Ramage and the drum beat

Will Stafford, the Cockney with the American Protection, had been one of the liveliest of the Kathleen's crew. The snub nose stuck on a round face, stocky build and the cocky walk reminding him of a London pigeon, left Ramage wondering about those delicately shaped hands. The man had a habit of rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, as though feeling the quality of a piece of material.

'What were you before you became a seaman?'

'Locksmith, sir.'

'Did you work on the locks at night or in the daytime?'

'Ah!' Stafford laughed, 'always in the daylight sir, nothing unlawful. Me father 'ad a locksmith's shop in Bridewell Lane.'

'So you were apprenticed to him?'

'Father learned me the job, sir, but I wasn't apprenticed. That was the trouble - the press couldn't 'ave took me if we'd signed the papers.'

So, thought Ramage, Will Stafford is a seaman simply because he had not signed the indentures that made him an apprentice to his father, and by law apprentices were exempt from the attentions of the press gangs. A locksmith - that perhaps explained those hands. Hmm.

'Tell me Stafford, could you pick a lock?'

'Pick a lock, sir?' he exclaimed indignantly. 'Make, pick or repair - it's all the same to me.'

Henry Fuller, the tall, angular man squatting untidily on the floor next to Stafford and reminding Ramage of a lobster thrown carelessly in a corner, was a man who thought of little else than fish: to him the sight of a good-sized fish swimming round the ship, easily seen in the clear water of the Mediterranean, was considerably more tempting than a pretty girl on the quay or a pot of ale in a tavern.

Ramage knew from Southwick that when in harbour Fuller regularly asked for permission to fish from the fo'c'sle, and had often heard him cursing gulls or exclaiming at the sight of fish. Fuller rarely spoke: his long thin body, narrow angular face, grey spiky hair and a thin-lipped mouth in which remained only a few tobacco-stained teeth growing at different angles, might have been one of the fish stakes along the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk. Ramage could not distinguish from his accent which of the two counties the man came from.

'Were you ever a fisherman, Fuller?'

'Aye, sir.'

'From where?'

'Born at Mutford, sir; just the back o' Low'stoff.'

Lowestoft, one of England's biggest fishing ports, its entrance almost surrounded by sandbanks which shifted with every gale. Yet as a fisherman Fuller too would have been exempt from being pressed.

'Did you volunteer?'

'Aye, sir. Bloddy Frenchies - a privateer out of Boolong - stole m'boat. T'was only a little 'un an' all I 'ad. I 'ate 'em, sir; they stopped m'fishing for good an' all.'

Ramage looked next at the sallow, black-haired young man of about his own age who came from Genoa. Handsome in a coarse, full-blown way, he was getting fat - no mean feat considering the food served in a King's ship. Alberto Rossi - he was glad he remembered the name, since the man was always known as 'Rosey' - spoke passable English and, next to Stafford, had been the most cheerful man on board.

'How does a Genovesi come to be in the English Navy?'

'I am in a French privateer, sir. An English frigate make the capture. The captain say, "Rossi, my man, you'll get very little food and no pay in a prison hulk, so why not take the bounty and volunteer to serve with me?" He explain the bounty is a special present of five pounds from the King of England, so—' he shrugged his shoulders.

'Don't you want to see Genoa again?'

Rossi tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger, knowing Ramage understood the gesture. 'For me, sir, Genova has the unhealthy climate.'

'What did you do before you became a privateersman?'

'My father have a share in a schooner, sir. A small share. My five brothers and I are the crew. The captain is a bad man: he have all the other shares.'

'And...?'

'He cheat us, sir, and one day he fall overboard and we take the ship into La Spezia. Then we hear by some miracle he is not drown: he swam and is rescue, so we sail very quickly. We sell the schooner to a Frenchman who is wanting to become a privateersman. I stay with the ship.'

'So in Genoa they tell lies about you: that you're a pirate and tried to murder your captain?' Ramage asked ironically.

'Yes, sir: people will gossip.'

There were two men left, a blond with a bright red face and a nose which, broken at the bridge, was vertical instead of sloping, and the dark-skinned West Indian. The blond was a Dane, but Ramage could not remember his name, and asked him.

'Sven Jensen, sir. They call me "Sixer".'

' "Sixer"? Oh yes, five, six, seven. Where do you come from?'

'Naerum, sir. A village just north of Copenhagen.'

'And before you went to sea?'

'Prize-fighter, sir. Win five crowns if you can knock me down in less than half an hour.'

'Did people ever win?'

'Never, sir. Not once. I have a good punch. I call it my "Five Crown Punch".'

So apart from Jackson, Ramage thought, I've a locksmith, a fisherman, a pirate who doesn't baulk at murder, a prize-fighter, and the coloured seaman whom he only knew as Max.

'What's your full name, Max, and where do you come from?'

Max grinned cheerfully; he had been looking forward to being questioned and had the answers ready.

'James Maxton, sir. Age, twenty-one years; religion, Roman Catholic; where born, Belmont; volunteer; rating, ordinary seaman.'

Maxton's recital showed he had obviously served in several ships and knew the headings under which a man's details were listed against the name in the muster book.

'Where's Belmont?'

'Grenada, sir. Across the lagoon from the Carenage at St. George. It's a beautiful place, sir,' he added proudly. 'And we've got big forts to protect us!'

'And before you went to sea?'

'I worked in a sugar plantation, sir, cutting cane with a machete.'

'So you can handle a cutlass, then.'

Jackson gave a low whistle and Ramage glanced at him inquiringly.

'Toss an apple, sir, and he can slice it in half and then cut one of the pieces in half again before it hits the ground.'

'I was born with a machete in my hand, sir,' Maxton said modestly.

So, mused Ramage, these are my six men. All fine seamen, all with another trade - if that was the right word - at their fingertips.

'Very well, we'll go down to breakfast. Watch your tongues - the innkeeper probably speaks some English and will report everything he understands to the Spanish authorities.'

The chill in the morning air warned Ramage that December was approaching, although there was enough sun to remind him that Cartagena was in Spain, with the usual piles of stinking refuse lying about in the streets, a happy hunting ground for flies and beggars and packs of miserable, emaciated dogs. The cathedral bells tolled mournfully as he walked down towards the Palaza del Rey where the main gate through the great walls surrounding the city was guarded by bored sentries who did not bother to challenge him.

Immediately outside the gate was another square with a big rectangular dock on the far side which had only one end open to the sea. A long, low building on the nearer side of the dock had piles of cordage stacked outside it and was probably the rigging store, with the sail loft next to it. At the landward end of the dock was a large timber pond in which great tree trunks floated, seasoning or left in the water to stop the sun's heat splitting the wood. Next to that two big slipways sloped down to the dock and on one of them shipwrights were busy with adzes shaping new planks to replace rotten ones in the hull of a small schooner.