by Dudley Pope
“Who says so?” Clinton demanded.
“I do, sir,” Bowen said promptly. “I am not competent to judge his seamanship but I can judge him as a leader—or his attempts at leadership.”
“Unlucky,” Clinton interrupted. “You said he was unlucky to get command of the Calypso. Why? Is she a difficult ship to handle? Crank, tender, slow to windward? Truculent ship’s company? Leaking decks? Why unlucky, eh?”
“Had he been given command of a frigate which had been commanded by an average captain, a ship and captain which never featured in the London Gazette, a frigate a man served in and forgot the name a year after, I’m sure everything might have been made to serve. He would have been able to hide his sense of inadequacy. But what happened? Well, I don’t wish to embarrass Captain Ramage, who wears his fame lightly, but the Calypso and her captain are perhaps the best known in the King’s Service. Our patient knows that in everything he does on board, every decision he makes and every order he gives, he will be compared to Captain Ramage. He thinks it’s a comparison made daily by the officers and men and that it’s a comparison bound to be made at the Admiralty or by a commander-in-chief. ‘He’s not a patch on young Ramage’ … You may not have said it yet, sir, and you may never have said it at all, but the patient can imagine you saying it.”
“Very well, you’ve explained ‘unlucky.’ Now explain the delirium tremens,” Clinton said grimly.
“You may not know the patient by appearance, sir. No? Well, he is handsome but with a weak face. By that I mean if you judge a man’s character to a certain extent by his face, you would not expect this man to have a strong will. As a lieutenant he delighted in strong drink. By inclination, perhaps, because he liked the taste. However, I think it more likely he needed a dram or two to bring him abreast of the rest of the officers in whichever ship he served. So the liking for drink was already there. He may have discovered—in fact from my own experience I am sure he did—that a few drinks made him quite as good in his own estimation as the next man, perhaps even better.
“What happens if you put a weak man prone to drink into a position where he feels inadequate (and thus is inadequate)? Well, sir, I suggest that at first the man does what he did before—looks to the tankard or the glass to make his decisions and blunt his cares. But soon he feels he needs more proof, and the cares increase. So does the drinking in proportion.
“It has to be drunk in secret, of course, so the patient increasingly feels guilty because he thinks he would be finished if anyone (even his personal servant) knew he was drinking to make himself fit to do his job.”
Clinton growled: “We still haven’t got him in a delirium.”
“It doesn’t take long. Some months for a newcomer to drink; some weeks for someone who has been an average drinker; but only a few days if the man has been a secret and heavy drinker for a long time.”
“You can’t say what the patient was doing before he joined the Calypso,” Clinton objected.
“I can, sir, if you’ll pardon me for contradicting you. I recognized him as a heavy drinker the moment he joined the ship.”
“Am I a heavy drinker?” Clinton suddenly asked.
Bowen looked round the cabin. “A very large wine-cooler. A rack of cut-glass decanters which a duke might envy. And racks of wine and spirits glasses. They could belong to a heavy drinker; or let us say a connoisseur of wine and spirits. A bon vivant, in fact. However, you asked if I thought you were a heavy drinker, so I look at you and not the glassware. In fact, sir, I had by chance made up my mind—made a diagnosis, if you would prefer it—when I first came into the cabin, before I looked round.”
“Well?” Clinton demanded. “A heavy drinker or a light one?”
“I would say,” Bowen said slowly, “giving it due consideration, and allowing for the responsibility resting on your shoulders, and the fact that you come from Scotland, where more whisky is distilled than rainwater collected … I would say you probably have a glass of wine with your dinner, and perhaps a glass of port afterwards. No more.”
The admiral’s face fell: he reminded Ramage of a Father Christmas recognized by the children as the butler dressed up.
“I’ve given up the port,” he admitted, “because I was afraid of the gout. Well, Mr Sawbones, after that display, I admit I’m now more prepared to listen to you. So let us suppose your patient drinks himself into a stupor (from time to time, I’m thinking, when the pressures get heavy) because—”
“No, sir,” Bowen interrupted, “he’s past the ‘from time to time’: he needs liquor to get out of his cot of a morning; he needs liquor to get him past the noon sight. He needs liquor because he’s afraid of the devils with glaring eyes and demons with sharp tongues and all the clammy, crawling beasts that are waiting to attack him: all those horrible things that come with delirium tremens. And don’t think they’re imaginary, sir. They are to the onlooker; to the victim they are terrifyingly real.”
“So what do we do about your patient?”
“Are you asking from the medical point of view or are you concerned with the King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions and the Articles of War, sir?”
“Damned if I know,” Clinton admitted. “It’s an entirely new situation as far as I am concerned.”
“Medically, a captain, master and Marine guards have nursed a man through delirium tremens in a few days—that I know because the patient was me—but it is hard work. Yet the following days are almost more important—getting the patient interested in life again and giving him the confidence to face it without using a bottle of liquor as a pair of crutches. I like chess, and Mr Southwick, the master, played endless games with me. Captain Ramage even learned to play to help out. I was very lucky.
“Discipline is out of my field, of course, but you may want a medical opinion on the disciplinary aspect, sir. In my opinion, which I will give you in writing, the patient is completely incapable of commanding a ship: indeed, he is both unfit and incapable of leaving his cabin.”
Clinton stood up and sighed. “My orders are to start and maintain a close blockade of Brest with this fleet. Provisioning and watering the ships and trying to outguess the Atlantic weather, Bonaparte and every ship’s propensity for wearing out, is normally agreed to be enough to keep an admiral occupied. Your damned patient, Bowen, is going to cause more problems than the rest put together.”
The phrase “your patient” was finally too much for Bowen, who stood up, white-faced and almost rigid with anger, and said stiffly: “Sir, that he is my patient is a very unfortunate coincidence. Had I any say in the matter, he would never have been employed as a lieutenant; whoever then made him post did something akin to treason.”
And that, Ramage thought, is how Dr Bowen was court-martialled under at least two of the Articles of War, but he was wrong: the admiral turned to the surgeon and smiled.
“Some flag officers suffer from spasmodic deafness.” He waved a dismissal to Bowen and Aitken. “Well, gentlemen, thank you. Mr Ramage, will you stay a few minutes with Captain Bennett?”
Sitting at the end of the highly polished rosewood table with Bennett halfway down one side on his right and Ramage to his left, Admiral Clinton no longer looked like an amiable Santa Claus: the grey-blue eyes which could twinkle were now glinting like the sharp blades of two freshly honed épées.
“This conference never took place, which is why my nincompoop of a secretary is not present taking notes. But I want privately to hear your personal opinions of this fellow Bullivant. Bennett?”
The admiral’s flag captain was only five feet tall but had achieved some fame (and the unexpected cheers of his men) when his ship’s company mutinied at the Nore some years earlier. Some wretched man had made an insolent remark to Bennett about a matter unconnected with the mutiny, and in front of several hundred mutinous seamen, Bennett had taken him by the ear to the entry port, pushed him over the side, and then coolly told the leader of the mutineers to fish him out because he probably could no
t swim.
Bennett’s first words showed he had not lost his directness. “That surgeon fellow was right: Bullivant should never have been made post,” he said emphatically.
“Salt beef and salt pork supplied by the father: that’s what mattered. Thousands of casks, and plenty of cumshaw scattered among the right people in the Navy Board, and your eldest son doesn’t need much ability. It’s unfortunate for the seamen, officers and admirals who suffer the consequences … In my opinion, sir, there’s only one thing to do: send him back to Plymouth in the Murex brig with signed reports by Bowen and Dr Travis about his ‘sickness.’”
“It’s a serious matter, relieving him of his command.”
Ramage realized that the admiral was wavering, and he thought of the Calypso and her officers and ship’s company. “Sir, the consequences of not doing so will be worse.”
“How so? Relieving a captain of his command is serious enough!”
“You are relieving him only on medical grounds, sir,” Ramage reminded Clinton. “You are not saying he is incompetent. But the consequences of leaving him in command—well, yesterday, there could have been three murders by him or a mutiny by the ship’s company. There’s bound to be mutiny if you leave him in command.”
“Bound to be mutiny? You don’t have much confidence in the men you’ve spent so long training,” Clinton said sarcastically.
“On the contrary, sir: I have complete confidence in them: that’s why I know they’d mutiny.”
Bennett was watching him shrewdly. He knows, Ramage realized, but the admiral has been too remote from the day-to-day handling of a ship’s company for too long.
“Do you really mean you’re confident they would mutiny?” Clinton demanded angrily.
Ramage nodded. “Yesterday, sir, Captain Bullivant said he would hang three men, Midshipman the Count Orsini, who happens to be the nephew of the ruler of Volterra and one of our allies; the master of the ship, who is certainly the most competent seaman and one of the bravest men I know; and an Italian seaman called Rossi, a man to whom I’ve entrusted my life on several occasions.
“Bullivant was going to have them hanged at sunset because after inspecting the entire ship’s company he identified them as Satans. I trust, sir, that any seaman would mutiny rather than obey such an order to put nooses round their necks and haul them up to the yardarm.”
Ramage knew he was white-faced, and he kept his fists pressed down on the table to hide the trembling: he could feel perspiration soaking through his shirt but mercifully it did not appear on his face, which felt cold and clammy, as though he might faint.
“Quite,” Clinton said calmly. “However, it seems to me the only one now left with his neck in a noose is the commander-in-chief.”
“That’s what he’s there for, sir,” Bennett said cheerfully. “I agree with Ramage completely. I know what the Articles of War say and don’t say, but I’d sooner the seamen mutinied than obeyed the ‘lawful’ orders of a brandy-besotted madman. That’s something the Articles don’t allow for, and they should. Loyalty is what matters. Men who’d mutiny because of their loyalty to their officers and shipmates are the men I want round me when I go into battle.”
“We aren’t in battle, we’re blockading Brest, and judging from the last war the only action we’re going to see is dealing with a drunken maniac,” Clinton grumbled.
“At least you’re outside ‘Channel limits,’ sir,” Bennett said. “That gives you more freedom.”
“Leaves me short of a post captain for the Calypso.”
Bennett glanced across the table at Ramage. “A post captain commanding a brig is a bit overweight.”
Clinton waved dismissively: “Ramage has to go to England with the brig: they’ll need him at the inquiry into the mutiny and recapture, and for the Bullivant affair. Commanding a prize-brig, don’t forget.” The idea raised another train of thought for the admiral. “Hmm, that’s an interesting point. There’s no question that Ramage captured the damned ship: he didn’t ‘retake’ her because he wasn’t part of the original ship’s company. He, his wife and four Frenchmen. He’s the only one entitled to prize-money.”
“His wife will help him spend it!” Bennett said jocularly.
“So you’ll be back in Plymouth in a couple of days. Lucky fellow,” Clinton said, and then added: “Why so gloomy? Sailing home after your honeymoon and with a sack full of prize-money!” Then a sudden thought struck him. “What about that young Scots first lieutenant? We ought to do something for him. Make him post into the Calypso?”
Ramage remembered an attempt a year or more ago when Aitken was offered command of a frigate and the post rank that went with it; he had said he preferred to continue sailing with Captain Ramage. But now was not the time to mention that to a Scots admiral. Aitken could make the point later, if necessary.
Bennett rubbed his ample chins and looked down at the table. “If I was Ramage, sir, I’d be eating my heart out over the Calypso. And weren’t you telling me earlier that he was concerned over this French count who is being transported to Cayenne—a friend of the Prince of Wales, didn’t you say, sir?”
Ramage decided that Bennett was a man to whom he already owed a debt of gratitude worth more than a brig.
“Bennett,” Clinton said, his voice rasping, “you have an unhappy knack of mentioning things I’m trying to forget.”
“Sir, I shouldn’t forget that the Prince of Wales is unlikely to forget a commander-in-chief who forgot his friend being carried off to a certain death in Cayenne …”
And now, Ramage thought, the repetition of “forget” and “forgot” means the ace of trumps has gone down on the table. Or it’s the bait dangling in front of the fish. Or the snare carefully placed outside the rabbit hole.
“Blast it, Bennett. I’ve been tossing up between the Prince of Wales and Lord St Vincent ever since Ramage mentioned the Count of Rennes. And it’s probably not only the Count: if there are fifty of them, half are bound to be Royalists who went back to France after exile in England and know Prinny. At least half, probably more.”
“You are caught between the devil (pace Bullivant) of the Admiralty and the deep blue sea of the Prince, seems to me, sir.”
“It’s all right for you to joke about it,” the admiral complained. “I’m the one who has to choose.”
“Oh, I chose when you first told me about it yesterday, sir,” Bennett said blithely.
“You did, eh?” the admiral exclaimed, his voice now truculent, the accent becoming more pronounced. “Surprising how easy it is to choose when you don’t have the responsibility.”
Ramage expected Bennett to react strongly, but instead the little man picked up the quill pen lying on the table and waved it back and forth as though fanning himself.
“I’m like that surgeon fellow, whatever his name was. I’ll put it in writing if you wish, sir. As your flag captain I’m expected to give you professional advice when you ask for it.”
He paused and then tapped the table with the feather of the quill. “My views are simple. Question number one, what do we do with the drunken Bullivant? Wrap him up, in a canvas straitjacket if necessary, and send him home in the Murex brig with reports by Bowen and Travis tucked in his pocket.”
He tapped the table twice. “Question number two, who is to command the Calypso? There’s only one possible man, and that’s Ramage here. He’s not needed for the Murex because her first lieutenant is a capable fellow, saw the mutiny and can write reports and give evidence. Also he deserves his chance of getting command of her from the Admiralty. I’m assuming Ramage here is resigned to his new wife returning to England without him.”
He tapped three times. “Now, the third question, what to do about the ship of exiles. She’s a frigate now armed en flûte. She must look very much like the Calypso. She’ll sail like her—except, since she’s French carrying exiles, she’ll be short of men and will most likely shorten sail at night. And she left the Gullet about 36 hours ago.
“What you are to do, sir, brings us back to the devil and the deep blue sea. Well, consider the devil in the shape of the First Lord of the Admiralty and the rest of the Board: they’re political appointments. Lord St Vincent was appointed by Addington and will probably be replaced (along with the rest of the Board) by Addington’s successor. So that devil can come and go. But now let us look across the deep blue sea … One day the Prince will be King. He will probably have a long life—they’re a long-lived family—and no doubt he inherits the long memory, too.”
He grinned at Admiral Clinton. “I’ll give you my recommendations in writing, sir, but you’ll have to take my word for the reasoning behind them.”
“Oh, you’re a droll enough fellow,” Clinton said, mellowing slightly. “Watch out that one day I don’t drop you over the side. Ramage, call that nincompoop of a secretary for me: I seem to have a number of orders to write, and I want them all carefully copied into my order book. Especially those intended for you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE ABOMINABLE Bullivant had changed nothing in the great cabin: the desk was polished, the keys were still in the locks of the drawers. The settee was the same as usual, its dark-blue cover not torn or stained. The armchair was unmarked (except by the passing years flattening the springs). The man’s possessions had been stowed in his trunks and sent across to the Murex. Yet although he had been on board for only a few days he had left an invisible atmosphere: now Ramage knew how the owner of a house felt standing in a room which had been rifled by a burglar.
He sat down at the desk, jerking open one drawer after another. Nothing had been removed, nothing added. Letter book—that was still here, and he flipped open a few pages. Bullivant had not written any official letters or, more likely, the clerk had not copied them into the letter book. Order book—yes, the Board order giving Bullivant command of the Calypso, followed by the Admiralty order to him to join Admiral Clinton’s fleet were here, and so was Clinton’s order to Bullivant telling him to place himself under the admiral’s command. Nothing else.