by Dudley Pope
“No, sir, unless you are looking for the Devil himself—and find him hiding in the bodies of three men!”
“Which three?” asked a flabbergasted Ramage.
“The seaman Rossi, the Marchesa’s young nephew Paolo Orsini—and Southwick!”
“I can understand Rossi and Orsini—they have sallow complexions and black hair. But Southwick—I always think he looks like a bishop.”
“That’s exactly what Captain Bullivant said! He denounced Southwick because he said it was impossible for a bishop to be serving as the master in one of the King’s ships, therefore he must be the Devil in disguise.”
“But how did this cause a crisis?
“He swore he would hang a Devil a day until the ship was free of them. Southwick was the first and due to be executed at sunset today.”
“But the men would never haul on the rope!” Ramage said. The whole thing was unthinkable.
“Sir,” Bowen said very seriously, “the minute he gives anyone an order and is disobeyed, that’s a breach of enough Articles of War for a death sentence at a court martial …”
“So … ?”
“So, I told Aitken that the only way out was to use ‘medical grounds’ to get the admiral involved. I had a plan in case that failed (the signal for the physician of the fleet, I mean) but I couldn’t then be sure it would work. Luckily it did when I used it …”
“The tankard of brandy and the flask?”
“Yes, sir. It’s the timing that is difficult. To judge how much is needed to tip the man over the edge into oblivion—well, that depends on how much he has drunk in the previous few hours, and whether he has eaten.”
“You timed it perfectly.”
“I thought all was lost when he threw the tankard at your head. Thank goodness you realized what I had in mind.”
“I was very slow. I was surprised to see you offering him more drink. Then, quite honestly, I remembered what used to happen when Southwick and I were curing you.”
“‘Completing my medical education’ would be a more tactful word, sir, than ‘curing.’”
“As you wish. Anyway, thank you. On my behalf and the three Devils’!”
“Yes, well, Aitken and young Orsini thought of that signal. I told Aitken we should stake everything on medical grounds, and between them they thought of that signal. Aitken could only keep it hoisted for ten or fifteen minutes at a time.”
“That was long enough. The Blackthorne repeated it and it reached the admiral.”
“And he sent you at once?”
Ramage laughed dryly. “No, if the majority of the Murex brig’s men had not mutinied and carried the ship into Brest … And had I not been near Brest on my honeymoon … And had not my wife and I had the help of four Frenchmen so we could retake the Murex … And had we not managed to sail out and accidentally meet Admiral Clinton and the fleet … And had the Calypso not been my old ship … No, but for all those circumstances, Mr Sawbones, I don’t think your signal would have attracted the attention it deserved. Still, all’s well …”
“But will all this end well?” Bowen asked anxiously. “We still have him”—he gestured to the door of the sleeping cabin—”in there. Supposing the admiral doesn’t …”
“Oh, he’ll do something about him, I am sure. Who you’ll get in his place I do not know. Probably the first lieutenant of the flagship—that’s usually the person who gets the first vacant frigate command.”
“But the Calypso’s still inside Channel limits.”
“She won’t be when the admiral makes the appointment: Brest is outside the limits. He wasn’t born yesterday!”
“And you, sir?”
Ramage hesitated, thinking of L’Espoir, which, even while the Calypso and the brig rejoined the Fleet, was ploughing her way towards Cayenne, towards Devil’s Island. Everything depended on Admiral Clinton. Would the Prince of Wales’s friendship with a French refugee have any effect? Probably not. Almost certainly not. And even if it did, Clinton must have his own favourite frigate captains, and one of them would get orders which could bring him glory or, if he failed, square his yards for ever!
“I expect I’ll be taking the brig back to Plymouth and reporting what I know of the mutiny to the Admiralty.”
“And your wife, sir? Is her Ladyship still in France? You mentioned her when you talked of retaking the brig.”
“Yes, we escaped together and she is on board the Murex. She wanted to come with me to board the Calypso, but I was rather worried about what I might find.”
“I hope her Ladyship submitted with good grace.”
“Well, you know her Ladyship, Bowen. I doubt if anyone would call her submissive,” Ramage said.
Bowen laughed and his memories of Lady Sarah Rockley, as she was before her marriage, were of a lively and high-spirited woman of grace and beauty who would captivate all the men in a drawing room and leave the women seeming as flat as ale drawn last week.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ADMIRAL CLINTON sat at his desk with the alert wariness of a stag lurking in a stand of low trees at the far end of a glen. He was trying to decide whether the five men in front of him were innocent visitors or a quintet likely to board him in a cloud of smoke.
“Well now,” he said finally, his Scots accent broadening, and Ramage remembered Sarah’s reference to the family, “so here ye all are. Let me see …”
“Yes, Dr Travis, the physician of my fleet, I know you well enough, and so I should since I see you every day. Are ye comfortable in that old armchair?”
Travis, tall and gaunt, everyone’s idea of a dour man of medicine, had obviously qualified in Edinburgh, and his brief “Aye” was all he would allow himself for the moment.
“And m’flag captain—are you comfortable, Bennett? I know ye prefer standing but with this headroom and you so tall, it worries me!”
Except for Travis, the others laughed dutifully: Captain Bennett was only an inch or so over five feet; even his hair, wiry and sitting on his head like a bob major wig, did not come within five inches of the beams.
“Then there’s Captain Ramage. Lord Ramage, by rights, but he saves us any possible embarrassment by not using his title. You’re a jealous man, otherwise you’d have brought that beautiful wife with you.”
Ramage smiled, not at all certain whether or not the admiral was making a polite joke. “She has only a fishwife’s torn smock to wear, sir, so she decided to wait for a more appropriate occasion.”
Clinton gestured at Ramage’s trousers and shirt. “You’d have made a good pair. I’ve been a sailor too long to judge a ship by the patches in her sails.”
He looked round at the settee. “Well, Mr Ramage, perhaps you’d introduce these gentlemen …”
“Sir, Lieutenant Aitken, the Calypso’s first lieutenant. He has served with me in the Mediterranean and the West Indies.”
“Aye,” Clinton told Aitken, “he’s been telling me all about you. What he doesn’t know—nor do you—is that I knew all about you long ago.”
He gave a laugh at the look of dismay on the young lieutenant’s face. “Man, you look as though the parson’s just accused you of deflowering all the young women in the village. Y’father was another Aitken, master, was he not, and he served with me in the Ramillies, Britannia and this ship, the Culloden, before I hoisted my flag. I owed a lot to y’father and I’ve kept an eye on you from the day y’went to sea, but you’ve made your own way without needing a dram of help so I’ve held m’peace.”
Aitken was obviously startled at this news and stammered his thanks, to be cut short by Clinton. “Ye’ve served Mr Ramage very well, and it looks to me as if Mr Ramage feels towards the Aitken family as I do. Still, we all have the rest of our lives to live and,” he added, his voice taking on a friendly warning note, “a great deal of both good and bad can happen before we go to our graves.”
A sombre silence had fallen over the great cabin and in Ramage’s imagination the mahogany of the desk, wine-cooler and ta
ble seemed to grow darker, but Clinton seemed not to realize the effect he had unwittingly made.
“And you must be the Calypso’s surgeon—Bowen, isn’t it? You and Mr Aitken have had a worrying time, I imagine. Now, who starts? Perhaps we’d be better starting at the end, then Dr Travis can be about his business.”
Which was another way of saying, Ramage reflected, that Travis would not have to listen to things that he could be questioned about later at a court martial.
“How did you find the patient?”
“Mr Aitken was justified in signalling for the physician of the fleet, sir. This is no reflection on the medical capacity of Mr Bowen, who I truly believe understands a great deal more about this type of illness than I do.”
“Don’t stop man, you’ve only just started!” the admiral exclaimed impatiently.
“Acting on your orders, I boarded the Calypso frigate as soon as she hove-to near the flagship,” Travis said in a monotonous voice, obviously nettled by the admiral’s remarks, “and I asked Captain Ramage why the ship had made the signal requesting the fleet’s physician. He said that the captain of the frigate, a certain Captain William Bullivant, was confined to his cot unconscious and not in a fit condition to exercise command of the ship.”
“Oh, go on, man!”
“Captain Ramage commented to me,” Travis said heavily, “that the nature of Captain Bullivant’s illness was such that not only could he not exercise command, but it led him for long periods to act in a manner prejudicial to the King’s business.”
Everyone in the cabin realized that Travis had spoken slowly and with great care a sentence which was carefully phrased, intended not just for the ears of the commander-in-chief but the five or more captains and flag officers who might be forming a court martial or court of inquiry.
“Did you examine the patient?”
“I was introduced to the ship’s first lieutenant and her surgeon, but before discussing the case any further I went below and examined the patient. I have my notes here,” he said, pulling a sheaf of papers from a leather case. The admiral watched for a moment as Travis began sorting them out, and then groaned.
“No, no, Travis, don’t start pouring Latin words all over me. I’m just a simple Highlander, not one of your brilliant Edinburgh scholars.”
Travis glared at the admiral, sat up straight in the armchair and put the papers back in his case. “In words of one syllable, sir, Captain Bullivant was in a drunken stupor. He has been having attacks of—if you’ll permit me that Latin—delirium tremens, and he was proposing to have the master, a midshipman and a seaman hanged at sunset.”
Clinton’s face paled. It took him only a moment to connect the Bullivant family and the Navy Board, the besotted captain of a frigate and the dangers for junior officers, and another moment to realize that the whole problem had landed in his lap like a haggis sliding away from the carver’s knife.
“You can testify about the man’s medical condition; you don’t know about the hangings.”
“I do, sir,” Travis contradicted, and he said with some precision: “I confirmed the captain’s intentions with each of the three men and my witnesses were Captain Ramage and Lieutenant Swan, the first lieutenant of the brig.”
“Very well, doctor, and thank ‘ee. I’m sure you have plenty of work waiting for you.”
“I have that,” Travis said. “You’ll be wanting a written report?”
“I’ll talk to you about that later.”
As soon as Travis had left the cabin, Clinton looked at Ramage. “It was as bad as that?”
“Worse, sir. Bullivant was going to shoot me when I came on board: he reckoned I was Satan, too.”
Clinton permitted himself a wintry smile. “A pardonable error of identification, some might say.”
Ramage gave an equally wintry smile. “With a loaded pistol at less than five paces, sir.”
“Too close, too close,” Clinton agreed, and turned to Bowen. “When do you think the drinking started?”
“Years ago, sir. Secret drinking. As the months pass it takes a glass or two more to produce oblivion. Finally the brain is deranged, although at first not all the time. For a long time the patient probably manages to control his drinking so that he stays this side of delirium, but suddenly he is put under a strain—given the command of a ship, for example. He feels himself inadequate so he has an extra glass or two, or three or four. And he passes over the line into delirium. A few hours later he recovers from that particular attack, craves more drink … and so it goes on. Fifty glasses are not enough; one is too many.”
“How long will it take to cure this man?”
“That is a question better answered by Dr Travis, sir.”
“I am asking you,” persisted the admiral.
“You won’t like my answer, sir.”
“When you reach my age and rank you rarely like anyone’s answers about anything, so that’s not relevant. You were cured of the same thing.”
“Yes, sir, but the cause—what drove me to drink—was not the same.”
Ramage was pleasantly surprised at the way Bowen was carefully making his points: the admiral was leaning forward, like the close relative listening anxiously for the diagnosis.
“What’s the difference? A drink is a drink. One man’s body is like another. It’s the liver isn’t it. Gets damaged?”
“It’s really the mind, sir,” Bowen corrected gently. “It’s the mind that starts a man drinking, although the liver eventually kills him. The patient we are concerned with started drinking—in my opinion, of course—because it helped him forget his feelings of inadequacy.”
“Inadequacy? Inadequacy?” Clinton turned the word over like a dog with a bone. “What did he feel inadequate about?”
“Commanding a frigate, sir. He was also unlucky enough to be given the Calypso.”
“Bowen, you are talking rubbish.”
Ramage, too, was startled to hear the surgeon declaring it was Bullivant’s bad luck to be given the Calypso, although he thought he understood the rest of the point Bowen was making.
“You asked for my medical opinion, sir, and if you’ll allow me, I had one of the best practices in Wimpole Street until I ruined it all with drink. So, drink, drinking, its cause and consequences—that is a subject I know a great deal about. If I was as expert in naval strategy and tactics, I would be the admiral of the red.”
Clinton nodded because for the past few years, as he had begun climbing up the ladder of flag rank, he had been surrounded by sycophants: he found that many captains brave enough in action were too quick with the fawning “Yes, sir, no sir” in this cabin: he found he still enjoyed seeing an officer’s features tauten and hear him say “If you’ll allow me sir” as a preliminary to flatly contradicting a commander-in-chief who could destroy his career with the wave of a hand.
“I appoint you temporarily an admiral of the red wine,” Clinton said dryly. “So explain his ‘inadequacy’ and why he was ‘unlucky.’”
“As Lieutenant Bullivant on board a ship of the line or a frigate, the patient simply obeyed orders. Sighting land, changes in wind strength or direction, tacking or wearing—every captain’s standing orders set down that he is to be called, so the patient never had to decide whether that was a particular headland, whether he had to reef or furl, tack or wear. His whole life at sea was to ask a senior when he was in doubt; to report and obey.”
“Yes, yes, I understand that much,” Clinton said.
“Suddenly—perhaps as a result of patronage, perhaps because he had proved to be a good lieutenant—”
“Perhaps a combination of both,” Clinton interrupted sarcastically.
“Yes,” Bowen agreed, “perhaps. Anyway, he was suddenly made post and given a frigate in emergency conditions with no previous experience of command: with the war about to start again he was ordered to take over the frigate in Chatham, get her ready for sea immediately—remember, she was in the process of paying off—and join your fle
et for blockade duty off Brest, notoriously the worst job the navy has.”
Clinton nodded encouragingly. “So far we are only stating in a medical voice what we all know.”
“Agreed, sir; I could have said that in a naval voice. However, I will now proceed, if I may, in my Wimpole Street voice.”
Clinton grinned: he was beginning to like this whimsical sawbones. He had heard enough about young Ramage to know that by now he must be a shrewd judge of men, and had been impressed at Ramage’s earlier references to Bowen and his lieutenants and the master. Bowen must have sewn him up a few times too, come to think of it, because Ramage had been wounded often enough.
“You can talk in a Wimpole Street voice, but don’t send me a Wimpole Street bill because you’re still a ship’s surgeon!”
“And I wouldn’t exchange any of it.”
“Easy to talk,” Clinton commented.
Ramage said quietly: “With the late peace, sir, Mr Bowen came with me in the Calypso on a long cruise beyond the Equator.”
Clinton pushed his chair back to the full extent of the chain which secured it to the deck against the ship’s roll.
“Hmmp … that only tells me you are loyal if not wise, Bowen, but go on. Your patient”—Ramage noted that Clinton was still keeping the episode at arm’s length—”has just been given a frigate and orders to join my fleet.”
“Well, sir, he’s now on his own. When the officer of the deck reports a landfall, a change in wind direction or strength, the decision to reef or furl, tack or wear, the decision what to do is now entirely the patient’s: he’s alone in his cabin or on the windward side of the quarterdeck. Oh yes, up to a point he can accept the suggestions of the master or the first lieutenant on points of seamanship and navigation, but there are very many decisions which only the captain can make.”
“Yes, yes,” Clinton said impatiently.
“The problem is that our patient,” Bowen said in a flat voice, “can’t bring himself to make those decisions. He suddenly realizes that despite years of training and all the family money and patronage and the fact he has now been given a ship, he’s not competent to command it.”