, with luck, might be the dreariest of them all. "Account of Vouchers for Provisions" it was headed, but the page was divided to allow many more details. "When dated . . . When signed . . . Where signed ... To Whom delivered" were the main questions, but eleven more columns needed precise details of weights and measures - "Bread, pounds . . . Rum, gallons . . . Wine, gallons . . . Beef, pieces . . . Pork, pieces . . . Pease, bushels . . . Oatmeal, bushels . . . Butter, pounds . . . Barley, pounds . . . Molasses, pounds . . . Vinegar, gallons."
The figures meant nothing to Ramage, although once he signed the voucher he would be responsible for its truth. Well, the purser and the master, Southwick, would have cast them up. He signed at the foot of the page and reached for the next sheet of paper.
Signing papers was preferable, he supposed, to listening to Admiral Goddard. No, it was not! Crossing verbal swords with that wretched man certainly had won him no victories in the Salvador del Mundo's great cabin, but Ramage was satisfied that he had put up a good fight. Unfortunately, every time that his sword pierced the wretched man and should metaphorically have drawn blood, Goddard refused to allow it to register. Stabbing Goddard was like fighting a duel with a straw-filled sack.