Ramage 12 - Ramage & the Renegades by Dudley Pope

Author:Dudley Pope
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-04-26T23:00:00+00:00

if French, of course) providing there was a war on. A hostile act against any ship in peacetime was piracy, and the penalty for piracy was hanging.

As he walked down the ladder from the quarterdeck towards the entryport, Aitken heard the sentry's challenge, and, from beyond the ship, a reply that sounded like a single word, the name of a ship. So the captain of the privateer - the former privateer, he corrected himself - was paying a visit. Probably, he realized, to get news of the Treaty: they would have heard only gossip and hearsay from the merchant ships, and were now seizing the opportunity of having it -

officially, as far as they were concerned - from one of the King's ships. After all, hearing that a profitable way of life was now illegal - well, even privateersmen could not be blamed for wanting to have the news confirmed by a reliable source.

'Sir,' the sentry said, obviously puzzled, 'the boat's alongside and they've got a white flag flying -

lashed to a boarding pike. They've only just lashed it this moment because I saw a fellow sitting there with a pole, and there weren't no flag...'

Aitken went to the port and looked down at the boat. The bowman had hooked on; a man at the stern was waiting for one of the Calypso's seamen to throw down a sternfast while the bowman waited for a painter.

In the meantime the four men sat in the sternsheets, one of them, a big Negro, holding between his knees the boarding pike with a square of grubby white cloth secured to it.

Aitken noticed that the four men had pistols in their belts, and there were cutlasses in the bottom of the boat, but that was reasonable enough: the Calypso herself had flown false colours in the late war to get herself into a position to attack the enemy - after hoisting her true colours.

And privateersmen, he had to admit, would be among the most cautious and distrustful men afloat.

Nevertheless, Aitken wanted an explanation of the flag of truce before anyone stepped on board.

'Why are you waving that truce flag?' he demanded.

'Not waving it,' one of the men answered. 'Holdin' it still.'

'Answer my question.'

'S'bluddy obvious. We want to come on board under a flag of truce.'

'A truce for what? The war's over.'

'Oh - it's true what they tell us, then?'

'I don't know who's been telling you what,' Aitken said, his tone more friendly, 'but Bonaparte signed a treaty of peace with Britain on the first day of last October.'

'That's good news. Can we come on board, then?'

'Of course. What's your ship?'

'The Lynx of Bristol, letter of marque.'

'Former letter of marque,' Aitken said.

'Well, yes, give us time to get used to the idea of peace!'

Aitken laughed and watched as the speaker stood up and reached for the battens.

'I don't rate sideropes, eh?' the man looked up but started climbing.

'You could have been a bumboat selling bananas,' Aitken said sarcastically. 'But we'd have fired salutes and piped you on board, if you'd given us due notice.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.