Ship's Surgeon

by Celine Conway

  “You mean...” she broke off, swallowed a scrap of vinegary cucumber. “I’d rather not talk about it, Doctor.”

  “Why not? It’s fairly new, isn’t it? For a healthy young woman you looked terrible yesterday, and you’re still black under the eyes. No man is worth it, Patsy. Take my word for it.”

  Pat did not deny his assumption; it was best that he should think her unhappy about something which had no connection with the ship. In low tones she said, “You don’t think about a man’s worth when you’re fond of him. Alan is going to be a good doctor, and I can understand the way he feels about everything.”

  “Everything being your brothers?” he asked shrewdly. When she did not reply he added, “Is that why you’re going to the uncle in Australia—to beg him to take the responsibility for the boys? You must already have corresponded with him—did he turn you down?”

  “Not exactly.” Pat looked up, saw concern as well as impatience in his keen blue glance. “Are you really interested?” she begged.

  “Sure I am,” he said a little roughly. “Just give it to me straight—no dramatics.”

  She smiled palely. “You’re not the ideal confessor, but you’re a doctor, and...” she drew a breath. “Alan is a houseman at St. Cedric’s. He hasn’t much money, but with my salary we could get along till he goes into partnership with his cousin. But my brothers are still at school—they’re only eleven. Fees and extras for two are pretty heavy, and we’ve had some unexpected expenses, so that there’s just about enough money left to carry them on for this year. My uncle in Melbourne is my father’s older brother; he’s generous and could afford to pay for the boys’ education, but as it happens he has no sons of his own—only a daughter. He offered to be entirely responsible for the boys—give them a first-class education and see them through university—if I’ll let him take them over completely, in Australia.”

  He stood back and looked down at her, dipped his hands into his pockets. “Presumably he’d have you to live with him too, but you can’t leave little Alan.”

  She lowered her head. “I have to stay in England, but Uncle Dan is adamant. In his last letter he said he’s a business man and he likes to watch his investments at close quarters. That’s what he called Tim and Keith—investments!”

  “He’s bound to regard them that way till he knows them. I wouldn’t say he’s unreasonable.”

  “You’re as cold-blooded as he is! I refuse to uproot them.”

  “Boys of eleven are adaptable and keen for that kind of change. If you want your Alan so much, let them go—”

  “I couldn’t bear to send them to a strange country and that flinty old man!”

  “It’s selfish of you to want to keep them,” he said mildly, “and this Alan must be a bit of a heel if he won’t marry you till the boys are out of the way. Sorry, but that’s how it looks to me.”

  “You don’t understand at all, but thanks for listening.” She stood up. “And thanks for the treatment. I feel better now.”

  “Independent little cuss, aren’t you?” he said tersely. “You’re wishing like hell that you hadn’t spoken to me about your troubles. Still, having spoken, you can’t object to hearing a little advice. Stop butting your head against walls. You’re either in love enough to give up your brothers to someone who will do a lot for them ... or you aren’t. I don’t believe you know the first thing about love.”

  “Do you?” she countered crossly.

  “Enough to keep clear of it.” A cool, derisive glint came into his eyes. “Tell you what, we’ll experiment a bit—find out just how much this safety-first man of yours means to you. No strings ... just an experiment.” Pat’s throat had dried up; it could have been the vinegar, but she didn’t think it was. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Research—emotional research.”

  “I don’t care to discuss it,” she said frigidly.

  “I don’t mean just talk,” with the infuriating smile, “though you might find it a help.”

  What more he would have said was problematical. There came a slight commotion outside the door, a hurried rapping and it burst open to admit the big Vernon Corey propelled by Kristin. For an instant, as Kristin saw Pat, she halted. Then attention became focused on the cattle magnate. There were tiny cuts across one red cheekbone, and he was dabbing at them with a sparkling white handkerchief. As the men faced each other Pat saw with astonishment that the doctor was actually the taller. Yet the Corey man must be at least six feet.

  “Casualty?” asked Bill Norton. “Sit here, old chap. What happened?”

  It was Kristin who replied, in quick troubled accents. “We were strolling and a child’s ball flew from somewhere and smashed Vernon’s sunglasses. He says he can’t feel even the smallest glass splinter in his eye, but I felt we had to make sure.”

  “Yes, of course. Sit down, Mrs. ... it’s Fenley, isn’t it? I dare say you and Miss Fenley here have already met, seeing that you share a surname.”

  Kristin said evenly, barely glancing at Pat, “Oh, is your name Fenley? I thought it was Fenlake.”

  Bill already had the Australian seated under a light with his head back. He gave the eye a close examination, touched the cuts with iodine and said:

  “It’s unlikely that you have glass in your eye, Mr. Corey—good sunglass lenses don’t normally flake or splinter and there’s not the smallest speck of blood—but we’ll take precautions. Miss Fenley, take this key and open the cabinet. At the back of the top shelf you’ll find a green bottle and in the lower drawer an eye dropper.” While Pat produced the medicaments, Bill washed his hands at the basin in the corner. He dropped a spot of liquid into each of the big man’s eyes, pressed pads of lint over them and placed a bandage in Pat’s hands.

  “Secure them,” he said, for all the world as if she were a ship’s nurse. “You’ll have to be led back to your stateroom, Mr. Corey. Lie down for an hour to let the oil work. If there’s a splinter about you’ll probably lose it when you blink. See me again if there’s the slightest discomfort.”

  Vernon Corey spoke for the first time, in a rather slow drawl. “Thanks, Doc. I have to stay blind for an hour—is that right?”

  “I’ll sit with you, darling,” Kristin said tenderly. “Is that all, Doctor?”

  “For the records,” said Bill, “I shall need a few particulars, but I do have the name and stateroom number, and the rest can be added later. Like a steward to help you?”

  “Oh.no. Vernon would rather trust me. Thank you so much, Dr. Norton.”

  “A pleasure,” said Bill, and by the way he looked at her he meant it.

  But then the man who couldn’t kindle a fraction at the sight of a slim and quite beautiful woman in black patio pants and a pale blue crew-neck sweater would need to have his reflexes tested. With a funny little ache in her chest, Pat watched her youthful-looking stepmother move out into the corridor with the big man’s arm about her shoulder. She would have followed them, but Bill let the door swing to.

  “Two stunners in one morning is a bit much for me,” he remarked. “This one has more about her than the Markman girl, but I don’t think she much cared for your having the same name.”

  Carefully, Pat said, “It’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “On my first trip we had two unconnected couples named Vincent. It probably happens oftener than you’d think.” He studied her face detachedly. “You’re a better colour. Take your lunch dry and you’ll be fighting fit for the rest of the voyage.”

  Pat nodded, and reached to open the door. He did the same and got there first, but their arms touched and for a second his shoulder was close behind hers. It was the sort of contact which had happened to her many times, but never before had she known a sharp electric thrust of pleasure ... and pain, in a man’s nearness. It was because she was unhappy, she told herself swiftly. But as she looked up, momentarily, and caught a faintly mocking gleam in the doctor’s eyes, her heart floundered in fright. She was halfway along the wide corri
dor before her breathing returned to normal.

  It rained heavily and blew half a gale before they were through the Bay of Biscay and into calmer, warmer waters. Then the Walhara settled into a routine enjoyment of gloriously hot days and balmy nights, with a dawn haze as the Mediterranean climate stole in. Passengers lazed and bathed, rode stationary bicycles in the gymnasium, strode round the deck and played all the usual games. Most evenings there was a film show or a dance, but a die-hard dozen or so regularly played bridge in the smoking lounge; and of course there was horse-racing on deck with mild gambling and much noise.

  The passengers were the customary mixture. Pleasure-seeking agents and salesmen, a publisher and his family, a zoologist, an attorney and his sons, a textile manufacturer, engineers and their wives, and so on. Not more than a third of them were bound for Australia, but Pat learned that others would be picked up on the way, so the ship would be fairly full when she reached her final destination.

  Pat made many acquaintances, but perhaps the fact of her having been seen occasionally in uniform rather set her apart; possibly a large proportion of the passengers thought she was a member of the ship’s staff. Pat didn’t mind. In the dining-room she shared a table with the assistant purser, the purser’s stenographer and a radio officer. Kristin and her spectacular fiancé remained at the Captain’s table, with the first officer and six other selected passengers, and Avis Markman normally sat at a table for four, though she had dined twice with the doctor.

  He lunched alone, Pat noticed, sometimes briefly because he was busy; but he made a small ceremony of dinner and mostly had a guest or two at his table. From Sister Edwards, Pat heard that things were settling down in the hospital. The early casualties were recovering on deck, and though the daily crop of sunburns, sprains and migraines did not diminish, there was seldom a serious case. The doctor was concentrating on keeping the ’flu victims among the crew to a minimum; he was also doing his utmost to isolate the ’flu from the unsuspecting passengers.

  Deva improved just a little each day. Between ten and noon each morning she went through her exercises; long rests spun the period out into two hours. In the evening, after a light supper, she took a few paces round the stateroom on Pat’s arm, and soon, Pat told her, she would be allowed to rest on deck for an hour each afternoon. The doctor still tested the girl’s heart after every exertion, but apart from a word or two of encouragement and praise to the patient, and an occasional lift of the eyebrows in recognition of the physiotherapist, Pat had no dealings with him. It was as if she had irked him on the first couple of days into a kind of familiarity, but the phase had passed.

  Her leisure time she spent mainly on deck. She had books from the ship’s library and a secluded spot where she liked to sit and read between walks, and gradually she slipped into a state of mind in which Alan Brophy was a distant and unreal figure and only those on board composed the world. Staring at the crests of the sea, she wondered if she and Alan were really in love, or whether his anxiety to please his people by marrying before he settled into the family practice had become tangled up with her own desire to depend on someone, for a change. She was very fond of Alan, his facile good humour and charm, his blarney with the patients, but was she in love with him?

  Almost without knowing it, she compared him with Bill Norton. The ship’s doctor, too, had a way with patients, but his humour had an earthiness, his charm was cool and withdrawn. Whatever he said, however attentive he might become, there was and always would be part of himself that he kept inviolate. It was obvious—to Pat, anyway—that he valued his freedom as much as he valued his profession. Which was considerably.

  On the night before they touched Gibraltar there was a dance on deck. The assistant purser had asked Pat to attend it with him, but they had hardly taken their places at one of the tables near the orchestra when he was called away. Pat told him it didn’t matter, she would wait. She lit a cigarette and looked across at the dark, silver-coined sea, till a woman asked, hesitantly,

  “Miss Fenley, would you mind if we sat with you? All the other tables are taken.”

  Pat looked up quickly. Avis Markman, with the two men who were her table companions, was standing nearby, smiling that shy smile that seemed to be appealingly natural.

  “No, of course I wouldn’t mind. Do join me.”

  Avis made the introductions. The older man was Frank Thornton and the younger Van Pickard; both were Englishmen employed by an Australian firm. They seemed ordinary enough to Pat, harmless and amiable; but the younger appeared to fancy himself something of a lady-killer. He had a white smile in a rectangular face which had already tanned, and dark hair which looked set, impossible to ruffle. Avis and the men had apparently reached the pleasant degree of camaraderie which is easily attainable at a shared dining table aboard ship.

  Pat smoked a cigarette with them, and found herself watching the white-blonde Avis, who was wearing a pink cocktail dress for the third time this trip. It was an elegant dress, but then Avis was a dress-designer with a good figure; clothes wouldn’t cost her much, but she didn’t seem to be overburdened with them. And for an exciting-looking blonde she was surprisingly reticent.

  “Are you going right through to Australia?” Pat queried companionably.

  “To Sydney, yes. My firm are opening a new fashion house there and I have to spend two weeks weighing up the Australian woman and what she wears.”

  “I should have thought they’d send you by air, to give you more time on the spot.”

  “I do have to come back by air,” said Avis, with a gentle, apologetic smile. “I’m taking the slow trip because I haven’t been away for a holiday for two years, and I got a little off-colour. You leave the ship at Ceylon, don’t you?”

  “I may, yes.”

  “Have you ever done a trip of this kind before, taking a patient to her home in another country?”

  “Never, and I’m enjoying it. It’s not hard work.”

  “I saw Miss Wadia on her way to the sick ward. She’s a beautiful girl.”

  “All young Sinhalese women are beautiful, so I’m told.”

  Van Pickard was unused to being excluded for so long from a conversation. He put in, “Her father owns terrific tea-holdings, doesn’t he? I seem to remember reading that he deposited ten thousand in England to cover the daughter’s expenses.”

  “I believe he did.”

  The assistant purser returned then, and after smiling politely at the other three he asked Pat to dance. Circling, she forgot everything but the music and the rhythm and the soft night air. After the third dance her partner was again called away, and this time she said goodnight to him. Idly, she walked down the deck to cool off before bed. The sea hissed ceaselessly against the ship’s hull, leaving a trail of turbulent white foam.

  Pat stood at the rail, thinking of the widening distance between herself and her young brothers. She would write to them tonight; she had promised to send them a letter from every port, so that they would have the stamps, as well as a report on the voyage.

  One thing she wouldn’t tell them—that their mother was aboard with the man she intended to marry. Not that it would distress them if they knew; they had always accepted the fact that other boys had mothers and fathers but that they had Pat and each other, and had actually been heard to state that they were the lucky ones. Pat had thanked heaven a thousand times that there were two of them; it doubled the expense but eliminated loneliness and heartache. Yes, she would write to them at once, and hand in the letter for posting early in the morning. She turned purposefully, and found herself face to face with the doctor.

  “Oh, hello,” she said awkwardly. “I was just going in to bed.”

  “It’s not late.” He firmly took her elbow and led her to a couple of chairs which stood in the lee of the lounge. “Let’s sit for a few minutes. Warm enough?”

  “Plenty—the air’s soft, isn’t it?” She sank down into a plastic chair, shook back the short hair which had lifted in the breeze. Mus
ingly, she said, “I don’t really want to reach Gibraltar because it’s the first port of call, and afterwards the others will come too quickly. Is it hot all the way now?”

  “Until we’re past Colombo. It cools down in the Timor and it will be winter in Australia. From tomorrow, the ship’s officers will wear whites.”

  “Sub-tropics, and then the tropics,” she said dreamily. “I can’t believe it’s really happening to me.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” he said lazily. “We’re now at the point where the romances get under way. People go ashore in groups and return in couples. Anyone you fancy as a spot of romantic relief?”

  “There’s a dear old thing who’s going to the Seychelles. A man of seventy-eight who still loves grubbing among coconut islands must be an incurable romantic!”

  “But not the right kind. As a matter of fact I think you’ve made a hit with one of the passengers. Pickard was staring at you while you danced.”

  “I didn’t see you there,” she said quickly.

  “I was dancing myself.” But he didn’t say who with. “Know much about Pickard?”

  “Nothing at all, except that he and his colleague sit at the same table in the dining saloon as Miss Markman and an American woman who’s travelling alone.”

  “The pretty Avis says she knows little about him, but that he’s charming and a gentleman. I’m never quite sure what a woman means when she calls a man a gentleman. Is it a compliment?”

  Pat laughed a little. “It depends on the tone in which it’s said. I hardly spoke to Mr. Pickard, so in this case I wouldn’t know.” She looked at the dark velvety sky strewn with stars, and breathed deeply. “I ought to go to bed. It’s going to be a strenuous day tomorrow. How long do we have in Gibraltar—a couple of days?”

  “Only half a day; no room for a congestion of ships round the Rock.”

  “Oh, but we arrive at eight, don’t we?”

  “And leave around one.” He looked at her eyes, shining in the half darkness. “I’d like to see Gib with your wide innocent slant. How would you like to go round a few of the sights with me tomorrow?”