Ramage's Devil (25 page)

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 fleet 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.”

“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 not 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.'”