Kydd interrupted him. 'What's this, cuffin?' He had noticed how Mullion held his head in his hands, obviously in distress.
'Me head, mate, aches somethin' cruel.' Looks were exchanged around the table.
Haynes stood up. 'Gotta get aloft — that scurvy crew in the foretop not done yet, I'll 'ave their liver.' Crow rose, mumbled something, and they both left.
Stirk turned his gaze to Kydd. 'An' you?' he said.
Kydd stared him down, then stood. 'Bear a fist, then, y' hen-hearted lubbers!' Mullion was difficult to handle as he staggered haphazardly. They tumbled him into his hammock forward on the gundeck where he lay, biting off moans. Kydd saw that there were slung numbers of hammocks now, each bearing its burden of suffering.
The warm, pleasant airs on the open deck were a relief, but there was a sense of dread: the ship had turned into a prison that was confining its inmates to permit an unknown death to overwhelm them.
Kydd turned to Renzi. The half-smile was still there. 'What chance . . .'
'My dear fellow, my education does not include physick. I cannot say.'
They glanced aft. With a pugnacious stride and jutting chin, Powlett was now pacing the quarterdeck as if he had never left it. 'I do wish, however, that the surgeon had retained but a modicum of his intellects,' said Renzi, still watching the Captain. 'It was churlish of him to take leave of them at this time.'
The loblolly boy held a bowl of thin gruel over Mullion, trying to spoon it in, but Mullion twisted away his head. 'Fer Chrissakes!' the lad muttered. This was no time for games, there were too many others to attend to.
'Take it, Jeb, y' needs the strength,' Kydd urged.
Mullion focused his dull eyes on him. 'No, mate, give it ter the others,' he whispered. 'This is me punishment, I knows it. 'Cos I didn't hold on ter him — I let 'im go ter his doom. He'd be aboard now an' alongside us if I'd've held on.' He looked away in despair.
Not knowing what to do, Kydd took the gruel from the loblolly, who pulled aside Mullion's shirt. Kydd recoiled: the torso was suffused by a pink rash and it glistened with sweat. 'That's yer sign,' the loblolly said, and took back the gruel to limp over to the next man.
Suddenly gripped by an urgent desire for the open air, Kydd hurried on deck. He saw Haynes by the boat-space: he was motionless, staring out to sea, his grip on a rope bringing white to his knuckles. Kydd sensed the man's fear. 'Comin' for y'r grog?' he said, in as friendly a manner as he could.
Slowly Haynes turned his stare on him. In horrible fascination Kydd saw a betraying pinkness above the line of his open-necked shirt. 'I got it, ain't I?' Haynes mouthed.
There was no point in denying it. 'Y' may have it, but it's a fever only, nobody died.'
'You a sawbones, then?' Haynes came back, but with little spirit. He resumed his stare out to sea.
At barely six bells it was not yet time for Kydd to go on watch at the helm, but he was not ready to go below, and swung forward. Abreast the fore-hatch was an anxious group in troubled conversation; Kydd saw Petit's lined features and nodded to him. Petit came over and touched Kydd's arm. 'I'd be beholden were yer mate Renzi ter help us,' he said in subdued tones.
'Nicholas says as how he's no physician.'
His forehead creased with worry, Petit appealed, 'Yair, but 'e's book-learned, he is, knows a mort more'n he says. Say that it would be kind in 'im jus' ter step down an' clap peepers on Billy Cundall - he's very bad.'
Kydd touched him on the shoulder. 'I'll tell him, Elias.'
Renzi snorted. 'Rank superstition! If I top it the physician, it would be a mockery. I will not!'
'Nicholas, could ye not go to them? Some words o' yours, little enough t' ask, they'd bring some comfort.'
Renzi frowned with irritation, but Kydd pressed on, 'They trust you, an' even should ye not know the medicine, y' words will give ease.'
With reluctance Renzi allowed himself to be dragged down to the berth deck, to the familiar mess of before. Cundall was lying in his hammock in the centreline of the ship, moaning and writhing. Grimacing at the charade Renzi stood beside him and the others crowded around.
‘I see,' he began hesitantly.
Cundall looked up at him with piteous eyes, a lost soul who barely resembled the loquacious braggart of before. Renzi took a wrist and made to feel the pulse - he had no idea what to do, so nodded sagely and let it drop. 'How long has the rash been present?' he asked gravely.
'A coupla days. Will I die?' Cundall cried.
Renzi was at a loss. He had come prepared to go through a few token motions, to offer the reassurance of his presence, but he was speaking to a man who was ill of an unknown fever, asking him to pronounce sentence: life or death. He thought briefly of physicians he had seen, solemnly descending the staircase after visiting a sickroom, and asked the same question. His conscience tore at him at the prospect of laying either alternative before the victim.
He cleared his throat. 'We see here as clear a case of
Petit looked pleased. 'Be damned! Will 'e be better?' There was a perceptible lightening of mood among the onlookers.
Renzi moved quickly to head away from the moral quicksands of an answer. 'Do you steep six ounces of
'We don' have yon
'Oh, a pity, it is a common herb in England, the basil,' Renzi said, in lordly tones.
