Doctor at Sea

accommodation for humans stuck on top like a watchman’s attic. All the cabins were small, and mine was like a railway compartment quarter-filled with large pipes. I wondered where they went to, and later discovered I was situated immediately below the Captain’s lavatory.
    My appraisal of the Lotus was interrupted by a knock on the jalousie door. It was Easter, the Doctor’s steward. He was a little globular man, who felt his position was not that of a mere servant but of a slightly professional gentleman. As an indication of his superiority to his messmates a throat torch and a thermometer poked out of the top pocket of his jacket, and he frequently talked to me about’ We of the medical fraternity’. He was always ready to give advice to his companions on problems of a medical or social nature that they felt disinclined to pour into the ears of the Doctor, and had an annoying habit of counselling them, for the good of their health, to hurl into the sea the bottles of physic just handed to them by their medical attendant.
    ‘Good morning, Doctor,’ he said. ‘I have a message from Father.’
    ‘Father?’
    ‘The Captain.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘He said he wants a bottle of his usual stomach mixture, pronto.’
    ‘His usual stomach mixture?’ I took off my spectacles and frowned.’ How do I know what that is? Has he got a prescription, or anything?’
    ‘Dr Flowerday used to make him up a bottle special.’
    ‘I see.’
    The problem grew in importance the more I thought of it.
    ‘The Captain suffers from his stomach quite frequently, does he?‘
    ‘Ho, yes, sir.Something chronic.’
    ‘Hm.’
    ‘When he has one of his spasms he gets a cob on, worse than usual. Life ain’t worth living for all hands. The only stuff what squares up his innards is the special mixture he got from Dr Flowerday. Makes him bring up the wind, Doctor. Or belch, as we say in the medical profession.’
    ‘Quite. You don’t know what’s in this medicine, I suppose?’
    ‘Not the foggiest, Doctor.’
    ‘Well, can’t you remember? You were with Dr Flowerday some time, weren’t you?’
    ‘Several voyages, Doctor. And he was very satisfied, if I may make so bold.’
    It occurred to me that this might be the point to clear up the Flowerday mystery for good.
    ‘Tell me, Easter,’ I said sharply,’ what exactly happened to Dr Flowerday?’
    He scratched his nose with a sad gesture.
    ‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir,’ he replied with dignity,’ I’d rather not talk about it.’
    I got up. It was useless sounding Easter on the fate of . my predecessor or on his balm for the Captain’s gastric disorders.
    Down aft there was a cabin with a notice stencilled above the door saying CERTIFIED HOSPITAL. It was a fairly large apartment which smelt like an underground cell that hadn’t been used for some time. There were four cots in it, in a couple of tiers. One bulkhead was taken up with a large locker labelled in red POISONS, one door of which was lying adrift of its hinges on the deck.
    Inside the locker were half a dozen rows of square, squat bottles containing the supply of medicines for the ship. These - like the Doctor - were prescribed by the Ministry of Transport. Unfortunately the Ministry, in the manner of the elderly, elegant physicians who come monthly out of retirement to grace the meetings of the Royal Society of Medicine, holds trustingly to the old-established remedies and the comely prescriptions of earlier decades. There were drugs in the cupboard that I had seen only in out-of-date books on pharmacology. I picked up a bottle: Amylum. What on earth did one do with amylum? There was a pound of Dover’s powder and a drum of castor oil big enough to move the bowels of the earth. At the back I found an empty gin bottle, some Worcester sauce, a tennis racket with broken strings, a dirty pair of black uniform socks, two eggs, a copy of the Brisbane Telegraph, and a notice saying NON FUMARE.
    I dropped these through the porthole, taking care with the eggs. Below the shelves of bottles was another compartment. I looked into it. It held a heavy mahogany case labelled INSTRUMENT CHEST, which contained the left component of a pair of obstetrical forceps, a saw, a bottle-opener, and a bunch of tooth-picks; but there were five gross of grey cardboard eyeshades, over seven apiece for all hands.
    I saw that prescribing was going to be more difficult than in general practice, where I scribbled a prescription on my pad and the