and Mrs Cheal had that devotion peculiar perhaps to their sex and a lightness of hand, a dexterity where dressings were concerned that he had not seen equalled outside a religious order. He was busy, but not desperately so (as he had been after some much bloodier fights), and he was quite able to accept Jack’s invitation to dine with several of the captains and other officers. He was placed between Hugh Pomfret and Mr Woodbine, the master, an old acquaintance who was eagerly engaged in an argument with Captain Cartwright of Ganymede about lunar observations, an argument that had started before dinner and that did not interest Stephen in the least. Captain Pomfret, though obviously unwell and in very low spirits, was a civilized man and he provided a proper amount of conversation; yet their end of the table could hardly have been described as outstandingly cheerful or amusing and it did not surprise Stephen when, as the party broke up, Pomfret asked in a low voice whether he might beg for a consultation, a medical or quasi-medical consultation, at any time that suited Dr Maturin.
‘Certainly you may,’ said Stephen, who very much liked what he had seen of the young man and who knew the limits of Pomone’s surgeon. ‘But only with the concurrence of Mr Glover.’
‘Mr Glover is no doubt a very clever doctor,’ said Pomfret, ‘but unhappily we are barely on speaking terms, and this is a wholly personal, confidential matter.’
‘Let us take a turn upon deck.’
There under the open sky, with the ship close-hauled on the larboard tack, he explained the rudiments of medical etiquette. ‘I quite take your point,’ said Pomfret, ‘but this is more what might be called a moral or spiritual rather than a physical matter - not wholly unlike the distinction between right and wrong.’
‘If you would be a little more specific, I might perhaps tell you whether I could properly be of any use.’
‘My trouble is this: Pomone, under my orders, beat one Moorish galley to pieces by gunfire and deliberately rode down two others in the melee, cutting them in half so that they sank within the minute. And I perpetually see those scores of men, Christian slaves chained to their oars, looking up in horror, looking up perhaps for mercy; and I sailed on to destroy another. Is it right? Can it be right? I cannot sleep for those faces gazing, straining up. Have I mistaken my profession?’
‘On the face of it,’ said Stephen, ‘I do not think you have. I feel extremely for your very great distress, but... no, I should have to summon more powers than I can call upon at present, to justify a war, even a war against a dictatorial system, an open denial of freedom; and I shall only say that I feel it must be fought. And since it has to be fought it is better that it should be fought, at least on one side, with what humanity war does allow, and by officers of your kind. I shall play the doctor so far as to send you a box of pills that will give you two nights’ heavy sleep. If, having slept, you wish to hear my reasons, I hope I shall have them fairly well arranged; and after that you must be your own physician.’
That night the wind backed steadily until by two bells in the graveyard watch it was a little south of west, where it steadied, strengthened and carried them right through the Strait - no more piping of all hands every other glass or two, but a sweet passage to the Rock itself and their accustomed moorings.
Stephen and Jacob were heartily glad of it because three of their badly injured men had taken a serious turn for the worse: in one case a leg could no longer be saved, in another a resection was imperatively necessary, and in the third trephining on a solid table was preferable to the same operation on a moving deck. They and all but the slightly wounded men were taken to the hospital, where in any event more surgeons were called for, one of the immense cranes on the new mole having collapsed, very heavily loaded, on a gang of workmen.
They had finished, they had taken off their bloody aprons and they were washing their hands when a midshipman from the Surprise arrived with a note from the Commodore desiring them to come aboard at once.
It was a quiet, serious, hurried boat that carried them out, and the midshipman, young Adams, looked particularly grave: both surgeons were silent too - they were sadly worn - but Stephen did notice the Blue Peter at Surprise’s masthead and he did notice the curious, bedraggled appearance of the usually trim and more than trim Pomone, with yards all uneven, sails drooping, sagging in the breeze, rope-ends here and there. He had never seen a man-of-war look so desolate.
As they approached the pennant-ship they saw a captain’s barge at the starboard gangway and so pulled round to the other side. By the time Stephen reached the deck - a slow process, with no side-ropes - the officer had taken leave of the Commodore and his barge was shoving off.
‘There you are, Doctor,’ said Jack. ‘Come and take a draught. How are our people?’
‘The usual reply, I am afraid, my dear: “as well as can be expected”, after that cruel bucketing of going about in a heavy head-sea. But poor Thomas could not keep his leg. We had it off in a trice, with barely a moan.’
‘Well done. It will be a cook’s warrant for him, if
