HMS Diamond (21 page)

      
"Lucas, I am taking up a subscription and I’d like you to contribute."

      
"A subscription for what?"

      
"For a worthy cause."

      
Walker waited for her to go on, but nothing more was forthcoming.

      
"What kind of worthy cause?" He prodded.

      
"It’s... a worthy one. Worthier than most worthy causes."

      
At that point Walker knew he wasn’t going to get a straight answer. "And how much is this worthiest of worthy causes going to cost me?"

      
"H-m-m-m, I should think £10 should do it."

      
"Ten pounds!" Walker exclaimed. "Is the King sick and we need to fly a physician down from the moon?"

      
"Now, Lucas. You’re a rich doctor. You can afford it."

      
"Me? Rumor has it that God himself has sought the occasional loan from someone named Lady Whitney."

      
"Now Lucas, don’t be that way."

      
Walker knew that whenever Susan said "Now, Lucas," twice in a row his cause was lost. He grumbled the whole way but went down to his quarters and fetched Susan her £10.

      
A bit later, after hitting up Sidney Smith, Susan went ashore only to return a few hours later riding in a wagon with several large trunks in it. She came aboard and supervised their loading. Walker and Smith gathered at the rail and became progressively alarmed at the way the yardarm was bending as it brought each trunk aboard.

      
"Susan, those trunks are monstrously heavy. What’s in them?" Smith asked.

      
"Books," she replied simply, while calling out yet again for the men to be careful.

      
"Books?"

      
"Yes, books. With your permission, of course, I’d like to start a ship’s library."

      
"But we already have a ship’s library. It’s in the wardroom."

      
"Yes, but it’s only for officers. And don’t think I don’t know about those two French novels you men have hidden behind the
Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus
. This library is going to be for the men.

      
"I’d like to house it just aft of the sickbay. The men can check out any book they wish, through me, six days a week, to read during their leisure hours. On Sunday, they will only be able to check out copies of the
Bible
and the
Book of Common Prayer
."

      
Walker and Smith looked at each other. "But Susan, my dear," Walker began, trying to be as gentle as possible, "with some few exceptions—the men can’t read."

      
"That was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about, Captain. Again, with your permission, now that we have a library—and thank you for your donation—I’d like to start a school."

      
Smith didn’t know what to say.

      
"Sidney, it will be for the good of the navy."

      
"The good of the navy? How so?"

      
"You know as well as I that there are many good seaman aboard this ship—men with years, even decades, of experience. They are intelligent men, men who do the navy great credit. But most of them will forever be stuck as able seamen. They can rise no higher. They can never become warrant officers. Why? Because they can’t read, write and do sums.

      
"Does this navy not need good warrants, and need them in abundance? Well, I plan to give anyone who is willing, the chance at the education they need to do that... with your permission of course." She added quickly.

      
Smith just shook his head. A good captain knows when he has been defeated. "All right, Susan; but keep me apprised of how it is working." And he walked away.

      
Walker could only imagine the number of families who, in the months that followed, were shocked to receive a letter from their son written in his own hand. It might have been crude; there might have been misspellings; and they themselves might have required the local parish priest to read it to them; but their pride would have been indescribable. He later learned that "Whitney Libraries" were springing up in other ships in the fleet as the women sailing on them heard of Susan’s efforts.

      
Walker returned to the main deck and strolled over to take a look at the Sick and Hurt Log to see if he should prepare himself for any customers that afternoon. In between the column marked "Name" and the column marked "Complaint," was a column marked "Dr. Walker." If this was checked it meant that Susan wanted him to take a look at the man.

      
"Dr. Walker," Walker mused to himself. He was close enough to his graduation that he still marveled at the prefix "Dr." in front of his name and would have been surprised to know that the crewmen marveled at it even more than he did. Having a college-trained physician on a ship as small as a frigate was practically unknown. They were still trying to figure out whether he was the "ship’s physician" or the "ship’s surgeon" and Walker could hardly blame them for being confused.

      
In the 18th Century physicians and surgeons were two distinct medical occupations with their own separate educational and credentialing requirements. In the navy it was even more confusing because any healer who was assigned to a ship was called a "surgeon" whether he was trained as a physician or as a surgeon. Only if he was placed in charge of medical care for an entire fleet would he then be called a "physician"—again, no matter what his training or background. Confusing matters even more, most landsmen had the impression that "surgeons’ mates" were simply seamen who had been pressed into duty helping the ship’s surgeon. That wasn’t necessarily true. In many cases, especially aboard the larger ships, they were fully trained civilian surgeons serving an apprenticeship prior to taking the exam necessary to become a naval surgeon. And, for a final dollop of confusion, many of the above—physicians, surgeons and surgeons’ mates—were medical school graduates or had at least attended college.

      
The confusion began about 100 years earlier.

      
Prior to the reign of Henry VIII the practice of medicine was in chaos. There were physicians, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, midwives, nurses and plain old, garden variety quacks. Anyone could claim to be anything and there was no one to say whether they were or not. To bring order to this mess, King Henry decided to grant collegiate rights to the respective professions. Physicians would be formed into the College of Physicians, barber-surgeons into the Company of Barber-Surgeons, and apothecaries into the City Company of Spices. You became a physician by attending a medical school. You became a barber-surgeon or apothecary by serving an apprenticeship. Both the surgical and apothecary organizations were controlled by the College of Physicians.

      
It was this control by the College of Physicians that was the weak point in the system as their main interest was in making sure that the surgeons would not become competition. To this end, they limited what the surgeons were allowed to learn and do. This had become especially problematic for the Royal Navy.

      
Few physicians wanted to serve on the King’s ships. Both the pay and the working conditions were bad compared to their civilian opportiunities. As a result, barber-surgeons made up the vast majority of medical personnel for the fleet. While this was fine when it came to treating injuries such as wounds and fractures, as barber-surgeons they were not allowed to treat
illness
in any way and knew nothing about it. This became the source of loud complaint from the captains.

      
So, in 1745 a group broke away from the barber-surgeons and formed the Company of Surgeons. To be a member you had to be either a medical school graduate and have experience as a surgeon, or have taken courses in anatomy, botany and surgery and undergone a long apprenticeship under a qualified surgeon. To receive a warrant as a naval surgeon, you had to additionally go before a medical committee to pass a verbal exam similar to the one midshipmen must pass to become lieutenants.

      
That Lucas Walker, a medical college trained physician, was aboard the
Diamond
spoke volumes about Smith’s standing with the Admiralty—or at least with the First Lord—although Walker suspected that Prince William might have also had something to do with it. First-rate ships of the line would have one surgeon and five surgical mates, plus several crewmen helpers or ship’s boys who would work under their supervision. Ships of sixty to eighty guns would have had one surgeon and three medical school trained mates. Anything smaller than that and in all likelihood you would have had... well, you would have had Sidney Smith frantically leafing through a copy of the
Seaman’s Pocket Medical Guide
.

***

      
The shakedown cruise brought surprises for everyone. They spent 10 days in the Channel and North Atlantic with the officers getting to know the men, the men getting to know the officers, and everyone getting to know the ship. Essentially, the cruise was little more than a long series of drills. There were sail handling drills for the men, maneuvering drills for the officers, drills in the use of cutlass and saber, and endless small arms and gunnery drills. Smith knew that a Royal Navy ship—any ship—was nothing more than a vehicle for carrying guns upon water, so he viewed the gunnery drills as especially important.

      
The issue wasn’t just whether the men could load and fire the guns; it was who could do it the fastest and/or shoot with the greatest accuracy. Smith tried to make a game of it whenever he could. He would pit one gun crew against another, or the starboard watch against the larboard. He had an officer versus crew contest (which the men liked because the officers were trounced); and even called an all hands gunnery drill once while the men were having their noon rum ration (which the men viewed as an outrage if ever there was one).

      
In between the drills, Smith took the time to write out the various sets of standing orders, the Watch, Quarter and Station Bill and work on other necessary administrative minutiae of shipboard life. Fortunately, he had saved all the standing documents from his first major command, the HMS
Alcmene
, so re-doing them for the
Diamond
was not nearly as onerous as it might have been.

      
In effect, Smith left port with a collection of seamen and returned with a ship’s company. There is a big difference between the two, and he was pleased with the progress they had made. But he thought of it only in terms of "progress" because, on his ship, training would never be finished and perfection would never be obtained. He knew that his life and the lives of all around him might someday hinge on his holding them to that standard.

      
The
Diamond
had just anchored off Deptford when Smith received his first set of orders, although the orders raised more questions than anything. He was to transport some unspecified high-ranking persons, to an unspecified location in Europe. Further information would be communicated upon the guest’s arrival and the guests would be meeting him in three days.

      
That was it, except the message was in error. It was not three days later; it was five.

Chapter Seven

      
"AHOY the boat!" The Quartermaster of the Watch called out.

      
"Admiralty," came the reply.

      
"What the bleedin’ ‘ell," the quartermaster muttered. He expected maybe to hear the name of a ship meaning that the captain of that ship was aboard, or "passing" meaning that they were en route to another location, or something—anything—but the word "Admiralty." That word meant the First Lord of the Admiralty was coming aboard and
that
couldn’t be right.

      
"I say again: Ahoy the boat!"

      
"Admiralty!" came the reply, this time a bit more insistent. The quartermaster turned to call the Officer of the Deck. "Mr. Pine, sir, would you be so good as ta come over here fer a moment?" Pine squinted over the side at the incoming 26-foot launch and simply said: "Oh... my... God!"

      
Suddenly the quarterdeck was awash in activity. Midshipman Knight was sent to fetch the captain; a ship’s boy was sent to fetch the marine lieutenant, another boy to fetch the master, and everyone in sight was commanded to place in order anything that could possibly be out of order. The marine lieutenant arrived but had no idea how many men were needed to receive the First Lord of the Admiralty. Someone suggested that if the King is due a 21-gun salute, and a full admiral is due 19, that maybe the First Lord is due a 20-man honor guard. That really did not make a lot of sense but, at the time, it sounded as good an answer as any, so all 20 shipboard marines were quickly lined up to receive the dignitaries.