Free Baltic Mission by Richard Woodman Page B

in their seniority as lieutenants. Now there was a world of difference between them! Drinkwater a post-captain, two steps ahead of Rogers and across the magic threshold that guaranteed him a flag if he lived long enough to survive his seniors on the captains’ list.
    It was convenient for Rogers, in the depths of his misery, to forget that it was Drinkwater himself who had rescued him from the gutter. Samuel Rogers was no different from hundreds of other officers in the navy. He had no influence, no fortune, no family. Fate had never puthim into a position in which he could distinguish himself and he lacked that spark of originality by which a man might, by some instinctive alchemy of personality, ability and opportunity, make his own luck. To some extent Rogers’s very sense of obligation fired his steady dissolution; his jealousy of Drinkwater’s success robbed him of any of his own. In his more honest moments he knew he had only two choices. Either he went to the devil on the fastest horse, or he pulled himself together and hoped for a change of luck. In the meantime he should do his duty as Drinkwater had advised and the consideration that he was on a crack frigate under an able officer seemed to offer some consolation. But after that one drink that was all he needed to settle himself, the axis of his rationality tilted. After the inevitable second drink it lost its equilibrium, leaving him ugly with ill-temper, inconsiderate and tyrannical towards the gunroom, cockpit and lower deck.
    As he lay in the darkness, while above him the bells rang the middle watch through the night, he knew that some form of turning-point had been reached. Up until that moment his drunkenness had not come to Drinkwater’s attention. Until that had happened, Drinkwater was simply the captain, a man of influence and advantage, one of the lucky ones in life’s eternal lottery seen from the perspective of one of its losers. Now, however, the captain assumed a new role. His power, absolute and unfettered, could confront Rogers and demolish his alcoholic arrogance with fear.
    For although the service had disappointed him, Rogers had nothing beyond the navy. If he was broken by a court martial as remorse said he deserved to be, he would have only himself to blame. The penury of half-pay in some stinking kennel of lodgings alongside the whores and usurers of Portsmouth Point was all that disgrace and dismissal would leave him with.
    He lay in his night-shirt, sweat sticking it to his body, staring into the darkness of his tiny cabin. Loneliness possessed him in its chill and unconsoling embrace as he knew that, come the morning, he would be unable to resist the drinks that even now he swore he would never touch again.
    Drinkwater was on deck at dawn. He, too, had slept badly and woke ill-at-ease. He had not liked humiliating Rogers any more than discovering four men turned-up drunk from their watch below. It was manifestly unfair to expect men who had more than a liberal amount of alcohol poured into them by official decree to offset the deficienciesof their diet, to remain as sober as Quakers, particularly in their watch below. But, Drinkwater reasoned, four drunkards probably indicated that a hardened group had illicit access to liquor. In addition to these men, Rogers was obviously abusing his own powers to gain access to the spirit-room. The addictive qualities ofnaval rum were well known and many a man, officer and rating alike, had died raving from its effects upon the brain. Furthermore it was possible that whoever was aiding and abetting the first lieutenant was probably taking advantage of the opportunity to plunder an equal quantity for the hardened soaks among the crew.
    The thought tormented Drinkwater as he lay awake, shivering slightly as a faint lightening of the sky began to illumine the cabin. He abandoned his efforts to sleep, swung his legs out of the cot and began to dress. Ten minutes later he was on deck. The