Read Online Ramage & the Renegades by Dudley Pope - Free Book Online

in your papers?”
    Ramage looked up, startled. “No, sir. At least, not unless their Lordships ask me.”
    â€œYou don’t need the halfpay,” St Vincent said.
    â€œI had no intention of requesting it, sir,” Ramage said tartly. “As far as I know, I am still on full pay in command of the
Calypso
and on a month’s leave.”
    St Vincent had moved the
Gazette,
which had hidden a bulky letter bearing the Admiralty seal. The Earl picked up the packet, turned it over so that Ramage could read the superscription, and slid it across the table to him.
    â€œCaptain the Lord Ramage, H. M. frigate
Calypso,
Chatham.”
    As Ramage reached out for the packet, St Vincent held up his hand. “Don’t open it yet: read the back.”
    Just below the seal, copperplate handwriting said:
“Secret orders—not to be opened until south of latitude 10 degrees North.”
    Ten North! That was south of the latitude of Barbados in the West Indies or the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa. So the orders concerned the South Atlantic. The coast of Africa or South America in peacetime? What on earth could be happening down there?
    St Vincent stood up and walked to the window. There was not much to see; Ramage knew that this and the Board Room’s three other windows overlooked a stable. The early morning sky with its scattering of cloud was now becoming overcast; there would be rain by teatime.
    Abruptly, and with his back to Ramage, the First Lord asked: “How is the
Calypso
’s refit proceeding?”
    Obviously the First Lord did not trust the daily reports he received from his dockyard commissioners. “Slowly, sir, as far as I could see when I was on board three days ago.”
    â€œAh yes, you and your visitors took up a lot of time.”
    â€œIndeed, sir?” Ramage could almost see the Commissioner’s report. “How so, sir?”
    â€œThe dockyard men could not get on with shifting the guns.”
    â€œSir, there hasn’t been a single dockyard man on board since the
Calypso
moored up in Chatham.”
    St Vincent swung round. “Rubbish! You’ve had eighty men!”
    â€œExcuse me, sir,” Ramage said carefully. “I was told by the Commissioner I would
get
eighty men, to shift the guns. In fact none arrived and my own men have been doing the work. My First Lieutenant had a great deal of trouble getting even a few hoys to carry the French guns on shore.”
    St Vincent sat down at the table and quickly shuffled through a pile of papers. He found one page and ran his finger down it. His eyes flicked back and forth along the lines.
    â€œThe Commissioner has allocated one hundred and ten men to the
Calypso.
Eighty to get the guns out; twenty are riggers; and ten are to help strike that foreyard.”
    â€œWhen were those men supposed to start work, sir?”
    The date the First Lord gave was the day after the
Calypso
arrived in Chatham. “We might have been allocated one hundred and ten men, sir, but none has come on board, unless they started today. I was there on Friday and I can’t think they’d work half a day on Saturday. Yesterday, Sunday, was a holiday.”
    â€œThe Commissioner himself signed this return, Ramage; are you calling him a liar?”
    Ramage pictured the ingratiating figure at the jetty, rolls of fat quivering, servile to the Admiral—and using the Ramage family visit as an excuse for “delaying” men not even on board.
    â€œA liar, sir, with respect, and a fraud too. Where were those one hundred and ten men working?”
    â€œI intend finding out,” St Vincent said grimly, “but don’t you go down to Chatham until your leave expires; it’s better that I stir things up at Somerset House.”
    The Navy Board occupied Somerset House, and there the Comptroller, Sir Andrew Snape Hamond, held sway. Probably the most dishonest man connected with the Royal