Ramage's Mutiny by Dudley Pope Page B

rewards.”
    â€œWere those to be handed over to the Spanish, the men in the first list, those who had not taken part in the mutiny?”
    â€œNot all of them, sir. There was about 25. The cook, some seamen and myself.”
    â€œWhat about the second list? Were they men who had not been in the mutiny?”
    â€œYes, sir. You see some of us had upset Summers or Perry, and as a sort of punishment we were put on the first list. They used to go round threatening people. As bad as Captain Wallis, they was. Them as hadn’t took part in the mutiny and hadn’t fallen foul of Summers went on the second list.”
    â€œThe Spanish authorities agreed to all this?”
    â€œThey did eventually, sir, but at first they thought it was some sort of trap. They insisted on taking nearly everyone on shore in the boat, twenty at a time. They brought out more Spanish seamen each time they came back. Then they tried to sail her into the anchorage.”
    â€œTried?”
    â€œYes, sir; they got her in irons, and eventually Summers took the conn and brought her in.”
    â€œHow do you know that—surely you had been taken off as prisoners?”
    â€œNo, sir, the prisoners were put in irons with a guard of Spaniards. We got worried once when the ship touched a rock and we was all trussed up, but she came off all right.”
    Edwards tapped with his gavel. “The court will adjourn until eight o’clock tomorrow.” Only then did Ramage, glancing at his watch, realize they had been listening to evidence for more than five hours.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    W HEN THE court sat again next morning Weaver was back at the end of the line of prisoners while Gowers read aloud the minutes of the previous day’s hearing. Although all five captains had avoided discussing the trial, either when the previous day’s session ended or before today’s began, they knew that the pile of papers covered with Gowers’s spidery writing formed the worst condemnation of a captain in the history of the Navy.
    â€œBreadfruit Bligh” had been sent off the
Bounty
by her mutineers, but he was still alive—indeed, the last Ramage heard of him he was commanding a 74, as unpopular with the Admiralty as with his ship’s company. Bligh had been too free with the cato’-nine-tails in the
Bounty
but compared with Wallis—Ramage did not doubt Weaver’s story and knew that his fellow captains agreed—Bligh was no more violent than one of Mr Wesley’s preachers.
    Gowers’s voice droned on, but he had made a good job of the minutes: it must be hard to concentrate for hours on end. Finally he finished and told Weaver: “You are still on oath: take up your position again as a witness.”
    Captain Edwards had several slips of paper in front of him, and Ramage realized that on each was written a question. It made it easier for the deputy judge advocate if he was given a written question immediately it was asked: he simply numbered it and wrote down the number and corresponding reply in his rough copy of the minutes.
    â€œYou described yesterday how the
Jocasta
arrived at La Guaira. Relate what happened to you after the ship came to an anchor.”
    â€œWe prisoners was kept on board two days and then taken on shore under guard and lodged in the town jail. Five days later we were told we would have to work for our keep, and if we didn’t we’d starve.”
    â€œWhat work was this?”
    â€œHelping build fortifications at La Guaira, sir. Breaking up rocks and carrying them to the masons.”
    â€œFor how long did you do this work?”
    â€œUntil the fortresses was completed. Fourteen months, sir.”
    Breaking up rocks under a scorching tropical sun: for weeks the sun would be directly overhead at noon. It said much for Weaver that he had survived.
    â€œYou received pay?”
    â€œThey called it subsistence money, sir, and we never actually received it. They used