Ramage and the Freebooters

by Dudley Pope

  Yet there’d been the clues. The drinks in the morning and the secrecy. Bowen admitted he thought that was when the illness started. The secrecy, the shame, and yet underlying it all Ramage sensed there would still be a remnant of pride.

  But where to begin? Damn the man; he had enough to think about without doctoring a doctor. Well, what set a man off drinking to excess? In a social sense – let’s start there. Two types of drinkers – those who get drunk during the course of an enjoyable evening; those who arrived at a reception already half-drunk. Why? Because they were too shy to arrive sober: they needed a drink or two to give them courage to meet strangers. Was that a clue? Professional men – was the pattern the same?

  ‘Bowen,’ he said, ‘give me an honest answer. Did you begin drinking heavily because you imagined you were losing some of your skill?’

  Bowen nodded. ‘A run of unsuccessful operations. Several patients died. Two were friends. I lost confidence; I needed a drink each time.’

  ‘Think now; is that really how the drinking began? Because you lost confidence in yourself?’

  The man refused to look up.

  ‘Yes, that’s how it began,’ he said softly. ‘To begin with, one drink was enough to restore the confidence. Then it needed two. Then three. But between each bout more of my confidence was gone – I think that was the trouble.’

  ‘Right,’ Ramage snapped. ‘Now we know the cause: you lost your confidence. Why? Were you making mistakes?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Don’t think. You must know by now.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t making mistakes. I was trying too hard. I was expecting myself to perform miracles. I tried to cure people other doctors had given up.’

  ‘So you know now you were deluding yourself; it wasn’t that you’d lost your skill.’

  ‘Yes,’ the surgeon said miserably. ‘I know now, today, but it’s too late.’

  ‘Oh no it’s not!’ Ramage exclaimed. ‘For your sake, it’d better not be.’

  But what to do now? Yes, the man still had some pride left. And common sense told Ramage that pride was the most important clue.

  That was why he hated ordering the flogging – it gave a proud man an overpowering sense of disgrace and merely made a bad man worse. Pride made a good seaman – pride at being the first to reach a yard up the ratlines, at turning in a neater splice, making a better shirt than the purser sold.

  ‘Bowen,’ he said quietly, ‘I believe that four years ago you were among the best of the doctors in London.’

  The man nodded but still looked at the deck.

  ‘For that reason I’m glad to have you as the surgeon in the Triton. My life might well depend on your skill, just as much as the life of any – and every – man in the ship’s company. But we aren’t in the Channel now, where constipation and rheumatics or “shamming Abraham” are all you have to prescribe for. We’ll soon be in one of the unhealthiest spots in the world.

  ‘This ship will arrive there with a greater advantage, medically speaking, than the present flagship: a fine surgeon.

  ‘But before you are a damned bit of good to me and to the ship’ – he spoke more sharply now – ‘we have to cure you. Or maybe you have to cure yourself. You’re popular with the men; Southwick and I know your professional record. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of – providing you keep off the drink.’

  ‘But I can’t,’ Bowen said with a shattering simplicity. ‘It’s no good me making any promises – I’d only break ’em. I promised my wife a thousand times, and since I’ve broken every promise to her, obviously I’d break one to you.’

  Had Bowen unwittingly just prescribed his cure? Ramage said quickly: ‘There’ll be no promises, Bowen; simply an order. It may sound harsh, but remember this: I’m responsible for the well-being and efficiency of sixty men, apart from the safety of the ship and carrying out the orders I’ve received. If one man in this ship’s company suffers through your drunkenness…’ he left the threat unspoken.

  ‘The order is this, Bowen: during the next four days you’ll be rationed to a gill of rum a day, half at eleven o’clock, and half at supper-time. Southwick will issue it to you. For the four days after that you’ll have half a gill, issued in the same way by Southwick. Then no more: not one drop.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Bowen groaned, ‘you’ve no idea what you’re doing…’

  Perspiration soaked the man’s clothes; it was dripping from his face. His hands trembled as they pressed against his temples; his eyes seemed glazed.

  ‘I’ve no idea what private hell you’ll be living in, I admit. But I know to what private hell you can send one of my seamen if you butcher him with an unnecessary or badly done amputation. Or kill him because you’re too drunk to give him the right treatment for yellow jack or scurvy or whatever it happens to be.’

  Bowen’s whole body was shaking now and his eyes were focused on the cut-glass decanters in the rack behind Ramage.

  ‘My orders will be given to Mr Southwick in a few minutes. There’ll be a Marine sentry outside your door and you’ll not leave your cabin without getting my permission. On the other hand you won’t spend much time in your cabin: you’re to stand watch with Mr Southwick. In other words, you’ll only be in your cabin while I or Appleby are on watch.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  Bowen stood up and Ramage saw a cunning look in his eye.

  ‘By the way,’ Ramage added quietly, ‘your cabin will be searched before you return to it. And my orders are that if you so much as sniff at the cork from a bottle of liquor, apart from your ration, you’ll be placed under arrest; put in irons, if necessary.’

  ‘But I’m the surgeon,’ Bowen protested weakly. ‘You can’t put me in irons like a common seaman. I’ll protest to the Admiral. I’ll demand that you be brought to trial…for oppression, for defiance of the Regulations, for–’

  ‘I can have you put in irons, Bowen: one Marine can carry out that order, and the devil take any Regulations. As for protesting to the Admiral – well, you’ll have been in irons for days before you get within a mile of the flagship. And even from a hundred yards away, you’ll find it hard to deliver your protest if you’re in irons. Now, get up on deck while someone clears the drink from your cabin!’

  Bowen shambled out and Ramage, feeling like a man who’d been flogging a stray dog with a horse-whip, passed the word for Southwick, who came down with such alacrity he’d obviously been waiting anxiously to hear what had happened.

  Nodding his head as Ramage related what had passed, he looked doubtful when he heard of the order, then nodded again when Ramage said the surgeon would be sharing his watch.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘it may work the cure. If it does, you’ll have saved his life the same as fishing him out of the sea. It’s the loneliness that’ll be hard to bear. I think you’ve hit on it, sir: we’ve got to keep him occupied every moment he’s awake. I’ve been told he’s a great chess player.’

  That remark seemed so irrelevant that Ramage snapped: ‘That’s a great help. Rum and checkmate in two moves.’

  The Master grinned. ‘No sir, I meant that perhaps a few games of chess would help. D’you play?’

  ‘Badly. I just about know the moves.’

  ‘I’m not much good either; but maybe it’d do his self-respect a bit o’ good to beat the pair of us, because his self-respect’s all he’s got to save him.’

  ‘Is there a set of chessmen on board?’

  ‘Yes – I’ve a nice set I bought in the Levant years ago. Used to play a lot in my last ship – sorry, not the Kathleen, the one before that.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Southwick. By the way, see that Bowen eats regular meals, even if they choke him. And we’ll make it part of the treatment – or punishment – that he has to play a couple of games of chess with you every forenoon, and with me every evening. It may bore him; but who knows, it may make us chess champions of the Caribbean!’

  Late in the afternoon four days later Southwick came up
to Ramage on the quarterdeck and, indicating the men at the wheel within earshot, said, ‘I’d like to have a word with you, sir.’

  The Master looked worried: his usual cheerful face was – well, Ramage couldn’t be sure. Not angry, not depressed – puzzled, perhaps. The two men walked aft to the taffrail and Ramage raised his eyebrows.

  ‘It’s Bowen, sir.’

  ‘It’s always Bowen,’ Ramage said irritably, ‘but I thought he was looking a lot better this morning.’

  Southwick brightened up. ‘That’s just it, sir! He didn’t come to me for his tot this morning, nor at four o’clock. I’ve just luffed up to leeward of him and his breath doesn’t smell of drink. I think,’ he said with something approaching awe in his voice, and pronouncing each word carefully in case Ramage missed the significance, ‘I think he hasn’t had a drink all day.’

  Ramage stared at him; Southwick stared back. Both men seemed to be looking at some sea monster or ghost; at something they could hardly let themselves believe.

  For a few moments Ramage wondered if this was the end of a nightmare which had begun three days ago. The day after his order to the surgeon, he, Southwick and the Marine sentry had ended up wrestling with a violent and screaming Bowen: a man temporarily insane. Even as they held him pinned to the deck in the wardroom he’d been screaming things which made Ramage’s blood run cold: a telescope in a rack over the doorway to Southwick’s cabin had become, in Bowen’s frenzied mind, a Barbary pirate’s sword which was whirling and twisting in the air without a hand to guide it but intent on disembowelling him. Then the moon-faced Marine had become a roaring lion and the wardroom a jungle in which Bowen was lost and about to be savaged. The deckhead and beams above had then suddenly become the upper part of a giant press that was slowly descending to crush him. The Marine’s red jacket became tongues of flame setting the ship on fire. And so it had gone on.

  By the time they managed to calm the man down they were all shaking, not only from the effort of holding him but because they were completely unnerved: Bowen’s fears had been real enough to his tortured mind and his screams and frenzied yells of warning gave a terrible reality to his delusions. His shouts as the pirate’s sword swooped and twisted, missing him each time by only an inch or so, almost made it visible in their own imaginations as well as his. As they glanced up at the deckhead on which Bowen’s eyes had been focused, wide and staring, his hands fighting to get free to try to push it back up and prevent the press crushing him, to Ramage at least it seemed for a moment the deckhead was actually moving down. That night two Marines had guarded Bowen in his cabin and for his own sake Ramage had him secured in a hurriedly made strait-jacket. Next morning the delusions had gone and he remembered Southwick was to issue his drink and the Marines had to restrain him until the proper time.

  After he’d had the drink he’d been all right for most of the afternoon, only becoming wild an hour before his evening tot was due. Later Southwick had made him march up and down the quarterdeck for the first part of the night and Ramage had kept him up for most of the rest, until the man was so physically exhausted he’d begged to be allowed to go down to his cabin to sleep.

  Next morning he’d been ordered up on deck again and Southwick, with a dogged relentlessness, had made him talk.

  Finally he’d brought the subject round to chess and, after provoking an argument about it, had made a contemptuous challenge that he’d beat Bowen at a game even giving him an advantage of a rook and a bishop.

  That had made Bowen so angry he’d accepted the challenge – but only on condition Southwick gave him no advantage. At the change of watch both men had gone down to the wardroom for a meal without Bowen remembering his tot was due.

  As Southwick related it to Ramage afterwards, the game had been vicious: the Master had found himself in difficulty within five moves. Faced with a disastrous defeat inside ten minutes, instead of the game lasting the intended hour or so, Southwick had used a trifling excuse to get up from the table, knocking over the chessmen as he did so. Bowen had been unruffled, started a new game, and within ten minutes Southwick was again facing checkmate.

  Arguments, moves and counter-moves, mate and checkmates; games lost by Southwick with Bowen playing a rook and bishop short; successive games lost with Bowen not having a queen on the board either, had taken them up to supper-time. Then Bowen had demanded both his noon and evening tots together but received without argument only one.

  That night Ramage sensed the chess victories had done something to Bowen and later heard him good-naturedly baiting Southwick, offering to play him with the Master using bishops as extra queens.

  And now here Southwick was reporting – on a day when a succession of squalls had kept the watch on deck so busy furling and setting sail that there had been no time for chess – that not only had Bowen failed to demand his tots but apparently was not broaching a secret supply either…

  ‘I’d be glad of your company at supper, Mr Southwick, and Bowen, too. Perhaps you’d pass the invitation to him. Put your chess set in my cabin, and warn Appleby he might be relieved late tonight.’

  Southwick grinned and walked forward to find Bowen, leaving a puzzled Ramage pacing the deck. It was too quick for a cure; but instinctively he felt that at least Bowen was getting the right treatment.

  That night, as the steward Douglas took away the plates and removed the cloth he did not, as he would have otherwise done, put down fresh glasses and a decanter. Instead, Ramage glanced up at Bowen and said innocently, ‘I hear you have been giving Southwick a thrashing at chess.’

  Bowen laughed and looked slightly embarrassed.

  ‘Southwick hasn’t had the practice I have.’

  ‘Is it simply practice?’

  The surgeon was obviously torn between honesty and a wish to avoid hurting Southwick’s feelings.

  ‘Mostly, sir. There are certain basic situations you learn about and try to avoid – or create.’

  ‘Trouble is, I haven’t a good memory,’ Southwick growled.

  ‘Memory hasn’t a lot to do with it, unless you want to use some of the stylized opening gambits. That makes for a dull game anyway.’

  Ramage was interested now, having always complacently blamed his poor play on a notoriously bad memory.

  ‘Come, Bowen! Surely a good memory is important.’

  ‘No, sir,’ the surgeon protested, ‘That’s a commonly held view but a wrong one, I’m afraid. I’d say the two most important factors are an eye to spot a trap, and the will to keep attacking.’

  Southwick eyed Ramage. ‘You should be a champion, sir.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bowen said eagerly before an embarrassed Ramage could interrupt. ‘From what I’ve heard you should be a first-class player and I’m surprised you’re not.’

  ‘There’s not much time to play chess at sea…’

  ‘No,’ the surgeon admitted, ‘but–’

  ‘Yes, we’ve got time for a couple of games now. But I warn you, I’m hopeless. Southwick, you can act as a frigate – keep a weather eye open for enemy traps. You agree, Bowen?’

  ‘Certainly, but I’m sure it won’t be necessary.’

  ‘I haven’t played for a couple of years: I can barely remember the moves.’

  Douglas, previously primed, moved forward with the chessboard and an inlaid box containing the chessmen. Bowen opened the box, took out two pieces, juggled them in his hands beneath the table, then held them both up for Ramage to choose.

  It was white, and they set up the board. Ramage remembered vaguely that advancing a king pawn two places was regarded as a good safe opening move and made it. After that, it was like trying to repel dozens of boarders single-handed in thick smoke. Despite Southwick watching every move, pointing out possible threats, Bowen’s bishops, knights and rooks were everywhere and apparently doubled in numbers. Three of Ramage’s pawns, a bishop, then a rook were dropped in the box as they were taken. A knight and the other bishop followed; Bowen had lifted the queen off the board and
dropped it in the box and it was only when he moved his knight into her place that Ramage saw what had happened. Bowen had merely said ‘Check’ and, as Ramage went to move the king out of danger, added politely, ‘I really do think it’s checkmate, sir.’

  ‘And it is, by God!’ exclaimed Southwick. ‘Well I…’

  ‘Me too,’ Ramage said ruefully. ‘I’m glad we didn’t have a guinea on that game.’

  ‘I prefer not to play cards or chess for money, sir,’ Bowen said. ‘Makes for bad feeling if someone gets excited and turns what’s supposed to be a game into something approaching a duel, with cash if not honour at stake. It doesn’t improve the game, either.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Southwick rumbled. ‘Quite right – hate to see it myself. What about another game – and you leave the queen and both bishops in the box.’

  Bowen hesitated and looked up at Ramage, who guessed he was thinking it was perhaps unwise to beat his captain too often.

  ‘And a knight and a rook too!’

  ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ the surgeon said, reassured. ‘After all, I’ve been playing the game for…’

  He broke off, embarrassed, but Southwick grinned, ‘…more years than the captain’s been born…’

  ‘Well, yes, but I didn’t–’

  Ramage said, ‘That gives me an excellent excuse for losing every game. Your first move, Bowen. Now, Southwick, keep a sharp lookout! If I ever become an admiral and command my own squadron, I’m getting more and more doubtful about letting you command a frigate!’

  In nine moves Bowen looked up at Ramage, who said, ruefully, ‘Don’t bother to say it – checkmate!’

  The third game lasted several more moves and Ramage was able to watch the surgeon. The hands still trembled but the eyes were clearer. The greyness of the skin had not quite gone but the face muscles had tightened up and the mouth did not hang open slackly. Clean linen, stock neatly tied… And Bowen was alert; in fact a new man. It sounded a cliché but Ramage could think of no other description. Alert, decisive, and completely in control of both himself and the situation. His eyes would move across the board three or four times, then his hand would reach out and without a moment’s hesitation move a piece with thumb and index finger (all too often lifting off one of Ramage’s pieces with the ring and little finger at the same time) and he’d wait without fidgeting while Ramage tried to think up a counter-move, often aided by Southwick. When the game ended, Bowen, at Ramage’s request, explained some of their worst mistakes. They seemed obvious enough – afterwards.