Ramage and the Freebooters

'Why don't more of them kill themselves?" Ramage asked brutally.

'Pride,' Bowen answered simply. 'Just the dregs of pride. No man wants to leave behind as his epitaph that he killed himself while blind drunk.'

A pencil on the desk rolled back and forth in time with the Triton's roll; glasses and decanters clinked in the racks; the bright light coming through the skylight made strange shadows dance from side to side across the cabin. And Ramage knew Bowen had given him some clues to the problem, but not enough to provide the answer. And in fifteen minutes he had to take over the watch on deck from Southwick.

'Well, Bowen, this imaginary man we are talking about is, of course, you; but I am not a well-meaning friend, a parson, priest or doctor. I'm commanding the Triton and responsible to God and the Admiralty for the lives of the sixty or more men in her and for every sliver of wood and ounce of iron of which she's made.

'In a week or so we'll be in me West Indies,' he continued.

'The Hannibal recently lost 200 men from yellow jack. In the Raisonable frigate, thirty-six of her crew—one man in three—went over the standing part of the foresheet on a voyage of 300 miles. Yellow jack, a couple of broadsides from a French frigate, a mast going by the board in a squall— this could happen to us, and you'd have thirty men to attend to. And you'd be drunk. One more drink would be too much to pull you round,' he said angrily, throwing Bowen's phrase back at him., 'and a thousand wouldn't be enough.'

Once more Bowen's hands were pressing his temples. The authoritative air of the man of medicine had vanished; he was staring at the deck, a crumpled, liquor-stained and liquor-sodden apology for what had once been a man.

And, facing him., Ramage felt a desperate helplessness. Did the man need sympathy? No—he had that from the 'well-meaning friends'. Harshness? Presumably he'd had that from his wife. Discipline? There'd be no one to enforce it 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 due? 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!'