Free The Ramage Touch by Dudley Pope Page B

and he too had been dissuaded from setting his men to work to remove a year or two’s grease and wine stains. Ramage thought that Martin was settling in well – apart from his confounded flute. It was hardly surprising that his nickname was ‘blower’; he must have lungs like a blacksmith’s bellows.
    ‘Blower’ Martin had joined the ship at Gibraltar, replacing a bag o’ wind called Benn who had taken only the voyage from Jamaica to the Rock to decide that the Calypso was not for him. It was not really the poor fellow’s fault…Benn, something of a sea lawyer, had been one of the admiral’s favourites in Jamaica, and being promoted from a midshipman in the flagship to fourth-lieutenant (and no one’s favourite) in a frigate had been a shock.
    Ramage still missed Baker. When they had captured the island of Curaçao he had a good set of officers: William Aitken was first-lieutenant, Baker second, Wagstaffe third and young Kenton fourth, with Renwick commanding the Marine detachment. Considering that the Calypso herself had not been engaged, but only a boarding party, the casualties had been heavy – himself bowled over with a musket ball in the left forearm and a scalp wound, Renwick with a ball in the right shoulder, and Baker killed outright. So Aitken had remained first-lieutenant, he had made Wagstaffe second, Kenton third, and this elegant young nincompoop Benn had been sent across from the Queen by the commander-in-chief as the new fourth. He was, he made it quite clear to all and sundry, one of Admiral Foxe-Foote’s favourites.
    Ramage was not sure what had gone on in the gunroom during the Calypso ’s Atlantic crossing, but Benn had been quick to ask for permission to leave the ship on arriving in Gibraltar, and Aitken, when asked by Ramage about what was a very unusual request, merely smiled and said he supported it. So Admiral Foxe-Foote’s favourite had left the ship and thrown himself on the mercy of the port admiral at Gibraltar in what Ramage soon discovered was, for Benn, a very unwise move.
    When Ramage had reported to the port admiral next day and asked for a replacement, the admiral had bellowed (he rarely spoke in anything less): ‘Count yourself lucky to have got rid of that lapdog of Admiral Foote’s. Wonder you accepted him. Still, your fellows made his life a misery – and now I’m landed with him. There’s no commanding officer I dislike enough to inflict with him, so he goes back to England as a passenger by the next ship and Their Lordships can find him a berth – if they confirm his promotion. Now you want a replacement, eh?’
    Ramage had agreed politely that the Calypso stood in need of a fourth-lieutenant.
    ‘What happened to your original one?’ the admiral demanded.
    ‘Promoted to third, sir.’
    ‘What happened to the third, then?’
    ‘Promoted to second.’
    ‘And the second?’
    ‘Killed in action, sir.’
    ‘Hmm. So you can’t be as bad as your late fourth-lieutenant implied. He told me you were always changing officers. I’m asking because you are going to be landed with one of my favourites. He’s a good lad, passed for lieutenant five months ago, plays a flute–’
    ‘A flute , sir?’
    ‘Yes, you know, a hollow stick with holes drilled in it. You blow into it with your mouth like this.’ The admiral gave a passable imitation of an old dowager sucking a bitter lemon. ‘Very tuneful.’
    ‘Er – I’m just wondering, sir,’ Ramage said warily, ‘if this young man really is suited to a frigate: after all, it–’
    The admiral roared with laughter and slapped the table in front of him with a hand the size of a leg of mutton. ‘Damme, Ramage, if you don’t have the sheepish look of someone trying to jilt the parson’s daughter! Don’t fret – this lad’s a favourite o’ mine because he’s good and because his father is the master shipwright at the Chatham yard. He built his own skiff when he was eight and rowed all the way to Sheerness on its