Medical Life in the Navy, Gordon Stables [classic fiction .txt] 📗

a bit on it, sir," he replies; "wants the quarter."

 

The rogue has lied to get you up.

 

At seven o'clock exactly you make your way forward to the sick-bay, on

the lower deck at the ship's bows. Now, this making your way forward

isn't by any means such an easy task as one might imagine; for at that

hour the deck is swarming with the men at their toilet, stripped to the

waist, every man at his tub, lathering, splashing, scrubbing and

rubbing, talking, laughing, joking, singing, sweating, and swearing.

Finding your way obstructed, you venture to touch one mildly on the bare

back, as a hint to move aside and let you pass; the man immediately

damns your eyes, then begs pardon, and says he thought it was Bill "at

his lark again." Another who is bending down over his tub you touch

more firmly on the _os innominatum_, and ask him in a free and easy sort

of tone to "slue round there." He "slues round," very quickly too, but

unfortunately in the wrong direction, and ten to one capsizes you in a

tub of dirty soapsuds. Having picked yourself up, you pursue your

journey, and sing out as a general sort of warning--

 

For the benefit of those happy individuals who never saw, or had to eat,

weevils, I may here state that they are small beetles of the exact size

and shape of the common woodlouse, and that the taste is rather insipid,

with a slight flavour of boiled beans. Never have tasted the woodlouse,

but should think the flavour would be quite similar.

 

"Gangway there, lads," which causes at least a dozen of these worthies

to pass such ironical remarks to their companions as--

 

"Out of the doctor's way there, Tom."

 

"Let the gentleman pass, can't you, Jack?"

 

"Port your helm, Mat; the doctor wants you to."

 

"Round with your stern, Bill; the surgeon's _mate_ is a passing."

 

"Kick that donkey Jones out of the doctor's road,"--while at the same

time it is always the speaker himself who is in the way.

 

At last, however, you reach the sick-bay in safety, and retire within

the screen. Here, if a strict service man, you will find the surgeon

already seated; and presently the other assistant enters, and the work

is begun. There is a sick-bay man, or dispenser, and a sick-bay cook,

attached to the medical department. The surgeon generally does the

brain-work, and the assistants the finger-work; and, to their shame be

it spoken, there are some surgeons too proud to consult their younger

brethren, whom they treat as assistant-drudges, not assistant-surgeons.

 

At eight o'clock--before or after,--the work is over, and you are off to

breakfast.

 

At nine o'clock the drum beats, when every one, not otherwise engaged,

is required to muster on the quarter-deck, every officer as he comes up

lifting his cap, not to the captain, but to the Queen. After inspection

the parson reads prayers; you are then free to write, or read, or

anything else in reason you choose; and, if in harbour, you may go on

shore--boats leaving the ship at regular hours for the convenience of

the officers--always premising that one medical man be left on board, in

case of accident. In most foreign ports where a ship may be lying,

there is no want of both pleasure and excitement on shore. Take for

example the little town of Simon's, about twenty miles from Cape Town,

with a population of not less than four thousand of Englishmen, Dutch,

Malays, Caffres, and Hottentots. The bay is large, and almost

landlocked. The little white town is built along the foot of a lofty

mountain. Beautiful walks can be had in every direction, along the hard

sandy sea-beach, over the mountains and on to extensive table-lands, or

away up into dark rocky dingles and heath-clad glens. Nothing can

surpass the beauty of the scenery, or the gorgeous loveliness of the

wild heaths and geraniums everywhere abounding. There is a good hotel

and billiard-room; and you can shoot where, when, and what you please--

monkeys, pigeons, rock rabbits, wild ducks, or cobra-di-capellas. If

you long for more society, or want to see life, get a day or two days'

leave. Rise at five o'clock; the morning will be lovely and clear, with

the mist rising from its flowery bed on the mountain's brow, and the

sun, large and red, entering on a sky to which nor pen nor pencil could

do justice. The cart is waiting for you at the hotel, with an awning

spread above. Jump in: crack goes the long Caffre whip; away with a

plunge and a jerk go the three pairs of Caffre horses, and along the

sea-shore you dash, with the cool sea-breeze in your face, and the

water, green and clear, rippling up over the horses' feet; then, amid

such scenery, with such exhilarating weather, in such a life-giving

climate, if you don't feel a glow of pleasure that will send the blood

tingling through your veins, from the points of your ten toes to the

extreme end of your eyelashes, there must be something radically and

constitutionally wrong with you, and the sooner you go on board and dose

yourself with calomel and jalap the better.

 

Arrived at Cape Town, a few introductions will simply throw the whole

city at your command, and all it contains.

 

I do not intend this as a complete sketch of your trip, or I would have

mentioned some of the many beautiful spots and places of interest you

pass on the road--Rathfeldas for example, a hotel halfway, a house

buried in sweetness; and the country round about, with its dark waving

forests, its fruitful fields and wide-spreading vineyards, where the

grape seems to grow almost without cultivation; its comfortable

farm-houses; and above all its people, kind, generous, and hospitable as

the country is prolific.

 

So you see, dear reader, a navy surgeon's life hath its pleasures. Ah,

indeed, it hath! and sorry I am to add, its sufferings too; for a few

pages farther on the picture must change: if we get the lights we must

needs take the shadows also.

CHAPTER EIGHT. - A GOOD DINNER. ENEMY ON THE PORT BOW. MAN THE LIFE-BOAT.

 

We will suppose that the reader still occupies the position of

assistant-surgeon in a crack frigate or saucy line-of-battle ship. If

you go on shore for a walk in the forenoon you may return to lunch at

twelve; or if you have extended your ramble far into the country, or

gone to visit a friend or lady-love--though for the latter the gloaming

hour is to be preferred--you will in all probability have succeeded in

establishing an appetite by half-past five, when the officers'

dinner-boat leaves the pier.

 

Now, I believe there are few people in the world to whom a good dinner

does not prove an attraction, and this is what in a large ship one is

always pretty sure of, more especially on guest-nights, which are

evenings set apart--one every week--for the entertainment of the

officers' friends, one or more of whom any officer may invite, by

previously letting the mess-caterer know of his intention. The

mess-caterer is the officer who has been elected to superintend the

victualling, as the wine-caterer does the liquor department, and a

by-no-means-enviable position it is, and consequently it is for ever

changing hands. Sailors are proverbial growlers, and, indeed, a certain

amount of growling is, and ought to be, permitted in every mess; but it

is scarcely fair for an officer, because his breakfast does not please

him, or if he can't get butter to his cheese after dinner, to launch

forth his indignation at the poor mess-caterer, who most likely is doing

all he can to please. These growlers too never speak right out or

directly to the point. It is all under-the-table stabbing.

 

"Such and such a ship that I was in," says growler first, "and such and

such a mess--"

 

"Oh, by George!" says growler second, "_I_ knew that ship; that was a

mess, and no mistake?"

 

"Why, yes," replies number one, "the lunch we got there was better than

the dinner we have in this old clothes-basket."

 

On guest-nights your friend sits beside yourself, of course, and you

attend to his corporeal wants. One of the nicest things about the

service, in my opinion, is the having the band every day at dinner; then

too everything is so orderly; with our president and vice-president, it

is quite like a pleasure party every evening; so that altogether the

dinner, while in harbour, comes to be the great event of the day. And

after the cloth has been removed, and the president, with a preliminary

rap on the table to draw attention, has given the only toast of the

evening, the Queen, and due honour has been paid thereto, and the

bandmaster, who has been keeking in at the door every minute for the

last ten, that he might not make a mistake in the time, has played "God

save the Queen," and returned again to waltzes, quadrilles, or

selections from operas,--then it is very pleasant and delightful to loll

over our walnuts and wine, and half-dream away the half-hour till coffee

is served. Then, to be sure, that little cigar in our canvas

smoking-room outside the wardroom door, though the last, is by no means

the least pleasant part of the _dejeuner_. For my own part, I enjoy the

succeeding hour or so as much as any: when, reclining in an easy chair,

in a quiet corner, I can sip my tea, and enjoy my favourite author to my

heart's content. You must spare half an hour, however, to pay your last

visit to the sick; but this will only tend to make you appreciate your

ease all the more when you have done. So the evening wears away, and by

ten o'clock you will probably just be sufficiently tired to enjoy

thoroughly your little swing-cot and your cool white sheets.

 

At sea, luncheon, or tiffin, is dispensed with, and you dine at

half-past two. Not much difference in the quality of viands after all,

for now-a-days everything worth eating can be procured, in hermetically

sealed tins, capable of remaining fresh for any length of time.

 

There is one little bit of the routine of the service, which at first

one may consider a hardship.

 

You are probably enjoying your deepest, sweetest sleep, rocked in the

cradle of the deep, and gently swaying to and fro in your little cot;

you had turned in with the delicious consciousness of safety, for well

you knew that the ship was far away at sea, far from rock or reef or

deadly shoal, and that the night was clear and collision very

improbable, so you are slumbering like a babe on its mother's breast--as

you are for that matter--for the second night-watch is half spent; when,

mingling confusedly with your dreams, comes the roll of the drum; you

start and listen. There is a moment's pause, when birr-r-r-r it goes

again, and as you spring from your couch you hear it the third time.

And now you can distinguish the shouts of officers and petty officers,

high over the din of the trampling of many feet, of the battening down

of hatches, of the unmooring of great guns, and of heavy ropes and bars

falling on the deck: then succeeds a dead silence, I soon broken by the

voice of the commander thundering, "Enemy on the port bow;" and then,

and not till then, do you know it is no real engagement, but the monthly

night-quarters. And you can't help feeling sorry there isn't a real

enemy on the port bow, or either bow, as you hurry away to the cockpit,

with the guns rattling all the while overhead, as if a real live

thunderstorm were being taken on board, and was objecting to be stowed

away. So you lay out your instruments, your sponges, your bottles of

wine, and your buckets of water, and, seating yourself in the midst,

begin to read `Midsummer Night's Dream,' ready at a moment's notice to

amputate the leg of any man on board, whether