Ramage's Mutiny (11 page)

“Who did the negotiating?”

“Summers, sir, but there was a committee of six mutineers he had to report to. They had to agree to everything.”

“Had the committee decided on the terms—on the price they were going to ask the Spanish for handing over the ship?”

“Price, sir?” Weaver was genuinely shocked. “Oh no, sir, they weren't a selling of her! No, all the terms they asked was to be allowed to live on the Main and start a new life.”

“That was for the mutineers. What about those of you who did not mutiny?”

“That depended on Summers, sir. He had three lists. One was the men to be handed over to the Spanish as prisoners; the second was men who should be allowed to go free; the third them as should get rewards.”

“Were those to be handed over to the Spanish, the men in the first list, those who had not taken part in the mutiny?”

“Not all of them, sir. There was about 25. The cook, some seamen and myself.”

“What about the second list? Were they men who had not been in the mutiny?”

“Yes, sir. You see some of us had upset Summers or Perry, and as a sort of punishment we were put on the first list. They used to go round threatening people. As bad as Captain Wallis, they was. Them as hadn't took part in the mutiny and hadn't fallen foul of Summers went on the second list.”

“The Spanish authorities agreed to all this?”

“They did eventually, sir, but at first they thought it was some sort of trap. They insisted on taking nearly everyone on shore in the boat, twenty at a time. They brought out more Spanish seamen each time they came back. Then they tried to sail her into the anchorage.”

“Tried?”

“Yes, sir; they got her in irons, and eventually Summers took the conn and brought her in.”

“How do you know that—surely you had been taken off as prisoners?”

“No, sir, the prisoners were put in irons with a guard of Spaniards. We got worried once when the ship touched a rock and we was all trussed up, but she came off all right.”

Edwards tapped with his gavel. “The court will adjourn until eight o'clock tomorrow.” Only then did Ramage, glancing at his watch, realize they had been listening to evidence for more than five hours.

W
HEN THE court sat again next morning Weaver was back at the end of the line of prisoners while Gowers read aloud the minutes of the previous day's hearing. Although all five captains had avoided discussing the trial, either when the previous day's session ended or before today's began, they knew that the pile of papers covered with Gowers's spidery writing formed the worst condemnation of a captain in the history of the Navy.

“Breadfruit Bligh” had been sent off the
Bounty
by her mutineers, but he was still alive—indeed, the last Ramage heard of him he was commanding a 74, as unpopular with the Admiralty as with his ship's company. Bligh had been too free with the cato'-nine-tails in the
Bounty
but compared with Wallis—Ramage did not doubt Weaver's story and knew that his fellow captains agreed—Bligh was no more violent than one of Mr Wesley's preachers.

Gowers's voice droned on, but he had made a good job of the minutes: it must be hard to concentrate for hours on end. Finally he finished and told Weaver: “You are still on oath: take up your position again as a witness.”

Captain Edwards had several slips of paper in front of him, and Ramage realized that on each was written a question. It made it easier for the deputy judge advocate if he was given a written question immediately it was asked: he simply numbered it and wrote down the number and corresponding reply in his rough copy of the minutes.

“You described yesterday how the
Jocasta
arrived at La Guaira. Relate what happened to you after the ship came to an anchor.”

“We prisoners was kept on board two days and then taken on shore under guard and lodged in the town jail. Five days later we were told we would have to work for our keep, and if we didn't we'd starve.”

“What work was this?”

“Helping build fortifications at La Guaira, sir. Breaking up rocks and carrying them to the masons.”

“For how long did you do this work?”

“Until the fortresses was completed. Fourteen months, sir.”

Breaking up rocks under a scorching tropical sun: for weeks the sun would be directly overhead at noon. It said much for Weaver that he had survived.

“You received pay?”

“They called it subsistence money, sir, and we never actually received it. They used to set up a table every Saturday evening, at the end of the week's work, count out the money due to each man and call out ‘is name and tell ‘im ‘ow much it was. Then they tipped all the money back in the bag and said it was being taken to buy our food. I s'pose the paymaster took it; they're a sticky-fingered lot, those Dons.”

“When the fortifications were finished, at the end of the fourteen months, what happened to you then?”

“They freed us all. Them that survived, anyway: eight had died. They said we could live in La Guaira or we could leave if we wished.”

“What did you do?”

“I ‘ad to go into the ‘ospital for four months. I ‘ad such sores on me ‘ands from ‘andling the rocks, and they spread over me back when the sun burned cracks into the skin. After that I tried to find work but there weren't none. I tried to find some of the others what was in the prison with me, but by then they'd all gorn to other places to look for work.”

“What about the mutineers?”

“Some of them was still in La Guaira with jobs. A few of the committee was still there, and these three,” he pointed to the prisoners. “The Spanish had paid them a reward so they didn't have to work, but by the time I saw them they'd just about spent all their money.”

“Did you stay in La Guaira?”

“No, sir. I signed on in a Spanish coasting vessel what was going to Barcelona, down the coast. Just that one voyage. I was still there in Barcelona when the
Sarasota Pride
came in, and I met one of her men who got me signed on. Then I found out that Summers, Perry and Harris was on board. They'd joined at La Guaira. But I was desperate to get away, so I just swallowed all their insults.”

“What happened to the
Jocasta?
”

“They kept her at La Guaira for several weeks—I don't recall exactly how long, sir. Then they took her along the coast to a place called Santa Cruz, leastways that's what Summers told me. They gave her some Spanish name.”

“Is there anything else concerning this affair that you should tell the court?”

“I don't believe so, sir.”

“Very well,” Edwards said. He looked across at Summers. “Do you have any questions to ask the witness?”

Summers shook his head but Edwards snapped: “Say ‘Yes' or ‘No'; it has to be recorded in the minutes.”

“No, sir.”

“Did you have any questions to ask the previous witness, Lieutenant Aitken?”

“No, sir.”

Edwards asked the other two men the same questions, but neither had anything to say.

“You may stand down, Weaver. The court has some questions to ask the other prisoners.”

He pointed to Summers: “Do you deny you were a ringleader in the mutiny, and later elected captain of the ship?”

“No, sir,” Summers mumbled. He had his hands clasped tightly and he lifted them from time to time, as if in an obeisance, to wipe away the perspiration streaming down his forehead and into his eyes, making him blink as though surprised by a bright light.

“You were the man who suggested it and planned it,” Edwards said. “Do you deny that?”

“No, sir.” He suddenly straightened himself up and said simply: “T'was my idea and my plan, sir.”

The confession—though Ramage sensed that the man was in fact making a claim—took Edwards by surprise. “You alone?”

“At first, sir. Then I persuaded some of the others. Soon there was forty or fifty—more than Weaver knew about.”

“Why did you want to murder all the officers and run away with one of the King's ships and hand her over to the enemy?” Edwards asked the question quietly, speaking slowly and distinctly. “Now, think carefully before you answer.”

“I did all the thinking two years ago, sir. You see, sir, he had us trapped, the Captain did. He weren't quite right in the head. He reckoned every man's hand was against him, officers and seamen and Marines, all in a big conspiracy. Conspiracy, that's what he always called it. If a tiny bit of grease dripped out of the sheave of a block—it's bound to ‘appen in the ‘eat of the sun—and made a spot on the deck, he reckoned someone did it a'purpose to upset him.”

Summers was speaking slowly, watching Gowers to make sure he wrote down his words. Ramage saw the man was changing as he told his story; he was like a wilting plant recovering after a refreshing shower of rain. The shifty look was going; the narrow face was flushed and Ramage wondered if in fact the man was normally plumper, reduced now to a skinny wreck by two years of living in the shadow of a noose.

“He was doing us all in, one after the other: we was livin' like animals in a trap, sir. Nothing pleased ‘im; he attended all sail-handling with a watch in ‘is ‘and. Officers were punished, too. Many a time one of the lieutenants was put on eight-hour watches—eight on and four off, so half the time there'd be two of ‘em on watch, ‘cos the rest stood their normal watches. They was like ghosts from being so short of sleep.”

Edwards held up his hand: clearly he regarded this as having nothing to do with Summers's guilt—that had already been established by Weaver's evidence—and despite his earlier determination that no one, captain or admiral, would be whitewashed, he was alarmed by Summers's revelations. But the seaman would not be silenced; he was reliving those months—Ramage realized it might have been years—on board the
Jocasta,
and this was the first time he could tell the story to someone he regarded as “authority.”

“He had us trapped, sir—you've got to understand that. We was always ready an' willing to fight the French and the Dons—he knew that. But when the last man fell and was killed because the Captain always said he'd flog the last man down, we knew we had to kill him or he'd kill us. T'wasn't the first time a man had died like that, sir; he'd been doin' it for six months and three men had already fallen. We dreaded seeing a squall come up, sir: putting in a reef, letting fall or furling sail—every time it meant a flogging for someone. You know how many times a day there's sail-handling of some sort.

“In Port Royal we daren't do nothing about protesting in case he charged us with ‘mutinous assembly'—if he saw more'n a couple of men talking together he'd flog ‘em because he reckoned they was plotting. We couldn't think of no way of escaping from him without taking the ship, sir.”

“But you killed all the officers!” Edwards interrupted harshly.

“As God's my witness, sir, we didn't intend to. We was going to release the twenty-three seamen in irons and lock the Captain in his cabin, but someone raised the alarm and the officers came out with swords and pistols an' started fighting, even though we told them we'd spare ‘em.”

“The Captain,” Edwards said coldly. “You murdered him.”

“Yes, sir. An' it happened like this. I led the party what was going to secure him—we had a pair of irons all ready—but by the time we got to the door of his cabin there was so much shoutin' and yellin' all over the ship that he was roused out and waitin' for us, a sword in ‘is hand. A long thin sword, like you use for duelling.”

“So you murdered him.”

“He wouldn't listen to us,” Summers said stubbornly. “The minute I opened the door I told him to submit and his life would be safe, but ‘e just rushed at me with ‘is sword. I was holding a lantern—lit me up but not ‘im o' course—and he nearly spitted me. I struck at him in self-defence, sir.”

Ramage leaned forward and turned to the president. “Could we recall Weaver and ask him about the mutineers' intentions, sir?”

“Good idea. Weaver, step forward. You are still on oath, remember. Carry on, Ramage.”

“Weaver, you have just heard Summers say they did not intend to kill the Captain and officers. What do you have to say about that?”

“I can only speak of what I heard and saw, sir. The talk I heard was just to take the ship and lock up the Captain. When they went and killed everyone I thought they'd changed their minds.”

“Do you know that they
did
change their minds?”

“No, sir. Now I come to think of it, maybe that was why they was angry with Harris for killing the wounded officers after it was all over.”

“But when they broke into the Captain's cabin, didn't you hear what was said?”

“I was unconcherous at the time, sir.”

“You think Summers's story that they intended to take the ship without killing anyone might be true?”

“I do, sir. Summers is right that Captain Wallis thought everyone's ‘and was plotting against him. The First Lieutenant was so frightened he never dared answer the Captain but with an ‘aye aye, sir.' None of the officers ever had enough sleep from having to stand extra watches.”

“Why didn't you mention all this when you first gave evidence?”

“I never thought you gentlemen would believe me, sir,” he said simply. “I never ‘eard tell of any captain like the
Jocasta
's. He was a tyrant, sir, an' that's a fact, and I thank you for hearing us out.”

Us. Weaver was not a mutineer, that was clear enough, and he obviously hated Summers and his cronies, but at that moment, as he described life on board the
Jocasta
under Wallis, it was “us.” The officers, warrant and petty officers, seamen and Marines; they had all been in the trap, all fighting to stay alive. Eight hours on and four off for the lieutenants; sixteen hours on watch out of the twenty-four, and even the total of eight off interrupted by the need to be on deck to witness the floggings. Us—yes, Ramage thought, Weaver's evidence is true; he's an honest man.