Captain Hogg appeared on the bridge. He had been disturbed in his siesta, and was dressed only in a tartan dressing-gown. He looked like Macbeth the day the wood moved.
'Mr. McDougall!' he shouted. 'Mr. McDougall!'
He banged the rail with his fist.
'Quartermaster! Present my compliments to the Chief Engineer and ask him to come to the bridge!'
'Aye aye, sir.'
Captain Hogg clasped his hands behind him and strode fiercely across the deck. After five minutes McDougall appeared. He was in a boiler-suit and held in his hand a scrap of cotton waste, material that appears as indispensable to engineers as stethoscopes to doctors. They glared across the bridge, playing havoc with each other's blood pressure.
'The ship's stopped,' Captain Hogg announced.
'Aye,' said McDougall. 'I know.'
'Well…why the devil has she stopped?'
McDougall lit his pipe.
'You tell me, Cap'n, and then we'll both know.'
'Damn it, Mr. McDougall! Can't you keep the ship going between ports?'
'Not this ship.'
'When I first came to sea engineers took their orders from the bridge. Their job was to raise steam and keep it.'
'When I first came to sea Cap'ns behaved like gentlemen.'
'I will not be spoken to like that!'
'I will speak to ye how I like.'
'I'll have you put in the log-book, Mr. McDougall!'
'I'll report ye to the Company, Cap'n.'
'I will not be obstructed by a pigheaded Scot!'
'An' I will not be told my job by an ignorant Sassenach!'
'Damn you, sir!'
'And damn you, too!'
At that moment the argument was annulled by the telegraph ringing again and the Lotus slowly getting under way.
'It's always like that,' the Second said. 'You know how it is. Oil and water won't mix.'
Chapter Seven
The voyage extended. The ship ran deeply into the Tropics and Captain Hogg started work on his Master's Letter from Santos. We stayed fairly peaceful until the afternoon he threw the Chief Steward down the bridge ladder.
Whimble was the most introverted and anxious member of the Lotus's company; and he had a strict rule on board-he never drank. When he came to my cabin early in the voyage and I recalled that the social formula of my new life demanded I offered him a peg, he grasped his abdomen with a sigh of horror.
'Not a drop, Doctor!' he declared. 'Never touch a dram of it!'
'What, not at all?' Finding a teetotaller in the Lotus was like running into a sober Scot on Burns night.
'Not for twenty years! It's my liver, Doctor.' He warily indicated the region of his umbilicus. 'I had a real bad turn in Cardiff. Five operations and left to die three times. I need say no more to you, need I, Doctor?'
'No, no more at all.'
'So I said to myself, "Walter," I said, "be a man! Not another drink you're going to have till your dying day!" And not a drop's soiled my lips since. Will-power, Doctor, that's what it is. I used to do Pelmanism a bit when I was younger.'
When I passed this information to Hornbeam, illuminated with admiration, he pushed his cap back on his head and roared with laughter.
'He's right in a way, Doc,' he said. 'You'll never see him with a glass in his hand. He keep it in his locker, mostly. Or his hot-water can, or under the bunk. He gets a bottle a day easy-buckshee, of course. Pinches it from the bond-room and fiddles the bar accounts so it's poor beggars like you and me that have to pay for it in the end.'
'He cooks the books, does he?' I said in surprise. 'I'd have thought he was too timid to be dishonest.'
'Don't you believe it. There isn't a chief steward afloat who wouldn't flog the funnel if he thought he could get away with it.'
I observed Whimble fairly closely after that. Once Hornbeam had given me the diagnosis it was simple to pick out the symptoms. In the early morning, when he did his round of the galley and the stores, he was a pale and nervous man who flattened himself against the bulkhead when he glimpsed Captain Hogg's threatening silhouette at the other end of the alleyway. At nine he paid his daily visit to the little bond-room below the water-line, and came up with the ship's supply of liquor. After that he went to his cabin to clean his teeth. He reappeared slightly flushed, and took his place in the inspection procession with confidence. Then he cleaned his teeth again. He found it necessary to clean his teeth before dinner, at teatime, and on several occasions during the evening. By ten at night, when he prepared the Captain's sandwiches in the pantry, his spectacles were awry and he sang snatches of bawdy songs as he slapped on the mustard with a flourish. The end of his day was marked shortly afterwards by the flash of a bottle sailing out of his porthole, and the light splash as it hit the water and joined the others that marked, at neatly regular intervals, the progress of the Chief Steward round the world.
To restore this and other profitable discrepancies, Whimble was forced to spend several hours a day sitting in his tiny office with the store-books and a ready-reckoner, biting his pen and working out worried sums on a scrap of paper.
'Father's very hard, very hard!' he explained to me one day. 'Always chasing me up over the catering. And the Company looks at every grain of rice they give you. What d'you think they'd do if I was a pound of butter out at the end of the voyage?' He indicated the sea with his thumb. 'It would be "Out, Walter, me boy," and no mistake. I don't know how I make ends meet sometimes, really I don't.'
His problem was not so much making ends meet but arranging them to do so with a worthwhile overlap. The drawers under his bunk were filled with tins of ham, peaches, lard, tongue, and pineapple, which were ready to be slipped over the side to a furtive rowing-boat our first night in port. Tins of cigarettes were stacked behind his books in the office, and two or three bottles of whisky were locked in the glass locker with the ostentatious label FOR ENTERTAINMENT OF CUSTOMS. 'If you're wanting any medical stores on the coast, Doc,' he confided in me when I dressed a cut on his hand one evening, 'let me have the list and we'll split the comish fifty-fifty.'
'Very kind of you, I'm sure.'
'Of course, there won't be much in it. There isn't much of anything in this hooker. In a big passenger job that's different. The Purser gets his comish on everything down to the bell-boy's tips. Why, the barman in one of those makes more than the Old Man.' He looked gratefully at his fresh bandage. 'If you want a few bottles of Scotch to flog the other end it might be arranged,' he added generously. 'I can get it ashore for you. Trust Walter. Never touch a drop of it myself, mind you.'
Whimble had justification enough for secret drinking at our expense in the Captain's table manners alone. Captain Hogg made a point of complaining at least once a meal about the menu or cooking. 'Beef!' he would exclaim, contemptuously spitting out a half-chewed morsel as big as a golf ball. 'Flea-ridden cow, more likely! Where the devil did you dig this up from, Mr. Whimble?'
'Fresh on board this trip, sir. Saw it loaded with my own eyes, if I may respectfully say so, sir.'
'I don't believe you, Mr. Whimble. You've had this in the freezer since last voyage, or I'm a Dutchman. What do you say, eh, Doctor?'
As there was no point in disagreeing with the Captain about anything I nodded sympathetically.
When he was especially enraged with a dish Captain Hogg would lift his plate shoulder high, bellow 'Steward!' and demand, 'Throw that muck over the side and bring us a decent piece of bread and cheese.' This he would eat glaring at Whimble, in a silence broken only by the rhythmical snapping of his jaws. On other occasions he would suddenly be overcome with longings, like a pregnant woman. 'Mr. Whimble,' he would demand in the middle of a plate of liver and bacon, 'why don't we ever have any avocado pears?' Or 'Steward! Are there any pikelets on board?'
After the meagre nourishment of my student's lodgings and the G.P.'s table the portions served in the Lotus's saloon looked heavy with the threat of dyspepsia; but the sea air and the prospect of
sleeping all afternoon soon led to my eating as much as anyone else, apart from Captain Hogg. The menu was conservative, like a good commercial hotel's, and ran mostly to joints and puddings. All of them were prepared with care by the First Cook, a large, soft-eyed, likeable man, who sweated among his spitting roasts in the galley whistling and basting the meat with the delight of an esteemed craftsman.
'A contented cook, Doc,' he said, 'and you gets a contented crew.' He whistled a few bars. 'Nice leg of pork cold for supper. Fond of crackling?'
'I'm glad you're contented,' I told him. 'Most of the cooks I meet ashore seem to have duodenal ulcers.'
He wiped his hands on his trousers and felt in his hip pocket.
'That's why I'm contented,' he said. He flourished a photograph of a thin simpering young woman in an off-the-shoulder dance frock. 'Sweetest little girl in the world. That's the wife.'
'You're a very lucky man.'
'Yes, Doc, I reckon I am. One of the luckiest of the lot. How'd you like a bit of dressed crab as well?' he added, glowing with bonhomie. 'I could always open a tin.'
But already, three thousand miles away, disaster was being prepared for the Lotus's cooking. The next afternoon Easter came to my cabin and said, 'Beg pardon, Doctor, but the Cook reckons he wants to do himself in.'
'What! You mean commit suicide?'
'That's right, Doctor. He's been on the booze since dinner, and the lads spotted him rigging up a bit of rope in his cabin.'
'Good Heavens man! Haven't you done something about it?'
'Ho, it's all right now,' Easter said calmly. 'The Bos'n slugged him and he's out cold. He'll be tame enough when he comes to. It's always the same. They never string themselves up in the end.'
'But what's the trouble?' I asked. It seemed barely credible. 'He struck me as a happy enough sort of fellow.'
'Sheilas,' Easter said with contempt. 'Drive a man to it some of them, don't they, Doctor? His wife's vamoosed with a bus-driver. Just got a cable from his pal to say so.'
'That's a bit of tough luck. He seemed to be pretty fond of her.'
'It ain't the first time it's happened by a long chalk. Cor, I've seen these bits waving good-bye to their husbands at the docks, then going home to collect the allotment, a quid a week regular, and ending up with black babies and suchlike. There ain't no depths, Doctor, what women won't stoop to. And the worse they treat the blokes the more they seem to like 'em. Mugs, ain't we?'
'Well, I think you'd better keep an eye on the Cook,' I told him. 'Perhaps I should have a chat with him-psychology, you know. I hope he won't let it interfere with his cooking.'
The next morning was Sunday. The Cook was back at work-but a sad, lonely, tuneless man. He pottered miserably round the galley, pausing every now and then to break into unexpected tears over the carrots or the boiling duff. Suddenly he would cry out startlingly, 'Rosie! Rosie! I love you!' then he would fall silent and look grimly along the edge of his carving-knife, under the terrified glance of the galley-boy who crouched over the potato-bucket.
The Sunday dinner, nevertheless, appeared on the saloon table. Rosie could not have chosen a worse day for her defection, for the menu was the longest of the week: there was always Scotch broth, boiled turbot, steak-and-kidney pie, beef, carrots, boiled and roast potatoes, and plum duff, all of which the Captain consumed steadily and usually without complaint. But that day the Cook's grief had intruded into the meal. The soup was cold, and Captain Hogg flung his spoon into the plate after the first mouthful with the command: 'Steward! Chuck this dishwater into the scupper!' The turbot was underdone, and it was barely touched by anyone. Only the steak-and-kidney pie seemed up to the usual standard. 'Give us a big helping,' the Captain growled. 'If the rest's as filthy as the soup it won't be worth eating. Call yourself a Chief Steward, Mr Whimble? You're not fit to be in charge of an ice-cream barrow.'
He began eating his pie in silence. We were all a little bad tempered, for Sunday dinner was pleasantly anticipated and we had prepared ourselves with extra morning gin. I watched the Captain sorting out the portions of kidney and felt thankful for the sake of our digestions that peace had fallen on the table.
Captain Hogg suddenly jumped to his feet. He held his napkin to his mouth and his face was the colour of the port light.
'Look!' he hissed. 'Look at that!'
His finger quivered in the direction of his food. Whimble nervously stretched across the table and removed from a pile of pie-crust a dental plate with three teeth attached to it.
'Oh, dear!' Whimble said.
'Is it yours?' the captain thundered.
'Oh, no, sir! I've never seen it before, sir.'
Captain Hogg thrust his napkin forward.
'Put it in that!' he commanded. The teeth, in a pool of gravy, were wrapped up. 'I am taking this up to my cabin and stowing it in the safe. I am then showing it to the general manager the minute we arrive in Liverpool. By God, I'll see you pay for this, Mr. Whimble!'
Shaking his fist he left the saloon, pausing to shout an order for cold ham and pickles in his cabin. We sat in silence, the pie going cold in front of us. Whimble tried to take a drink of water, but he was shaking so much he spilled it over the cloth.
'I don't think I want any more,' Hornbeam said, pushing his plate away. 'Whose are they, Doc? Yours?'
'They're probably the Cook's. He's been a bit forgetful this morning.'
Whimble croaked. 'The Cook!' He jumped from the table, eager to pass on his castigation. The gentle, easy-going Cook, who filched tins of ham and corned beef through Whimble's good graces, was the only person on board whom he could bully. Pausing only to clean his teeth on the way, he confidently made for the galley.
But it was a changed Cook whom he found sitting on the potato locker with a gin-bottle, crooning to himself. He saw the accident in a different light. Before Whimble could say anything he was gripped by the shirt, a chopping-knife pointed at his throat, and the Cook demanded 'Give me my bloody teeth back!'
Whimble broke away with a shout that brought us all from the saloon. We found him running down the deck chased by the Cook, who had his knife in his hand and was wearing a frightening toothless snarl.
'Murder!' Whimble shouted.
The Cook was not steady on his feet, fell over a stay, and burst into tears. But Whimble had no time to see this. His only thoughts were of self-protection, and he decided the unpleasantness represented by Captain Hogg was less than that embodied in the Cook. He jumped up the ladder to the bridge and hammered on the door of the Captain's cabin.
'Help!' he cried. 'Save me!'
The door was flung open.
'What the blazes is the matter with you?'
'Look,' said Whimble, pointing behind him.
'Are you mad!'
'The Cook's after me with a knife!' he whimpered, calming at the sight of Captain Hogg. 'He wants his teeth back.'
'Teeth! Teeth! Did you say teeth? Get off my bridge!'
'He'll murder me!'
'Get off my bridge, damn you!'
'Give me the Cook's teeth first!'
Captain Hogg picked Whimble up by his shirt collar and gave him a push. He uttered a little squeal as he lost his balance at the top of the ladder and came sliding down feet first. At that moment the steward was mounting it with the Captain's tray of ham and pickles.
'There goes our supper,' Hornbeam said gloomily. After that no one thought it worth while finishing the meal.
Chapter Eight
The next morning my professional tranquillity was split like an old sail in a storm.
I had settled down in my cabin after breakfast to read _War and Peace,_ with which I first killed three or four cockroaches, when Easter came in. He showed me a new card trick and described the occasion when he was steward on a Greek tramp and had won from the skipper, an incorrigible but luckless gambler, as a final stake one night in the Mediterranean the exclusive services of his stout but agreeable wife until Gibraltar.
'There's something
, Doctor,' Easter went on. 'One of the crew took queer in the night.'
'What's wrong with him?'
'Vomiting and suchlike. Shall I chase him up here?'
'I think we'd better pay a domiciliary visit.'
The patient was a young deckhand. He was lying on his bunk, holding his abdomen and groaning.
'Good morning,' I said briskly, taking his pulse. 'What's the trouble?'
'Aw, cripes! I got the bellyache something horrid.'
Just let me have a look at the-er, stomach.'
He stretched himself on his back. I reached out a hand and felt the right-hand quadrant of his abdomen. Immediately I felt as if I had eaten a bunch of safety-pins and they had all opened inside at once.
I dragged Easter outside the door and shut
'Easter,' I said hoarsely. 'This man has acute appendicitis.'
'Cor!'
'This is urgent. How far are we out of Santos?'
'About two days, the Mate reckons.'
'Well, we must make land before then and put the poor chap in hospital. I'll go up and see the Captain.'
Captain Hogg had just got out of his bath. He stood in his slippers with a towel round him, looking at me like Bligh offering Christian the cheese. I could appreciate that it was one of his gastric mornings.
'Well?'
'Er-good morning, sir.'
'Good morning!'
'Could you do twice the speed you are, sir?'
'What!'
He jumped so violently he shook drops of water from his chest on to the carpet.
'I mean-you see, sir, one of the crew has developed acute appendicitis. He will have to be operated on as soon as possible. I understand from the engineers that it is possible for the vessel to make a few more knots, and I thought…'
Captain Hogg sat down on the edge of his desk. He gave a sharp tug to his left ear, as though pulling the pin out of a Mills bomb.
'For every knot above the cruising speed of my ship,' he began quietly, 'the bill for fuel oil practically doubles itself. What do you think the Company would have to say? Eh?' He banged the desk. 'Operate, Doctor, operate!' he shouted. 'What do you think I pay you for?'
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