The Gold Seekers (15 page)

Red’s patience evaporated. “Discreet?” he thundered furiously. “Why, you damned young fool, that was not discreet —it was madness! I cannot possibly permit such a state of affairs to continue. Mr. De Lancey, I require your solemn word that it will not. You must give me your assurance that you will neither seek nor speak to Mrs. Lucas save in public and in the course of your duties. Is that understood?”

De Lancey faced him defiantly. “I cannot do that, sir. Dora is—she’s counting on me. I can’t let her down.”

Red’s mouth tightened to a stern, angry line. “Then,” he said coldly, “I shall have no alternative but to have you placed under arrest, with a guard outside your cabin … and I shall have to log my action. In all probability that would lead to your having to face trial by court-martial when we reach Sydney. I don’t imagine your father would be best pleased, do you, in view of his eminent position in the judiciary?”

All the color drained from the boy’s cheeks. Clearly the prospect of incurring his father’s displeasure was an alarming one, for after a momentary hesitation, Francis swallowed hard and blurted out miserably, “I’ll give you my word, sir. I haven’t any choice, have I?”

“No,” Red confirmed gravely. “I’m afraid you don’t. Very well, Mr. De Lancey, that will be all. You may carry on.”

Francis drew himself to attention. He started to give the accustomed acknowledgment when, carrying with ill-timed clarity from the deck above—from his day cabin, Red’s mind registered—a woman’s frightened screams brought both their heads around.

“Oh, God!” Francis whispered, his voice choked. “That unmitigated swine is hurting poor, sweet Dora! He has no right, I—sir, I must withdraw my promise. I cannot stand by and let him mistreat her, I—you can’t ask that of me, sir. You—”

“I can and I have, Mr. De Lancey!” Red roared. “You will go to your cabin forthwith and remain there. I am in command of this ship, and I will take whatever action is expedient, do you hear me?”

“Are you placing me in arrest, sir?” Francis asked sullenly.

“I trust that will not be necessary. I shall give you twenty-four hours to come to your senses. You’ll be relieved of your duties for that time, and to ensure that you obey my order, I shall post a guard outside the cabin you occupy, but I shall not log you. Right—on your way. Jump to it, boy!”

Francis De Lancey hesitated and then obeyed him, his

expression still sullen. Red waited, listening, but the screams were not repeated. He went on deck, to find the master on watch. Macrae looked at him in apprehensive question; clearly he, too, had heard the screams, carried above the thrum of the wind on the taut canvas of the Galah’s sails and the creaking of her timbers, for the day cabin bulkhead was thin. But he acknowledged without comment the order to place a seaman on guard outside De Lancey’s cabin and gave Red a sympathetic nod as he watched him make for Captain Lucas’s quarters.

The captain himself responded to Red’s knock. He said curtly, not waiting to be asked for an explanation, “My wife had the misfortune to slip and fall, but there’s no harm done. She has retired to her cot to rest and recover from the, er, the shock. I’m sorry you were disturbed, Captain Broome.”

It was the first time, Red realized wryly, that Benjamin Lucas had given him the courtesy title of captain, and the man looked more than a little shaken. But he said no more, simply turned his back and retreated into the day cabin, the screen door closing behind him. Of Dora Lucas there was neither sight nor sound.

Red did not see her during the twenty-four hours he had allowed Francis De Lancey to come to his senses. He took the absent lieutenant’s watch himself and, when the weather worsened, spent virtually all his time on deck, while the Galah wallowed in mountainous seas and the gale-force wind compelled him to reduce sail and put two men on the wheel. But his beautiful Symondite corvette proved herself weatherly beyond even her commander’s high expectations, and when the wind at last abated, Red noted with satisfaction in his log that in one day’s run she had equaled Keppel’s record, in the Dido, of 299 miles—including twelve knots for eight successive hours before a slashing northeasterly wind.

The Prince Edward Islands came in sight on the weather bow, snowcapped and inhospitable. The Galah passed to the southward of them, and Red set her course to the northeast, finding the wind he had hoped for. It was still cold, but they encountered no pack ice, and the icy squalls were intermittent. At the height of one, the chain bowsprit shroud carried away, leaving the bowsprit badly sprung. Fortunately the wind was driving aft, so that the damage was swiftly repaired without the need lo alter course. Francis De Lancey, who had returned to duty, was on watch. As if eager to make amends for his previous conduct, he toiled tirelessly with the party of seamen detailed for the task of repair, and to such good effect that Red complimented him on his efforts.

The young watchkeeper flushed but said nothing, and Red began to hope that he had learned his lesson and would give no further trouble where Mrs. Lucas was concerned.

By the time the island of St. Paul was sighted, in the thirty-eighth degree of south latitude, the temperature had risen perceptibly, and the wind, though still strong, steadied and became less blustery. Leaving the deck in the master’s reliable charge, Red went below at last, intending to make up for some of the sleep he had lost.

Wearily he stripped off his sodden outer clothing and scraped the two-day growth of stubble from his cheeks, and after draining the beaker of hot rum and chocolate his steward brought him, he thankfully flung himself onto his bunk and composed himself for sleep. For all of Captain Lucas’s glum forecasts, the Galah would make an exceptionally fast passage to Western Australia, and, he thought, as he drifted into blissful unconsciousness, he was well pleased with her.

It seemed only a few minutes after he had dozed off that Red’s peace was rudely shattered. A hand was shaking him by the shoulder, and a woman’s voice, distraught and tearful, was calling him by name, beseeching him to waken. He struggled to sit up, blinking in the light from the open porthole, his brain still misted by sleep but every instinct rebelling against the unexpected presence of Captain Lucas’s young wife in his cabin.

“For the Lord’s sake, ma’am!” he protested wrathfully. “You should not have sought me out here. You could have sent for me. Any of my officers or my steward would have conveyed a message, and I’d have come to you.”

Dora Lucas’s tears were redoubled. Red, scrambling awkwardly from his bunk, saw that her small, piquant face was blotched and swollen, her blue eyes red-rimmed from weeping. Reluctant to touch her, lest the gesture be misinterpreted, he waved in the direction of the bunk he had vacated, and as he hastily donned his shirt and trousers, he gruffly urged her to sit down.

“Try to compose yourself, Mrs. Lucas, and then tell me what is wrong and how I can be of service to you.”

She sat down on the disordered bunk, trembling visibly. “I did try to—to send for you,” she defended. “But they told me you were too occupied on deck to—to be disturbed. And Francis De Lancey said there was some damage that—”

“You’ve been seeing Lieutenant De Lancey?” Red accused, a sharp edge to his voice.

Dora Lucas ignored the question; indeed, Red thought she did not appear to hear it.

“It’s my—my husband, Captain Lucas,” she told him, her voice high-pitched and agitated. “He—he is seriously ill, and I don’t know what to do for him. He has a high fever, Captain Broome, and at—at times he doesn’t talk lucidly. And I’ve had no experience of—of sick people, none at all. I simply don’t know how to help him.”

““We carry a surgeon’s mate,” Red reminded her. “Jonathan Brown. Did you not send for him?”

Dora wrung her hands despairingly. “Oh, yes, I did. He gave a purge and put leeches on the captain’s chest… .” She shuddered. “Dreadful, hateful things! But he’s worse, and he’s rambling more. I—oh, please, will you come and see for yourself the state he’s in? I—I’m afraid that he—that he may die, Captain Broome.”

Red gave his assent with some reluctance. Although conscientious, the young surgeon’s mate was, Red knew, inexperienced and more accustomed to treating seamen’s injuries and ills than serious medical conditions, such as that Captain Lucas’s wife had described. His fears were confirmed when, a few minutes later, he entered the cabin in which the sick man lay and saw young Brown attempting unsuccessfully to administer a dose to his patient.

Lucas looked terrible. His normally plump red face was devoid of color, his lips were blue, and his breathing was rasping and labored, and despite Brown’s attempts to lift him, he seemed to lack the strength even to raise his head. The contents of the cup the surgeon’s mate was holding to his lips spilled onto his chest as he turned his head away, and with an angry gasp he motioned the youngster to leave him be.

“Get out,” he managed. “I want no more of your—your blasted purges! Let me alone.”

Brown reddened in embarrassment as he realized that his captain had witnessed his failure, and he said defensively, “I’m sorry, sir. I’ve done the best I can for the captain, sir, but he’s not responding. He has a very high temperature— his lungs seem to be badly affected. I think it’s pneumonia, sir, and I doubt if there’s much more I can do. I’ve been sitting with him most of the night, but”—he shrugged helplessly—“he keeps ordering me to let him alone.”

“Very well, Mr. Brown,” Red returned. “Go and get your head down. I’ll stay with him for a while.” Dora Lucas, he

observed without surprise, had not come with him into the cabin, and he added, “On your way below tell my steward to make up a berth for Mrs. Lucas in the day cabin, and see if you can persuade her to take some rest, too. I imagine she needs it.”

“That’s been done already, sir,” the surgeon’s mate claimed innocently. “Madam’s not been in here, save just to look in once or twice and ask how the captain was faring. She told me she was afraid he might be infectious, you see, sir.” Again Red felt no surprise. “All right, carry on, Mr. Brown,” he said dismissively, and when Brown had taken himself off, he drew up the chair the surgeon’s mate had occupied and settled down to his vigil. Lucas, if aware of his presence, gave no sign of it but lapsed into a fitful doze, his breathing a little easier. After half an hour, however, he began to shiver violently. Red piled blankets from the other cot on top of him and, after summoning his steward, dispatched him for heated stone bed-warmers and, as an afterthought, for a hot rum toddy. When this was brought, he managed with some difficulty to assist Lucas to swallow most of it, adding quinine from Brown’s medical stores to the draft. The sick man slept again, and—whether from the effect of the quinine or the rum Red could not be sure—his sleep was more peaceful, and the violent shivering had ceased.

Tim came to report a calm sea and a steady, following wind, and Red instructed him to cram on sail.

“We’ve got to make Perth with all possible speed, so that Captain Lucas can receive skilled medical attention onshore,” he said. In a lowered voice he added, “He’s seriously ill, Tim, and there’s little enough that either young Brown or I can hope to do to cure him. He’ll have to be transferred to the hospital as soon as we make port at Fremantle.”

“And Mrs. Lucas, sir?” Tim Broome questioned.

“She’ll have to go ashore with him.”

“Yes, sir, I see. Er—” Tim hesitated and then asked uncertainly, “Will you wait to take them on to Sydney, sir?”

“No, I can’t.” Red was conscious of relief as he said it. “It’ll be weeks before Captain Lucas is fit to continue his passage—if he recovers. My orders are to relieve the Falcon in Port Jackson so that she can proceed home to pay off. We cannot delay our sailing for more than a few days.”

The young first lieutenant nodded his understanding. He again hesitated, for longer this time, as if wrestling with his conscience, and Red, sensing his indecision, urged sharply, “If you’ve anything to tell me, out with it, Mr. Broome! I presume it concerns Mr. De Lancey.”

“Yes, sir, it does. I’m not one to tell tales out of school, but—” He broke off, coloring unhappily.

“They’ve been meeting, no doubt,” Red finished for him. “He and Mrs. Lucas, whilst her husband has been confined to this cabin?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. Francis is a damned young fool, and I told him as much. But it’s not entirely his fault. Dora—Mrs. Lucas, I mean, has—well, sir, she’s been seeking him out. And Francis is sorry for her, he says. She’s worried about Captain Lucas, and—”

“And she has a fine way of showing it,” Red put in dryly. He glanced pityingly at the huddled form on the cot, half-hidden under the thick pile of blankets, and wondered what had possessed Benjamin Lucas to marry a girl of half his age. But if they both went ashore in the Western Australian capital, that should be an end to the problem, so far as he himself —and Francis De Lancey—were concerned.

He went into technical matters with Tim before dismissing him. “Ask Mr. Macrae to report to me, if you please, before he relieves you of the deck. And put Mr. De Lancey on watch and watch; that will give him less time to devote to consoling Mrs. Lucas, will it not? Very well, Mr. Broome, carry on please. And send for me if necessary.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Tim Broome acknowledged.

Red resumed his vigil. Twice he went on deck, to find all well and the corvette making thirteen knots under a press of sail. The master gave him an estimate of thirty hours to Fremantle, provided the wind held, and satisfied that all that was possible was being done to hasten their arrival, Red returned to Captain Lucas’s side. The sick man slept fitfully, waking once, just before midnight, with another alarming attack of shivering, which culminated in convulsions. Red held him as still as he could and, in desperation, administered

a second large dose of quinine, having to force it between Lucas’s chattering teeth.

Young Brown came, still sleepy-eyed and devoid of any ideas for treatment beyond those he had already attempted. Red enlisted his aid to change the sweat-drenched bedding and refill the bed-warmers and then dismissed him, with orders to remain within call, and, to his intense relief, Captain Lucas finally fell into a deep and restful sleep. He himself dozed off, despite the discomfort of the wooden chair and the ship’s at times violent motion, but he wakened at once when, in an almost normal voice, the sick man called his name.