Richard Gordon - DOCTOR AT SEA

A state of despair settled on Whimble. The greater part of the preparations fell to him, and he was expected to account for everything issued from his stores from a crate of Scotch to a jar of Maraschino cherries. Tablecloths, fruit bowls, glasses, and silver came from half-forgotten straw nests in dusty crates stowed under hundredweights of flour, rice, tinned vegetables, and a case of Gordon's gin he had lost three voyages ago and had been anxiously cooking the bar books to replace ever since.

'Oh dear, oh dear,' he said, coming out of the store-room with his shirt stuck to his chest with sweat. 'Balloons they want now! Did you ever hear of it? I don't know what the office will say when we get home!'

The balloons were a whim of Captain Hogg's; he had taken an enthusiastic and forceful interest in the dance, and spent most of the day pacing up and down the boatdeck rearranging the deck furnishings and decorations.

'Mr. Whimble!' he shouted frequently. 'Mr. Whimble! Where the devil are you? I think the buffet would be better on the port side. Not so many flies. Get it changed over. What's happened to Mr. Hornbeam? Bos'n, take down number three awning and rig it abaft the funnel so the holes won't show. Mr. Trail, are you supposed to be in charge of lifeboats?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You aren't fit to sail a toy boat on a paddling pool. Get those ropes stowed properly.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'Doctor!'

'Sir?'

'Flies, Doctor. The bluebottles from the meat works. They are a sanitary problem, are they not?'

'Yes, sir. Included in the syllabus for the examination in Public Health.'

'You are responsible for them. I don't want a damn fly on my ship by to-morrow night. Understand?'

'It's rather a tall order, sir.'

'That's your look out. Get some insect killer from Mr. Hornbeam. I don't care how you go about it, but there aren't to be any flies.'

'Very good, sir.'

I could find only enough insecticide for one spray-gun, and this I gave to Easter with instructions to pump it vigorously round the Captain every time he stepped on to the deck. This seemed to satisfy him. He left me alone until the evening before the party, when he called a conference of officers in his cabin.

'This is going to be a damn good party,' he began sternly. 'The office expects everyone to enjoy themselves, and it's bloody well up to you to see they do. Get me? Now listen to this.' He picked up a sheet of paper from the desk. 'These are the Master's orders for to-morrow night. One: uniform. Clean number tens, with correct epaulettes and white shoes. Collars to be correctly buttoned up.' He glared at McDougall, who came to supper comfortably in carpet slippers, with the high collar of his jacket wide enough apart to allow the dragon tattooed on his chest to peep coyly over his second brass button. 'Doctor, you will wear white ducks, white shirt, black tie.'

'And Company's Regulation Cap, sir?'

'If necessary. Two: Guests are to be met at the head of the gangway by Master and senior officers. See the quartermaster's in uniform and sober, Mr. Hornbeam.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'Three: No ladies are on any account to be entertained in officers' cabins, or elsewhere than on the portions of the boatdeck assigned for that purpose.'

'There goes Trail's evening,' I whispered to Hornbeam.

'Four: All alcoholic liquors on board to be placed under seal at noon to-morrow and no such liquors to be served to any member of the ship's company before the arrival of guests at ten o'clock to-morrow night. Five: All shore leave stopped from noon to-morrow. Six: All members of ship's company to remain decent and sober throughout to-morrow night. My ship is on show, gentlemen. Understand?'

We murmured acceptance of the terms.

'The music will be provided by a band from one of the English clubs,' Captain Hogg continued. 'Get the Sparks to jack up the amplifying system in case we have to play records, Mr. Hornbeam. Have you been through the ship's record library, Mr. Whimble?'

'They seem to be sort of operas and stuff, sir.'

'Capital! I like a bit of opera. Right, gentlemen. Oh, Doctor, I've put that man of yours in charge of the bar.'

'Who? Easter?'

'Yes. Strikes me as a reliable honest sort of fellow.'

I swallowed. I felt any opinion of mine would spoil the contentment of both of them.

'Very well. Conference dismissed.'

As we went down the companionway together I said to McDougall 'The prohibition order's going to delay you chaps getting Hogmanay away to a good start.'

He dropped a red eyelid over a crafty eye.

'It'ud take more than yon pipsqueak to stand in a Scot's way on Hogmanay, lad. Come along to my cabin when you've finished yer tea to-morrow. We'll find you a dram or two from somewhere.'

I was called from my shower at eight the next evening to put half a dozen stitches in the forehead of a fireman who had fallen down the stokehold ladder. For this reason I was the only officer who arrived on deck to greet the guests sober. Captain Hogg's orders had been punctiliously obeyed, except for the one impounding the ship's supply of liquor; since tea-time Whimble had been poking his head in his locker like a nervous ostrich in a perilous desert, in the Chief Engineer's cabin Scots accents rawed under the sting of neat whisky, Hornbeam and the Mates poured gin from the water-bottles above their basins, and Captain Hogg himself had been entertaining Mr. Montmorency and his sleek Argentine wife.

The boatdeck of the Lotus looked surprisingly attractive. Fairy-lights shone on the fresh white chalk spread over the scrubbed deck, ensigns and signal flags lined the rails and obliterated the stark Frigorifico, and on the long tables garnished with blazing Argentine flowers glass and linen fell pleasingly and promisingly on the eye. The band-three Argentines with piano, guitar, and drums was seriously tuning up behind the ensign of the Commonwealth of Australia. At the head of the gangway, which was enlivened with bunting and a string of bulbs, a quartermaster stood nervously in white matelot's rig; stewards in shining jackets stood with silver trays and serviettes between the fresh-painted ventilators; behind the bar was Easter, with an expression of disarming honesty on his face that suggested a bishop going through the Dover customs with two bottles of brandy in his gyp.

Besides the quartermaster the ship's officers-in clean white number tens, white shoes, correct epaulettes, collar fully buttoned up-stood greeting the guests with great charm and affability. To me it seemed that the decorum of my shipmates had a certain brittleness about it, a nervous overemphasis. This was noticeable in the way the Chief Engineer tenaciously kissed the hands of the ladies; the hesitation with which Whimble brought a match to a guest's cigarette; Hornbeam's roar of laughter; Trail, openmouthed, mentally stripping every woman under forty stepping off the gangway; and the abandon with which Captain Hogg was pinching Mrs. Montmorency's bottom.

I felt a tug at my elbow. It was Easter leaning across the bar, holding out a long glass of brownish fluid.

'Best respects, Doctor,' he said hoarsely. 'This is the stuff I'm making up for me and my mates.'

'What is it?'

'Little cocktail I invented on the Western run. I calls it "Fire Alarm." '

'Thank you, Easter. I fancy I have some leeway to make up.'

The guests seemed to be shippers and senior Fathom Line employees who knew each other and Mr. Montmorency well, and were therefore relieved of the cumbrance of social chatter while getting down to the free drinks and lobster patties. As I was not in uniform no one bothered to talk to me, and I was content to stay in the shade of a ventilator by the bar, smoke the ship's cigarettes, drink Fire Alarms, and leave the entertaining to my companions.