It would soon be time to order the lookouts aloft. It was a thankless job - yet one Ramage had always enjoyed in his midshipman days. In the Tropics it was hot up the mast and in a cold climate there was precious little shelter, but you were alone and you could see all that went on: the ships on the horizon and everything that happened on deck. And it was exciting, after days and weeks at sea, to spot another sail, or land, and to be the first to hail the deck and report it.
Suddenly Southwick was bellowing, "Lookouts away aloft!" and Ramage realized that he had been staring into space, oblivious of where he was. By the time he pulled himself back to the present, the lookouts were reporting.
"Deck there - horizon clear except for the convoy."
"Search to the north-east again," Southwick shouted.
"Horizon to the nor'east clear, sir."
That covered the arc for which the Triton was responsible. Ramage thought for a moment and remembered that Jackson would be on watch now: it was easier to send him than give instructions to the lookouts.
"Send Jackson aloft with a glass, Mr Southwick. See what he makes of those two mules now."
Two minutes later Jackson hailed the deck.
"Both ships look normal. No damage showing. The whole tail of the convoy has straggled. Several ships on the horizon from the middle of the convoy. The Lark's out there chasing 'em up."
Southwick looked questioningly at Ramage, who shook his head: there was nothing more for Jackson to do so Southwick ordered him down and, at a further word from Ramage, gave the orders that set the men securing the carronades. Dawn had not revealed any enemies, and down below the cook was rattling his coppers and lighting the galley fire - a new day had begun.
Sitting at his tiny desk as soon as it was light enough to see, Ramage drafted his report to the Admiral. His pen spattered ink as he crossed out words and phrases and wrote in new ones. Finally, with the page looking like a schoolboy's exercise book, he took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote the corrected draft so that he could read it through without pausing to decipher his own handwriting.
It still read oddly, but he decided that this was because the subject was odd rather than because of his wording. He folded the paper, took the stub of candle from the lanthorn, heated some wax, then pressed his seal into the red blob. He blew out the candle, pushed it back into the holder in the lanthorn and called on his steward to serve him breakfast.
Late that afternoon Ramage sat in his cabin with Southwick and the ship's surgeon, Bowen. All three were drinking the fresh lemonade which Ramage's steward made from a stock of lemons and limes which he kept to himself.
Southwick sipped his drink and said amiably to the doctor: "How long is it now?"
The doctor frowned as he thought. "Five months or more."
"Do you ever feel you want a glass of rum?" Ramage asked.
Bowen shook his head. "Not spirits, nor wine. It's curious - I never even think about them now. It's not that the idea nauseates me, or that I'm fighting myself not to have them: I'm just not interested."
"You're lucky," Southwick said bluntly. "When I think of all those games of chess..."
He sounded so mournful that both Ramage and Bowen burst out laughing.
"It improved your game, anyway!" Bowen said. "You're a passable player, now."
"Southwick regarded the chess as the hardest part of your cure," Ramage said.
"It was - for him," Bowen said. "And a miracle for me. My wife will know by now," he said with obvious pride. "I wrote, to her from Barbados."
Ramage nodded because there was nothing to say. When he had first joined the ship, Bowen, who had once been one of the finest surgeons in London, was a besotted wreck, unfit to practise medicine and unable to open his eyes in the morning without a stiff drink. Ramage could hardly believe that the cure had worked. It had been hard for him and Southwick - and in the later stages had involved playing interminable games of chess with Bowen to take his mind off drink - but it had been unbelievably hard for Bowen. Ramage could still remember watching him in the grip of delirium tremens, screaming as imaginary monsters swooped down to attack him.
"You'll soon be reopening your surgery in Wimpole Street," Ramage said. "Do you look forward to London again?"
Bowen shook his head. "No. I want to see my wife again, ofcourse, but I'd like to serve with you for as long as..."
"But in London you were ..." Ramage broke off, unsure if he understood the look in Bowen's eyes.
"In London, sir," Bowen said softly, "I spent most of my time treating imaginary ailments with useless nostrums. My patients were rich and I presented them with large bills. They judged the success of the cure by the size of the bill. There's more to the practice of medicine than that."
"But you could be a rich man," protested Southwick.
"I could, I was and I probably still am. My wife is not without means, anyway."
"Well then!" Southwick said lamely.
"Well then yourself," Bowen said affably. "Tell me, Southwick, does it give you any satisfaction navigating this ship safely from one side of the Atlantic to the other?"
"Well, the Captain..." Southwick said, embarrassed at the question.
"Don't be so modest," Ramage said. "Answer the doctor's question!"
"Well, yes, it's bound to."
"Why are you such a special man, then?" Bowen asked, still grinning.
When Southwick shook his head, puzzled at the question, Bowen said: "You get satisfaction when the Triton arrives safely in port. I get satisfaction when the Triton arrives with all her crew fit. Not one name on the sick-list!"
Ramage stared at Bowen.
"Surely you can't be interested in all the costive problems, venereal disease, cuts, blisters and abrasions of more than fifty seamen?"
Bowen shook his head but said simply: "Not as such. But atrue answer to your question would be that I find the most worthwhile thing I've ever done in my life is to make sure that more than fifty shipmates on board the Triton, from the captain to the boy drummer, remain fit. I believe in preventing disease: that's the best way of curing it. My pleasure comes in writing in my journal, day after day, 'No cases reported.'"
Southwick nodded appreciatively, and Ramage said simply, "Thank you."
"It's nothing," Bowen said with a wry grin. "The two of you have saved me from a fate worse than Wimpole Street."
"We'll probably end up the chess champions of the Navy," Ramage said. "We must start a tournament."
"We're a set of pawns at the moment," Southwick said with sudden bitterness.
Bowen glanced at Ramage. "Might we ask how things went on board the flagship, sir... ?"
"A certain amount of cynical indifference."
"I can imagine," Bowen said sympathetically.
Ramage doubted if he could. After being given permission to pass within hail, Ramage had taken the Triton over to aposition just to windward of the Lion. Very grudgingly Captain Croucher had agreed to heave-to long enough for a boat fromthe Triton to get alongside and Appleby, the Master's mate, had delivered the letter and returned to the Triton.
Half an hour later when the Triton was back on station, the flagship had signalled for the Greyhound to see if the Peacock or her next ahead required assistance.
It seemed a stupid order, but for the life of him Ramage could not be quite sure why he thought so or why he was so angry. If either ship had wanted assistance she would have made the signal long since, so Goddard was simply covering himself. Lieutenant Ramage reported possible trouble, the captains of both ships reported that they were quite all right. If he had been the convoy commander he would have sent an officer on board each ship to find out what had happened. But, to be fair to Croucher and Goddard, their only information about the incident came from an officer they distrusted.