Ramage and the drum beat

'Wha' happen'?'

'You were shot at through a gun port after the San Josef had surrendered.'

Throb, throb, bang, bang; the band round his brow was tight and Southwick's face began to spin again. Ramage clutched his head and felt cloth: strips of cloth wound round like an Indian's turban.

Southwick seemed to be whispering from a long way off. Ramage opened his eyes again to find Southwick's face close, beads of perspiration welling up through the bristles. Southwick unshaven? It was all very puzzling: he wasn't in his cabin in the Kathleen. Ramage started to sit up but Southwick's face spun again.

'Easy sir, easy, you're on board the Irresistible. The Commodore's hoisted his broad pendant in her.'

'But why aren't I—'

'You remember, sir,' Southwick said soothingly, 'you remember we boarded the San Nicolas and then the Captain—'

'Yes, I remember.'

It came back slowly at first, not facts but pictures: the Kathleen steering for that great cliff face that was the San Nicolas; the impact and the cutter dragging athwart the Spaniard's stem; then that mad dash along the San Nicolas's decks; then the Commodore and climbing the San Josef’s main chains and a Spanish officer shouting down they had surrendered. Abruptly the pictures stopped.

'What happened next?'

'Next to what, sir?' Southwick was puzzled.

'After that damn' Spaniard said they'd surrendered?'

'You were shot at through a gun port. They didn't know below that the ship had hauled down her colours. If you'll excuse me a moment, sir.'

With that he bellowed to the sentry at the door. Ramage winced, the pain blotting out Southwick's words.

'You fell, sir,' Southwick continued.

'I'm not surprised.'

'No, I mean you fell into the sea between the two ships.'

'Why didn't I drown, or get crushed?'

'Those two again. Jackson and Stafford. They went down after you.'

'They're mad. No wonder I feel sick. I must have swallowed half the bay of Cadiz.'

'You did, sir. I flung them a rope but it took time to get a turn under your armpits. When they got you on deck we thought at first you'd gone. I've never seen anyone look so dead.'

'You'd better send for those two.'

'Well, if you'd wait a moment, sir.'

Ramage felt too weak to argue.

A knock at the door but the person did not wait for an answer. Ramage tried to turn to see who it was but again his head spun.

'Well, Mr. Ramage,' said the familiar sharp, nasal voice, and the Commodore was standing at the foot of the cot. 'Well, Mr. Ramage, you have a thick head - fortunately!'

'At the moment it feels a bit thin in places, sir.'

'It is, too! Now you'll have two scars on your starboard beakhead, a bullet wound to add to the sword cut. And a good thing, too, the ladies love it. Take my word for it, if you're going to get wounded, a handsome scar they can admire is worth more than the handsomest face in the room! My own little souvenir of the battle, for instance, won't count for much. I have a most unromantically bruised stomach!'

Ramage laughed and felt he had been hit on the head again.

'But seriously, Ramage, only a criminal idiot would have tried to do what you did with the Kathleen. Fortunately for me, the wicked sometimes prosper. You succeeded and I've achieve a little notoriety for having captured two of the Fleet's four prizes.'

'I'm glad, sir.'

'I know you are,' Nelson said warmly. 'But I said notoriety, not credit. I've not yet seen the Commander-in-Chief, and since I acted with as much authority as you did, both of us might be in a scrape. But whatever happens, Mr. Ramage, if it ever lies in my power to render you a service ...'

Ramage was struggling to find a suitable reply when Nelson added, 'And I'm glad to tell you that you'll be sent home in the Lively frigate with Sir Gilbert Elliot.'

'No!' exclaimed Ramage. 'I mean, if you please, sir, I'd prefer to stay with the Fleet!'

'But why?'

'I - well sir, I'd like to see my ship's company are all right.'

'Mr. Ramage,' Nelson said gently and with a smile, 'you have no ship, and therefore no ship's company. And the service is well able to take care of the survivors.'

Ramage felt too weak to explain, and knowing the Commander was right he shut his eyes with weariness and pain.

'I'll call on you again,' the Commodore said sympathetically, and left the cabin.

'What was the butcher's bill?' Ramage asked Southwick several minutes later.

'Incredibly light, sir. Twelve dead. Edwards, the gunner's mate, wasn't seen from just before we hit the San Nicolas - I think a shot from her bow-chaser may have got him - and eleven seamen. Six of those never got on board the San Nicolas and five were killed in the fighting. One of those was Jensen, who was with you at Cartagena, hit by one of the San Josef's sharp-shooters. Only four wounded - yourself, Fuller and two ordinary seamen.'

'We were lucky,' Ramage said soberly. 'God knows, we were lucky.'

'You were careful, sir,' said Southwick.

'Careful?1

'I've been - well, sir, I know it's a bit unusual, but the ship's company asked me to tell you - as discreetly as possible you realize, sir - they appreciate the care you took to lessen the loss of life.'

'If only you—' he exclaimed, then said, 'no, thank them, Southwick. But from the moment we tacked towards the San Nicolas I never expected any of us to survive.'

He took a deep breath. 'That's the care I took,' he added bitterly. 'Instead of more than sixty dead, I killed only a dozen.'

'No, sir, don't take on like that. You aren't fair to yourself. We've got to fight; some of us'll get killed. The men know that. They thought all along after we tacked that they'd be killed. They knew you thought they didn't guess; but they did realize, and they kept cheerful for your sake, sir. And they're right to thank you.'

'I suppose so,' Ramage said. 'But I'm too befuddled—'

The door opened and the chubby and bespectacled surgeon came in. 'Goodness gracious, Mr. Southwick - I must ask you to leave. Our patient looks worn out. Really, really, really! All my work undone by fifteen minutes of chatter, chatter, chatter!'

Southwick looked alarmed and stood up to leave. Ramage winked as the Master turned to the door.

Next day while Ramage fretted in his cot, irritated by the constant attention of the surgeon (who was quick to spot the Commodore's particular interest in his patient), Sir John Jervis's ships were becalmed with the Spanish Fleet still in sight - 'In great disorder,' Southwick reported gleefully.

The day after that the British Fleet spent several hours trying to weather Cape St. Vincent against head winds, and finally Sir John decided to bear away for Lagos Bay, just to the eastward of Cape St. Vincent, and in the evening the Fleet and its prizes anchored.

Ramage, allowed to sit in a chair, had just started writing once again to his father - hard put to read what he'd written in the first letter, which had been soaked in sea water - when Southwick came into the cabin.

'From the Commander-in-Chief,' he said, handing Ramage a sealed letter addressed to Lieutenant Lord Ramage, formerly of His Majesty's late cutter, 'Kathleen'. 'I've signed for it. One's gone to every captain.'

Ramage read the letter and then wondered if it was identical in wording to the others. Not a mention of the Commodore, either by name or the role of the Captain. Nor Captain Troubridge and the Culloden, Captain Frederick and the Blenheim, nor Captain Collingwood and the Excellent.