After the customs officers cleared La Perla at Port Royal, Ramage took the schooner round Gallows Point, at the end of the Palisadoes, and beat up through the ships anchored in Kingston Harbour.
"One thing about coming in with a ship like this," Southwick commented. "You can choose where to anchor, instead of being ordered to a particular berth!"
Ramage nodded. He was anxious to anchor abreast of the town of Kingston, since La Perla's boat was too small to make a two-mile row anything less than a test of endurance.
Yorke examined the Lion carefully through a telescope as the schooner tacked across her stern.
"She was lucky to get in," he commented. "I'll bet there are ten men at the pumps night and day."
As soon as La Perla luffed up and anchored, she was surrounded by bumboats, each improbably named and gaudily painted with sails made of sacking and pieces of canvas crudely sewn to shape. Each was manned by an energetic and flamboyant Negro shouting at the top of his voice, anxious to carry the captain on shore or bring out supplies. While the schooner's sails were being furled, the bumboatmen were yelling to Southwick - apparently assuming that because of his bulk he was the purser - and giving him a string of prices for everything a ship and her crew could possibly need, from fresh fruit to women.
When they saw La Perla's boat being hoisted out they groaned with pretended dismay and then began describing the superior speed, safety and comfort of their respective craft.
Ramage went below to the tiny cuddy he shared with Yorke and changed into one of his best uniforms. By the time he had dressed he was soaked with perspiration - there was barely room to crouch in the cuddy, let alone stand up. Giving his stock a last twitch to straighten it, he picked up his sword, his best hat and the heavily-stitched canvas pouch containing his reports.
Before going on deck he went to the St Brieucs' cabin. None of them had come to watch the ship coming into Kingston and he was disappointed. He knocked, called out his name, and heard St Cast telling him to enter. Maxine had been weeping. Her eyes were red and as Ramage looked at her, too startled to look tactfully away, she gave a dry sob.
St Brieuc said quickly: "Don't worry, my lord. My daughter is both sad and happy and so is my wife." Ramage saw that she too had been crying.
St Brieuc went on quickly to avoid an embarrassing silence, "We are sad at the prospect of leaving you, even though it will probably not be for a day or two."
Ramage was too dumbfounded to do anything more than stand there, holding his sword and hat.
"And a little worried too until you return to tell us how the Admiral receives you. Sir Pilcher, I mean."
"Goddard," Ramage said without thinking.
"He is here?"
Ramage pulled himself together, unable to take his eyes off Maxine.
"The Lion is. She's badly damaged, but safe."
"And the others?" Maxine asked.
"I don't know about the merchantmen, but none of the escorts are here." Hastily he added: "If they weren't damaged, they might have sailed again already."
She did not believe him and began sobbing again. So Ramage bowed helplessly and left.
Jackson was waiting in the boat and within five minutes the men at the oars were pulling clear of the schooner and heading for the shore.
Ramage saw none of the local boats, which had given up hope of passengers from the schooner and were speeding back to the shore, nor did he notice the curious eyes watching from nearby merchantmen. He did not notice the heat, the dust, the noise or the smell as they arrived at the jetty. He was thinking about Goddard, who had survived but could not know that Ramage had done so as well. The moment the Admiral discovered that Ramage was alive, something unpleasant would happen. Ramage could not think exactly what it would be because there was such a wide choice.
The heat and noise hit Ramage like a blow as he reached the top of the stone steps of the jetty and began walking to Rear-Admiral Goddard's house. The streets were crowded. Goods landed from the merchant ships were being carried to the stores and warehouses in heavy drays, light carts and on the backs of stubborn donkeys. Cheerful Negroes pulled and pushed, shouting and singing at the top of their voices and good-naturedly jostling each other; coloured women walked with grace and elegance, many of them carrying large baskets balanced on their heads with as much dignity as a dowager arriving at a court ball in a tiara.
Rear-Admiral Goddard's house was some distance from the jetty, a big and cool stone building with a red roof and whitewashed walls, standing in the centre of a walled garden. Wide, covered balconies ran all round the ground and upper floors, reminding Ramage of a square, two-tiered wedding cake.
An old coloured man with grey hair was sweeping leaves from the withered apology for a lawn. The heat of the sun had scorched the grass brown, and in places the hard ground showed enormous bald patches, criss-crossed where the earth was cracked, as though wrinkled by age.
The Marine sentry saluted, but the coloured butler who came to the door when Ramage jerked the brass bell handle left him standing on the top step while he went back into the building. The Admiral seemed to have given standing orders about how to deal with young lieutenants who called at the second-in-command's residence without orders or invitation.
At last the pimply young lieutenant he had last seen at the convoy conference on board the Lion at Barbados came to the door.
"Good afternoon," Ramage said coolly. "Have you got any spare handkerchiefs?"
The lieutenant looked blank and Ramage could not be bothered to explain.
"Admiral Goddard, please. Lieutenant Ramage to see him."
"I - er, we thought you'd ... Yes, well, he'll be busy for about fifteen minutes. Come this way."
Nervously he led Ramage to a waiting-room, ushered him in like a doctor's assistant, and left.
A cool room in a cool house, and somewhere to sit down. The door was slatted like a large, partly-opened Venetian blind. The roof over the outside balcony shaded the room. The legs of a small, round mahogany table stood in shallow metal trays of water as part of the ceaseless war against ants that had to be waged in the Tropics.
Ramage put his hat and sword on the table and opened the canvas pouch to check over the documents he'd written using his knee as a desk while crouched in the cuddy on board La Perla. On the top of the pile was his report to the Admiral describing the loss of the Triton. He made that a separate report since he would have to face a routine court of inquiry which always followed the loss of one of the King's ships. He had been careful to cover the period from the onset of the hurricane up to the dismasted Triton running on the reef at Snake Island. It described building the rafts and using them to ferry men and provisions on shore, and it stopped there.
The second report covered the capture of La Perla and the voyage from Snake Island to Jamaica. It was a brief three pages of writing. Every word was true, yet it did not tell the whole story. It did not mention that he had fallen in love with Maxine, for instance, nor that Sydney Yorke, who had become a good friend, was ruefully envious of her attitude to him.
The third report, marked "secret" and sealed with wax, dealt with the treasure. With it was a complete inventory, "Treasure Log", a detailed list of the contents of the crates, a stowage list and a diagram - recently amended by Southwick after he shifted some to trim the schooner - describing in which holds the crates were stowed in La Perla.
As he put them back in the pouch, carefully keeping them in the same order, he thought about how little of an episode an official report really described. The report on the treasure was probably the most detailed and complicated he'd ever written, but it told nothing of the days and nights when he thought he'd never work out the meaning of the poem, the misery and disappointment they had felt when they found the first bones; the ghoulish effect of digging up skeletons by lantern light, or the excitement when Jackson leapt out of the trench with the first coins...