Richard Gordon: DOCTOR AT SEA

'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?'

'London, sir.'

'It's kept well. By-the way, Mr. Hornbeam. Get the hatch covers off number three by tonight, if the weather holds. We may be filling that twenty feet in Teneriffe.'

'Very good, sir.'

'I'm pleased to find the weather's cleared, sir,' I said brightly. 'This fresh breeze makes you feel you're walking on cotton-wool.'

He said nothing.

'Do you ever feel you are walking on cotton-wool, sir?' I asked.

'No,' he said. 'I don't.'

He swallowed another mouthful of greens and mutton. I was keenly disappointed.

'The weather ought to hold,' he said. 'The glass is going up.'

'I had an aunt,' I remarked. 'Every time the glass went up she had stabbing pains in her legs.'

'Did she?'

'Do you get stabbing pains in your legs, sir?'

'What the devil are you talking about, Doctor?'

'Oh, nothing of importance, sir.'

I miserably fiddled with a piece of roast potato. It seemed that my means of eliciting the patient's symptoms was not going to meet with clinical success. I decided I would go ahead and examine for the physical signs. I dropped my serviette on the deck. As I bent down to pick it up I pinched Captain Hogg hard behind the ankle.

'Ouch!' he said.

'I'm dreadfully sorry, sir..

'What the hell are you playing at?'

'I thought…I thought it was the Mate's foot.'

'Well, what difference does that make?'

'We were having a little game.'

'I don't like games,' Captain Hogg said. 'Not in my ship.'

'Very good, sir.'

I jabbed moodily at my treacle sponge for the rest of the meal, despair freezing my heart.

'Find anything out?' Hornbeam said in my cabin afterwards.

'Not much. Couldn't you see?'

'Yes, you were making a bit of a mess of it. Supposing he's not potty at all, but just acting his own sweet self?'

'I'm sure he's insane,' I said heatedly. 'Certain of it. If they put him in the final examinations every student would get through. He's a classical case. The only trouble is I can't get near enough to prove it.'

'We'll have to be pretty certain before we say anything to the Company, Doc. I always believe in clearing my own yardarm.'

I banged the desk with my fist.

'Damn it! Here's this man-certifiably insane-with every one of us at his mercy. Why, any time he might break out again like last night! Supposing he goes and puts us aground at the Canaries? Or rams the _Queen Mary_ or something off Bishop Rock? He's capable of absolutely anything. What would we do then?'

Hornbeam scratched his cheek with the lip of his pipe.

'It's a teaser, Doc. We'll have to think out some other scheme.' He looked at his watch. 'I must go and tell the Bos'n to take the covers off number three. If I think of anything, I'll let you know. Meantime, I'll keep a sharp watch on Father myself.'

'Thanks. I'll try and work something out. See you for a peg before supper.'

I passed the rest of the day sorting ingenious schemes for diagnosis in my mind. Nothing seemed workable. I thought of confessing frankly to the port doctor in Teneriffe that we had a madman loose on board and asking him to send for a couple of assistants and a straitjacket; but I felt that the port doctor, who was used to ship's captains, might find Captain Hogg not in the least abnormal. I wished sincerely that he would foam at the mouth or do something equally spectacular when we got in.

When Easter brought my tea I admitted my difficulties to him.

'I think the Captain is insane,' I told him.

'Ho, yes,' he said. 'He's as mad as a fiddler's bitch.'

'You've noticed it too, have you?'

'Dr. Flowerday always reckoned he was.'

'Did he do anything about it?'

'Used to slip the cook half a dollar to lace his tea with a Mickey when he was real bad.'

'I hadn't thought of that. It might do in an emergency.'

'Wasn't much cop, as it happened. He chucked the tea at the steward usually.'

'We must think of some way, Easter, to settle this once and for all,' I said firmly. 'I am prepared to give you ten bob-a quid-if you can think of some legal means of getting the Captain off this ship at the first possible moment.'

Easter scratched his head.

'Very kind of you, Doctor, I'm sure. Can't think of anything offhand, like.'