Richard Gordon - DOCTOR AT SEA

'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.

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.'