'They're probably the Cook's. He's been a bit forgetful this morning.'
Whimble croaked. 'The Cook!' He jumped from the table, eager to pass on his castigation. The gentle, easy- going Cook, who filched tins of ham and corned beef through Whimble's good graces, was the only person on board whom he could bully. Pausing only to clean his teeth on the way, he confidently made for the galley.
But it was a changed Cook whom he found sitting on the potato locker with a gin-bottle, crooning to himself. He saw the accident in a different light. Before Whimble could say anything he was gripped by the shirt, a chopping- knife pointed at his throat, and the Cook demanded 'Give me my bloody teeth back!'
Whimble broke away with a shout that brought us all from the saloon. We found him running down the deck chased by the Cook, who had his knife in his hand and was wearing a frightening toothless snarl.
'Murder!' Whimble shouted.
The Cook was not steady on his feet, fell over a stay, and burst into tears. But Whimble had no time to see this. His only thoughts were of self-protection, and he decided the unpleasantness represented by Captain Hogg was less than that embodied in the Cook. He jumped up the ladder to the bridge and hammered on the door of the Captain's cabin.
'Help!' he cried. 'Save me!'
The door was flung open.
'What the blazes is the matter with you?'
'Look,' said Whimble, pointing behind him.
'Are you mad!'
'The Cook's after me with a knife!' he whimpered, calming at the sight of Captain Hogg. 'He wants his teeth back.'
'Teeth! Teeth! Did you say teeth? Get off my bridge!'
'He'll murder me!'
'Get off my bridge, damn you!'
'Give me the Cook's teeth first!'
Captain Hogg picked Whimble up by his shirt collar and gave him a push. He uttered a little squeal as he lost his balance at the top of the ladder and came sliding down feet first. At that moment the steward was mounting it with the Captain's tray of ham and pickles.
'There goes our supper,' Hornbeam said gloomily. After that no one thought it worth while finishing the meal.
Chapter Eight
The next morning my professional tranquillity was split like an old sail in a storm.
I had settled down in my cabin after breakfast to read _War and Peace,_ with which I first killed three or four cockroaches, when Easter came in. He showed me a new card trick and described the occasion when he was steward on a Greek tramp and had won from the skipper, an incorrigible but luckless gambler, as a final stake one night in the Mediterranean the exclusive services of his stout but agreeable wife until Gibraltar.
'There's something, Doctor,' Easter went on. 'One of the crew took queer in the night.'
'What's wrong with him?'
'Vomiting and suchlike. Shall I chase him up here?'
'I think we'd better pay a domiciliary visit.'
The patient was a young deckhand. He was lying on his bunk, holding his abdomen and groaning.
'Good morning,' I said briskly, taking his pulse. 'What's the trouble?'
'Aw, cripes! I got the bellyache something horrid.'
Just let me have a look at the-er, stomach.'
He stretched himself on his back. I reached out a hand and felt the right-hand quadrant of his abdomen. Immediately I felt as if I had eaten a bunch of safety-pins and they had all opened inside at once.
I dragged Easter outside the door and shut
'Easter,' I said hoarsely. 'This man has acute appendicitis.'
'Cor!'
'This is urgent. How far are we out of Santos?'
'About two days, the Mate reckons.'
'Well, we must make land before then and put the poor chap in hospital. I'll go up and see the Captain.'
Captain Hogg had just got out of his bath. He stood in his slippers with a towel round him, looking at me like Bligh offering Christian the cheese. I could appreciate that it was one of his gastric mornings.
'Well?'
'Er-good morning, sir.'
'Good morning!'
'Could you do twice the speed you are, sir?'
'What!'
He jumped so violently he shook drops of water from his chest on to the carpet.
'I mean-you see, sir, one of the crew has developed acute appendicitis. He will have to be operated on as soon as possible. I understand from the engineers that it is possible for the vessel to make a few more knots, and I thought…'
Captain Hogg sat down on the edge of his desk. He gave a sharp tug to his left ear, as though pulling the pin out of a Mills bomb.
'For every knot above the cruising speed of my ship,' he began quietly, 'the bill for fuel oil practically doubles itself. What do you think the Company would have to say? Eh?' He banged the desk. 'Operate, Doctor, operate!' he shouted. 'What do you think I pay you for?'
'Yes, sir,' I said.
I recognized at once that the Captain's advice on therapy had obvious drawbacks. In the first place, I had a meagre idea of how to remove an appendix. A medical qualification is like a marriage licence-it gives you official permission to go ahead, but it doesn't guarantee you know enough to tackle all the difficulties after the honeymoon. I had diligently attended the operating theatre in my hospital, but there were always so many students present whenever the surgeons removed an appendix that all I usually saw of the operation were the boils on the neck of the man in front of me.
The second difficulty was equipment. Although appendices have reportedly been removed by second mates with bent spoons and a bos'n's knife, I felt that my academic inhibitions made it impossible for me to operate skilfully with the products of an ironmonger's shop. Thirdly, there was professional assistance. Easter was an admirable character for whom I had a sincere admiration as a man of the world, but when it came to dabbling in clinical medicine he was as dangerous as an unlabelled bottle of strychnine.
I called him into my cabin.
'Easter,' I said earnestly, 'have you seen a case of acute appendicitis before?'
'Ho, yes, Doctor. Every time I eats pickles I'm reminded of it.'
'Pickles?'
'That's right, Doctor. I was on the Western Ocean run at the time. The old Doc was scared to operate, so he puts the patient in the ship's hospital and tells me to keep him on a light diet, see. That night I goes along and asks if there's anything he wants, like, before I turn in, and the patient says to me 'Yes,' he says, 'I should like just a few pickles.'
'Pickles!' I says. 'You can't have no pickles! Don't be balmy! The Doctor would have me over the side if I was to give you pickles. We of the medical fraternity don't reckon pickles is a light diet. Not for 'arf a minute we don't.' I says.'
'Well the next morning I brings him 'is breakfast-two poached eggs done special-and when I goes to shake him-Cor! He was cold to the touch. Them pickles was his last wish, Doctor, and I refused him. Sad, ain't it?'
'Quite so, Easter,' I said. 'Let's have a little less of your reminiscences and a little more action. We must operate on this man before sundown. Do you realize what that means? We must strip the hospital, scrub it out with
