Desolation Island (40 page)

The shirt came off, revealing the tattooed image of a first-rate man-of-war in sail, HMS Caledonia, and the strangury was not the only one: quite a large proportion of the whaler's men were Irish-born and therefore liable to be pressed; and some of them were deserters, liable to be hanged or at least flogged and compelled to serve again in the Royal Navy. Jack could probably seize as much as a third of the La Fayette's crew, remaining well within the law; and he was known to be short-handed. However, the tension grew far less after Stephen's remark, only to be replaced by tension of another kind when he settled down to his work. The La Fayette was a democratic brig, and faces lined the skylight, watching the long, delicate play of the knife, the brusque intervention of the saw, with a horrified fascination.

When the first resection was carried away, the tall harpooner from Cahirciveen said, 'Will you take a tint now, Doctor dear?'

'I will not,' said Stephen. 'I want my head as clear as if I had the College of Cardinals under my knife. But when I have done, I might look on a drop.'

The work was long and exacting. Fortunately he had a good light, a steady sea, sharp instruments, and a capable assistant. Herapath would make a good surgeon, with experience: Stephen, speaking always in Latin, explained each step; and he spoke of the necessary after-care as though the young man were to tend these patients for months. Stephen was in fact convinced that Herapath would leave in the whaler, if only he could get his mistress aboard; and nothing could suit Stephen better. He would miss them both - they had engaged his affections - but he could scarcely wait for them to be gone, carrying the poison, harmless to Wogan, that would play Old Harry with Buonaparte's intelligence system, and saving Wogan herself from the dreariest exile.

The evening came, and with it the drop. 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that went down well,' said Stephen. 'You may fill it again. Another hour like that, and I should have been killed.' He looked at his hand, quivering as it relaxed after its delicate task. 'The teeth will be for tomorrow.'

'Tomorrow?' cried Putnam. 'Why, you son of a bitch, you promised - 'He checked himself, and in terms as civil as the pain would permit he urged Stephen to 'whip it out right now' - he could not stand such another night.

'Yours is a difficult, ill-set tooth, Captain, and the swelling has not gone down. I would not touch it now, in the half-light, and with my hand unsure, if you were the Pope,' said Stephen.

'Oh - the Pope,' cried the skipper.

'Hey there, Winthrop Putnam,' said his master in a warning tone.

'Do you think I am not going to do the right thing?' said Putnam. 'I tell you, sir, that forge will be on shore at sunrise, come hell or high water, along with a dozen thirty-foot strips of five by one, an anvil, small-coal, and all that's proper.'

'I am sure of it, sir. But I could not answer it to my conscience, to touch your tooth this evening. Drink this down, keep your dressing in its place, and I give you my word you will pass a tolerable night.'

On their way back to the shore Stephen said not a word to his assistant; he felt worn and emptied, and Herapath was as mute as himself. Stephen was little more loquacious when he reported to Jack: 'I suggest that all the Irishmen and foreigners and black men the ship still contains should assemble on the strand in the morning, to help unload the forge; and that you and the officers should keep out of the way,' he said. He looked thoughtfully at Jack's shining face for some moments; then, without saying anything more, he walked off to Mrs Wogan's hut.

'I am come to drink tea with you,' he said, 'if you will indulge me so far.'

'Delighted, enchanted,' cried she. 'I had not expected you today, in the least. What a surprise. What a very pleasant surprise. Peggy, the tea-things, and then you may go.'

'What shall I do with the trousers, ma'am?' asked Peg, raising her broad innocent face from the sewing.

Mrs Wogan darted across, plucked them from her hands, and hurried her from the room. Stephen gazed at the kettle singing on the seal-oil stove, and said, 'A dish of tea, a dish of tea...... I have been sawing up your countrymen, my dear, and mine too for that matter; and when it was done, they would ply me with whiskey, Geneva, and rum: a dish of tea would settle my spirits.'

'My spirits too have been in a strong hurry and flurry today,' said Mrs Wogan; and she was obviously speaking the truth - she could scarcely keep still, and she had quite lost the somewhat drawn, pasty look of her first weeks of pregnancy; her complexion now had an extraordinary bloom, and this, combined with the light in her eyes and the brimming life of her person, made her quite strikingly beautiful. 'A strange hurry of spirits. Let us drink a whole hogshead of tea together; and then we shall be calm -Look, Dr Maturin, I have adventured upon a pair of seamen's trousers - I hope you do not think them immodest - they are against the cold, you know. Most prodigious warm, I assure you. And see, I have finished your blue comforter. Pray, sir, have you news of the States?'

'How infinitely kind. I shall wear it about my loins; for the loins, ma'am, are the seat of animal warmth: my very best thanks. As for news, alas, it seems that a war cannot be long delayed, if it has not already been declared. The La Fayette spoke of another American off Tristan no great while ago, and - but Herapath can tell you better than I; he had more time to talk. As for our merely local news, they have very kindly undertaken to lend us their forge and their anvil, so that we may continue our voyage.'

'Will they stay here long, do you know?'

'Oh no: just to pick up greenstuff for their voyage home; a day or so, while I see to a few more cases, and then they are homeward-bound. Homeward-bound for Nantucket, which is in the Connecticut, I believe.'

'Massa - Massachusetts,' said Mrs Wogan, and burst into tears. 'Forgive me,' she said, through her sobs, 'forgive me. It must be my pregnancy - I have never been pregnant before. No, pray do not go. Or if you must, send Mr Herapath: I should so like to hear what news he may have.'

Stephen withdrew. He felt somewhat more dirty than usual - it had been a dirtying day - but in his diary he wrote: 'Things seem to be following their train much as I could wish; and yet I am not quite sure. I should carry the poor simple creatures aboard the whaler myself, only that Wogan must not suspect that I am aware of their motions:

that would destroy the credibility of her papers, at least if her chief is as intelligent as I suppose. I am tempted to confide in Jack, so that he may withdraw guards, leave boats lying about: anything to facilitate their escape. But he is a wretched hand at playing a part; he would over-act, and she would see through him directly. Yet I may be driven to it at last. Herapath is the most unfortunate accomplice for a conspirator that can well be imagined:

true, he possesses that invaluable air of integrity which can so rarely be assumed once its basis is lost; but on the other hand he can control neither his countenance nor his memory. He observed that I was 'a friend to independence', which is very true; but I never told him so and the information can only have reached him through Wogan: a sad gaffe on his part. And then this very integrity may well bring on an untimely fit of honourable feeling: I dread it. Jack's words about rats were most unhappily chosen. However, I have done all I can, and tonight I shall allow myself just twenty-five drops, which I shall drink to Herapath's felicity. I am much attached to that young man, and although I may not be doing the kindest thing by him in fact - a prolonged association with Wogan may not prove quite what he hopes - yet I wish he may enjoy what there is to be enjoyed: that he may not eat up his youth in longing and hope disappointed, as I have ate mine.'

He slept long and deep, and he was woken by the sound of hammers ringing on iron. The forge was already on shore, a white-hot blaze in its heart, and the whalers had returned to the brig.

He had rarely seen Jack happier than he was at breakfast, sitting there in the great cabin drinking coffee, with a spy-glass at hand so that he could watch the beautiful smithy between cups. 'There is good even in an American,' he said. 'And when I think of that poor skipper with his face-ache, drinking small-beer for his morning draught, I have a mind to send him a sack of coffee-beans.'

'There is a proverb in Ireland,' said Stephen, 'to the effect that there is good to be found even in an Englishman - is minic Gall maith. It is not often used, however.'

'Of course there is good in an American,' said Jack. 'Look at young Herapath yesterday. I told him so, when we had a word first thing this morning. In his place, I should have been strongly tempted to skip. What an amazingly handsome woman she is, upon my word: jolly too, which I love in a girl. She don't look so jolly at the moment, though: I hope he has not said anything impertinent. It looks to me as if he had said something impertinent, and she is bringing him up with a round turn - he hangs his head - ha, ha, the dog. He should not have done so in the morning - the cold dawn is no time for such capers. But I tell you what, Stephen, there are run seamen in that whaler: one I recognized for certain - Scanlan, yeoman of the signals in Andromache, always on the quarterdeck, so I could not mistake him. And I am sure there are others.'

'I beseech you, Jack,' said Stephen wearily, 'I beseech you to leave them alone. With things as they now stand, you would do immeasurable harm by stirring it all. Pray, my dear Jack, just sit in your good comfortable chair until they are gone. I speak in sad sober earnest.'

'Well,' said Jack, 'I will do as you say; though you cannot imagine my hunger for men. Prime seamen, whaler's hands, good Lord! Are you away?'

'I go to draw the skipper's teeth.'

'They are drawn already,' cried Jack. 'His forge stands there on the beach, ha, ha, ha! What do you say to that, Stephen?'

Stephen said little to that, and less to Herapath as they rowed across to the La Fayette. The whale-boats were putting off for their last few loads of greenstuff and eggs,

and their crews called out, friendly and familiar, as Stephen went aboard. The youngest mate met him with the news that the skipper had only just woken up - they had thought he was dead in the night - and speaking for himself and his fellows, the mate asked whether the Doctor wanted to trade any. Coffee-beans for a hog, for example; a prime Marquesas hog of twelve score.

'I have no occasion for a hog, sir; but if you would like some beans, you will find a small sack under the seat in the boat. I will attend to the Captain directly.'

Putnam was rapidly coming to life; so was his tooth. But the swelling was less; the tooth was ripe for extraction; and with one long firm twisting wrench Stephen delivered him, leaving him gaping, amazed, staring at the bloody fang. He then moved on to his other patients, and once again he observed that men who would submit to grave surgery, even amputation, with a noble fortitude, and bear the worst with no more than an involuntary groan, grew unaccountably shy when sat in a chair and told to open wide. Unless the pain was urgent, there at the moment of sitting or within the last hour, many would change their minds altogether, grow evasive, and move silently off. The teeth dealt with, he attended to the dressing of yesterday's wounds, again explaining just what should be done: he did not wish to lose any one of these men for want of a clear understanding, and he repeated himself frequently, so frequently that he feared his aim might show through. And it would have shown through, if Herapath had not been so absent. 'You seem somewhat distraught, colleague,' said Stephen. 'Be so good as to rehearse the main points I have made.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Herapath, having done so moderately well. 'I slept badly last night, and am stupid.'

'Here is a smell will revive you,' said Stephen. The whole ship was embalmed with the roasting of coffee, or rather with the parching of the beans in a red-hot skillet.

They finished their dressings, and Stephen made some general observations on the drugs he had provided for the whaler's medicine-chest: coming to the antimony, he enveighed against the custom of calling it poison, and of frightening young practitioners: 'Certainly antimony is a poison, when wrongly exhibited. But we must not be the prisoners of words. There are times when it is right to use antimony, and many another thing that has an ugly name. It is very weak to be swayed by a mere word, Mr Herapath, by a categorical imperative imposed from without by those who do not know the inward nature, the full complexity of the case.' He was still speaking of the necessity for a clear head, free of prejudices and of notions preconceived by others, for the mind that could judge for itself, and that, on perceiving two evils, could choose the less, whatever its ugly name, when they were invited to drink coffee with the Captain.

The absence of pain, the presence of coffee, made Mr Putnam a far more agreeable companion; he was very complimentary about Stephen's abilities, and he blessed his stars that he had put into Desolation, though when he saw the Leopard in there, he had very nearly turned about, and would have, too, but that the tide was on the make, the breeze in his teeth, and no other sheltered harbour, with greenstuff at hand, that he knew of anywhere under his lee. He reckoned he would sail on the ebb today, round about moonrise; and he begged Dr Maturin to accept these sea-otter skins, ready dressed, that they had picked up off Kamschatka, this piece of ambergris, and these sperm-whale teeth, as a token of the La Fayette's sense of his kindness and skill.

'Hear him,' said Reuben.

Stephen made a suitable reply, but said that he would not say farewell, at this point: he would visit his patients once more, just before they sailed, to see that all was well and above all to give Captain Putnam the fullest instructions for their subsequent care, a point of the greatest importance, since they had no surgeon aboard. At this, as he observed with deep satisfaction, Captain Putnam's face went as blank as a wall, all expression wiped out; while Reuben looked down at his feet.

'But stay,' he said, considering. 'I think I shall take my leave after all. Mr Herapath is quite as competent as myself in these matters: he will come in the evening. Yes, Mr Herapath will come in my place. And so farewell to you, gentlemen; and I wish you a most prosperous voyage home to the States.'