Medical Life in the Navy, Gordon Stables [classic fiction .txt] 📗
- Author: Gordon Stables
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the deep three."
The commander was all in a fidget. We were on the dreaded bar; on each
side of us the big waves curled and broke with a sullen boom like
far-off thunder; only, where we were, no waves broke.
"Mind yourself now," cried the commander to Quilp; to which he in wrath
replied--
"What for you stand there make bobbery? _I_ is de cap'n; suppose you is
fear, go alow, sar."
"And a quarter less three."
"Steady!" and a large wave broke right aboard of us, almost sweeping us
from the deck, and lifting the ship's head into the sky. Another and
another followed; but amid the wet and the spray, and the roar of the
breakers, firmly stood the little pilot, coolly giving his orders, and
never for an instant taking his eyes from the vessel's jib-boom and the
distant shore, till we were safely through the surf and quietly steaming
up the river.
After proceeding some miles, native villages began to appear here and
there on both shores, and the great number of dhows on the river, with
boats and canoes of every description, told us we were nearing a large
town. Two hours afterwards we were anchored under the guns of the
Sultan's palace, which were belching forth fire and smoke in return for
the salute we had fired. We found every creature and thing in Lamoo as
entirely primitive, as absolutely foreign, as if it were a city in some
other planet. The most conspicuous building is the Sultan's lofty fort
and palace, with its spacious steps, its fountains and marble halls.
The streets are narrow and confused; the houses built in the Arab
fashion, and in many cases connected by bridges at the top; the
inhabitants about forty thousand, including Arabs, Persians, Hindoos,
Somali Indians, and slaves. The wells, exceedingly deep, are built in
the centre of the street without any protection; and girls, carrying on
their heads calabashes, are continually passing to and from them.
Slaves, two and two, bearing their burdens of cowries and ivory on poles
between, and keeping step to an impromptu chant; black girls weaving
mats and grass-cloth; strange-looking tradesmen, with stranger tools, at
every door; rich merchants borne along in gilded palanquins; people
praying on housetops; and the Sultan's ferocious soldiery prowling
about, with swords as tall, and guns nearly twice as tall, as
themselves; a large shark-market; a fine bazaar, with gold-dust, ivory,
and tiger-skins exposed for sale; sprightly horses with gaudy trappings;
solemn-looking camels; dust and stench and a general aroma of savage
life and customs pervading the atmosphere, but law and order
nevertheless. People of all religions agree like brothers. No
spirituous liquor of any sort is sold in the town; the Sultan's soldiers
go about the streets at night, smelling the breath of the suspected, and
the faintest odour of the accursed fire-water dooms the poor mortal to
fifty strokes with a thick bamboo-cane next morning. The sugar-cane
grows wild in the fertile suburbs, amid a perfect forest of fine trees;
farther out in the country the cottager dwells beneath his few cocoa-nut
trees, which supply him with all the necessaries of life. One tree for
each member of his family is enough. _He_ builds the house and fences
with its large leaves; his wife prepares meat and drink, cloth and oil,
from the nut; the space between the trees is cultivated for curry, and
the spare nuts are sold to purchase luxuries, and the rent of twelve
trees is only _sixpence_ of our money. Happy country! no drunkenness,
no debt, no religious strife, but peace and contentment everywhere!
Reader, if you are in trouble, or your affairs are going "to pot," or if
you are of opinion that this once favoured land is getting used up, I
sincerely advise you to sell off your goods and be off to Lamoo.
CHAPTER TWELVE. - PROS AND CONS.
Of the "gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," very few can
know how entirely dependent for happiness one is on his neighbours. Man
is out-and-out, or out-and-in, a gregarious animal, else `Robinson
Crusoe' had never been written. Now, I am sure that it is only correct
to state that the majority of combatant [Note 1] officers are, in simple
language, jolly nice fellows, and as a class gentlemen, having, in fact,
that fine sense of honour, that good-heartedness, which loves to do as
it would be done by, which hurteth not the feelings of the humble, which
turneth aside from the worm in its path, and delighteth not in plucking
the wings from the helpless fly. To believe, however, that there are no
exceptions to this rule would be to have faith in the speedy advent of
the millennium, that happy period of lamb-and-lion-ism which we would
all rather see than hear tell of; for human nature is by no means
altered by bathing every morning in salt water, it is the same afloat as
on shore. And there are many officers in the navy, who--"dressed in a
little brief authority," and wearing an additional stripe--love to lord
it over their fellow worms. Nor is this fault altogether absent from
the medical profession itself!
It is in small gunboats, commanded perhaps by a lieutenant, and carrying
only an assistant-surgeon, where a young medical officer feels all the
hardships and despotism of the service; for if the lieutenant in command
happens to be at all frog-hearted, he has then a splendid opportunity of
puffing himself up.
In a large ship with from twenty to thirty officers in the mess, if you
do not happen to meet with a kindred spirit at one end of the table, you
can shift your chair to the other. But in a gunboat on foreign service,
with merely a clerk, a blatant middy, and a second-master who would fain
be your senior, as your messmates, then, I say, God help you! unless you
have the rare gift of doing anything for a quiet life. It is all
nonsense to say, "Write a letter on service about any grievance;" you
can't write about ten out of a thousand of the petty annoyances which go
to make your life miserable; and if you do, you will be but little
better, if, indeed, your last state be not worse than your first.
I have in my mind's eye even now a lieutenant who commanded a gunboat in
which I served as medical officer in charge. This little man was what
is called a sea-lawyer--my naval readers well know what I mean; he knew
all the Admiralty Instructions, was an amateur engineer, only needed the
title of M.D. to make him a doctor, could quibble and quirk, and in fact
could prove by the Queen's Regulations that your soul, to say nothing of
your body, wasn't your own; that _you_ were a slave, and _he_ lord--god
of all he surveyed. Peace be with him! he has gone to his account; he
will not require an advocate, he can speak for himself. Not many such
hath the service, I am happy to say. He was continually changing his
poor hard-worked sub-lieutenants, and driving his engineers to drink,
previously to trying them by court-martial. At first he and I got on
very well; apparently he "loved me like a vera brither;" but we did not
continue long "on the same platform," and, from the day we had the first
difference of opinion, he was my foe, and a bitter one too. I assure
you, reader, it gave me a poor idea of the service, for it was my first
year. He was always on the outlook for faults, and his kindest words to
me were "chaffing" me on my accent, or about my country. To be able to
meet him on his own ground I studied the Instructions day and night, and
tried to stick by them.
Malingering was common on board; one or two whom I caught I turned to
duty: the men, knowing how matters stood between the commander and me,
refused to work, and so I was had up and bullied on the quarter-deck for
"neglect of duty" in not putting these fellows on the sick-list. After
this I had to put every one that asked on the sick-list.
"Doctor," he would say to me on reporting the number sick, "this is
_wondrous_ strange--_thirteen_ on the list, out of only ninety men.
Why, sir, I've been in line-of-battle ships,--_line-of-battle_ ships,
sir,--where they had not ten sick--_ten sick_, sir." This of course
implied an insult to me, but I was like a sheep before the shearers,
dumb.
On Sunday mornings I went with him the round of inspection; the sick who
were able to be out of hammock were drawn up for review: had he been
half as particular with the men under his own charge or with the ship in
general as he was with the few sick, there would have been but little
disease to treat. Instead of questioning _me_ concerning their
treatment, he interrogated the sick themselves, quarrelling with the
medicine given, and pooh-pooh-ing my diagnosis. Those in hammocks, who
most needed gentleness and comfort, he bullied, blamed for being ill,
and rendered generally uneasy. Remonstrance on my part was either taken
no notice of, or instantly checked. If men were reported by me for
being dirty, giving impudence, or disobeying orders, _he_ became their
advocate--an able one too--and _I_ had to retire, sorry I had spoken.
But I would not tell the tenth part of what I had to suffer, because
such men as he are the _exception_, and because he is dead. A little
black baboon of a boy who attended on this lieutenant-commanding had one
day incurred his displeasure: "Bo'swain's mate," cried he, "take my boy
forward, hoist him on an ordinary seaman's back, and give him a
rope's-ending; and," turning to me, "Doctor, you'll go and attend my
boy's flogging."
I dared not trust myself to reply. With a face like crimson I rushed
below to my cabin, and--how could I help it?--made a baby of myself for
once; all my pent-up feelings found vent in a long fit of crying.
True, I might in this case have written a letter to the service about my
treatment; but, as it is not till after twelve months the
assistant-surgeon is confirmed, the commander's word would have been
taken before mine, and I probably dismissed without a court-martial.
That probationary year I consider more than a grievance, it is a _cruel
injustice_.
Cabins? There is a regulation--of late more strictly enforced by a
circular--that every medical officer serving on board his own ship shall
have a cabin, and the choice--by rank--of cabin, and he is a fool if he
does not enforce it. But it sometimes happens that a sub-lieutenant
(who has no cabin) is promoted to lieutenant on a foreign station; he
will then rank above the assistant-surgeon, and perhaps, if there is no
spare cabin, the poor doctor will have to give up his, and take to a
sea-chest and hammock, throwing all his curiosities, however valuable,
overboard. It would be the duty of the captain in such a case to build
an additional cabin, and if he did not, or would not, a letter to the
admiral would make him.
Does the combatant officer treat the medical officer with respect?
Certainly, unless one or other of the two be a snob: in the one case the
respect is not worth having, in the other it can't be expected.
In the military branch you shall find many officers belonging to the
best English families: these I need hardly say are for the most part
gentlemen, and gentle men. However, it is allowed in most messes that
"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
A man's man for a' that;"
and I assure the candidate for a commission, that, if he is himself a
gentleman, he will find no want of admirers in the navy. But there are
some young doctors who enter the service, knowing their profession to be
sure, and how to hold a knife and fork--not a carving-fork though--but
knowing little else; yet even
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