Surgeon at Sea

To a chorus of groans and ingenious profanity the boats were swung in and made fast.

I went below to change my clothes and pour myself a drink. I was still towelling myself when Trail came in.

'What the hell does Father think he's up to?' he demanded, throwing his wet life-jacket on my bunk.

'I suppose he's allowed to hold boat drill at night if he wants to.'

'He's allowed to, all right. He's allowed to do anything. He can marry you, bury you, put you in irons, or hang you from the yardarm. That doesn't mean to say he can do it every night.'

'What do the crew think of it?'

'They're complaining to their Union.'

'I wish I could complain to mine.'

Trail pulled his wet jacket off and sat down. 'I wonder what made the Old Man do it?' he asked more calmly. 'It's the first time we've seen him for a week.'

'Probably didn't want us to forget him.'

'That's likely. It's finished with now, anyway. It was bloody cold up there on deck. You're going to have about twenty pneumonia cases to-morrow.'

'Care for a peg before we turn in?'

'Thanks, I'll have a quick one.'

I was handing him the whisky bottle when the whistle blew for the second time.

The scene on the boatdeck was repeated, but it was played at a much more leisurely pace. The crew showed no enthusiasm at all for the exercise.

'Come on!' Trail ordered. 'It's got to be done, so you'd better get it over with.'

'Put your backs in it!' the loud hailer roared. 'Call yourselves sailors? Get a move on with number four, Mr. Trail!'

'For God's sake, lads,' Trail said. 'Keep the Old Man happy.'

Slowly our boat swung out, rocking in the wind, tugging at the arms of the swearing crew.

After twenty minutes on the cold, wet deck, Captain Hogg gave the order to swing in again. The boats were brought back to their blocks, lashed down, and covered with their canvas sheets.

Hornbeam, who had found time to put on his uniform, came back to us.

'All squared up, Third?' he asked anxiously.

'Aye, aye, Mr. Hornbeam.'

'All right. You lot can dismiss.'

The voice came from the loud hailer.

'Right! Now repeat the exercise!'

Hornbeam spun round.

'No!' he shouted towards the bridge. 'We won't!'

The wind and sea were making a fair noise, but these were obliterated by the silence that fell upon everyone on deck. I held my breath. The bridge was in darkness, but I imagined clearly the explosive figure standing there.

The loud hailer was still for a few seconds.

'This is mutiny!' it roared.

Hornbeam shrugged his shoulders. 'Dismiss all hands,' he said. 'Disregard all further alarm signals.'

'Mr. Hornbeam, I'll put you in irons!'

Hornbeam took no notice.

'You'll pay for this, by God!'

'You see everything's lashed down, Third,' Hornbeam continued calmly. 'I'm going on the bridge.'

He made towards the ladder.

'You come up here and I'll kick your teeth in!'

He reached the end of the ladder. A heavy fire-bucket fell on the deck, just missing his head. I got hold of him and pulled him away.

'Look here,' I said. 'Don't be a fool. Let me go up and see him. After all, I'm more or less out of this. I can explain it's bad for the crew on medical grounds, or something. He's got nothing against me. I can be an intermediary.'

'Nothing doing, Doc. This is my pidgin.'

'No, it isn't, I don't want to spend the rest of the night putting stitches in your scalp. I'm sure he won't chuck anything at me.'

'All right, Doc,' he said. 'But watch your step.'

Setting my teeth, I climbed up the ladder to the bridge. At first I thought the wheelhouse was empty. Then I caught sight of the Captain, standing by the terrified quartermaster who was steering. He looked like a fat malignant ape.

'Who's that?' he growled.

'Doctor, sir,' I began. 'I came on behalf of the Mate…'

'Get off my bridge!'

'I wondered if I might explain that on purely medical grounds…'

'Get out!'

'In my professional opinion,' I continued resolutely.

'Get out!' he screamed. 'Or I'll bash your bloody brains in!'

He seized from the bulkhead some heavy instrument. It was, I suppose, a marline spike or some similar appliance that skippers are traditionally expected to take to beat in the brains of their crew. I did not wait to find out. I scrambled down the ladder and fell hard on to the deck. I hurt my arm and ripped my pyjamas; but already I had forgotten the incident. A new and more terrifying thought took possession of me: Captain Hogg was undoubtedly clinically insane.

Chapter Eighteen

'Delusions of grandeur,' I read aloud, 'occur frequently in this condition.'

It was the next morning. Hornbeam and Trail were sitting in my cabin while I read aloud from a textbook of medicine. The weather had calmed down and the storm that blew through the ship the night before had abated with it. Immediately after turning me off the bridge Captain Hogg had abruptly gone to his cabin, locked the door, and turned in. He appeared in the morning without making any reference to the night's excitement, and was even faintly friendly towards everyone on board. He gave the impression that he imagined the activity on the boatdeck was part of a particularly enjoyable dream.

'You see,' I explained to the others, 'delusions of grandeur. I ought to have spotted it before. Still, it's difficult in a ship's captain. No one notices if they have them.'

'What's wrong with him, Doc?' Hornbeam asked with interest.

'G.P.I.-general paralysis of the insane, undoubtedly. It's a late stage of syphilis. Listen to this: "The patient is usually a man in his middle fifties who suddenly becomes subject to attacks of bad temper, fits of sulking, and lack of judgment. These may alternate with periods of violent excitement. The condition is usually first noticed by members of the sufferer's family circle rather than the physician." Doesn't that fit in? The old boy picked it up thirty years ago on the Brazilian coast and now we're getting the benefit of it.'

Hornbeam rolled a cigarette thoughtfully.

'It's a serious business, Doc, if you're right.'

'I'm pretty certain I am.'

'Is there any sort of test you can do to make sure?' Trail asked.

'I couldn't give you a definite opinion without examining him.' I ran my eye down the page of the book. '"The patient has the sensation of walking on cotton-wool,"' I read out. 'Stabbing pains in the legs at night…loss of knee-jerks…loss of pain sensation in the tendo Achilles…pupils do not react to light…There's a good many signs, you see.'

'Yes, but do you suppose he's going to let you barge into his cabin and examine him?' Hornbeam asked. 'Have you thought about that?'

'You raise a difficulty in diagnosis, certainly,' I admitted. 'I don't feel he would be a highly co-operative patient. Particularly after last night.'

'Well, we'll have to let him go on being balmy, then.'

I shut the book and took my spectacles off.

'I have an idea,' I announced. 'I remember the way I was once told to examine children.'

'Children! This one's some baby!'

'It's the principle of the thing that matters. They taught us in hospital to deal with unwilling children by distracting their attention and examining what you wanted while they weren't looking. See what I'm getting at? The knee-jerks, for instance. I shall engage him in conversation and drop a book or a bottle of something on his patella, pretending it's an accident. Oh yes, I think that's the answer,' I said, warming to the idea. 'I'll build up a diagnosis in a couple of days and send in a report to the Company.'

'Mind he doesn't bite you,' Trail said.

I had a chance to try my new technique of fragmented diagnosis at dinner. Captain Hogg appeared for the first time since his retirement, and seemed in capital spirits. He sat down next to me at the head of the table, tucked his serviette in with a flourish, and fell upon the roast mutton.

'Good mutton, this, Mr. Whimble,' he said through a mouthful of potatoes. 'Don't get much like it these days. Where did you buy it?'