Ramage and the Dido Read Free Page B

there’s usually a ball or two to liven things up. Make Nicholas take you – I know what a devil he is for dodging them if he can. By the way, take the carriage – the coachman’s new and a fool, but Nicholas knows the Portsmouth road.’
     
    The carriage left Palace Street two days later, starting off just as dawn was breaking. Ramage and Sarah crossed the Thames at Lambeth Bridge and found little other traffic: there were burly draymen delivering barrels to ale houses, and bakers with delicious-smelling newly baked loaves, otherwise the streets were almost deserted. After some eight miles they reached the edge of Richmond Park, and for the next two miles skirted it on the right before reaching Kingston. They had covered eighteen miles and the sun was climbing higher by the time they passed Lord Clive’s estate at Claremont and drove on to Guildford, thirty miles from Palace Street. It was a fine sunny day: Ramage could see few clouds through the carriage window.
    ‘We’re going to have a dusty ride,’ he commented to Sarah.
    ‘It’s always either dusty or muddy,’ she commented. ‘One day it will be perfect – a day we’re not travelling!’
    They reached Guildford just before ten o’clock, and Ramage saw a postchaise coming up to London pull in to change horses. Jessop, the coachman, announced that Guildford was as far as he knew, and Ramage directed him on to Godalming, which they reached in twenty minutes and went on to pass the Devil’s Punch Bowl. Once through the hills they could make better time, and it was just two o’clock when they reached Petersfield and Ramage decided they would stop for a meal and a wash: dust seemed to get through every crack and crevice, and there was no question of driving with the window open. The inside of the carriage smelled musty and, with the dust, made them sneeze occasionally.
    While they were waiting for the meal to be served at The Bell, and Jessop was attending to the horses, Sarah said: ‘Your father has a comfortable carriage: it is one of the best sprung I have ever travelled in.’
    ‘He likes his comfort,’ Ramage said. ‘It’s a long ride when they go down to Cornwall, and for the last third of the way to St Kew the road is awful. This Portsmouth road is bad enough. To think the telegraph takes only fifteen minutes or so.’
    ‘The telegraph?’ Sarah asked. ‘Remind me how it works.’
    ‘Well, it’s like people standing on hills and waving to each other. The Admiralty has built signal towers all the way from the roof of the Admiralty building to Portsmouth – and it is being extended to Plymouth. There are men with telescopes in all the towers, and as soon as a message starts being signalled from one tower it is passed on to the next.’
    ‘What are the signals – flags?’
    ‘No, on each tower is a semaphore – like a man’s arms. Different positions mean different letters of the alphabet. So unless it is foggy or dark, a message can be passed just as quickly as the signalman can handle it.’
    ‘But surely there are a lot of routine messages – more than the telegraph can send.’
    ‘Goodness me, yes. But every evening, at set times, messengers leave the Admiralty on horseback, bound for the various ports – Plymouth, Portsmouth, Sheerness, Harwich, Yarmouth, and so on. It is a regular service, so that the various port admirals know when to expect their mail. And, of course, the messengers bring back the routine correspondence to the Admiralty.’
    Sarah seemed satisfied with the answer, but then she asked: ‘Tell me about Aitken. Does his transfer to the Dido mean a promotion?’
    ‘Yes, indeed. He will still be first lieutenant, so he’s been promoted from the first lieutenant of a frigate to a ship of the line. The same for the other lieutenants. And I shall have another one, too, a fifth lieutenant. And – if I want that many – up to twenty-four midshipmen.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘No, I’ll settle for ten or a dozen, but