Richard Gordon: DOCTOR AT SEA

'Got to have her looking nice for home now,' the Bos'n said, looking critically at the gang he had set painting the upper works. 'We can't let Mr. Hornbeam down, can we?'

Hornbeam slipped easily into his new rank. He took over the Captain's cabin and his seat at table. Our mealtimes now were lively with conversation, with the result that everyone ate more contentedly and the cases of dyspepsia among the officers dropped sharply. Even Archer began reluctantly to feel better, and admitted he hadn't taken any stomach powder for a week.

Our only excitement was a message to Hornbeam changing our destination from Liverpool to London because of a threatening dock strike. The order caused disapproval among the Liverpudlians in the crew, but this was charmed away quickly by Easter's account of the fun he had had at various times in London.

'Smashing place, London,' he claimed. 'You wait till you see West Ham.'

The sea became rougher, the weather became colder; spray came once again over the Lotus's bows. The broken water took on the green-grey tint of European coasts, and the ship began to groan and stagger in the January waves. But now I was unaffected by the sea, and stood on deck innocuously watching the foc's'le head rise and dip with the swell and the tops of the masts trace wide irregular circles against the sky. All round us were signs that we were coming nearer to our own country. Boxes and cartons were lying in everyone's cabins, the ship's time became synonymous with that of Greenwich, three pounds Channel money was advanced to all hands, the Light Programme assailed us undiminished, and the weather remained persistently foul.

One evening Easter put his head round my door and said cheerfully. 'Want to see the Ushant light, Doctor? Just coming up on the starboard bow.'

Together we stood in the shelter of the storm door leading on to the deck. I followed his finger towards the flashes.

'Well, there's old Europe again,' Easter said. 'Ain't a bad old continent, all things considered. We turns the corner here. The next mark's the Casquettes, then for Beachy. Blimey, I've seen folks in tears looking at that there light! When they've been gone for a long time, that is.'

'Yes, I expect everyone will start being excited from now on.'

'Ho, they'll have the channels to-morrow, you mark my word.'

'The channels?'

'Ah, there's a complaint what even you don't know, Doctor. All hands goes a bit balmy, like. You wait till to-morrow.'

Easter was right. The channels is a clinical entity that has not found its way into the medical text-books, but is as noticeable as scarlet fever. The next morning the crew were prancing round the decks like highly-strung lambs in springtime. Everyone had a bright word for their mates, a salute for the Captain, and even a few sirs left over for me. Work was done with a lighthearted air that drew scowls of disapproval from the Bos'n, who had been up the Channel so many times that he had developed an immunity to the complaint. Easter repeated his most successful card tricks and thought it a great joke to tell me falsely the hospital was three feet in water. I forgave him readily, for I too was walking the deck murmuring to myself, 'Every turn of the screw brings me nearer to you.' To whom? I wondered. It didn't matter. I could settle that when we arrived.

Beachy Head-white, shining in a brief ray of sunshine turned on like an effective spotlight on a darkened stage. I looked at it with mixed feelings of affection and disapproval that the voyager's first sight of England should be Eastbourne.

We came closer to the land, making for the pilot boat off Dungeness. The Atlantic rollers had flattened themselves in the narrow waters, but the sea was high enough to throw the pilot's launch about unenviably. He came round to the lee side and had two shots at grasping the Jacob's ladder Trail and the Bos'n dangled from the foredeck; the third time he caught a rung as the launch dropped away from his feet. He climbed aboard, his black oilskins running with water, shook himself like a dog, gave me a cheerful 'Nice morning!' and climbed up to the bridge. The red and white pilot's flag broke over the wheelhouse, and the Lotus proceeded under the arrangement invariably stated in the log-book as 'Master's orders, Pilot's advice.'

The Channel was busy that day. We passed, or were passed by, a representation of Lloyd's List. There were tankers making for Thameshaven, so low in the water they disappeared to the bridge between the waves; rickety tramps setting out fearlessly for voyages longer than ours; little coasters bound for a rough passage round Land's End; sodden fishing boats; cargo ships of all sizes and states of repair, British, Norwegian, Swedish, and Dutch; one of the ubiquitous City boats with a black and salmon funnel, homeward bound fully loaded from the Australian wool sales; even a couple of warships. They were a pair of corvettes steaming jauntily down Channel in line astern. The meeting led to a burst of activity at the foot of the mainmast as the deckboy afforded the King's vessels their salute by dipping our ensign. The correct form was for us to dip, watch for the white ensign fluttering down in reply, and follow its return to the masthead. Unfortunately, the wind caught our rain-soaked flag and twisted it in the rigging, so that we passed the fleet apparently in mourning. But the intention was there, and the Navy would be the first to understand.

A big white P. amp; O. passed us, outward bound for India and Australia and the sunshine that appeared to me to have vanished for ever.

'Be away for the best part of four months, that lot,' Easter remarked. 'All be taking their last look at old England.'

'As long as that?'

'They gets them dock strikes something horrid out Aussie way. It's a lovely life being a wharfie in Sydney or Melbourne-you draws your money and puts your feet up most of the day. Like being a lord. Or-if I may be so bold-ship's doctor.'

'Yes, I suppose you're right,' I admitted sadly. 'Except the dockers get paid more. I suppose they're all pretty excited on board-first night at sea, and so on.'

'Ho, yes. I've seen it often enough on the big passenger boats. All the blokes giving the girls the once-over in the dining saloon. Cor, I've seen them sweet little things with their eyes still wet with tears from saying good-bye to their husbands and sweethearts carrying on something shocking. Hardly out of the River we wasn't, neither.'

The red lamps were shining on the tops of the high radar masts when we crept close to Dover inside the Goodwins. The lights of Ramsgate and Margate passed off our port side, then we cut across to the Nore, where we were to anchor and await the tide. Someone gave me the morning paper that the pilot had brought aboard. I opened it and read the front page with the careless baffled interest of a holidaymaker inspecting the social column in the village weekly. We had been more or less newsless for three months, but the happenings that used to shake my breakfast table no longer aroused my concern. A paragraph near the foot of the page caught my eye; it was headed 'MAYOR REBUKES DANCERS,' and went on: 'The Mayor of-, Alderman-, yesterday refused an application for an extension to midnight at a cycling club dance. He said he was highly disturbed at complaints of immoral behaviour that had followed the dance last year. "The place for young men and women at midnight," he told the secretary, "is in their own homes asleep."'

I knew I was back in England.

The next morning we steamed into the Thames. The country raised a faint glow of sunshine to welcome us, but the effort was too taxing and the atmosphere soon relapsed into its habitual rain.

We passed the long finger of Southend Pier, which appears a far more dignified structure when seen in reverse, signalled our name, and passed down the channel towards Tilbury. The wet, orderly fields of England on the narrowing banks, with a demure English train jogging through them towards London, had the appearance of a winter's garden after the turbulent unfenced vegetation of the South American coast. Off Tilbury landing-stage we anchored for the Port of London doctor to board us. He was a large, friendly man in a naval battledress and a duffle-coat.