Well, OK, 1'm sorry. I apologize to Dudley Pope. I had said some rather unkind things about one of his Ramage novels, based on an audiotape. To be fair I read another, Ramage and the Freebooters, and it's really quite entertaining. As with the C.S. Forester, Alexander Kent, and O'Brian series, this one is also set at sea during the Napoleonic War. Lieutenant Ramage, son of the disgraced admiral, is under a cloud himself for having performed some rather unorthodox maneuvers during the Battle of St. Vincent. These maneuvers were much to the delight of Sir Jervis and Lord Nelson, but to the consternation and dismay of the more traditional officers, who actually believe in following orders to the letter.
Believing he is to be reprimanded, Ramage appears before Admiral Spencer, only to be given command of a small brig - ten guns the Triton. There's a catch, however. The brig is tied up at Spithead, and this is the year 1797. You will remember that was the year the British sailors mutinied at Spithead. Ramage's task is to find a crew and sail to the Caribbean to carry word of the mutiny to the rest of the British fleet command so they can take appropriate action. A tricky task. Should he succeed, the glory will go to the Board; should he fail, he becomes a convenient scapegoat.
The mutineers' demands were really quite reasonable. Aside from a request for slightly higher pay --they were paid much less than sailors in the merchant service-- they asked for leave when in port (always denied for rear of desertion) and that a pound be considered 16 ounces. Normally, it was the custom of the purser, who had to account for everything, to receipt fur 16 ounces, but supply the men with only 14 ounces, arguing the difference was spoilage or wastage. He usually pocketed the difference himself.
Another scam was to charge off all sorts of expenses to dead sailors, leaving little for the widow, but making himself wealthy. Pursers were not popular. Once Ramage arrives in the West Indies, he is assigned another tricky task. Schooners have been disappearing with regularity, and the Navy has been unable to discover what has happened to them Clearly they have been taken by privateers, yet a search of the entire region reveals no inlets or bays where they could be hiding and transhipping the cargoes. Pope has crafted a page-turning yardbracing mystery.
