Doctor at Sea

beer and sat biting my thumbnail.
    I was hardly aware that another had joined me. She sat quietly beside me without speaking. I looked up. She was sitting demurely with her hands clasped in her lap, as pathetic as a wallflower at a village dance.
    ‘Hop it! Vamos! Pronto!’I told her.
    ‘Please...please!’ she said.
    ‘My dear young lady, I have no intention...’
    Two tears rolled compellingly down her thin cheeks.
    ‘Please come,’ she urged softly.’ No one come with me this week. If you no come I get fired.’
    I licked my lips. This was the sort of dilemma even Big White Carstairs would have had difficulty sorting out.
    She laid a hand on my arm, as softly as an alighting butterfly.
    ‘Please come,’ she whispered.
    I coughed, and ran my finger round my collar. My conscience strained to suppress my sense of gallantry. Just then two large tears followed the first.
    ‘How much?’ I heard. It was me.
    ‘Hun’red cruzeiro.’
    ‘Oh...ah...very well then...’
    I pulled the note from my pocket! Seizing it, she pulled me by the hand towards the staircase of sin.
    We went into a bare room that contained only a bed, a basin, and several more pictures of the saints. She locked the door. I stood and scratched my left ear.
    Deftly, as though peeling a banana, she stripped off her clothes. She jumped on the bed and gave me an inviting smile. Suddenly she held her right side and groaned.
    ‘Hello,’ I said, immediately interested.’ What’s the trouble?’
    She bit her lip for a moment, then said,’ Nada...nada.’
    ‘Have you got a pain? Er - dor?’
    She nodded.
    ‘Where?’
    She pointed under her right ribs.
    ‘That’s curious,’ I said. ‘Just let me have a look a minute, will you? By jove, this is unusual...Deep breath, now.’
    After five minutes’careful examination of her abdomen I concluded that the young lady was suffering from inflammation of the gall-bladder.
    ‘Look here,’ I said,’ you ought to go to hospital.’
    She smiled up at me from the pillow.
    ‘Hospital...operaçao, or whatever it is.’
    I indicated with signs.
    ‘Oh, não,’ she said.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ I said firmly.’ Here’- I took a pencil and paper from my pocket and wrote on it -’ you take that to the chemist - farmacêutico - and they’ll give you something to make it better. Then you must go to hospital, see? O.K.?’
    She took the prescription and grinned.
    ‘Very well,’ I said automatically,’ call me if you have any severe pain during the night. Good evening.’
    I let myself out. Trail and Archer were waiting downstairs.
    ‘Come on, you dirty old man,’ Trail said, grabbing my arm.’ Time to get back to the ship.’
    It occurred to me that was the only consultation I had ever paid for.

11

    The next morning I woke, sweating and penitent, in my unventilated cabin. Jumbled harbour sounds replaced our usual noiseless morning at sea, and the steam winches were already working in frantic bursts on the deck outside. There were footsteps and shouting all over the ship, and when I turned over for my watch I saw an unknown, half-naked Brazilian picking his teeth and solemnly inspecting me from the open cabin door. As I shaved I reflected sharply on the change in my recreations in the last four weeks.
    At breakfast I found Archer and Trail as unruffled as if they had spent the evening in a suburban cinema.
    ‘I hear you had a bit of a lash-up last night,’ Hornbeam said. ‘Have a good time in Mimi’s?’
    ‘One must see how the other half lives,’ I murmured.
    ’She was a nice little piece you got hold of,’ Trail said, in a complimentary tone. ‘Wouldn’t have minded her myself.’
    Hornbeam, who had an unphysiological resilience to alcohol, nodded as he ate his way with relish through a dish of bacon, chops, eggs, and liver.
    ‘Sorry I couldn’t come with you blokes,’ he said cheerfully.’ I reckon I was tired. The quartermaster put me in my bunk about three.’
    ‘This is not much of a place, anyway,’ Trail said. ‘Not a patch on B.A.’
    ‘They’ve cleaned up B.A. a lot now,’ Archer added, with disappointment.’ Do you remember Underneath the Arches, Mr Hornbeam? A string of them running down behind a sort of colonnade affair from the Boca practically to the Plaza de Majo. They had a purity campaign down there after the war.’
    ‘They needed it,’ Hornbeam said, reaching for the tomato sauce. ’Any more bacon going, steward? I get peckish in port.’
    ‘What are you doing