interview: John Paulton wholly accepted both proposals - was infinitely touched that Dr Maturin should think his book the proper vehicle for a tribute to M. de Lavoisier, whose death he too had deplored - would welcome Padeen and put him to some gentle task such as watching the lambs - and he sent a graceful note with a postscript reminding Stephen of their engagement for Sunday, which he looked forward to with the keenest delight. More than this, within three quarters of an hour of leaving the ship, Adams returned with word that the change of assignment had been made. There was no difficulty about it at all; and any other request on the part of the gentleman would receive the promptest attention.
He greeted the lodge-keeper and the saluting sentry (for he was in uniform, his best) and walked up the drive. Beyond the kangaroo be saw Dr Redfern walking down it, and when they were at a proper distance he took off his hat, saying 'Dr Redfern, I believe? My name is Maturin, surgeon of the Surprise.'
'How do you do, sir?' said Redfern, his stern face breaking into a smile as he returned the salute. 'Your name is familiar to me from your writings, and I am very happy to meet you. May I be of any service to you in this remote corner of the world? I have a fair experience of its ways and its diseases.'
'Dear colleague, you are very good, and in fact there is a kindness you could do me. I should very much like to see my former loblolly-boy, Patrick Colman: he was transported, and now it seems he is in your hospital. If you would leave word at the gate that I am to be admitted, I should be most grateful.'
'An Irishman, with a complex dysphony and little English, an absconder?'
'The same.'
'If you will come with me, I will take you there myself: I am on my way. But no doubt you were going to Government House?'
'I have to call on Her Excellency.'
'I am afraid it would be a call in vain: I have just been to see her, and she must keep her bed some days longer.'
They walked down together, Dr Redfern greeted on every hand, and they talked with barely a pause. At one point Stephen said 'What you say about liver is particularly interesting. I do not like my captain's at all, and should be glad of your opinion,' and at another he said 'There is another of those vessels emitting smoke. Is it a fumigation against pests, against disease?'
'It is sulphur burning to bring out hidden convicts or choke them to death. Many of the poor devils try to stow away. Every ship leaving is smoked and every boat is stopped by the party at South Head.' But most of the time they spoke about such matters as the thin-thread ligature of arteries, Abernethy's triumphs, and the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
When they came nearer Dawes Point Redfern's cheerfulness declined and he said 'I am ashamed to display this hospital in all its squalid nakedness. Happily Governor and Mrs Macquarie are engaged on a new building.' As they walked in he said 'Colman is in the small ward on the right. His back is healing, but there is a dejection of spirits and an utter neglect of food that makes me anxious: I hope your visit may comfort him.'
'Do you happen to know whether there are any other Irishmen in the ward?'
'Not now. We lost both others a week ago, and since then he has had almost no company. His dysphony increases in English, what little English he has.'
'Certainly. On a good day he is positively fluent in Irish, and he sings it without a check.'
'You speak the language, sir, I collect?'
'Indifferently; it is a child's knowledge, no more. But he understands me.'
'I shall leave you together while I look at the other men with my attendants: you will feel no constraint, I trust.'
There was a gathering in the hall and then they went in, Redfern accompanied by his dresser and two nurses. Padeen, was on the right hand, at the end of a row of quite wide-spaced beds, by the window. He was lying on his belly, so nearly asleep that he did not move when Redfern drew back the sheet covering him. 'As you see,' said Redfern, 'the skin is healing - little inflammation: bone almost entirely covered. Earlier floggings had rendered it coriaceous. We treat with tepid sponging and wool-fat. Mr Herold' - to the dresser - 'we will leave Colman for the moment and see to the amputations.'
It was not the half-flayed back that wounded Stephen, who like any naval surgeon had seen the results of many a flogging, though never on such a monstrous scale, so much as the extreme emaciation. Padeen had been a fine upstanding fellow, thirteen or fourteen stone, perhaps: now his ribs stood out under the scars and he would barely weigh eight. Padeen's face was turned towards him on the pillow: eyes closed, head skull-like.
Stephen laid a firm, authoritative medical hand on his back and said low in his ear 'Never stir now. God and Mary be with you, Padeen.'
'God and Mary and Patrick be with you, Doctor,' came the slow, almost dreaming reply: the eye opened, a singularly sweet smile lit that famine-time face and he said 'I knew you would come.' He held Stephen's hand.
'Quiet, now, Padeen,' said Stephen: he waited until the convulsive trembling had stopped and went on, 'Listen, Padeen, my dear. Say nothing to any man at all, nothing. But you are going to a place where you will be more kindly treated, and there I shall see you again. There I shall see you again. Till then you must eat all you can, do you hear me now, Padeen. And till then God be with you, God and Mary be with you.'
Stephen walked out, more moved than he bad believed possible; and still, as he walked back to the ship after a particularly interesting conversation with Dr Redfern, he found that his mind was not as cool and steady as he could have wished. A lorikeet, or what he took for a lorikeet, flying from a clump of banksia changed its current for a moment. So did the sound of music in the cabin, which he heard well before he crossed the brow.
It was Jack and Martin, studying particular passages of the D minor quartet: Stephen observed that the viola's sound was mellower than usual, and at the same time he remembered their engagement to dine with John Paulton. Fortunately he was already dressed.
'I have just seen Padeen in the hospital,' he said; and in answer to their enquiries, 'He is in very good hands. Dr Redfern is an admirable man. He told me a great deal about the local diseases, many brought about it appears by the dust, and about the convicts' state of mind. In spite of their failings they are always kind and tender to one of their fellows that has been flogged, and ease his sufferings as much as they can.'
