The masters would let their best men row for the shore, to hide until it was time to sail or until the ships of war left them in peace again. There was little chance of the men deserting - the masters ensured their return by keeping most of the pay due to them. Still, for the seamen, hanging around the quayside was to risk being picked up by a roving press gang or falling into the hands of a crimp who sold his victims to the highest bidder - a master short of men, a Navy captain desperate enough to buy men out of his own pocket rather than risk sailing dangerously shorthanded.
A clattering of feet on the ladder outside the cabin was followed by the Marine sentry stamping to attention and calling, "Mr Southwick, sir!"
At Ramage's hail, the Triton's Master came into the cabin, his mop of white hair plastered down with perspiration, his forehead marked with a band where his hat had been pressing the skin.
"Boat just left the flagship and coming our way, sir."
"Who's in it?"
"A lieutenant, sir. Thought I'd better warn you."
Ramage glanced up. Gossip must travel fast - the old Master was obviously worried on his behalf.
"There's no need to worry until you see our pendant and the signal for a captain!"
"Aye aye, sir. It's just that with those two..."
"No disrespect to the flag, Mr Southwick." The mock severity brought a grin from Southwick.
"I'm not being disrespectful, sir," the old man said with a sudden burst of anger, "just mutinous, seditious, treasonable, and anything else that's forbidden by the Articles of War."
Ramage felt a great affection for Southwick. The Master had the chubby, pink, almost cherubic face of an amiable country parson - and the build of one. Once stocky, he was now verging on portly. His hair, grey and white, long and usually sticking out like a windblown halo, would have looked well on a bishop. But Southwick's looks were deceptive. Apart from being an extremely competent seaman and a good navigator, he was a born fighter: the prospect of battle transformed the benevolent vicar into a malevolent butcher.
Southwick was as old as Ramage's father. For many men in late middle age, taking orders from a lieutenant just past his twenty-first birthday was hard to accept. They had to accept it, of course, because it was part of the system, backed by tradition and the Articles of War. On board a merchantman the master was the captain; in a ship of war the master was simply the sailing master, the man responsible, under the captain's orders, for the sailing of the ship. Masters held their jobs by virtue of a warrant; they did not even have the commission granted the lowliest lieutenant a day past being a midshipman or master's mate.
Ramage's relationship with Southwick was unusual. In many ships with young captains, an elderly master just did his job: no omissions, no errors and no helping hand. If the captain made a mistake, the master pointed it out later but rarely in time for it to be avoided.
Southwick understood - without ever having experienced it - that commanding and making decisions was a lonely occupation, and he made allowances. He treated all the seamen impartially as well-meaning but oft-erring scallywags; schoolboys to be taught patiently what they didn't know and forever watched because of their capacity for mischief.
Southwick looked at the convoy plan.
"Forty-nine ships and quite an escort," he growled, as though suspicious.
"It's a big convoy. The Admiral expected more frigates."
"No admiral ever had enough frigates. Still, it's a biggish convoy for inside the Caribbean," Southwick admitted grudgingly, "but small for the Atlantic. All for Jamaica?"
"No - four for Martinique, and three for Antigua. These," Ramage said, pointing to the last ship in each column.
"Surely we're not having to make a great dog-leg northward just for the Antigua ships?"
"Apparently so," Ramage said, sharing Southwick's annoyance, since it meant the convoy had to cover two sides of a triangle.
"Aye - and any north in the wind and these mules will scatter to leeward and end up beached on the Spanish Main."
That was only too true. The course for Antigua was northwest; the Trades blew between south-east and north-east, and the Atlantic pouring into the Caribbean caused a strong current between each of the islands.
Ramage laughed at Southwick's indignation, but the Master protested, "That's no exaggeration, sir; have you seen 'em? Why, there's only one ship with decent rigging, and that's the Topaz: the rest have rotten rigging, rotten masts and spars - and a bunch of coasting mates commanding 'em."
"And all on a 'share the profits' basis, no doubt, so they're making as much as admirals," Ramage teased.
"Don't let's talk of it, sir," Southwick said crossly. "It's hard enough keeping my temper with them now when they're at anchor: just think of 'em shortening sail and dropping back every night... If I think-"
The Marine sentry's call interrupted him.
"It'll be that lieutenant from the flagship," Ramage said. "Send him in."
With the receipt signed and the lieutenant gone to call on the other escorts, Ramage slit open the sealed packet. It was innocent enough after all, a plan giving the positions for the escorts, and informing all captains that an extra ship would be joining the convoy, and her number would be 78. Ramage glanced again at the name, Peacock, and put her on the convoy plan, the eighth ship in the seventh column.
Where had she come from? Could be a runner, one of the fast and lightly armed ships that usually sailed from England without a convoy, hoping speed would save her from capture. Good profits - at high risks - for such shipowners: arriving weeks ahead of convoys meant merchants could always get very high scarcity prices for the freights.
He was impatient for the convoy to weigh; even more impatient for it to arrive. Kingston meant an unpleasant voyage over and the possibility that he'd avoided any of Goddard's tricks.
Reaching up to the rack over his head he pulled down a small-scale chart of the Caribbean and unrolled it. His eyes followed the islands. At the bottom right-hand corner was Barbados, where they were at the moment; and to the westward, in a line running upwards, to the north, the chain of the Windward Islands - Grenada, then St Vincent, St Lucia and Martinique - merging into the Leewards - Dominica, Guadeloupe, Antigua and several small islands at the top right-hand corner. How the islands had changed in the last few years - only Guadeloupe was still held by the French...
Then, going left across the top of the chart, Virgin Gorda, Tortola, St John and St Thomas - the Virgin Islands; then the Spanish Islands of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola - part of which was French - and Cuba. Just below the gap between Hispaniola and Cuba lay Jamaica. He walked the dividers over the chart, measuring the distances against the latitude scale: 260 miles from Barbados up to Antigua, then just 900 westward to Kingston.
With the hurricane season just beginning the refuges were few enough. English Harbour, in Antigua, had a tiny and mosquito-ridden dockyard for the King's ships to refit themselves, but was otherwise of no importance to man or beast. Bereft of drinking water and as barren as a mule, it was cordially disliked by everyone. An almost enclosed bay at St John in the Virgin Islands; a similar one at Snake Island - Spanish owned and named Culebra by them - between St Thomas and Puerto Rico; a couple on the south side of Puerto Rico, which the Spaniards would stop anyone else from using; and precious little else.
All of which meant that if a hurricane hit them with the usual few hours' warning, only three or four ships were likely to survive. The flagship, the Topaz, probably the frigates and, less likely, the Triton and the Lark lugger. He was being pessimistic but much would depend on Goddard. Would he disperse the convoy in time to avoid them having a barrier of islands in their way as they ran before the winds? Sea room, plenty of sea room - that would be their only hope. In a hurricane the wind eventually goes right round the compass. It was a comfort that Maxine was in the best ship, anyway.