Doctor at Sea

anything flogging. Wouldn’t like a few tins of beef, would you? I scrounged some when a case bust going into No. 1 hold.’
    ‘No thank you. But I appreciate your generosity. Just get me another pitcher of iced water from the galley.’ I put on my cap and went on deck. It was almost noon. The sun, as coarse and uninhibited as everything else in the region, shone savagely on the white planks and brown steel of the decks; but the river, the ships, and the quay were as peaceful as an English village on a high summer afternoon. The purring electric cranes were still and stood at untidy angles along the wharf with crates of merchandise at their feet, abandoned by the dockers for the midday break. Some of the stevedores lay asleep in the shade that was sharply cut out here and there by corners and eaves; others languidly masticated their lunch inside the doors of the airless sheds. From somewhere downstream came the subdued hoot of a small ship’s whistle, and the regular soft thumping of some essential pump. The steers mooed spasmodically in the unseen corrals behind the meat works, and the flies, unaffected by the general languor, buzzed in thick irritating squadrons everywhere.
    I leaned on the hot rail and looked at the grey walls of the Frigorífico Anglo, which was temporarily inactive for lunch. I began to understand the disadvantages of my abrupt poverty: we should be in Buenos Aires for at least a fortnight, and the Frigorífico, though of superb interest as a commercial and technical undertaking and with appreciable merit as an example of functional design, would soon become oppressive as the largest segment of my daily horizon. I hadn’t even the bus fare to the City.
    While I was examining these bleak thoughts Trail came and leaned next to me. We discussed our condition in a few words.
    ‘There’s not much to be done here if you’re broke,’ he observed.’ We could rustle up enough to go to the pictures, I suppose.’
    ‘I can do that in London.’
    ‘That’s true. They’ve got some nice parks, so they tell me.’
    We had adjusted outselves to a dull stay in one of the world’s gayest capitals when a bright ray of entertainment abruptly shone into our lives from an unexpected source. I was lying on my bunk after dinner, reading the first paragraph of War and Peace with the drowsy inattentive righteousness of a good churchgoer sitting through a summer sermon, when Easter pulled aside the curtain across the doorway.
    ‘Father’s compliments,’ he said. ‘And will you come to his cabin, pronto.’
    ‘Oh, lord! What’s eating the old boy now?’
    ‘Search me, Doctor. He’s getting the Mate up there, and the Hunk.’
    ‘Hunk?’
    ‘Chief Steward, Mr Whimble.’
    ‘Very well.’I rolled off the bunk and took my cap from the hook over the desk.’ I hope it isn’t his stomach again.’
    Hornbeam and Whimble were already sitting on the settee in the Captain’s cabin. McDougall was in one of the armchairs. On either side of the desk sat Captain Hogg and Mr Montmorency, the Fathom Line’s manager in Buenos Aires. All of them were smoking cigars and drinking liqueurs.
    ‘Ah, Doctor, come in!’ Mr Montmorency called, as I pushed the door curtain away. He got up and seized me by the hand. ’Have a seat. Move over there, Mr Whimble. Cigar? Real Havana. Won’t find them in England, eh? Benedictine, Curaçao, or brandy? Some Kummel, perhaps? Or a flash of the old starboard light?’
    ‘Benedictine will do nicely,’ I said. I sat down between Whimble and Hornbeam, while Mr Montmorency lit my cigar. He was a lean, brown man with a brisk black moustache, dressed in a crisp linen suit. He was an office-wallah, and therefore formally despised; but he was secretly respected as an important and dangerous man in the lives of everyone who depended on the Fathom Line for their pay. Beneath the sunburnt hearty crust was a sharp brain eager to send damning cables to St Mary Axe, where a few words of code could hold up a man’s promotion for ten years or tip him back into the uncertain currents of the shipping pool. Even Captain Hogg was affable to Mr Montmorency.
    ‘Right, gentlemen,’ Mr Montmorency went on forcefully. ’I have asked you up here today for a particular reason, apart from having the pleasure of meeting you. Captain Hogg assures me, I am glad to say, that he thinks highly of your services under his command.’
    ‘A very happy ship,’ Captain Hogg declared. He swallowed half a