"Sorry, I was thinking of Lord Nelson's message for you. What happened was, we understood the Combined Fleet was in Ferrol and Coruña - they'd bolted there when His Lordship chased 'em back across the Atlantic. But I was off Cape St Vincent with the Euryalus when I suddenly met them all at sea, steering south, either for Cadiz - most likely - or the Strait.
"I guessed they were making for Cadiz to join the rest of their brethren, so I chased them long enough to be sure. Then I steered for the Channel to raise the alarm. I met Rear-Admiral Calder with eighteen line-of-battle ships and warned him, and while he went south after the enemy I carried on for the Channel. Took me ten dam' days with contrary winds before I got up as far as the Isle of Wight and lost the wind altogether.
"I had myself rowed ashore in the dark - and a wretched muddy place Lymington creek is, I can assure you - and managed to hire a 'chaise to London: it's going to cost Their Lordships £15 9s - if they agree to pay the charge."
He rubbed his eyes. "Shake me if I fall asleep on you: the drumming of the hoofs and the clatter of the wheels are still in my head. Anyway, I reached Merton and told His Lordship, and then went on to raise the alarm at the Admiralty. Lord Barham may be well over eighty years old, but he wakes up a deal faster than I do!
"Now we get to Lord Nelson's message (sorry, I had to tell you the rest so it makes sense). Before I left him at Merton - he decided to come up to the Admiralty in his own carriage with Lady Hamilton - he gave me your address and told me to call as soon as I'd finished at the Admiralty. The message is simply that His Lordship will be sailing in the Victory from St Helens as soon as maybe, and you're to sail as quickly as possible, joining him at St Helens or, if he's managed to get away from the Isle of Wight, join the fleet off Cadiz and place yourself under my command.
"He said that he doesn't mind if you arrive short of a couple of new topsails and half a dozen guns, but he needs every frigate he can get. As he's giving me command of a sort of inshore squadron, I can bear that out: there'll be three or four frigates, once I get off Cadiz with the Euryalus, but for what His Lordship has in mind, ten wouldn't be enough. I tell you, Ramage, His Lordship is breathing fire: he won't be satisfied with less than the complete destruction of the Combined Fleet."
"How many ships have they?"
"About thirty or more," Blackwood said. "Depends how many were waiting for them in Cadiz."
"And His Lordship?"
Blackwood made a face and admitted in a soft burr: "Well, Lord Barham was counting them up while I was in his office and he waited for Lord Nelson, and with luck there'll be twenty. More, of course, if they can be got ready in time. But several ships of the line are in the dockyards, quite apart from frigates like your Calypso. I gather you've already had your orders from Lord Barham: it's just a question of chasing up the dockyard, and taking on powder at Black Stakes?"
Ramage nodded, thinking of Aldington, St Kew, his father's new will, and Sarah. Yes, it was different for a married naval officer. "Yes - with a decent wind I'll be at St Helens before His Lordship boards the Victory!"
CHAPTER FIVE
Farewells were over: Raven had carefully stowed his trunk on the postchaise at London Bridge, where the Dover 'chaise started, and the Marsh man, before saying goodbye to Ramage and taking the carriage back to Palace Street, handed over a letter. "From Her Ladyship, sir. Said you was to read it on board your ship."
Then with shouts and the cracking of whips over the backs of the four horses, the postchaise began its dash: the one other passenger was a bishop returning to his see of Dover, the usual plump and self-satisfied prelate who at first seemed put out at having to share the carriage with a Navy captain but who became almost servile the moment he heard Raven bidding farewell to "My Lord". Was His Lordship travelling far? the bishop inquired. No, Ramage said, not far. Perhaps His Lordship lived in Kent? Yes, Ramage said, at Aldington.
But . . . but this 'chaise doesn't go to Aldington: it goes through the Medway towns. For Aldington His Lordship needs the 'chaise that goes through Ashford.
"I'm not going to Aldington," Ramage said shortly, cursing that he had to start the day, let alone the journey (which would end at Cadiz!), with this dreary, cringing churchman whose pink complexion and bloated features labelled him a trencherman, as handy with a fork as a Biblical quotation.
"Oh, I thought you said ..."
"You asked me where I lived. I also have an estate in Cornwall and a house in Town, but I'm not going to any of them," Ramage said coldly and was quickly ashamed of his exaggerations, but this wretched fellow refused to be snubbed.
"Ah, you're joining a ship; I can guess that."
Ramage looked out of the window. The carriage was just approaching the Bricklayer's Arms. "Yes," he said grudgingly, and suddenly felt a wish to boast that he was joining Lord Nelson, but to this bishop war, no doubt, was only an inconvenience since it did not interrupt meals.
"It must be an exciting moment."
"On the contrary; I've lived on board the same ship for the past few years and it will stink of fresh paint and men will be hammering away all day and night."
"Dear me, how unpleasant. You should send your deputy down, until everything is ready."
Was that how the Lord's work was done in the see of Dover? Ramage wondered.
The bishop lifted a large basket on to his lap and began folding back a napkin. The basket was full of food and the bishop began tearing the meat from a chicken leg. The chomping of his teeth kept time with the horses' hooves until he stopped to wrench the cork from a bottle of wine.
New Cross . . . they would change horses at Blackheath. How long would that basket of food keep the worthy bishop quiet? The 'chaise was soon passing the Isle of Dogs, over to the left, on the far side of the Thames as it snaked its way through London. In half an hour - less, perhaps - they would reach Shooter's Hill, passing the quiet beauty of Greenwich Palace on the left. Down there, within a few hundred yards of the Thames, Henry VIII and his two daughters, the great Elizabeth and the less favoured Mary, had all been born. Both the father Henry and the daughter Elizabeth had (almost alone among the monarchs!) understood the importance of a strong Navy - due, perhaps, to childhood days spent watching the ships passing? Today the great palace was the Seamen's Hospital; men crippled in the King's service at sea now stumped about with crutches and wooden legs where once (three centuries earlier) a boyish Henry VIII had played.
The bishop chomped on, delving among the napkins to see what else he had to eat. Enough at the present rate to last him until the 'chaise got through Welling and stopped at the Golden Lion at Bexley Heath . . . Golf. The thought suddenly struck Ramage. Wasn't it somewhere round here - the common at Blackheath? - that James I first introduced the curious game to England? Ramage shrugged: he did not play himself, and the bishop looked as though he was already taking the only physical exercise he favoured.
Finally, the carriage swung into the courtyard of the Golden Lion and the two postboys leapt to the ground to drop the steps with the usual crash. The bishop groaned, though Ramage was not sure if it was the noise or the need to leave his food.
Ramage jumped down to be met by the innkeeper, anxious to serve sherry, cocoa, coffee, ale or whatever the gentleman fancied. The gentleman, stiff and bored, his thoughts suspended somewhere between Palace Street and the number three dock at Chatham, wanted to be left alone. The bishop called for "A cool mug of ale, my good man," and the ostlers led up the fresh horses.
Soon after the carriage had started again, the bishop belched contentedly as he dozed, and then wakened to assault the basket once more and continued eating until they had gone through Crayford and were pulling in at The Bull at Dartford to change the horses. Ramage walked round the carriage a few times and soon after they began moving again the bishop was snoring stertorously, lulled by more beer rather than the rough road.