Richard Gordon: DOCTOR AT SEA

'Ar. What's-ing trouble, la'?'

'Dunno. Reckon I must've picked up a-ing dose, or something.'

'Where, in Liverpeule?'

"Sright. Nice bit of skirt she was too.'

'You can never tell, la'.'

'-ing right there.'

A short silence.

'What's quack like?'

'Oh, he's a young-er.'

'Reckon he's much good?'

'-ing medical student, most likely.'

'If we was homeward bound reckon I'd wait and see a proper doctor,' the sufferer said. I opened the door. 'Good morning, Doc,' he added brightly. 'Can you see us a second, in private like?'

'Go down to the hospital,' I said coldly. 'I'll be along in a few minutes.'

'Very good, Doctor.'

When I arrived at the hospital I found that Easter had diagnosed and prescribed for the condition with an efficiency founded on wide experience of it.

'Take these, chum,' he said, handing over a bottle of sulphathiazole tablets, 'and in a couple of days you'll be feeling like a box of birds, as they say in New Zealand.'

The patient stuffed the bottle in his waistband and jauntily walked out.

'Don't you think I ought to give him a short lecture?' I suggested.

Easter seemed to find this amusing.

'We all has our thoughtless moments, Doctor, don't we? Take a card,' he said, abruptly drawing a pack from his pocket. 'Any one. Don't let me see it.'

I took one automatically.

'Right,' he said. 'I will now shuffle them, see? No deception. You could have taken any card in the pack. Let me concentrate.' He screwed up his fat face in a spasm of thought. 'Four of diamonds,' he said.

'That is perfectly correct. Though I hardly think we should be doing this sort of thing when we are supposed to be treating patients.'

Easter slipped the cards back into the top pocket of his jacket with a subdued air of triumph.

'Dr. Flowerday always liked me to show him a few tricks. Used to have him in fits, sometimes. Didn't half get narked when he couldn't find how they was done.'

'And how was that one done, if I may ask?'

'Them's all four of diamonds, actual,' Easter said carelessly, tapping his pocket.

'You seem to be quite a specialist in this sort of thing.'

'For three years ashore I was Pin Hung, the Famous Chinese Magician. Round the halls. Mostly the North-Barrow, Carlisle, Sunderland. Grimsby was my favourite. Always hit the jackpot in Grimsby. I've a book of cuttings down below…'

'All right. Later on in the voyage, possibly.'

He flicked three cards from his sleeve and manipulated them on the top of a tin of bandages.

'Now then, Doctor. Try your luck. Bet you a dollar that you can't spot the lady.'

'Easter,' I said with interest, 'how is it that you have come to land up in your present position? A man of your peculiar talents would be far more at home on the racecourse than in a ship's hospital.'

'That's the trouble, Doctor. I worked the race trains for years. But I got fed up with it. You can get put inside too many times.'

I stared at him.

'Do you mean-are you trying to say that you have been in prison?'

I was alarmed. In shore practice this was not a condition usually found in one's colleagues.

'Ho, yes,' he replied, with the air of a man admitting he knew Brighton or Scarborough fairly well. 'Didn't like it much, though. Too bloody cold in winter.'

'So you came to sea instead?'

'That's right, Doctor. Used to be on the Western Ocean run for donkeys' years in the big passenger boats. When I was a lad that is, and could run about a bit more. So I came back to it. Signed on as a steward. It's a good life, and you gets your grub regular. I took this job on when a mate of mine jumped ship in Sydney and I helped out in the surgery homeward bound. I like it better than waiting in the saloon. More dignified. And Dr. Flowerday used to let me dispense of surplus equipment and stores on the coast, if I could. Penicillin and such like, that ain't got long to go before it's U.S. That be all right with you, Doctor? Dr. Flowerday and I used to have an understanding about the proceeds.'

'I think we shall have to consider that later.'

'Very good, Doctor. There's one of the crew sick in his cabin.'

'Then why the devil didn't you tell me before? Instead of fooling around with all these damn card tricks.'

'There ain't no hurry, Doctor. It's only Chippy. The Carpenter.'

'What's the matter with him?'

'He's having one of his turns.'

I was suspicious. A diagnosis of the turns, to which over half of the middle-aged population of the country seems liable, can represent any condition from attacks of flatulence to full-blown epileptic fits.

'We'd better go and see him at once.'

'Very good, Doctor.'

I followed Easter aft, to the crew's accommodation in the poop. We went up an iron ladder to a door with CARPENTER AND LAMPTRIMMER stencilled over it. It was a bleak little cabin, with green-painted steel bulkheads and a couple of metal bunks one above the other. The only decoration was a photograph of an oblong tombstone with 'Mother's Grave' written underneath it.

On the top bunk was the patient, huddled under a grey ship's blanket. I gave him a shake. A head poked out at me, and I recognized the man with the lamp I had met at the top of the gangway. He needed a shave, there was dried saliva at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes looked like a couple of cherries on a blancmange.

'Aghurrr!' he said.

'Now what's the trouble, my man?' I started briskly.

He disregarded me. His eyes were on something else in the cabin, behind me. He pointed shakily to the corner.

'Get away you bastards!' he yelled.

I jumped.

'Now don't get excited…' I said nervously.

He crouched into a corner of the bunk, pulling the blanket tightly round him.

'Get away!' he screamed. 'Get away from me!'

He brushed something from the bunk rail.

'What is it?' I asked. 'What's the trouble?'

The man started muttering, so that I had to lean closely over him to hear.

'It's them dogs,' he said. 'Bloody great Alsatians. Bloody great green ones. Look! Five of the bastards!'

I turned sharply round to Easter.

'This man has got D.T.s,' I announced.

'Ho, yes,' Easter said casually, not shifting from the doorway. 'Been having them for years. Long as I can remember, anyway.'

'But we must do something about it! I hope you realize this is a serious condition? You seem to treat it very lightly.'

'He always gets 'em about this part of the trip. He'll be as right as rain for weeks now. Been on the booze since we sailed. Says it makes him sad leaving Liverpool.'

The patient rattled the bunk.

'Get your paws orf of my face!' he yelled.

'If I might make so bold, Doctor,' Easter said, still leaning on the door, 'I would say this was an occasion for the medical comforts.'

'Medical comforts? What on earth are you talking about?'

'Bottle of brandy,' he explained. 'It's issued buckshee, like, for the hospital. You can get another from the Chief Steward if you indent for it.' -

'But I haven't seen anything of this brandy.'

'I usually keeps it in my cabin, Doctor. Dr. Flowerday and I had an understanding about it.

'Is there any left?'

'Almost half, Doctor,' he said proudly. 'Dr. Flowerday used to give him a glassful and talk to him, gentle like, as if he was a baby. Worked like a charm. Shall I fetch the bottle?'

'Here they come again!' the patient shouted.

'Perhaps you'd better,' I said.

I gave him a tumbler of brandy and explained that the five green Alsatians were not really present, like a nurse soothing a night-scared child. After a couple of glasses and half an hour's persuasion I had reduced the intruders to three in number, and to terriers of normal colour. I felt entitled to be satisfied with this. I left the patient sleeping in his bunk with the empty glass in his hand and went back to my cabin.