Surgeon at Sea

A man in a pair of khaki trousers and a loose orange shirt was waiting in my cabin. He grinned as I came in.

'Hi'ya Doc,' he said. 'I'm off the _Omar C. Ingersoll._ Pleased to meet ya.'

We shook hands.

'I guess I shouldn't have bust in, but your Chief Mate said it was O.K.'

'Perfectly all right,' I said. 'What can I do for you?'

'I just want a bottle of aspirin. We're right out, and we ain't carrying a medic. I don't want to put you to no bother, though.'

'No trouble at all, my good man,' I said. 'I'll fetch you some from the hospital.'

'That's mighty swell of you, Doc,' he said, grinning at me again. 'Mighty swell.'

In return for the bottle of aspirins he presented me with two hundred Chesterfields, _The Case of the Luckless Legs,_ three bars of chocolate, _Life,_ and a photograph of the _Omar C. Ingersoll._ At the gangway he slapped me on the back and said, 'Come aboard and have a cup of coffee sometime, Doc. Just go up the gangway and ask for me.'

'Very kind of you,' I said. 'And you are…the Bos'n? Er, Mate, possibly…?'

'Aw, hell no, Doc! I'm the Captain. So long!'

I went to my bunk reflecting that the feudal system at least had the advantage of leaving you in no doubt whom you were talking to.

Chapter Twelve

We spent a week in Santos, all baking in our cabins like a big dish of escargots. Our next port was to be Buenos Aires, to load grain and hides for home.

'Shan't be sorry to get away,' said Trail the morning we sailed. 'Stinking place, this. Fancy living here!'

'When are we off?'

'About midday. They've finished cargo in all hatches except No. 5. It's hot, isn't it? I'll be like a fried egg when I come off the bridge.'

We left the city of tolerance behind us and turned south towards the River Plate.

Our voyage down the coast was enlivened by Christmas, which fell upon us half-way between Santos and Montevideo. The festival is celebrated most warmly by Englishmen when away from their own country, just as London Scots afford the fiercest welcome to the New Year. As I had now a fair insight into the behaviour of the Lotus and her crew I expected the day would pass with a flourish.

On Christmas morning Easter awoke me with my tea at seven.

'Good morning, Doctor. And a Merry Christmas to you Doctor, with my best respects.'

'Thank you, Easter. And the same to you.'

'Bloody 'ot again, ain't it?'

'What's on the thermometer?'

He looked at it closely.

'Hundred and two. Won't be nearly so chilly by midday, neither.'

'It seems very strange to me to have Christmas in this climate.'

'Cor,' Easter continued, 'I remember one Christmas we had in the Timor Sea. I was in a Yankee ship then-one of them all-metal jobs inside. She was hot enough melt a bos'n's heart. Early on Christmas morning the Chief Engineer goes and dies, see…'

'Really, Easter…'

'…so I reckons we got to chuck the poor bastard over the wall pronto, because in that heat you wouldn't be able to get near him after dinner-time, let alone dress him up in a canvas suit. I tells the Mate-nasty bit of work he was-but he won't have none of it. You know what these Yanks are. Crazy for embalming. "He's got to be embalmed," he says, "then we'll pop him in the galley freezer and he can have a decent burial in the soil of God's Own Country. Besides," he says, "we ain't going to have no funerals on Christmas Day." "Yes," I says, "but who's going to do the embalming?" "You are," he says, "there's instructions in the Pharmacist's Mate's Handbook, and you can get on with it. If you do him nice I'll give you a bottle of Scotch, and if you makes a pig's bottom of him I'll kick you round the deck."

'What could I do? I tells the Skipper, but he gets a cob on and says it's orders. So I reckon instead of arguing it's best to get on with it while he's still pretty fresh. The Butcher and me goes in there and gets to work, me promising the Butch half of the Scotch-used to be in the meat works at Chicago, the Butch, and reckoned something like that was right up his alley.

'Oh, we made a lovely job of him,' Easter continued with pride. 'It would have brought tears to his mother's eyes. When we'd finished the Butch and I gets the hospital stretcher to carry him down to the freezer, while the Skipper and all hands gathers round the cabin door to have a dekko. I goes in first holding one end of the stretcher, the Butch holding the other, and the Mate comes in after us to see what sort of a job we've made of him. Well, I dunno. Either we'd made the poor bloke so lifelike, or it was that hot, or he was starting to pong a bit, but the Mate gets inside and passes out like a light. So what could we do? The Butch and I puts him on the stretcher and carries him on deck for some air. When the Skipper sees us coming out with the Mate lying there instead of the corpse he takes one look and bloody well faints as well. Cor, what a lash-up! Stiffs all over the deck. Wasn't 'arf a funny Christmas, that wasn't.'

'Thank you, Easter,' I said. 'You have cheered my Christmas morn.'

'The Bos'n's got toothache,' he added.

'Has he? How badly?'

'Something cruel, he reckons.'

'Send him to the hospital. I'll be along in half an hour.'

The bos'n was a big man with a complexion like an old football and a face as threatening as a battleship's gun-turret. I found him sitting in the hospital chair, holding his jaw and moaning.

'Merry Christmas,' I said.

I shone a torch in his mouth and announced 'It'll have to come out.'

'O.K., Doc,' he said, squaring his shoulders. 'I can take it.'

We had fortunately found a pair of dental forceps on board, and I hoped they would fit the tooth. I had never extracted one before, but from the ranks of dentists I had seen in action in the hospital out-patient department it looked pretty simple. One simply pulled hard, as though extracting a nail from a plank, and the tooth appeared in a flurry of saliva and blood.

'Easter,' I said. 'What have we in the way of anaesthetics?'

'If I may be so bold, sir, and especially seeing it's Christmas, how about the medical comforts?'

'Capital idea. Are there any left?'

'I took the liberty of telling the Chief Steward last night that you was wanting some special for the season.'

'Very well. Go and fetch them, Easter.'

The three of us sat in a circle and purposefully drank brandy.

'Have another glass,' I told the Bos'n. 'After all, you're the patient.'

He said the pain was beginning to wear off.

'Nevertheless,' I said firmly, 'we must proceed with the operation. I don't want you messing up my Christmas Day with toothache. Open wide,' I commanded. I applied the forceps. 'Is that the one?'

He nodded vigorously.

I gripped the forceps hard and pulled. It was like trying to crack a fresh Brazil nut. I gave another tug. The Bos'n grunted and screwed his eyes up.

'This may hurt a little,' I remembered to say.

I threw all my weight against the tooth. Sweat was running down my face and into my eyes and I was breathing like a middle-aged wrestler.

'It's no good!' I grunted. 'I'm just not tough enough. Easter, apply counter-pressure to his shoulders, will you? That's right. Now-one, two, three, together heave!'

The patient slipped down the chair.

'Oh Lord!' I said.

'If I might suggest,' Easter said. 'Dr. Flowerday used to find it very useful to put his knee in the bloke's chest.'

'Like that?'

'That's right, Doctor. Now shove your elbows against his shoulders.'

There was a crash, and the patient landed on the deck with me on top of him.

'Hold on, Doctor!' Easter shouted. 'It's coming!'

I set my jaw and threw myself into a final effort; but the tooth was as firm as a rivet in a ship's plate. I was about to roll off the patient in exhaustion when he decided it was time to intervene himself. Two large, powerful hands came up and enveloped mine. The Bos'n gave a sharp heave and the tooth came out like a pip from an orange.