Ramage's Devil

'But the Calypso did not sink any of the fishing vessels?'

'No, mercifully. Anyway, eventually I quieted down the captain and got him back to bed. Next morning he was - to the layman's eyes - perfectly normal, but in the secrecy of this cabin he drank himself into a stupor every night until we arrived in Plymouth ... There Aitken talked to me about reporting it all to Admiral Clinton.'

'What was your advice?'

'Well, sir, I thought of my own cunning when you and Southwick were trying to cure me and decided Captain Bullivant was a clever man, well aware of his weakness and with enough influence at the Navy Board through his contractor father to make useless anything we could do. Admiral Clinton was busy getting his fleet to sea, so if Aitken had appeared in the flagship with a story of Satan stalking the Calypso, I suspect we would have been sent a new first lieutenant, not a new captain.'

'So the Fleet sailed. Then what happened?'

'Well, that was all Captain Bullivant was waiting for: he left the entire running of the ship to Aitken. He gave orders that he was "not to be bothered with signals", and that Aitken was to execute all orders from the flagship "without troubling" him. From this we expected he would stay drinking down here in his cabin, but every now and again he would emerge raving about the Devil. He would chase him out of his cabin and up the companionway to the quarterdeck, and would then sight him behind the binnacle, behind a carronade, trying to climb the ratlines...'

'Was there anything you could do?'

'Frankly none of us had the courage. If we had bundled him below and he had later remembered it, any of us - Marine, seaman or officer - could be tried for striking a superior officer, or mutiny. So we all looked for Satan, exorcized the quarterdeck...'

'That signal for the physician?'

'That was when his delirium was reaching the crisis. Yesterday he had the ship's company mustered aft and inspected them.'

'Well, there's nothing unusual about that,' Ramage commented, feeling he ought to say something, however mild, in Bullivant's defence.

'No, sir, unless you are looking for the Devil himself - and find him hiding in the bodies of three men!'

'Which three?' asked a flabbergasted Ramage.

'The seaman Rossi, the Marchesa's young nephew Paolo Orsini - and Southwick!'

'I can understand Rossi and Orsini - they have sallow complexions and black hair. But Southwick - I always think he looks like a bishop.'

'That's exactly what Captain Bullivant said! He denounced Southwick because he said it was impossible for a bishop to be serving as the master in one of the King's ships, therefore he must be the Devil in disguise.'

'But how did this cause a crisis?'

'He swore he would hang a Devil a day until the ship was free of them. Southwick was the first and due to be executed at sunset today.'

'But the men would never haul on the rope!' Ramage said. The whole thing was unthinkable.

'Sir,' Bowen said very seriously, 'the minute he gives anyone an order and is disobeyed, that's a breach of enough Articles of War for a death sentence at a court-martial...'

'So... ?'

'So, I told Aitken that the only way out was to use "medical grounds" to get the admiral involved. I had a plan in case that failed (the signal for the physician of the fleet, I mean) but I couldn't then be sure it would work. Luckily it did when I used it...'

'The tankard of brandy and the flask?'

'Yes, sir. It's the timing that is difficult. To judge how much is needed to tip the man over the edge into oblivion - well, that depends on how much he has drunk in the previous few hours, and whether he has eaten.'

'You timed it perfectly.'

'I thought all was lost when he threw the tankard at your head. Thank goodness you realized what I had in mind.'

'I was very slow. I was surprised to see you offering him more drink. Then, quite honestly, I remembered what used to happen when Southwick and I were curing you.'

'"Completing my medical education" would be a more tactful word, sir, than "curing"!'

'As you wish. Anyway, thank you. On my behalf and the three Devils'!'

'Yes, well, Aitken and young Orsini thought of that signal. I told Aitken we should stake everything on medical grounds, and between them they thought of that signal. Aitken could only keep it hoisted for ten or fifteen minutes at a time.'

'That was long enough. The Blackthorne repeated it and it reached the admiral.'

'And he sent you at once?'

Ramage laughed dryly. 'No, if the majority of the Murexbrig's men had not mutinied and carried the ship into Brest... And had I not been near Brest on my honeymoon... And had not my wife and I had the help of four Frenchmen so we could retake the Murex... And had we not managed to sail out and accidentally meet Admiral Clinton and the Fleet... And had the Calypso not been my old ship ... No, but for all those circumstances, Mr Sawbones, I don't think your signal would have attracted the attention it deserved. Still, all's well...'

'But will all this end well?' Bowen asked anxiously. 'We still have him' - he gestured to the door of the sleeping cabin - 'in there. Supposing the admiral doesn't...'

'Oh, he'll do something about him, I am sure. Who you'll get in his place I do not know. Probably the first lieutenant of the flagship - that's usually the person who gets the first vacant frigate command.'

'But the Calypso's still inside Channel limits.'

'She won't be when the admiral makes the appointment: Brest is outside the limits. He wasn't born yesterday!'

'And you, sir?'

Ramage hesitated, thinking of L'Espoir, which, even while the Calypso and the brig rejoined the Fleet, was ploughing her way towards Cayenne, towards Devil's Island. Everything depended on Admiral Clinton. Would the Prince of Wales's friendship with a French refugee have any effect? Probably not. Almost certainly not. And even if it did, Clinton must have his own favourite frigate captains, and one of them would get orders which could bring him glory or, if he failed, square his yards for ever!

'I expect I'll be taking the brig back to Plymouth and reporting what I know of the mutiny to the Admiralty.'

'And your wife, sir? Is her Ladyship still in France? You mentioned her when you talked of retaking the brig.'

'Yes, we escaped together and she is on board the Murex. She wanted to come with me to board the Calypso, but I was rather worried about what I might find.'

'I hope her Ladyship submitted with good grace.'

'Well, you know her Ladyship, Bowen. I doubt if anyone would call her submissive,' Ramage said.

Bowen laughed and his memories of Lady Sarah Rockley, as she was before her marriage, were of a lively and high-spirited woman of grace and beauty who would captivate all the men in a drawing room and leave the women seeming as flat as ale drawn last week.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Admiral Clinton sat at his desk with the alert wariness of a stag lurking in a stand of low trees at the far end of a glen. He was trying to decide whether the five men in front of him were innocent visitors or a quintet likely to board him in a cloud of smoke.

'Well now,' he said finally, his Scots accent broadening, and Ramage remembered Sarah's reference to the family, 'so here ye all are. Let me see ...

'Yes, Dr Travis, the physician of my fleet, I know you well enough, and so I should since I see you every day. Are ye comfortable in that old armchair?'

Travis, tall and gaunt, everyone's idea of a dour man of medicine, had obviously qualified in Edinburgh, and his brief 'Aye' was all he would allow himself for the moment.

'And m'flag captain - are you comfortable, Bennett? I know ye prefer standing but with this headroom and you so tall, it worries me!'