Surgeon at Sea

'Mind you don't fall in,' Hornbeam said, coming up the ladder. 'A mouthful of this water would kill you. Any sign of her yet?'

'Can't see anything from here.'

'The Old Man and Beamish are great pals,' he told me contentedly. 'They'd ram each other's ships if they thought they could get away with it. Not that I have any time for Beatilish,' he added. 'In fact, I'm not certain I wouldn't rather sail with the one we've got.'

This struck me as severely damning to Captain Beamish.

'What's the matter with him?'

'Thinks he's one of the big ship boys-you know, everything frightfully pukka, wipe your feet at the top of the gangway, kiss me hand and call me Charlie. They say he was a cadet in the P. amp; O., but got chucked out. I can't say I blame them.'

'But surely,' I said despairingly, 'there must be some good captains in the world?'

'There's one or two. Old Morris on the Daisy isn't bad. He did me a good turn once in Belfast when I got mixed up with the cops. But as soon as they get their fourth ring most of 'em get bloody-minded. You wait and see-I'll go the same way.'

We stood chatting between the lifeboats for a while, until Captain Hogg bellowed from above us: 'Ahoy there, Mr. Trail! Stand by to dip ensign!'

'There she is,' Hornbeam said, pointing down the river. 'See?'

'What, that?'

His account of Captain Beamish made me imagine his ship as equally superior; but the Violet, as she swung round the bend in the river, turned out to be a vessel smaller than the Lotus, narrow, as angular as a piano, with patches on her plates and two tall, mournful ventilators drooping over her bridge. She was high in the water, with a wide streak of red showing at the bottom of her rusty hull, and the tips of her propeller blades cut the surface below her overhanging stern.

'Makes us look like the _Queen Lizzie,_ doesn't it?' Hornbeam said as she drew nearer. 'Watch for the fun when we start saluting.'

It was clear that Captain Hogg was going to pay his respects grudgingly. He stood on top of the wheelhouse glaring across the water to the Violet, and on the wing of the Violet's bridge a thin, tall figure in a shining white uniform glared back at him. As the mainmasts of the two ships drew level Captain Hogg shouted 'Lower away!' and the Violet's ensign fluttered down a foot in curt acknowledgment. The two Captains scowled at each other as they passed, and no one in either crew would have been surprised if they had stuck out their tongues.

'The brotherhood of the sea,' Hornbeam said. 'I bet Father's just waiting for her to foul our ropes as she comes alongside.'

Captain Beamish nevertheless arrived for lunch on board the Lotus as soon as his gangway was down. He turned out to be a thin, brown, wrinkled man with a face like a tortoise. He compensated for his own shabby ship by turning himself out sprucely; his long neck stretched from the high, starched collar of his uniform, two rows of glossy medal ribbons shone on his bosom, his trousers were unsullied with sitting, and his feet stood in white buckskin shoes. He sat down at the table, placed a monocle in his right eye, and crumbled a roll in his bony hand with an expression on his face as if he expected it to release an unpleasant smell.

Captain Hogg was coldly polite, and introduced us all. 'This is my Chief Officer, Mr. Hornbeam…my Doctor…my Chief Engineer…my Chief Steward.' Captain Beamish received these presentations in silence. Before we had finished the soup it appeared that he was a man sparing of words, for the only conversation he permitted himself was to interrupt his host's remarks every few minutes with the expression "Strordinary!'

When we reached the treacle roll he cut into Captain Hogg's description of how he once docked in Liverpool without tugs, by glaring at me and snapping, 'Doctor!'

'Sir?'

'Which hospital d'y' come from?'

'St. Swithin's, sir.'

''Strordinary! Must know Dr. Jenkins.'

'Jenkins? No, I'm afraid I don't, sir.'

Jenkins was a very well-known man in the Line.'

I shook my head solemnly, without making any comment. I had gathered that doctors became well known in seafaring life only through the originality with which they left it.

'You look very young, Doctor,' he continued. 'Fully qualified, I suppose?'

'Of course I am!' I said angrily.

"Strordinary. Looks very young indeed,' he added in a slightly softer voice to Captain Hogg, who immediately began looking at me with suspicion.

'Lost my damned Bos'n this trip,' Captain Beamish went on. 'Blast him.'

'What was up?' Captain Hogg asked, piling the last fragments of suet roll on to his spoon.

'Had to put him over the wall off Pernam. Dead, y'know.'

'Go on! What of?'

"Strordinary thing altogether. Meant to ask your Doctor. Had a turn of the shakes and died before sunset.'

'Very likely smallpox,' I said firmly. 'Your ship will have to be fumigated for three weeks and all hands isolated in the fever hospital. The one in Santos is extremely unpleasant, but they will probably take you up to Sаo Paulo as you're certain to get it, anyway.'

I sat and sulked over the cheese-dish.

'Bad about the Bos'n,' Captain Beamish said. 'Don't get his type any more. Respectful. Knew my ways. I may not be in command of a big ship, but I'll have her run decently. Eh, Captain?'

Captain Hogg had his mouth full of cheese, but he nodded violently enough to spill pieces on to the tablecloth.

'Don't know what things are coming to. The Third wore the same uniform three days running last week. D'y'know what happened yesterday? Steward brought me a glass of water without a tray. Communism, that's what it is.'

Captain Beamish then said nothing else for the rest of the meal.

The Violet's officers came aboard before supper and noisily packed themselves into Hornbeam's cabin. I found it startling to see the familiar Fathom Line uniforms and badges with different faces over them. They sat and drank gin, enjoying the fragmentary friendship of the sea that had been established by a few hours or a day or two in a dozen years at ports all over the world.

'Here's our Doc,' Hornbeam said, as I squeezed through the door. 'Meet Mr. Molony, Chief Officer from that old barge down aft.'

'Hello, Doc,' he said, shaking hands. 'Enjoying the sea?'

'I am rather, thank you.'

'How did you get on with our Old Man at dinner?'

'I must say he was pretty rude.'

Molony laughed loudly, while Hornbeam filled up his glass.

'He takes some getting used to. Do you know what?' he asked Hornbeam. 'He chased me up for eating peas off a knife the other day. Can you imagine it? Now there's bugling, too. We signed on a Yankee galley-boy in New York who brought a trumpet with him, so we get bugle calls to meals. Anyone would think we were a ruddy battleship.'

'All skippers are the same,' Hornbeam said wearily. 'Do you remember old Jack Andrews in the Buttercup? What happened to him?'

'Didn't you hear? He got put ashore in Cape Town last year.'

They began to talk earnestly of men and ships I had never heard of, and their conversation took on an odd parochialism extending across the face of the earth.

As the Violet was due to sail again at midnight our guests left early. I leant on the rail and watched her float slowly into the river, her portholes drawing yellow streaks across the greasy water. She blew three hoots of farewell to us and followed her tug towards the sea. Captain Hogg stood outside his cabin staring after her, and no doubt Captain Beamish was on the bridge glaring astern at us. I wondered if I should meet any more Fathom Line captains, and if they would be any less unnerving.