DOCTOR AT SEA

The stowage of the cargo was supervised by the Mates, under the directions of Archer. He had his bunk covered with cargo manifests, bills of lading, and plans of the ship with the different merchandise coloured in with crayon.

'The Second gets the thin end of it,' he said. 'He's always cargo officer. Too much work in it for me.'

'But it looks fairly simple. Don't you just go on putting the stuff in until the ship's full?'

'Haven't you ever packed a case for a holiday? The things you want first always seem to be at the bottom. If that happened in the ship there'd be trouble. You can't tip everything out.'

'I see what you mean.'

'Besides, there's the trim of the ship to think about. There's more in cargo than meets the eye.'

He looked at his plan. 'Nos 1 and 4 are full, but there's plenty of room in 2 and 3. We'll be here a week yet, you can bet on that.'

But orders, based on some deep calculation in the Fathom Line offices, came for us to sail. Twenty-four hours later, in the morning, the Lotus left.

An air of excitement spread through the ship before sailing, as everyone began to go about their jobs more briskly. I was greatly stimulated by the promising departure, for I had become thoroughly used to living alongside the wharf in the past few days and occasionally doubted that we would ever sail at all. The dockers who had made free with our decks were turned down the gangway, leaving behind them a litter of newspapers, cigarette packets, and matches trampled into the rusty steel. The wide hatches were covered with heavy slabs of wood, and square tarpaulins lashed over them. At the head of the gangway the quartermaster fixed a blackboard announcing confidently THE S.S. LOTUS WILL SAIL AT 10 O'CLOCK FOR SANTOS NO SHORE LEAVE, and a thin black stream of smoke shot powerfully upwards from the funnel. Our bleak masts were enlivened with flags: the red ensign trailed over our stern, the Company's house-flag-a red F topped by an anchor on a white square-was hoisted at the mainmast, and from the foremast the blue-and-white P announced our intentions to the waterside.

'That at least is a flag I recognize,' I said to Trail. 'The Blue Peter.'

'Yes, we'll soon be on our way, Doc. It's a bloody nuisance. I was just getting a nice little piece lined up last night. It's always the same.'

'I shall be glad to get to sea, I must say. I've seen enough of Liverpool.'

'You'll get your bellyful of sea all right, don't you worry. Shouldn't get too excited, though. They may change their minds and send us into Cardiff when we get out in the Irish Sea. Not a bad place, Cardiff, though I prefer Middlesbrough myself. The pubs are better.'

Shortly afterwards Trail reappeared on deck with his cap on, looking very determined and ten years older.

'Got to do the testing,' he explained brusquely. 'Tugs'll be here any minute now.'

I heard him ring the bridge telegraphs and sound the whistle, which blew a long silent plume of steam into the air for some seconds before it struck its note. The customs officers gave us a final suspicious look and made for the shore, their threatening bags of rummage tools over their shoulders. Men in yellow raincoats and misshapen trilbys hurried aboard with desperate last letters addressed to Captain Hogg, and rushed away again anxiously looking at their watches. A Mr. Swithinbank, a pale youth with steel spectacles from the Liverpool office, came breathlessly down the deck after me, with a paper in his hand.

'Here's the Bill of Health, Doctor,' he said. 'Cripes! For a moment I thought I'd lost you! You can't sail without it.'

'Thank you very much,' I said, taking the document reverently.

'Are you all right?' he asked quickly, making for the gangway. 'Medical stores O.K.? Too late now, anyway. Have a good voyage. Cheery-bye!'

'Good-bye,' I shouted after him helplessly. 'We seem a bit short of sulphonamides.'

'Bring us a ham from Brazil if you remember it,' he called over his shoulder. 'Don't forget the poor starving English.'

He hurried away between the railway waggons and lorries on the quay. It was almost ten. Two sailors, who had somehow managed to drink themselves to a standstill at that hour, staggered up the gangway and collapsed on the deck.

'Take 'em below,' Hornbeam shouted to the Bos'n, with the air of a man handling a familiar situation. 'They'll be logged tomorrow morning. Has Smiley turned up yet?'

'No sign, Mr. Hornbeam.'

'I dunno,' Hornbeam said resignedly. 'If you docked a ship in Hell you'd still get deserters. Get my watch turned-to, Bos'n. I'm going to stations.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Two tugs nuzzled under our bow and stern, their skippers standing impassively at the wheel in their oilskins like waiting taxi-drivers. The pilot came aboard-an alarmingly unnautical figure in a tweed overcoat and bowler hat, carrying an umbrella and a black Gladstone bag. I watched Trail knock on the Captain's door, salute, and announce 'Tugs alongside and pilot aboard, sir.' He stepped aside as Captain Hogg appeared, resplendent in gold braid, and mounted solemnly to the bridge. The gangway came up, the two tugs plucked the ship away from the quay, and the ropes fell into the water with long splashes. The Lotus became suddenly changed into an entity, a being in her own right, instead of a rusty appendage of a dirty Liverpool wharf.

I leant over the rail with Easter, watching the steadily widening gap of water between us and the shore. I had never been on a moving ship before, apart from a brief passage from Margate to Southend in a paddle steamer, and I felt excited and apprehensive. I found the belief that we should now all be transported by the Lotus from Liverpool to the Tropics too outlandish to take seriously.

'Well, we're off,' was all I could think to say.

'Yes, sir. In an hour or so we'll be well out in the River.'

'You know, Easter, to me it seems almost impossible for this little ship to take us all the way to South America.'

'Sometimes, sir,' he answered gloomily, 'I think it's a bloody miracle she moves at all.'

We shook with a gentle ague as the engines picked up speed, slipped down the channel of thick Mersey water, passed the tolling buoys and the Bar light, out into the Irish Sea; in the afternoon a sharp sea-wind blew down the deck and the Welsh mountains were huddling on the horizon. I pranced delightedly round the ship, which was now musical with the wind, looking at everything like a schoolboy in the Science Museum.

I had a letter in my pocket from Wendy, which I purposely kept unopened until we were under way. It was a short prim note, wishing me a good voyage, hoping my headaches were better, and mentioning that I was not to think of ourselves as betrothed any longer. It appeared she had become enamoured of the son of the local draper. I tore the letter up and scattered it over the side: the pieces spread on the sea and were left behind. I laughed. I felt a cad, a devilish cad. But now, surely, I was allowed to be: I was a sailor. A wife in every port for me! I thought. Watch out, my girls, watch out! A rollicking sailor lad, indeed! With a snatch of sea-shanty on my lips I went below for a cup of tea, aware that I was perhaps not quite myself.

***

My elation lasted less than a day. The next morning I was sick.

The Lotus creaked and groaned her way through the water like an old lady in a bargain sale. She climbed to the top of a wave, paused for breath, shook herself, and slid helplessly into the trough of the next. I lay on my bunk and watched the sprightly horizon jumping round the porthole, trying to think about eminently terrestial objects, such as the Albert Hall.

Easter put his head round the door. In his hands he had a cup of tea and a small roseless watering-can, of the type preserved for the conveyance of tepid water in English country hotels.

'Good morning, Doctor,' he said briefly. Will you be in for breakfast?'

I rolled my head on the pillow.

'Not feeling too good, Doctor?'

'I think I am going to die.'

He nodded, gravely assessing the clinical findings.

'Throwing up much?' he asked pleasantly.

'Everything.'