"Bring in the prisoners, " Edwards said. "We need not prolong things, although all of them, except Weaver, know what to expect."

CHAPTER EIGHT

 Next morning Ramage was rowed over to the Invincible. He had no stomach for questioning three men who, within a day or two, would be hoisted by the neck to the foreyardarm of the flagship, but it might eventually save lives on board the Calypso.

 He was taken to Captain Edwards and found him gloomy, his face as dark as his cabin was light from the early sun. "Sit down, Ramage. I have the minutes of the other Jocasta trials here and you can read 'em before you talk to the prisoners. Are you feeling all right?" he asked suddenly.

 "I don't enjoy this sort of thing very much, sir, " Ramage admitted.

 Edwards glanced up, startled. "What do you mean - cutting out the Jocasta?”

 "No, sir! Courts martial and questioning condemned men."

 "That's reasonable enough. Nastiest trial I've ever seen - although I'd warned the Admiral, he was badly shaken when he read the minutes. Badly shaken, " he repeated. "He's worried in case we might have taken the questioning too far, where Wallis was concerned. I must admit he has a point. It didn't seem so at the time, but when you read the minutes . . ."

 "I'd have thought it was unavoidable, sir."

 Edwards shrugged his shoulders. "A case like this isn't straightforward, you know. Anyone reading those minutes - Their Lordships, for instance - are going to ask why Wallis wasn't warned to ease up . . ."

 "Perhaps Sir Hyde didn't know."

 Edwards stared at Ramage. "What do you really think, eh? Man to man . . ."

 "I think he knew well enough, " Ramage said frankly. "He must have: he saw Wallis's journals and every flogging was recorded. He looked the other way. It could happen in someone else's fleet but not in one of his frigates."

 "Exactly. He knew, and it was common gossip. Mind you, no one else knew just how bad it was."

 "But why is Admiral Davis worried?"

 "Because none of this evidence about Wallis came out in the other trials."

 "A question of Sir Hyde's seniority, I suppose, " Ramage mused.

 "Precisely. Sir Hyde is nearly at the top of the flag list and Admiral Davis is near the bottom ... Sir Hyde will probably protest to Their Lordships the moment he hears. He'll claim that Admiral Davis did it deliberately; that the court's questioning was intended to discredit him. He's a touchy sort of man, always looking for insults."

 "But Admiral Davis wasn't responsible! " Ramage protested. "We asked the questions! "

 "Don't worry, " Edwards said. "Our Admiral doesn't lack courage. Anyway, none of this helps you with Santa Cruz - but you realize what bringing the Jocasta back here would mean?"

 Ramage grinned because Edwards was being perfectly frank now. "That Admiral Davis wouldn't have to worry overly about the effect of those minutes on Their Lordships." When Edwards nodded, Ramage could not help adding bitterly: "And Captain Eames would have nothing more to worry about, either."

 Edwards inspected his fingernails for several moments. "Quite obviously I could never make any comment about a fellow officer serving on this station, but you are free to draw any conclusions you like. However, it would be unfortunate for all concerned, " he said quietly, looking directly at Ramage, "if a second attempt failed."

 In other words, Ramage knew, Edwards was just repeating the gentle warning. Eames had already established that it was quite impossible to carry out the Admiralty's order to cut out the Jocasta, but another captain had to be saddled with the failure: Admiral Davis was protecting his favourite frigate captain.

 But why pick on me? Ramage thought to himself. He had made the Admiral several thousand pounds richer from prize money, thanks to the captures off Martinique. Yet to be fair to the Admiral (however reluctantly), he had been picked because he was the newest arrival; someone to whom the Admiral owed no patronage or loyalty. Davis was shrewd enough to know that Ramage's stock would be high at the Admiralty once Their Lordships heard about the Martinique affair, and if the next report they received told them that Ramage had failed at Santa Cruz, perhaps it would balance out.

 "You realize what else bringing back the Jocasta would mean?" Captain Edwards asked, and Ramage sensed he had guessed his thoughts.

 "Glory for everyone, " he said sourly, and then added quickly as the thought had just struck him: "It would also make Eames look a fool."

 Edwards nodded and then said: "That possibility hasn't yet occurred to the Admiral."

 So Edwards had no time for Eames! "But has it occurred to Eames?" Ramage asked.

 "No, nor will it. He'll be only too glad that you now have the job. It's a curious situation, " Edwards said. "You'll have to make the best of it. If you succeed - and I'm not flattering you when I say if anyone can, it's you - you'll have a patron for life in the Admiral. And me, too, if I ever reach a position I can do you a service. Now, you realize this conversation hasn't taken place. I've behaved most improperly as the Admiral's flag captain; you've said things that are best left unsaid. And I hope the air is a lot clearer! I'll leave you to go through those minutes. A copy of our trial minutes is on the top."

 With that he left the cabin and Ramage started reading. Out of curiosity he began with the minutes of the trial completed yesterday.

 "At a court martial, held on board His Majesty's ship Invincible in English Harbour, Antigua . . . the fourteenth of June and held by one adjournment the fifteenth of June . . . Present, Herbert Edwards, esquire, commanding officer of His Majesty's ship Invincible and second-in-command of His Majesty's ships and vessels upon the Windward and Leeward Islands station, president, and Captains J. Marden, E. Teal, J. Banks, N. Ramage . . ."

 The first time he had ever been a member of a court martial, his name was on a document which concluded: ". . . the said Albert Summers, Henry Perry and Henry Harris, to be hanged by their necks until they are dead, at the yardarms of His Majesty's ship Invincible, and at such time as the Commander-in-Chief shall direct."

 Many men had been killed in the past because he had given the orders which took his ship into action; many of the enemy were dead because of his orders to open fire; he had killed men himself with pistol and sword; but all of that was in the heat of battle with the knowledge that it was "Kill or be killed". This was so cold-blooded. Yet, as Southwick had said this morning before he left the Calypso: "Don't take on so: they knew that if they murdered they risked being stabbed with a Bridport dagger ..." That was true enough, and it was a case where the slang was appropriate. The Navy's tribute to the Dorset town of Bridport which made such fine quality hemp rope was to make "a Bridport dagger" another phrase for the hangman's noose.

 Ramage picked up the minutes of the Barbados trial of Jocasta mutineers. It told him only what the accused men did; there was no hint of why. Nor did it mention any details that might help him off Santa Cruz. There was a mutiny, and the witness deposed that A did this and B did that and C did the other. No mention that some officers had survived and then been murdered by Harris. Ramage picked up the next set, from Jamaica, and they told the same scanty story: enough evidence to convict the accused - more than enough, there was no question of that - but no hint that the frigate was sailing in limbo and manned by seamen who felt themselves doomed at the hands of a mad captain.

 Was Wallis really mad? Madness seemed remote, sitting in Edwards's neat cabin on board the Invincible in English Harbour, but how had it been on board Wallis's frigate? Did it give him pleasure to flog men, or did he genuinely think everyone on board, officers, Marines and seamen, was plotting against him? Either way he must have been mad: no sane man enjoyed ordering a flogging. Ramage put down the last of the minutes under a heavy paperweight. He had wasted half an hour and learned nothing from them. Or, rather, he had learned there was nothing to be learned, except that, however convincing the minutes of a court martial might seem, they were unlikely to give even a hint of the real problem . . .