Surgeon at Sea

'Hello,' I said, immediately interested. 'What's the trouble?'

She bit her lip for a moment, then said, 'Nada…nada.'

'Have you got a pain? Er-dor?'

She nodded.

'Where?'

She pointed under her right ribs.

'That's curious,' I said. Just let me have a look a minute, will you? By Jove, this is unusual…Deep breath, now.'

After five minutes' careful examination of her abdomen I concluded that the young lady was suffering from inflammation of the gallbladder.

'Look here,' I said, 'you ought to go to hospital.'

She smiled up at me from the pillow. 'Hospital…operacao, or whatever it is.'

I indicated with signs.

'Oh, nвo,' she said.

'Oh, yes,' I said firmly. 'Here'-I took a pencil and paper from my pocket and wrote on it-'you take that to the chemist-farmacкutico-and they'll give you something to make it better. Then you must go to hospital, see? O.K.?'

She took the prescription and grinned.

'Very well,' I said automatically, 'call me if you have any severe pain during the night. Good evening.'

I let myself out. Trail and Archer were waiting downstairs.

'Come on, you dirty old man,' Trail said, grabbing my arm. 'Time to get back to the ship.'

It occurred to me that was the only consultation I had ever paid for.

Chapter Eleven

The next morning I woke, sweating and penitent, in my unventilated cabin. Jumbled harbour sounds replaced our usual noiseless morning at sea, and the steam winches were already working in frantic bursts on the deck outside. There were footsteps and shouting all over the ship, and when I turned over for my watch I saw an unknown, half-naked Brazilian picking his teeth and solemnly inspecting me from the open cabin door. As I shaved I reflected sharply on the change in my recreations in the last four weeks.

At breakfast I found Archer and Trail as unruffled as if they had spent the evening in a suburban cinema.

'I hear you had a bit of a lash-up last night,' Hornbeam said. 'Have a good time in Mimi's?'

'One must see how the other half lives,' I murmured.

'She was a nice little piece you got hold of.' Trail said, in a complimentary tone. 'Wouldn't have minded her myself.'

Hornbeam, who had an unphysiological resilience to alcohol, nodded as he ate his way with relish through a dish of bacon, chops, eggs, and liver.

'Sorry I couldn't come with you blokes,' he said cheerfully. 'I reckon I was tired. The quartermaster put me in my bunk about three.'

'This is not much of a place, anyway,' Trail said. Not a patch on B.A.'

'They've cleaned up B.A. a lot now,' Archer added, with disappointment. 'Do you remember Underneath the Arches, Mr. Hornbeam? A string of them running down behind a sort of colonnade affair from the Boca practically to the Plaza de Majo. They had a purity campaign down there after the war.'

'They needed it,' Hornbeam said, reaching for the tomato sauce. 'Any more bacon going, steward? I get peckish in port.'

'What are you doing to-day, Doc?' Archer asked. 'Going ashore?'

'I was thinking of it.'

'What, going back for an encore?' Trail said.

'No, I assure you I was only thinking of a haircut.'

'You're right there, Doc,' Hornbeam said. 'You look like an old rope fender.'

My hair had last been cut in the wintery twilight of a London afternoon, more than a month ago: now it overhung my newly sunburned ears, and its length reflected our distance from home. But I was reluctant to step ashore alone, for the only Portuguese I was confident of saying was 'Good morning,' and I was not in the position to refuse a shampoo, singeing, scalp massage, hot towels, and any unusual luxuries that might be provided by Brazilian barber's shops. I explained this to Easter during surgery, and he immediately relieved my difficulties.

'I should be very glad to oblige, Doctor,' he said with dignity. 'If requested.'

'You cut hair, too, do you?'

'Done quite a few hair-cutting jobs ashore. Worked six months steady at it once, helping out a pal what had a little barber's shop in Doncaster. He ran a book really, but the shop kept the coppers away. Got pinched last year, so I heard.'

'Very well, Easter. You may try your skill on me.'

He set up his saloon on the strip of deck outside my cabin. He first spread out several sheets of the _Liverpool Echo,_ then brought from his quarters a camp stool and a length of cloth striped like a butcher's apron. He tied the cloth tightly round my neck and drew a pair of scissors and a comb from his hip pocket.

'How do you like it?' he demanded.

'Oh, sort of short round the back.'

'Wouldn't like a crew cut, would you? Suit your sort of head, if I may be so bold, Doctor.'

'No thank you.'

He began snipping round the nape of the neck.

'Bit of fun and games about noon,' he continued. 'The Violet's coming in astern of us where that Royal Mail boat was yesterday.'

'The Violet? What's she?'

'Another one of the Fathom hookers. Does the run from the River Plate to Pernambuco and New York. Captain Beamish in command. Cor! He ain't 'arf a queer 'un. Needs his head examined, I reckon.'

'That's what they're cleaning up the wheelhouse for, is it?'

'Ho yes, got to have her looking posh when we has company. Sorry, Doctor, was that your ear?'

'If I get a septic wound from this,' I said sternly, 'I shall order your kit to be burned as a sanitary measure.'

He blew hard through the comb and bit deeply into my hair with it.

'I likes hair-cutting,' he continued, unruffled. 'Bit of an art, like knocking up a sculpture. You never know how it's going to turn out when you start.'

I sat in the sunshine, unresisting, while my hair fell in small bundles across the _Liverpool Echo._ The increasing warmth and Easter's conversation behind the regular sharp snip of his scissors encouraged a pleasant feeling of euphoria. I was looking forrard, towards the mouth of the river; the long quay, with the tall German cranes grouped eagerly round open hatchways, was lined with ships as far as I could see. In the water on our port side a clean, grey-and-white, neat Swedish tanker was being turned slowly by a pair of tugs, like a birch log between two water-rats. Immediately ahead of us the Stars and Stripes dropped over the stern of the _Omar C. Ingersoll_ of Baltimore, a cargo ship the same size as the _Lotus,_ designed with the American combination of stark lines and grotesque, mysterious appendages. Just below me, on the foredeck, a dozen Brazilians clutched a swaying crate labelled AUSTIN that hovered from the sling over No. 2 hatch.

'I reckon you was right not to trust the barbers ashore,' Easter said. 'They ain't up to much, and they'll rook you as soon as look at you. Not as bad as the ones in Port Said, though-for a dollar they'll give you a shampoo and introduce you to their sister.' He wiped the comb on the leg of his trousers thoughtfully. 'Mind you,' he went on, 'you can have some fun in Port Said if you're up to the tricks. Very rude in places, it is, very rude.' He swept away the cloth and stood back proudly. 'Lovely,' he said. 'Care for me to read your bumps while I'm at it? Used to be Phreno the Bump Man at fairs for a bit.'

'That will be enough, thank you. How much do I owe you?'

'Fifty Woods, Doctor, seeing it's you.'

I went to my cabin to fetch the cigarettes, and found I looked like a caricature of a Prussian general; I suspected that Easter had learned the elements of barbering while serving one of his terms in jail. The advent of the Violet seemed to justify the Company's Regulation Cap, so I fitted a new white cover and stepped back on deck with Easter's art hidden underneath.

By now there was an atmosphere of serious preparation on board. Captain Hogg was shouting at a pair of deckhands painting the large red F on the funnel, Hornbeam was supervising the desperate removal of a potful of black paint just spilled over the white bridge, and the Bos'n was trying to rig a line of electric bulbs along the gangway without disturbing the fat policeman who slept in a deckchair by the rail. As noon approached, the crew began leaning over the port rail and Captain Hogg climbed on the monkey island over the wheelhouse and impatiently trained his glasses towards the bow. I went to the boatdeck and squeezed between two davits, trying to catch the familiar Fathom Line houseflag moving slowly through the forest of strange masts.