Ramage's Devil (r-1) by Dudley Pope

Author:Dudley Pope [Pope, Dudley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adv_history, adv_maritime

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Admiral Clinton sat at his desk with the alert wariness of a stag lurking in a stand of low trees at the far end of a glen. He was trying to decide whether the five men in front of him were innocent visitors or a quintet likely to board him in a cloud of smoke.

'Well now,' he said finally, his Scots accent broadening, and Ramage remembered Sarah's reference to the family, 'so here ye all are. Let me see ...

'Yes, Dr Travis, the physician of my fleet, I know you well enough, and so I should since I see you every day. Are ye comfortable in that old armchair?'

Travis, tall and gaunt, everyone's idea of a dour man of medicine, had obviously qualified in Edinburgh, and his brief 'Aye' was all he would allow himself for the moment.

'And m'flag captain - are you comfortable, Bennett? I know ye prefer standing but with this headroom and you so tall, it worries me!'

Except for Travis, the others laughed dutifully: Captain Bennett was only an inch or so over five feet; even his hair, wiry and sitting on his head like a bob major wig, did not come within five inches of the beams.

'Then there's Captain Ramage. Lord Ramage, by rights, but he saves us any possible embarrassment by not using his title. You're a jealous man, otherwise you'd have brought that beautiful wife with you.'

Ramage smiled, not at all certain whether or not the admiral was making a polite joke. 'She has only a fishwife's torn smock to wear, sir, so she decided to wait for a more appropriate occasion.'

Clinton gestured at Ramage's trousers and shirt. 'You'd have made a good pair. I've been a sailor too long to judge a ship by the patches in her sails.'

He looked round at the settee. 'Well, Mr Ramage, perhaps you'd introduce these gentlemen ...'

'Sir, Lieutenant Aitken, the Calypso's first lieutenant. He has served with me in the Mediterranean and the West Indies.'

'Aye,' Clinton told Aitken, 'he's been telling me all about you. What he doesn't know - nor do you - is that I knew all about you long ago.'

He gave a laugh at the look of dismay on the young lieutenant's face. 'Man, you look as though the parson's just accused you of deflowering all the young women in the village. Y'father was another Aitken, master, was he not, and he served with me in the Ramillies, Britannia and this ship, the Culloden, before I hoisted my flag. I owed a lot to y'father and I've kept an eye on you from the day y'went to sea, but you've made your own way without needing a dram of help so I've held m'peace.'

Aitken was obviously startled at this news and stammered his thanks, to be cut short by Clinton. 'Ye've served Mr Ramage very well, and it looks to me as if Mr Ramage feels towards the Aitken family as I do. Still, we all have the rest of our lives to

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