Read Online Ramage's Mutiny by Dudley Pope - Free Book Online Page B

barely five feet tall and lean, his face tanned and lined. His eyes were sharp and his ears curiously pointed, reminding Ramage of a pixie.
    Edwards took out his watch. “Twenty minutes to go. I trust you all have your commissions?” With that he led the way to his cabin and offered them tea.
    Precisely at eight o’clock another gun fired in the
Invincible
to signal the beginning of the trial and Captain Edwards led the way to the Admiral’s great cabin. The long dining table had been put athwartships at the after end of the cabin with five chairs placed along one side, so that the captains would sit facing forwards, their backs to the big sternlights.
    A rotund, bespectacled man already sat at a chair at one end, a pile of papers, inkwell, pen and several books in front of him. Edwards introduced the
Invincible
’s purser, Eric Gowers, who had been appointed deputy judge advocate.
    There were two rows of chairs at the forward end of the cabin—Ramage guessed they came from the wardroom and that the ship’s officers would be eating their meals sitting on forms until the trial ended—with a single chair in front of the table ready for the witness. Between the table and the first row of chairs was an open space: there the prisoners would stand, guarded by Marines and with the provost marshal to one side.
    As if to underline the fact that the
Invincible
was primarily a fighting ship, there were two guns on each side in the cabin, their train tackles neatly coiled, the barrels shining black and the carriages and trucks freshly painted. The gun ports were open to keep the cabin cool. Against the forward bulkhead there was a well-polished mahogany sideboard with a matching wine-cooler beside it, shaped like a Greek urn. Over the sideboard was an oil painting of a plump and pleasant-looking woman, probably the Admiral’s wife. She looked amiable enough, Ramage noted.
    Edwards went to the centre chair at the after side of the table and sat down. In front of him was a small gavel, and he looked at the four captains. “We might as well begin. Please read your commissions—you start,” he said, gesturing to Marden.
    Ramage saw that Gowers, the deputy judge advocate, noted down the date of the commission: Marden had been made post six years ago. As soon as all the commissions had been read, establishing their seniority, Edwards told them to take their seats. Marden, as the senior, sat on Edwards’s right, with Teal on his left, Banks beyond Marden and Ramage, as the junior, next to Teal, on Captain Edwards’s extreme left.
    By now a Marine lieutenant had come into the cabin: he must be acting as the provost marshal (at an extra four shillings a day, Ramage thought inconsequentially).
    Edwards gestured towards Gowers. “Very well, we will make a start.”
    The deputy judge advocate turned to the provost marshal. “Bring in the prisoners and all the witnesses. The prisoners first.”
    Two Marines with drawn cutlasses marched into the cabin, the white pipeclay on their crossbelts a startling contrast to their polished black boots. Behind them, shuffling in single file, came four seamen, unshaven, their faces shiny with perspiration and their wrists in irons. Two more Marines followed.
    The Marine lieutenant walked round to line up the men in front of the table but Edwards, seeing the pistol in his hand, snapped: “We don’t need pistols. Leave that thing outside!”
    As the provost marshal hurried out the seamen took up their positions and Ramage saw that none of them looked up at the five captains facing them. Mutineers? Perhaps, but they looked like any seamen chosen at random—or, for that matter, any four men picked off the streets of a country town on market day. The only difference was that they were frightened; awed and overwhelmed at finding themselves standing in an admiral’s cabin, facing five captains, flanked by armed Marines, and on trial