Ramage's Trial (26 page)

Ramage, was inspecting the columns of ships, looking at each one through the glass, not from any particular interest but because he knew that for the next few weeks there would not be many more tranquil sunsets. In fact in the next few days he would have all the storm canvas stretched out on deck to be patched where necessary and to make sure the stitching holding the bolt ropes to the canvas was still in good condition. It was curious how the stitching of a sail or awning always rotted long before the cloth itself.

The poor old
Calypso
needed a new suit of sails, and the present ones should be struck below as spares. The trouble was that she was back at Chatham being paid off when the war started again after the Treaty of Amiens, and she had been hurriedly commissioned
–
which meant getting the yards across with new rigging, but the old sails were bent on again. The
Calypso
was merely one of many ships of war being commissioned in a rush, and Ramage had not been there to use cunning or influence to get new sails.

Nor was Captain Ramage himself much better off! One of his first calls in London would be on his tailor. Twenty guineas, probably more, for a full dress coat and epaulette (it was an economy being a post-captain with less than three years' seniority because he had to wear an epaulette on only one shoulder). Ten guineas for an undress coat. Five guineas for the gold-laced hat. Breeches, silk stockings, shirts, stocks, handkerchiefs…Silkin, his steward, had a long list which included table linen as well which needed replacing. Well, he did not complain about that: it was very irritating sitting down at a meal alone and restraining oneself, between courses, from poking the tines of a fork into a fraying patch. Silkin did his best to darn the patches, but new ones appeared every time the cloths were laundered.

He remembered Alexis' irritation, while they were having dinner on board the
Emerald
, when she noticed a tiny worn patch in the table cloth: she had frowned at the steward and glanced at it, and that was all. That was one of the advantages of being in a well-run merchant ship, which used fewer men for the same job than one of the King's ships, but the men probably worked harder because they were paid more and could be paid off at the end of a voyage if their work was unsatisfactory. They could also be picked up by a pressgang before the end of a voyage, too! Anyway, one frown from Alexis might be more effective than an outburst of anger from a post-captain!

He swung the telescope from
L'Espoir
to
La Robuste
and then to the
Jason
. All three ships were in good order, and for the moment none of the merchant ships showed any sign of dropping astern, although the sun had slipped well below the horizon. He had forgotten to look for the green flash. He had seen it hundreds of times in various latitudes, but it always amused him to watch for it, knowing that one blink at the crucial moment meant missing that bright green wink which lasted only a fraction of a second.

Young Kenton was standing over on the larboard side of the quarterdeck, having just taken over the deck from Martin. Ramage decided to go down to his cabin. Usually he did not like reading by candlelight in low latitudes because the flame made the cabin too hot, but they were now far enough north for it not to matter. More important, he had just found that the four volumes of letters edited by John Fenn and which he had bought three or four years ago and left in the bookcase, read more like novels than anything else.

Fenn (Sir John Fenn, he seemed to remember: was he not given a knighthood for his labours?) certainly gave the volumes a title which was accurate but hardly inspiring
–
Original Letters written During the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, by Various Persons of Rank
and Consequence, and by Members of the Paston Family
. To read the letters, as far as Ramage was concerned, was to be one of the Paston family of Norfolk at the time of the Wars of the Roses. Their neighbour was Sir John Fastolf, a soldier who fought at Agincourt (was that not in 1415?), and was changed by Shakespeare from a brave soldier in real life to the bawdy and drunken (but humorous) coward in some of his plays, the name changed slightly from Fastolf to Falstaff, a change too slight, Ramage thought, to avoid a Mr Shakespeare of today being called out by Sir John or one of his friends.

Still, Shakespeare's plays and the Paston family letters were (thanks to John Fenn) a joy to read. In fact he would be hard put to finish the final volume of the Paston letters before the Lizard hove in sight.

 

Gilbert looked puzzled as he tried to translate what was obviously a joke by Stafford. The trouble was that Gilbert's English had been learned in the eastern part of Kent, where country folk talked broadly and in a slow drawl, whereas the Cockney, Stafford, talked quickly, clipping words like a miserly tailor.

“‘Penten'
–
I do not understand it.”

Stafford, sprawled along the form beside the table, the bread barge in front of him, was roaring with laughter, and Jackson tapped him on the arm. “That was all too quick for me, so how'd you reckon Gilbert is going to understand?”

“He asked me if I went to church or chapel,” Stafford explained. “I said I didn't go to either (he meant a'fore I came to sea) but that some o' my friends said their prayers in St George's Fields.”

“What's funny about that?” Jackson asked, and Rossi repeated the question, adding: “You can hurt yourself inside, laughing like that.”

Stafford's features were now serious: he was faced with sheer ignorance, and he always delighted in instructing his shipmates. “I was making a little joke, see, about goin' to chapel. To the chapel in St George's Fields. There's only one chapel there–” he began laughing, “–and that's the one belonging to Magdalen Hospital, see?”

“No,” Jackson said briskly. “This looks like one of your long jokes that has us all falling asleep.”

“Yus, well, I'll shut up then and you can entertain the mess
–
song or story, eh Jacko?” Stafford asked sulkily.

“Oh come on,” Rossi wheedled, now intrigued at the idea of a chapel in a place called St George's Fields. “Tell us about this saint. Why does he have his own chapel?”

“My oath,” Stafford said despairingly, “I dunno, s'just a place darn the uvver end o' Blackfriars Road. Why's everybody suddenly interested in it?”

“Because of you,” Gilbert said mildly. “You started to tell us a joke about it.”

Stafford ran a hand through his hair and sat up straight, a look of desperation about him. “Chapel,” he said slowly, as though feeling his way through a fog. “Church or chapel Gilbert asked, and I said some of my friends went to chapel in St George's Fields…”

He rubbed his head, trying to restore the train of thought, but he had drunk his own rum issue and Gilbert had passed over his, and Jackson had paid him a tot for a favour done yesterday. Finally, he remembered. “Yus, well, I was really tellin' Gilbert that my friends were
–
well, young ladies who had to make their own living, if you get my meaning.”

“Whores?” Gilbert asked.

“Well, yes, but that's a strong word.”

“St George's Fields,” Rossi said relentlessly. “
Accidenti, San Giorgio mi aiuta!
”

“Wotchew rattling on abart, then?” Stafford demanded suspiciously. “Speak English!”

“I was asking St George to help me,” Rossi said, “but you need his help more. Now come on, start again. First, we have the chapel in St George's Fields.”

“Well, the chapel belongs to Magdalen Hospital,” Stafford said, as though that explained everything.

“And…” Jackson said encouragingly, “what sort of hospital is it? Like Greenwich Hospital, for seamen?”

“Nah, nah, nah!” Stafford exclaimed. “That's the whole joke
–
it's for ‘The Reformation and Relief of Penitent Prostitutes'!”

“A sort of Stafford family home, like Mr Ramage has St Kew, eh?” Jackson asked drily.

“You don't believe me,” Stafford complained, “but it's run by dukes and earls and rich merchants. Has a surgeon, several apotharies–”

“Apothecaries,” Jackson corrected out of habit.

“–yes, s'what I said, and parsons. One's the chaplain and two more take it in turns to preach each evenin'. And the matron
–
she's a hard old biddy, I can tell you.”

“How can you tell us?” Rossi inquired innocently. “Surely you've never been ‘penitent'?”

Stafford realized he had talked too much, but as Jackson and Rossi (and Mr Ramage) knew that his job before the war, after an apprenticeship to a locksmith, was hard to describe, there was no need for secrets.

“One of my sisters,” he said, offhandedly. “She got mixed up with that bad lot around Blackfriars and before we knew what had happened this pimp was threatening to cut her wiv a knife.”

“Then what?” Jackson asked, realizing that there were still aspects of Stafford's past life he knew nothing about.

“Well, when Neilley (that's what we call her 'cos she don't like plain ‘Nell') when Neilley got the word back to us, me and some mates went darn to Blackfriars and called on this pimp.”

“And murdered him?” Rossi asked. Having spent a childhood in the Genoa slums, he was genuinely interested how the day-to-day problems of life in London were solved.

“Nah, that's 'gainst the law,” Stafford said airily. “We just took Neilley and left 'im for dead.”

“There is a difference?” Gilbert asked, who had been trying to translate for Louis, Auguste and Albert.

“Oh yus, indeed. Murder's a capital offence in England, you know that. Get topped if you're caught. You know,” he explained, seeing the blank look on Gilbert's face, “‘topped'
–
hanged. So we just cut him up a bit, like he'd threatened to do Neilley, and if 'e died later 'cos he 'adn't the sense to stop bleedin', that's 'is affair.”

“What about Neilley?” Jackson asked, puzzled by the connection with Magdalen Hospital and the dukes, earls and parsons who ran it.

“Oh, at first she took on a bit. She'd got a bit o' a taste for the life, if you get my meaning, but I persuaded her a stay at the Magdalen would put her right. Prayers and poultices, that's what she needed for a few weeks. She didn't agree, but she went all the same, and I used to go darn there a couple of times a week, just to make sure Neilley was paying attention to what all those dukes and earls and parsons and apotherums were telling 'er.”

“Was she? Many peoples is talking,” Rossi observed.

“She was listening an' prayin' an' taking her medicine,” Stafford said. “The matron was watching her, special.”

“What, you paid the matron for special attention?” Jackson asked doubtfully. It did not sound like Stafford who, he thought, had always taken what he wanted, providing the lock could be picked.

“Well, not exactly
paid
'er,” Stafford admitted, for the first time looking uneasy. “Just sort of 'inted to 'er that if Neilley wasn't right as rain by St Swithin's Day, an' penitent too, matron might find 'erself in need o' a lot of prayin' and medicalatin' too.”

“Medicating,” Jackson said. “You're a rough lot. What happened to Neilley? Was she the ‘penten' you were telling us about?”

“Yus. Well, all that was going on abart the time the press took me up. My fault, 'cos I knew the word was out for a hot press, but one night I was drinking heavy down Fetter Lane an' reckoned I knew me way back 'ome without any of the gangers spottin' me, even though I couldn't see straight.”

“And?”

“An' I was wrong. I sobered up in the 'old of a receiving ship anchored off the Tower with 'alf an 'undred other rascals that the pressgang had just rounded up, an' there we all were, screamin' at the top of our lungs that we'd fight the French wivart swords or pay.”

Wide-eyed, Gilbert exclaimed: “You were all shouting that?”

“Well, not 'xactly shouting if you get my meaning, but we thought it. We was all recovering from too much drink, an' if anyone 'ad actually shouted, the noise would've done us an injury.”

Jackson explained: “Staff sometimes exaggerates a little.”

Gilbert nodded and turned to translate for the other Frenchmen, but if anything Stafford's story grew in the translation: like Stafford himself, Gilbert was not one to let facts spoil a good tale.

The Frenchmen listened wide-eyed, glancing at Stafford from time to time. Between them they had lived as fishermen or on the Count of Rennes' estate. Brest was small, built round its port, the river and the naval dockyard. A city like London, with its capacity for sin and which offered such scope for lively fellows like Stafford, was more than they could imagine.

Stafford, his ten minutes of glory at an end, leaned against the ship's side and went to sleep with the Atlantic swirling past his head, separated by only a few inches of oak.

“What a man,” Louis commented in French, but Auguste winked. “What a woman, eh? Can you imagine life with the sister of a man like this?”

“I could, but I'm not going to: most of the time it would be like war! In England are all the women like that?”

“No, most certainly not,” Gilbert said, shaking his head with the air of a connoisseur. “I met several I would like to have married.”

Jackson said: “You are going about it backwards. I followed what you just said. Under English law if a foreigner marries an Englishwoman he can be pressed, because marrying makes him the same as an Englishman
–
leastways, as far as the pressgangs are concerned.”

“You mean that foreigners are not pressganged?”