DOCTOR AT SEA

'Any complaints?'

'I am very happy, Captain,' Easter replied unctuously.

'All right. Pipe down, Bos'n.'

The crew were scattered to their Sunday indolence and we went up to the Captain's cabin, where we stood in a line in front of him, our caps under our arms, and he emphasized the points that had incurred his disapproval. Then we all sat down and had a gin.

There were no religious observances on board the Lotus-an omission that was deplored only by Easter. This surprised me. 'I didn't know you were a churchgoer,' I told him.

'Ho, yes, Doctor. I likes a nice service of a Sunday. Breaks the monotony a bit. Not much good in an old tub like this, but in the big passenger boats I used to sing hymns at the back. I've got a bit of a voice,' he added modestly.

'I'm very pleased to hear it.'

'Used to take the plate round as well. Real nice job that is. Must be the sea air what makes them generous. You see them old skinflints what wouldn't give a tanner to a blind baby at home sticking in quids and suchlike. Made quite a bit out of that in my time.'

'You mean you actually helped yourself from the collection?'

'Sort of commission, as you might say,' he explained amiably. 'Nothing much, mind you. No one knows what there is in the kitty, but you've got to be pretty nifty slipping it out before the Purser spots you. Charity begins at home, don't it, Doctor?'

***

My clinical practice continued its easy routine, and was centred round preservation of the health of the Captain's stomach. I had never known an organ to produce such widespread clinical effects. If it functioned painlessly life was tolerable, even at mealtimes; but the first twinges of dyspepsia immediately communicated themselves to everyone on board. Fortunately I was able to denature my mixture of its explosive properties, and it combated spiritually with the Captain's diet. My morning visit to him with the sick-list gave me an opportunity to see how the battle was going by judging the state of the old gentleman's temper-a matter of importance on the ship beyond the belief of any landsman. If he was in a good mood he took the chit without question, and sometimes even demonstrated extreme geniality by offering me a gin (he saw nothing unusual in drinking after breakfast). If my mixture was not up to strength, or if he had eaten too many platefuls of Madras curry the night before, he would seize the paper and scowl at it like a Tudor monarch affirming a list of executions.

'What's wrong with that man?' he would demand, stabbing the sheet with his blunt finger. 'McKlusky, J., Ordinary Seaman. Why's he off duty? What's this-P.U.O.?'

Pyrexia of unknown origin, sir,' I explained timidly. 'He had a temperature.'

'Well, why has he?'

'I'm afraid I don't know, sir.'

'Why don't you? You're the Doctor, aren't you? What the devil do you think would happen to us all if I didn't know a lighthouse when I saw one? Eh? What have you got to say to that?'

He slammed the paper down on his desk. I said nothing to it.

Now, look here, Doctor,' he went on. 'I'm not in your line, and I don't pretend to be. But I can tell you what's wrong with this man-he's constipated. I haven't been to sea for forty years for nothing. Give the bastard a double dose of black draught and kick him back on duty. If he still shirks I'll put him in the log-book. That's an order!'

'Yes, sir.'

This put me in a state of professional agitation. But Captain Hogg would have agitated the whole General Medical Council.

The Captain was at his most terrifying when conducting the ceremony of placing an offender's name in the log-book. This was the only disciplinary action left in his hands: flogging at the mainmast, keel-hauling, and hanging from the yardarm at sunset have been abolished by Parliament, and Captain Hogg made it plain that he thought the world all the worse for it.

One night shortly after we reached the Tropics I was pulled from my bunk by Hornbeam to see a couple of firemen who had been fighting in the foc's'le. Both of them were drunk. They were in the hospital, blood-spattered and muttering surly threats at each other, separated by Easter with the heavy pestle from the drug locker.

Now keep quiet for the doctor,' he said cheerfully, 'or I'll bash your ruddy brains in with this. These two have filled each other in something proper,' he added to me as a clinical explanation.

During the two hours needed to sew them up I gathered that the pair of them, Kelly and Crosby, came from the opposite sides of a Liverpool street; and a feud had smouldered between them since they first threw stones at each other from the shelter of their mothers' skirts. Too late they had found themselves both aboard the Lotus, and had been living in grudging amicability since we sailed. But that evening Kelly had been unable to repress any longer his opinion that Crosby's mother was not only a harlot, but the oldest and most ugly in all Liverpool, and Crosby cracked the end of a bottle and went for him.

The next morning at ten I was summoned to the Captain's cabin, which had the ceremonially grim air of a Portsmouth court-martial. Sitting at the desk was Captain Hogg, an expression on his face of uninhibited malevolence. Set before him were his gold-braided cap, _Instructions for Masters,_ the log-book open at the correct page, a sheet of yellow blotting-paper, and a large silver ink-pot with a pen in it, so that everything was at hand for making the damning entry. Hornbeam was in a chair beside the Captain, looking seriously at his own feet. The Bos'n and the Donkeyman were positioned on each side of the door, and I was ordered curtly to the corner. In the middle of the circle were the two delinquents, twisting their caps in their hands and throwing nervous glances round the cabin from the gaps in their bandages.

'Right,' Captain Hogg began briskly. 'Now we are all assembled we can begin. First of all I want to make something perfectly plain to you two. You are going to get a completely fair hearing this morning. Understand? You are quite at liberty to put questions to me or any other of the officers. You may call any witness you like in your defence. As far as I'm concerned a man is innocent until he's proved guilty, whether it's murder or pinching a ha'penny stamp. You'll never find me giving a man a bad character till it's proved. I'm a fair captain, I am. Get me?'

The two firemen nodded hesitantly.

'Very well. Now, tell me your version of the affair.'

He folded his arms judicially.

The feud that had burned so brightly a few hours before was now outshone by the peril that faced the two opponents. They had composed a story during breakfast, which was begun by Kelly in the tone of bitter repentance that had occasionally swayed sympathetic members of a magistrate's bench.

'Well, sir, it was like this 'ere, sir. Me and me mate was 'avin' a cupper tea…'

'You bloody liar!' Captain Hogg shouted. 'You were rotten drunk, both of you bastards! Oh, yes, you were! Don't answer me back or I'll kick you round the deck. You were drunk in the foc's'le and you started fighting like the pair of goddam cut-throats you are. My God, you're a crowd of loafers up forrard! You oughtn't to be at sea, you ought to be in jail, the lot of you! Stand up straight when I'm talking to you, blast you!' He thrust a finger under Kelly's nose. 'You turn my ship into a Liverpool rough-house and you come up here with some cock-and-bull story you think I'm going to swallow. What do you take me for, eh? I was at sea when you were playing marbles in the filth of a Liverpool gutter. Mr. Hornbeam!'

'Sir?'

'You found these men fighting?'

Hornbeam nodded.

'Doctor!'

'Sir?'

'Did you or did you not find these men were drunk?'

'Well, sir, the scientific tests…'

'There you are! The Doctor agrees with me! You were soused, the pair of you!' He banged the desk with his fist, making the pen leap out of the ink-pot. 'Do you know what I'd like to do to you?' he demanded. 'I'd like to give you every holystone on board and make you scrub the boatdeck till the plates showed through. Then I'd put you in