Doctor at Sea

walk down Leadenhall Street. You never know your luck.’
    ‘All right, sir,’ I said doubtfully.’ If you advise.’
    Thus my honour was saved by modern psychiatry. The next afternoon I tramped Leadenhall Street, trying to get a berth out of every big shipping office and, by mistake, à branch of Barclay’s Bank. It was one of those unfriendly November days when dawn and dusk meet each other in a dim conspiracy over the lunch-table. The rain drizzled on to the grimy pavements, soaking through my mackintosh and the seams of my shoes, and my depression deepened with the twilight. It looked as if the sea had rejected me.
    When the offices began to close and the important shipping men were already hurrying westwards I walked up the creaking stairs of the Fathom Line building, prepared to sail with Captain Bligh if necessary. There I was introduced to a Mr Cozens, a little bald man crouched in a high leather chair. He was suspiciously pleased to see me.
    ‘Our Lotus, Doctor,’ he said,’ is in need of a surgeon. We should be delighted to have you. Forty pounds a month, no need for uniform, just the Company’s regulation cap. Can you leave for Santos on Monday?’ But a seafaring friend had once warned me to treat a new ship like a prospective bride and discover her exact age and precise tonnage before committing myself. And I was touchy on such points.
    Cozens rapidly sketched for me a description of the Lotus. ’ She isn’t a big ship,’ he concluded.’ Nor a fast ship, exactly.’ He smiled like a house agent.’ But she’s a very nice ship.’
    I wondered what to do. I was being asked to sail in a ship I had never seen, to a place I had never heard of, in the employ of a business I knew nothing about. I looked anxiously through the dark window running with comforting English rain. The wisest course was obviously to go back to Wendy and settle for a fortnight in Sidmouth instead.
    ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I accept.’
    ‘Excellent!’ said Mr Cozens, with relief.’ I’m sure you’ll find yourself well suited, Doctor. She’s a very nice ship indeed. Quite a lady.’
    I nodded.’ Where do I go now?’
    ‘There are a few formalities to be gone through I’m afraid, Doctor. Regulations and such things, you understand. First of all, I must supply you with a letter of appointment. If you’ll just wait one minute I’ll get one of the girls to type it.’
    Running away to sea has become more elaborate since the unhedged days when the errant son slipped down to the docks at nightfall, mated up with a bos’n at a wharfside tavern, and sailed with an Indiaman on the dawn tide. Now there are forms to be filled in, documents to be issued, permits to be warily exchanged for a string of personal data. The next day I was sent down to the Merchant Navy Office, an establishment which was a cross between a railway booking-hall and the charge-room of a police station on a Saturday night. There I poked my letter of appointment nervously through a small window at a clerk, who glanced through it with the unconcealed disgust of a post office employee reading one’s private thoughts in a telegram.
    ‘Got your lifeboat ticket?’ he asked gloomily, his steel nib arrested in mid-air.
    ‘My what?’ I saw for a second the picture of myself shivering on a sinking deck, refused permission to enter the lifeboat because I had not purchased my ticket at the proper counter.’ Where do I buy it?’ I asked wildly.
    The man looked at me with pity.’ They sends us some mugs these days,’ he observed wearily.’ Lifeboat ticket,’ he repeated, mouthing the words as if addressing a deaf idiot.’ Ministry certificate. Savvy?’
    ‘No,’ I admitted.’ I haven’t.’
    ‘Got any distinguishing marks?’ he asked, giving me a chance to redeem myself. ‘or blemishes? Tattoos?’
    ‘No-.None at all. As far as I know.’
    He nodded and gave me a chit entitling me to a free photograph at a shop across the street. I queued between a tall negro in a jacket that half covered his thighs and a man in a strong-smelling roll-necked sweater who picked his teeth with a safety-pin. When my turn came I had to face the camera holding my number in a wooden frame under my chin, and I felt the next step would be in handcuffs.
    Now, sitting in my cabin with War and Peace, my Company’s Regulation Cap hanging from a hook above me, I saw that Mr Cozens was wrong. The Lotus wasn’t a nice ship at all. She was a floating warehouse, with some