'No, I meant provisions,' Bowen said. 'A few hundred slaves ... I don't imagine they carry more than the bare minimum of provisions based on a fast passage.'
And Ramage found himself nodding as he listened: he'd been thinking that as he warned Jackson. The schooners in the West African slave trade usually made a fast passage from the Gulf of Guinea across the Atlantic to the West Indies and America. An extra week meant tons of extra food and water.
'Deck there!'
'Well, Jackson?'
'She's a "blackbirder" all right, sir. Lost her mainmast all right, but the foremast's standing and she's carrying a foresail, topsail and headsails.'
Bowen was enjoying himself for the first time in his two years at sea: previously he'd been too besotted to care that each successive ship to which he'd been transferred had been smaller; to him the Triton had been just another small cabin in which he could stretch himself out with a bottle and glass. Rarely in those two years had he ever gone on deck, and then only if he had to make a report to the captain.
Now, beginning with the enforced walks on deck with Southwick, he was taking an interest in the handling of a ship. Most of it was still strange—such a mass of ropes, and he didn't understand many of the shouted orders or the reasons for them. But he saw now that what always seemed confusion was in fact highly organized movement by the men.
And with his mind now dear for the first time in years— he'd been four days without touching liquor—Bowen tried to analyse' why the Triton's captain was such a remarkable young man.
Watching him talking to Southwick, Bowen realized for the first time that they were an oddly assorted pair. Apart from anything else the Master was more than old enough to be his captain's father yet was clearly devoted to him. And Bowen saw that such devotion came as much from a professional respect as a personal regard.
The lieutenant wasn't as tall as he looked—it was the wide shoulders set on a slim body, and the narrow face, that gave the impression of height. Yet there was something more— was it poise? Bowen knew it was an odd word to use about a naval officer standing on the quarterdeck of one of the King's ships rolling along in the Trades, but it was the right one, because he bom belonged there and commanded it. Uniforms apart, anyone suddenly arriving on board would never have to ask who was the captain.
Nor was it just his physical appearance. No, more that one sensed his power rather than saw it. Like a clock! Bowen grinned happily at the aptness of the simile. Yes, a clock in an elegant case. It looked well whether in a drawing-room or the cabin of a ship; and it regulated all their lives without fuss and without them realizing it. And since the clock kept accurate time and was so perfectly controlled one forgot mere was more to it than the face and the case; forgot that inside was a powerful mainspring controlling a complicated mechanism, and from that mainspring everything else about it derived. True, there were escapements and other pieces of finely-engineered machinery to control the mainspring, but without it all the rest was useless.
And so many men, Bowen reflected, were born without the equivalent of that mainspring. Perhaps only one in a thousand had it; less than one in ten thousand had one that never faltered.
Curious the way he occasionally rubs the older scar over his right brow—never the newer one. Even more curious how he snatches away his hand the moment he realizes he's doing it, as though ashamed of the habit. There, he did it again— and Bowen saw it was instinctive: he rubbed it when he was thinking hard, and probably when nervous, though the youngster seemed to have nerves of steel. And now he's snatched the hand away again and clasped both hands behind his back.
A fine profile. Face on the thin side, half-starved aristocratic, and it made the jawline seem harder than it was. But the eyes—Bowen almost shivered. Dark brown, deep-set beneath thick black eyebrows, they mirrored his moods. They'd laughed when he'd checkmated him for the fifth time, Bowen recalled, but by God a few days earlier they'd bored into him like a pair of augers when Ramage tried to discover what had started the drinking. And they'd been cold and hard when giving the order to stop the drink.
And Bowen realized that until this moment he'd never fully accepted that the captain was barely twenty-one. Yes, he'd hated the probing questions; he'd hated the order depriving Him of his liquor. He'd hated Ramage, too, but the hatred had been aimed against his authority, against a person with the power to stop me liquor. Never for a moment had he even resented that the man giving the orders was only a youth.
Bowen then thought carefully why he'd just accepted it. Well, it seemed appropriate: the man had a natural air of authority—and it was natural, not just because Ramage had a legal authority backed up by the Articles of War. This much Bowen had learned only in the last few days, because for the first weeks after Ramage had taken over command Bowen had been too drunk to realize there was even a risk of mutiny, let alone that the ship's company had refused to weigh anchor at Spithead.
In fact, Bowen admitted, he was now both resentful and ashamed that drink had made him miss the battle of wills: it would have been fascinating to see how one man could by sheer strength of character—since the Articles of War were useless in such circumstances—force sixty men to carry out his orders, sail the ship clear of the Channel, and by the time she was off Cadiz have spliced the two separate sections of the crew, the original Tritons and the twenty-five men from the Lively, into one and have them working cheerfully together, proud of their ship and proud of their captain. It was a feat of leadership that interested him both as a man and a doctor.
Southwick had clearly been a great help. Watching the stockily-built Master, his white hair Sowing out from under his hat, his face as chubby and red as a farmer's, it was obvious he and the Captain formed a remarkable partnership.
Although Southwick obviously wasn't overburdened with brains he had a generous nature, was a fine seaman, and from all accounts was a demon for battle and quite fearless. Bowen had yet to see him lose his temper: if a seaman was hesitant about the way something should be done, Southwick made sure the proper way was explained to him. That, too, was true leadership and rare since in most ships a hesitant seaman caught a bosun's mate's 'starter' across his shoulders.
And he knew enough of the Service to realize that years ago Southwick had failed to get that essential 'interest' on the part of a captain or admiral to become the master of a ship of the line. Instead, he had always remained in fourth- and fifth-rate ships—cutters, brigs and suchlike.
Yet in one way this was probably a good thing—in the Triton, with a ship's company of sixty or so, Southwick's cheerful personality and superb seamanship was a powerful influence: probably the most powerful single influence, in the hour-to-hour running of the brig. He'd be wasted in a ship of the line, where three or four lieutenants between him and the captain would swamp his merits.
Anyway, the important thing was that Southwick was happy to serve under a captain who must be a third of his age. An elderly master with a young captain could, through jealousy (or more likely, a justifiable contempt for the young captain's abilities) make everyone's life a misery by just carry-out his duties to the letter—but no more—and tripping up the captain.
It was easy enough with an inexperienced young captain who owed rapid promotion to his father's influence with an admiral or in politics.
Here, men, was a remarkable combination: an old master wise enough to know when to give advice; and a young captain with enough confidence in himself to listen to it.