46
WE MEET A PORPOISE
I had been conscious for some time that Marsali was trying to get up the nerve to speak to me. I had thought she would, sooner or later; whatever her feelings toward me, I was the only other woman aboard. I did my best to help, smiling kindly and saying “Good morning,” but the first move would have to be hers.
She made it, finally, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a month after we had left Scotland.
I was writing in our shared cabin, making surgical notes on a minor amputation—two smashed toes on one of the foredeck hands. I had just completed a drawing of the surgical site, when a shadow darkened the doorway of the cabin, and I looked up to see Marsali standing there, chin thrust out pugnaciously.
“I need to know something,” she said firmly. “I dinna like ye, and I reckon ye ken that, but Da says you’re a wisewoman, and I think you’re maybe an honest woman, even if ye are a whore, so you’ll maybe tell me.”
There were any number of possible responses to this remarkable statement, but I refrained from making any of them.
“Maybe I will,” I said, putting down the pen. “What is it you need to know?”
Seeing that I wasn’t angry, she slid into the cabin and sat down on the stool, the only available spot.
“Weel, it’s to do wi’ bairns,” she explained. “And how ye get them.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Your mother didn’t tell you where babies come from?”
She snorted impatiently, her small blond brows knotted in fierce scorn. “O’ course I ken where they come from! Any fool knows that much. Ye let a man put his prick between your legs, and there’s the devil to pay, nine months later. What I want to know is how ye don’t get them.”
“I see.” I regarded her with considerable interest. “You don’t want a child? Er…once you’re properly married, I mean? Most young women seem to.”
“Well,” she said slowly, twisting a handful of her dress. “I think I maybe would like a babe sometime. For itself, I mean. If it maybe had dark hair, like Fergus.” A hint of dreaminess flitted across her face, but then her expression hardened once more.
“But I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
She pushed out her lips, thinking, then pulled them in again. “Well, because of Fergus. We havena lain together yet. We havena been able to do more than kiss each other now and again behind the hatch covers—thanks to Da and his bloody-minded notions,” she added bitterly.
“Amen,” I said, with some wryness.
“Eh?”
“Never mind.” I waved a hand, dismissing it. “What has that got to do with not wanting babies?”
“I want to like it,” she said matter-of-factly. “When we get to the prick part.”
I bit the inside of my lower lip.
“I…er…imagine that has something to do with Fergus, but I’m afraid I don’t quite see what it has to do with babies.”
Marsali eyed me warily. Without hostility for once, more as though she were estimating me in some fashion.
“Fergus likes ye,” she said.
“I’m fond of him, too,” I answered cautiously, not sure where the conversation was heading. “I’ve known him for quite a long time, ever since he was a boy.”
She relaxed suddenly, some of the tension going out of the slender shoulders.
“Oh. You’ll know about it, then—where he was born?”
Suddenly I understood her wariness.
“The brothel in Paris? Yes, I know about that. He told you, then?”
She nodded. “Aye, he did. A long time ago, last Hogmanay.” Well, I supposed a year was a long time to a fifteen-year-old.
“That’s when I told him I loved him,” she went on. Her eyes were fixed on her skirt, and a faint tinge of pink showed in her cheeks. “And he said he loved me, too, but my mother wasna going to ever agree to the match. And I said why not, there was nothing so awful about bein’ French, not everybody could be Scots, and I didna think his hand mattered a bit either—after all, there was Mr. Murray wi’ his wooden leg, and Mother liked him well enough—but then he said, no, it was none of those things, and then he told me—about Paris, I mean, and being born in a brothel and being a pick-pocket until he met Da.”
She raised her eyes, a look of incredulity in the light blue depths. “I think he thought I’d mind,” she said, wonderingly. “He tried to go away, and said he wouldna see me anymore. Well—” she shrugged, tossing her fair hair out of the way, “I soon took care of that.” She looked at me straight on, then, hands clasped in her lap.
“It’s just I didna want to mention it, in case ye didn’t know already. But since ye do…well, it’s no Fergus I’m worried about. He says he knows what to do, and I’ll like it fine, once we’re past the first time or two. But that’s not what my Mam told me.”
“What did she tell you?” I asked, fascinated.
A small line showed between the light brows. “Well…” Marsali said slowly, “it wasna so much she said it—though she did say, when I told her about Fergus and me, that he’d do terrible things to me because of living wi’ whores and having one for a mother—it was more she…she acted like it.”
Her face was a rosy pink now, and she kept her eyes in her lap, where her fingers twisted themselves in the folds of her skirt. The wind seemed to be picking up; small strands of blond hair rose gently from her head, wafted by the breeze from the window.
“When I started to bleed the first time, she told me what to do, and about how it was part o’ the curse of Eve, and I must just put up wi’ it. And I said, what was the curse of Eve? And she read me from the Bible all about how St. Paul said women were terrible, filthy sinners because of what Eve did, but they could still be saved by suffering and bearing children.”
“I never did think a lot of St. Paul,” I observed, and she looked up, startled.
“But he’s in the Bible!” she said, shocked.
“So are a lot of other things,” I said dryly. “Heard that story about Gideon and his daughter, have you? Or the fellow who sent his lady out to be raped to death by a crowd of ruffians, so they wouldn’t get him? God’s chosen men, just like Paul. But go on, do.”
She gaped at me for a minute, but then closed her mouth and nodded, a little stunned.
“Aye, well. Mother said as how it meant I was nearly old enough to be wed, and when I did marry, I must be sure to remember it was a woman’s duty to do as her husband wanted, whether she liked it or no. And she looked so sad when she told me that…I thought whatever a woman’s duty was, it must be awful, and from what St. Paul said about suffering and bearing children…”
She stopped and sighed. I sat quietly, waiting. When she resumed, it was haltingly, as though she had trouble choosing her words.
“I canna remember my father. I was only three when the English took him away. But I was old enough when my mother wed—wed Jamie—to see how it was between them.” She bit her lip; she wasn’t used to calling Jamie by his name.
“Da—Jamie, I mean—he’s kind, I think; he always was to Joan and me. But I’d see, when he’d lay his hand on my mother’s waist and try to draw her close—she’d shrink away from him.” She gnawed her lip some more, then continued.
“I could see she was afraid; she didna like him to touch her. But I couldna see that he ever did anything to be afraid of, not where we could see—so I thought it must be something he did when they were in their bed, alone. Joan and I used to wonder what it could be; Mam never had marks on her face or her arms, and she didna limp when she walked—not like Magdalen Wallace, whose husband always beats her when he’s drunk on market day—so we didna think Da hit her.”
Marsali licked her lips, dried by the warm salt air, and I pushed the jug of water toward her. She nodded in thanks and poured a cupful.
“So I thought,” she said, eyes fixed on the stream of water, “that it must be because Mam had had children—had us—and she knew it would be terrible again and so she didna want to go to bed with—with Jamie for fear of it.”
She took a drink, then set down the cup and looked at me directly, firming her chin in challenge.
“I saw ye with my Da,” she said. “Just that minute, before he saw me. I—I think ye liked what he was doing to you in the bed.”
I opened my mouth, and closed it again.
“Well…yes,” I said, a little weakly. “I did.”
She grunted in satisfaction. “Mmphm. And ye like it when he touches ye; I’ve seen. Well, then. Ye havena got any children. And I’d heard there are ways not to have them, only nobody seems to know just how, but you must, bein’ a wisewoman and all.”
She tilted her head to one side, studying me.
“I’d like a babe,” she admitted, “but if it’s got to be a babe or liking Fergus, then it’s Fergus. So it won’t be a babe—if you’ll tell me how.”
I brushed the curls back behind my ear, wondering where on earth to start.
“Well,” I said, drawing a deep breath, “to begin with, I have had children.”
Her eyes sprang wide and round at this.
“Ye do? Does Da—does Jamie know?”
“Well, of course he does,” I replied testily. “They were his.”
“I never heard Da had any bairns at all.” The pale eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“I don’t imagine he thought it was any of your business,” I said, perhaps a trifle more sharply than necessary. “And it’s not, either,” I added, but she just raised her brows and went on looking suspicious.
“The first baby died,” I said, capitulating. “In France. She’s buried there. My—our second daughter is grown now; she was born after Culloden.”
“So he’s never seen her? The grown one?” Marsali spoke slowly, frowning.
I shook my head, unable to speak for a moment. There seemed to be something stuck in my throat, and I reached for the water. Marsali pushed the jug absently in my direction, leaning against the swing of the ship.
“That’s verra sad,” she said softly, to herself. Then she glanced up at me, frowning once more in concentration as she tried to work it all out.
“So ye’ve had children, and it didna make a difference to you? Mmphm. But it’s been a long while, then—did ye have other men whilst ye were away in France?” Her lower lip came up over the upper one, making her look very much like a small and stubborn bulldog.
“That,” I said firmly, putting the cup down, “is definitely none of your business. As to whether childbirth makes a difference, possibly it does to some women, but not all of them. But whether it does or not, there are good reasons why you might not want to have a child right away.”
She withdrew the pouting underlip and sat up straight, interested.
“So there is a way?”
“There are a lot of ways, and unfortunately most of them don’t work,” I told her, with a pang of regret for my prescription pad and the reliability of contraceptive pills. Still, I remembered well enough the advice of the ma?tresses sage-femme, the experienced midwives of the H?pital des Anges, where I had worked in Paris twenty years before.
“Hand me the small box in the cupboard over there,” I said, pointing to the doors above her head. “Yes, that one.
“Some of the French midwives make a tea of bayberry and valerian,” I said, rummaging in my medicine box. “But it’s rather dangerous, and not all that dependable, I don’t think.”
“D’ye miss her?” Marsali asked abruptly. I glanced up, startled. “Your, daughter?” Her face was abnormally expressionless, and I suspected the question had more to do with Laoghaire than with me.
“Yes,” I said simply. “But she’s grown; she has her own life.” The lump in my throat was back, and I bent my head over the medicine box, hiding my face. The chances of Laoghaire ever seeing Marsali again were just about as good as the chances that I would ever see Brianna; it wasn’t a thought I wanted to dwell on.
“Here,” I said, pulling out a large chunk of cleaned sponge. I took one of the thin surgical knives from the fitted slots in the lid of the box and carefully sliced off several thin pieces, about three inches square. I searched through the box again and found the small bottle of tansy oil, with which I carefully saturated one square under Marsali’s fascinated gaze.
“All right,” I said. “That’s about how much oil to use. If you haven’t any oil, you can dip the sponge in vinegar—even wine will work, in a pinch. You put the bit of sponge well up inside you before you go to bed with a man—mind you do it even the first time; you can get with child from even once.”
Marsali nodded, her eyes wide, and touched the sponge gently with a forefinger. “Aye? And—and after? Do I take it out again, or—”
An urgent shout from above, coupled with a sudden heeling of the Artemis as she backed her mainsails, put an abrupt end to the conversation. Something was happening up above.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said, pushing the sponge and bottle toward her, and headed for the passage.
Jamie was standing with the Captain on the afterdeck, watching the approach of a large ship behind us. She was perhaps three times the size of the Artemis, three-masted, with a perfect forest of rigging and sail, through which small black figures hopped like fleas on a bedsheet. A puff of white smoke floated in her wake, token of a cannon recently fired.
“Is she firing on us?” I asked in amazement.
“No,” Jamie said grimly. “A warning shot only. She means to board us.”
“Can they?” I addressed the question to Captain Raines, who was looking even more glum than usual, the downturned corners of his mouth sunk in his beard.
“They can,” he said. “We’ll not outrun her in a stiff breeze like this, on the open sea.”
“What is she?” Her ensign flew at the masthead, but seen against the sun at this distance, it looked completely black.
Jamie glanced down at me, expressionless. “A British man-o-war, Sassenach. Seventy-four guns. Perhaps ye’d best go below.”
This was bad news. While Britain was no longer at war with France, relations between the two countries were by no means cordial. And while the Artemis was armed, she had only four twelve-pound guns; sufficient to deter small pirates, but no match for a man-of-war.
“What can they want of us?” Jamie asked the Captain. Raines shook his head, his soft, plump face set grimly.
“Likely pressing,” he answered. “She’s shorthanded; you can see by her rigging—and her foredeck all ahoo,” he noted disapprovingly, eyes fixed on the man-of-war, now looming as she drew alongside. He glanced at Jamie. “They can press any of our hands who look to be British—which is something like half the crew. And yourself, Mr. Fraser—unless you wish to pass for French?”
“Damn,” Jamie said softly. He glanced at me and frowned. “Did I not tell ye to get below?”
“You did,” I said, not going. I drew closer to him, my eyes fixed on the man-of-war, where a small boat was now being lowered. One officer, in a gilded coat and laced hat, was climbing down the side.
“If they press the British hands,” I asked Captain Raines, “what will happen to them?”
“They’ll serve aboard the Porpoise—that’s her,” he nodded at the man-of-war, which sported a puff-lipped fish as the figurehead, “as members of the Royal Navy. She may release the pressed hands when she reaches port—or she may not.”
“What? You mean they can just kidnap men and make them serve as sailors for as long as they please?” A thrill of fear shot through me, at the thought of Jamie’s being abruptly taken away.
“They can,” the Captain said shortly. “And if they do, we’ll have a job of it to reach Jamaica ourselves, with half a crew.” He turned abruptly and went forward, to greet the arriving boat.
Jamie gripped my elbow and squeezed.
“They’ll not take Innes or Fergus,” he said. “They’ll help ye to hunt for Young Ian. If they take us”—I noted the “us” with a sharp pang—“you’ll go on to Jared’s place at Sugar Bay, and search from there.” He looked down and gave me a brief smile. “I’ll meet ye there,” he said, and gave my elbow a reassuring squeeze. “I canna say how long it might be, but I’ll come to ye there.”
“But you could pass as a Frenchman!” I protested. “You know you could!”
He looked at me for a moment, and shook his head, smiling faintly.
“No,” he said softly. “I canna let them take my men, and stay behind, hiding under a Frenchman’s name.”
“But—” I started to protest that the Scottish smugglers were not his men, had no claim on his loyalty, and then stopped, realizing that it was useless. The Scots might not be his tenants or his kin, and one of them might well be a traitor. But he had brought them here, and if they went, he would go with them.
“Dinna mind it, Sassenach,” he said softly. “I shall be all right, one way or the other. But I think it is best if our name is Malcolm, for the moment.”
He patted my hand, then released it and went forward, shoulders braced to meet whatever was coming. I followed, more slowly. As the gig pulled alongside, I saw Captain Raines’s eyebrows rise in astonishment.
“God save us, what is this?” he murmured under his breath, as a head appeared above the Artemis’s rail.
It was a young man, evidently in his late twenties, but with his face drawn and shoulders slumping with fatigue. A uniform coat that was too big for him had been tugged on over a filthy shirt, and he staggered slightly as the deck of the Artemis rose beneath him.
“You are the captain of this ship?” The Englishman’s eyes were red-rimmed from tiredness, but he picked Raines from the crowd of grim-faced hands at a glance. “I am acting captain Thomas Leonard, of His Majesty’s ship Porpoise. For the love of God,” he said, speaking hoarsely, “have you a surgeon aboard?”
* * *
Over a warily offered glass of port below, Captain Leonard explained that the Porpoise had suffered an outbreak of some infectious plague, beginning some four weeks before.
“Half the crew are down with it,” he said, wiping a crimson drop from his stubbled chin. “We’ve lost thirty men so far, and look fair to lose a lot more.”
“You lost your captain?” Raines asked.
Leonard’s thin face flushed slightly. “The—the captain and the two senior lieutenants died last week, and the surgeon and the surgeon’s mate, as well. I was third lieutenant.” That explained both his surprising youth and his nervous state; to be landed suddenly in sole command of a large ship, a crew of six hundred men, and a rampant infection aboard, was enough to rattle anyone.
“If you have anyone aboard with some medical experience…” He looked hopefully from Captain Raines to Jamie, who stood by the desk, frowning slightly.
“I’m the Artemis’s surgeon, Captain Leonard,” I said, from my place in the doorway. “What symptoms do your men have?”
“You?” The young captain’s head swiveled to stare at me. His jaw hung slackly open, showing the furred tongue and stained teeth of a tobacco-chewer.
“My wife’s a rare healer, Captain,” Jamie said mildly. “If it’s help ye came for, I’d advise ye to answer her questions, and do as she tells ye.”
Leonard blinked once, but then took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. Well, it seems to start with griping pains in the belly, and a terrible flux and vomiting. The afflicted men complain of headache, and they have considerable fever. They…”
“Do some of them have a rash on their bellies?” I interrupted.
He nodded eagerly. “They do. And some of them bleed from the arse as well. Oh, I beg pardon, ma’am,” he said, suddenly flustered. “I meant no offense, only that—”
“I think I know what that might be,” I interrupted his apologies. A feeling of excitement began to grow in me; the feeling of a diagnosis just under my hands, and the sure knowledge of how to proceed with it. The call of trumpets to a warhorse, I thought with wry amusement. “I’d need to look at them, to be sure, but—”
“My wife would be pleased to advise ye, Captain,” Jamie said firmly. “But I’m afraid she canna go aboard your ship.”
“Are you sure?” Captain Leonard looked from one to the other of us, eyes desperate with disappointment. “If she could only look at my crew…”
“No,” Jamie said, at the same moment I replied, “Yes, of course!”
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Jamie rose to his feet, said politely, “You’ll excuse us, Captain Leonard?” and dragged me bodily out of the cabin, down the passage to the afterhold.
“Are ye daft?” he hissed, still clutching me by one arm. “Ye canna be thinking of setting foot on a ship wi’ the plague! Risk your life and the crew and Young Ian, all for the sake of a pack of Englishmen?”
“It isn’t plague,” I said, struggling to get free. “And I wouldn’t be risking my life. Let go of my arm, you bloody Scot!”
He let go, but stood blocking the ladder, glowering at me.
“Listen,” I said, striving for patience. “It isn’t plague; I’m almost sure it’s typhoid fever—the rash sounds like it. I can’t catch that, I’ve been vaccinated for it.”
Momentary doubt flitted across his face. Despite my explanations, he was still inclined to consider germs and vaccines in the same league with black magic.
“Aye?” he said skeptically. “Well, perhaps that’s so, but still…”
“Look,” I said, groping for words. “I’m a doctor. They’re sick, and I can do something about it. I…it’s…well, I have to, that’s all!”
Judging from its effect, this statement appeared to lack something in eloquence. Jamie raised one eyebrow, inviting me to go on.
I took a deep breath. How should I explain it—the need to touch, the compulsion to heal? In his own way, Frank had understood. Surely there was a way to make it clear to Jamie.
“I took an oath,” I said. “When I became a physician.”
Both eyebrows went up. “An oath?” he echoed. “What sort of oath?”
I had said it aloud only the one time. Still, I had had a framed copy in my office; Frank had given it to me, a gift when I graduated from medical school. I swallowed a small thickening in my throat, closed my eyes, and read what I could remember from the scroll before my mind’s eye.
“I swear by Apollo the physician, by Aesculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment the following Oath:
I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug, nor give advice which may cause his death. But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art. In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction, and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves. All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or outside of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal. If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.”
I opened my eyes, to find him looking down at me thoughtfully. “Er…parts of it are just for tradition,” I explained.
The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “I see,” he said. “Well, the first part sounds a wee bit pagan, but I like the part about how ye willna seduce anyone.”
“I thought you’d like that one,” I said dryly. “Captain Leonard’s virtue is safe with me.”
He gave a small snort and leaned back against the ladder, running one hand slowly through his hair.
“Is that how it’s done, then, in the company of physicians?” he asked. “Ye hold yourself bound to help whoever calls for it, even an enemy?”
“It doesn’t make a great difference, you know, if they’re ill or hurt.” I looked up, searching his face for understanding.
“Aye, well,” he said slowly. “I’ve taken an oath now and then, myself—and none of them lightly.” He reached out and took my right hand, his fingers resting on my silver ring. “Some weigh heavier than others, though,” he said, watching my face in turn.
He was very close to me, the sun from the hatchway overhead striping the linen of his sleeve, the skin of his hand a deep ruddy bronze where it cradled my own white fingers, and the glinting silver of my wedding ring.
“It does,” I said softly, speaking to his thought. “You know it does.” I laid my other hand against his chest, its gold ring glowing in a bar of sunlight. “But where one vow can be kept, without damage to another…?”
He sighed, deeply enough to move the hand on my chest, then bent and kissed me, very gently.
“Aye, well, I wouldna have ye be forsworn,” he said, straightening up with a wry twist to his mouth. “You’re sure of this vaccination of yours? It does work?”
“It works,” I assured him.
“Perhaps I should go with ye,” he said, frowning slightly.
“You can’t—you haven’t been vaccinated, and typhoid’s awfully contagious.”
“You’re only thinking it’s typhoid, from what Leonard says,” he pointed out. “Ye dinna ken for sure that it’s that.”
“No,” I admitted. “But there’s only one way to find out.”
* * *
I was assisted up onto the deck of the Porpoise by means of a bosun’s chair, a terrorizing swing over empty air and frothing sea. I landed ignominiously in a sprawl on the deck. Once I regained my feet, I was astonished to find how solid the deck of the man-of-war felt, compared to the tiny, pitching quarterdeck of the Artemis, far below. It was like standing on the Rock of Gibraltar.
My hair had blown loose during the trip between the ships; I twisted it up and repinned it as best I could, then reached to take the medicine box I had brought from the midshipman who held it.
“You’d best show me where they are,” I said. The wind was brisk, and I was aware that it was taking a certain amount of work on the part of both crews to keep the two ships close together, even as both drifted leeward.
It was dark in the tween-decks, the confined space lit by small oil lamps that hung from the ceiling, swaying gently with the rise and fall of the ship, so that the ranks of hammocked men lay in deep shadow, blotched with dim patches of light from above. They looked like pods of whales, or sleeping sea beasts, lying humped and black, side by side, swaying with the movement of the sea beneath.
The stench was overpowering. What air there was came down through crude ventilator shafts that reached the upper deck, but that wasn’t a lot. Worse than unwashed seamen was the reek of vomitus and the ripe, throat-clogging smell of blood-streaked diarrhea, which liberally spattered the decking beneath the hammocks, where sufferers had been too ill to reach the few available chamber pots. My shoes stuck to the deck, coming away with a nasty sucking noise as I made my way cautiously into the area.
“Give me a better light,” I said peremptorily to the apprehensive-looking young midshipman who had been told off to accompany me. He was holding a kerchief to his face and looked both scared and miserable, but he obeyed, holding up the lantern he carried so that I could peer into the nearest hammock.
The occupant groaned and turned away his face as the light struck him. He was flushed with fever, and his skin hot to the touch. I pulled his shirt up and felt his stomach; it too was hot, the skin distended and hard. As I prodded gently here and there, the man writhed like a worm on a hook, uttering piteous groans.
“It’s all right,” I said soothingly, urging him to flatten out again. “Yes, I’ll help you; it will feel better soon. Let me look into your eyes, now. Yes, that’s right.”
I pulled back the eyelid; his pupil shrank in the light, leaving his eyes brown and red-rimmed with suffering.
“Christ, take away the light!” he gasped, jerking his head away. “It splits my head!” Fever, vomiting, abdominal cramps, headache.
“Do you have chills?” I asked, waving back the midshipman’s lantern.
The answer was more a moan than a word, but in the affirmative. Even in the shadows, I could see that many of the men in the hammocks were wrapped in their blankets, though it was stifling hot here below.
If not for the headache, it could be simple gastroenteritis—but not with this many men stricken. Something very contagious indeed, and I was fairly sure what. Not malaria, coming from Europe to the Caribbean. Typhus was a possibility; spread by the common body louse, it was prone to rapid spread in close quarters like these, and the symptoms were similar to those I saw around me—with one distinctive difference.
That seaman didn’t have the characteristic belly rash, nor the next, but the third one did. The light red rosettes were plain on the clammy white skin. I pressed firmly on one, and it disappeared, blinking back into existence a moment later, as the blood returned to the skin. I squeezed my way between the hammocks, the heavy, sweating bodies pressing in on me from either side, and made my way back to the companionway where Captain Leonard and two more of his midshipmen waited for me.
“It’s typhoid,” I told the Captain. I was as sure as I could be, lacking a microscope and blood culture.
“Oh?” His drawn face remained apprehensive. “Do you know what to do for it, Mrs. Malcolm?”
“Yes, but it won’t be easy. The sick men need to be taken above, washed thoroughly, and laid where they can have fresh air to breathe. Beyond that, it’s a matter of nursing; they’ll need to have a liquid diet—and lots of water—boiled water, that’s very important!—and sponging to bring down the fever. The most important thing is to avoid infecting any more of your crew, though. There are several things that need to be done—”
“Do them,” he interrupted. “I shall give orders to have as many of the healthy men as can be spared to attend you; order them as you will.”
“Well,” I said, with a dubious glance at the surroundings. “I can make a start, and tell you how to be going on, but it’s going to be a big job. Captain Raines and my husband will be anxious to be on our way.”
“Mrs. Malcolm,” the Captain said earnestly, “I shall be eternally grateful for any assistance you can render us. We are most urgently bound for Jamaica, and unless the remainder of my crew can be saved from this wicked illness, we will never reach that island.” He spoke with profound seriousness, and I felt a twinge of pity for him.
“All right,” I said with a sigh. “Send me a dozen healthy crewmen, for a start.”
Climbing to the quarterdeck, I went to the rail and waved at Jamie, who was standing by the Artemis’s wheel, looking upward. I could see his face clearly, despite the distance; it was worried, but relaxed into a broad smile when he saw me.
“Are ye comin’ down now?” he shouted, cupping his hands.
“Not yet!” I shouted back. “I need two hours!” Holding up two fingers to make my meaning clear in case he hadn’t heard, I stepped back from the rail, but not before I saw the smile fade from his face. He’d heard.
I saw the sick men removed to the afterdeck, and a crew of hands set to strip them of their filthy clothes, and hose and sponge them with seawater from the pumps. I was in the galley, instructing the cook and galley crew in food-handling precautions, when I felt the movement of the deck under my feet.
The cook to whom I was talking snaked out a hand and snapped shut the latch of the cupboard behind him. With the utmost dispatch, he grabbed a loose pot that leapt off its shelf, thrust a large ham on a spit into the lower cupboard, and whirled to clap a lid on the boiling pot hung over the galley fire.
I stared at him in astonishment. I had seen Murphy perform this same odd ballet, whenever the Artemis cast off or changed course abruptly.
“What—” I said, but then abandoned the question, and headed for the quarterdeck, as fast as I could go. We were under way; big and solid as the Porpoise was, I could feel the vibration that ran through the keel as she took the wind.
I burst onto the deck to find a cloud of sails overhead, set and drawing, and the Artemis falling rapidly behind us. Captain Leonard was standing by the helmsman, looking back to the Artemis, as the master bawled commands to the men overhead.
“What are you doing?” I shouted. “You bloody little bastard, what’s going on here?”
The Captain glanced at me, plainly embarrassed, but with his jaw set stubbornly.
“We must get to Jamaica with the utmost dispatch,” he said. His cheeks were chapped red with the rushing sea wind, or he might have blushed. “I am sorry, Mrs. Malcolm—indeed I regret the necessity, but—”
“But nothing!” I said, furious. “Put about! Heave to! Drop the bloody anchor! You can’t take me away like this!”
“I regret the necessity,” he said again, doggedly. “But I believe that we require your continuing services most urgently, Mrs. Malcolm. Don’t worry,” he said, striving for a reassurance that he didn’t achieve. He reached out as though to pat my shoulder, but then thought better of it. His hand dropped to his side.
“I have promised your husband that the navy will provide you accommodation in Jamaica until the Artemis arrives there.”
He flinched backward at the look on my face, evidently afraid that I might attack him—and not without reason.
“What do you mean you promised my husband?” I said, through gritted teeth. “Do you mean that J—that Mr. Malcolm permitted you to abduct me?”
“Er…no. No, he didn’t.” The Captain appeared to be finding the interview a strain. He dragged a filthy handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow and the back of his neck. “He was most intransigent, I’m afraid.”
“Intransigent, eh? Well, so am I!” I stamped my foot on the deck, aiming for his toes, and missing only because he leapt agilely backward. “If you expect me to help you, you bloody kidnapper, just bloody think again!”
The Captain tucked his handkerchief away and set his jaw. “Mrs. Malcolm. You compel me to tell you what I told your husband. The Artemis sails under a French flag, and with French papers, but more than half her crew are Englishmen or Scots. I could have pressed these men to service here—and I badly need them. Instead, I have agreed to leave them unmolested, in return for the gift of your medical knowledge.”
“So you’ve decided to press me instead. And my husband agreed to this…this bargain?”
“No, he didn’t,” the young man said, rather dryly. “The captain of the Artemis, however, perceived the force of my argument.” He blinked down at me, his eyes swollen from days without sleep, the too-big jacket flapping around his slender torso. Despite his youth and his slovenly appearance, he had considerable dignity.
“I must beg your pardon for what must seem the height of ungentlemanly behavior, Mrs. Malcolm—but the truth is that I am desperate,” he said simply. “You may be our only chance. I must take it.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but then closed it. Despite my fury—and my profound unease about what Jamie was going to say when I saw him again—I felt some sympathy for his position. It was quite true that he stood in danger of losing most of his crew, without help. Even with my help, we would lose some—but that wasn’t a prospect I cared to dwell on.
“All right,” I said, through my teeth. “All…right!” I looked out over the rail, at the dwindling sails of the Artemis. I wasn’t prone to seasickness, but I felt a distinct hollowing in the pit of my stomach as the ship—and Jamie—fell far behind. “I wouldn’t appear to have a lot of choice in the matter. If you can spare as many men as possible to scrub down the tween-decks—oh, and have you any alcohol on board?”
He looked mildly surprised. “Alcohol? Well, there is the rum for the hands’ grog, and possibly some wine from the gun room locker. Will that do?”
“If that’s what you have, it will have to do.” I tried to push aside my own emotions, long enough to deal with the situation. “I suppose I must speak to the purser, then.”
“Yes, of course. Come with me.” Leonard started toward the companion-way that led belowdecks, then, flushing, stood back and gestured awkwardly to let me go first—lest my descent expose my lower limbs indelicately, I supposed. Biting my lip with a mixture of anger and amusement, I went.
I had just reached the bottom of the ladder when I heard a confusion of voices above.
“No, I tell ’ee, the captain’s not to be disturbed! Whatever you have to say will—”
“Leave go! I tell you, if you don’t let me speak to him now, it will be too late!”
And then Leonard’s voice, suddenly sharp as he turned to the interlopers. “Stevens? What is this? What’s the matter?”
“No matter, sir,” said the first voice, suddenly obsequious. “Only that Tompkins here is sure as he knows the cove what was on that ship—the big ’un, with the red hair. He says—”
“I haven’t time,” the captain said shortly. “Tell the mate, Tompkins, and I shall attend to it later.”
I was, naturally, halfway back up the ladder by the time these words were spoken, and listening for all I was worth.
The hatchway darkened as Leonard began the backward descent down the ladder. The young man glanced at me sharply, but I kept my face carefully blank, saying only, “Have you many food stores left, Captain? The sick men will need to be fed very carefully. I don’t suppose there would be any milk saboard, but—”
“Oh, there’s milk,” he said, suddenly more cheerful. “We have six milch goats, in fact. The gunner’s wife, Mrs. Johansen, does quite wonderfully with them. I’ll send her to talk with you, after we’ve seen the purser.”
Captain Leonard introduced me briefly to Mr. Overholt, the purser, and then left, with the injunction that I should be afforded every possible service. Mr. Overholt, a small, plump man with a bald and shining head, peered at me out of the deep collar of his coat like an undersized Humpty-Dumpty, murmuring unhappily about the scarcity of everything near the end of a cruise, and how unfortunate everything was, but I scarcely attended to him. I was much too agitated, thinking of what I had overheard.
Who was this Tompkins? The voice was entirely unfamiliar, and I was sure I had never heard the name before. More important, what did he know about Jamie? And what was Captain Leonard likely to do with the information? As it was, there was nothing I could do now, save contain my impatience, and with the half of my mind not busy with fruitless speculation, work out with Mr. Overholt what supplies were available for use in sickroom feeding.
Not a great deal, as it turned out.
“No, they certainly can’t eat salt beef,” I said firmly. “Nor yet hardtack, though if we soak the biscuit in boiled milk, perhaps we can manage that as they begin to recover. If you knock the weevils out first,” I added, as an afterthought.
“Fish,” Mr. Overholt suggested, in a hopeless sort of way. “We often encounter substantial schools of mackerel or even bonita, as we approach the Caribbean. Sometimes the crew will have luck with baited lines.”
“Maybe that would do,” I said, absently. “Boiled milk and water will be enough in the early stages, but as the men begin to recover, they should have something light and nourishing—soup, for instance. I suppose we could make a fish soup? Unless you have something else that might be suitable?”
“Well…” Mr. Overholt looked profoundly uneasy. “There is a small quantity of dried figs, ten pound of sugar, some coffee, a quantity of Naples biscuit, and a large cask of Madeira wine, but of course we cannot use that.”
“Why not?” I stared at him, and he shuffled his feet uneasily.
“Why, those supplies are intended for the use of our passenger,” he said.
“What sort of passenger?” I asked blankly.
Mr. Overholt looked surprised. “The Captain did not tell you? We are carrying the new governor for the island of Jamaica. That is the cause—well, one cause”—he corrected himself, dabbing nervously at his bald head with a handkerchief—“of our haste.”
“If he’s not sick, the Governor can eat salt beef,” I said firmly. “Be good for him, I shouldn’t wonder. Now, if you’ll have the wine taken to the galley, I’ve work to do.”
* * *
Aided by one of the remaining midshipmen, a short, stocky youth named Pound, I made a rapid tour of the ship, ruthlessly dragooning supplies and hands. Pound, trotting beside me like a small, ferocious bulldog, firmly informed surprised and resentful cooks, carpenters, sweepers, swabbers, sailmakers, and holdsmen that all my wishes—no matter how unreasonable—must be gratified instantly, by the captain’s orders.
Quarantine was the most important thing. As soon as the tween-decks had been scrubbed and aired, the patients would have to be carried down again, but the hammocks restrung with plenty of space between—the unaffected crew would have to sleep on deck—and provided with adequate toilet facilities. I had seen a pair of large kettles in the galley that I thought might do. I made a quick note on the mental list I was keeping, and hoped the chief cook was not as possessive of his receptacles as Murphy was.
I followed Pound’s round head, covered with close-clipped brown curls, down toward the hold in search of worn sails that might be used for cloths. Only half my mind was on my list; with the other half, I was contemplating the possible source of the typhoid outbreak. Caused by a bacillus of the Salmonella genus, it was normally spread by ingestion of the bacillus, carried on hands contaminated by urine or feces.
Given the sanitary habits of seamen, any one of the crew could be the carrier of the disease. The most likely culprit was one of the food handlers, though, given the widespread and sudden nature of the outbreak—the cook or one of his two mates, or possibly one of the stewards. I would have to find out how many of these there were, which messes they served, and whether anyone had changed duties four weeks ago—no, five, I corrected myself. The outbreak had begun four weeks ago, but there was an incubation period for the disease to be considered, too.
“Mr. Pound,” I called, and a round face peered up at me from the foot of the ladder.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Mr. Pound—what’s your first name, by the way?” I asked.
“Elias, ma’am,” he said, looking mildly bewildered.
“Do you mind if I call you so?” I dropped off the foot of the ladder and smiled at him. He smiled hesitantly back.
“Er…no, ma’am. The Captain might mind, though,” he added cautiously. “’Tisn’t really naval, you know.”
Elias Pound couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen; I doubted that Captain Leonard was more than five or six years older. Still, protocol was protocol.
“I’ll be very naval in public,” I assured him, suppressing a smile. “But if you’re going to work with me, it will be easier to call you by name.” I knew, as he didn’t, what lay ahead—hours and days and possibly weeks of labor and exhaustion, when the senses would blur, and only bodily habit and blind instinct—and the leadership of a tireless chief—would keep those caring for the sick on their feet.
I was far from tireless, but the illusion would have to be kept up. This could be done with the help of two or three others, whom I could train; substitutes for my own hands and eyes, who could carry on when I must rest. Fate—and Captain Leonard—had designated Elias Pound as my new right hand; best to be on comfortable terms with him at once.
“How long have you been at sea, Elias?” I asked, stopping to peer after him as he ducked under a low platform that held enormous loops of a huge, evil-smelling chain, each link more than twice the size of my fist. The anchor chain? I wondered, touching it curiously. It looked strong enough to moor the Queen Elizabeth, which seemed a comforting thought.
“Since I was seven, ma’am,” he said, working his way out backward, dragging a large chest. He stood up puffing slightly from the exertion, and wiped his round, ingenuous face. “My uncle’s commander in Triton, so he was able to get me a berth in her. I come to join the Porpoise just this voyage, though, out of Edinburgh.” He flipped open the chest, revealing an assortment of rust-smeared surgical implements—at least I hoped it was rust—and a jumbled collection of stoppered bottles and jugs. One of the jars had cracked, and a fine white dust like plaster of Paris lay over everything in the chest.
“This is what Mr. Hunter, the surgeon, had with him, ma’am,” he said. “Will you have use for it?”
“God knows,” I said, peering into the chest. “But I’ll have a look. Have someone else fetch it up to the sickbay, though, Elias. I need you to come and speak firmly to the cook.”
* * *
As I oversaw the scrubbing of the tween-decks with boiling seawater, my mind was occupied with several distinct trains of thought.
First, I was mentally charting the necessary steps to take in combating the disease. Two men, far gone from dehydration and malaise, had died during the removal from the tween-decks, and now lay at the far end of the after-deck, where the sailmaker was industriously stitching them into their hammocks for burial, a pair of round shot sewn in at their feet. Four more weren’t going to make it through the night. The remaining forty-five had chances ranging from excellent to slim; with luck and skill, I might save most of them. But how many new cases were brewing, undetected, among the remaining crew?
Huge quantities of water were boiling in the galley at my order; hot seawater for cleansing, boiled fresh water for drinking. I made another tick on my mental list; I must see Mrs. Johansen, she of the milch goats, and arrange for the milk to be sterilized as well.
I must interview the galley hands about their duties; if a single source of infection could be found and isolated, it would do a lot to halt the spread of the disease. Tick.
All of the available alcohol on the ship was being gathered in the sickbay, to the profound horror of Mr. Overholt. It could be used in its present form, but it would be better to have purified alcohol. Could a means be found of distilling it? Check with the purser. Tick.
All the hammocks must be boiled and dried before the healthy hands slept in them. That would have to be done quickly, before the next watch went to its rest. Send Elias for a crew of swabbers and sweepers; laundry duty seemed most in their line. Tick.
Under the growing mental list of necessities were vague but continuing thoughts of the mysterious Tompkins and his unknown information. Whatever it was, it had not resulted in our changing course to return to the Artemis. Either Captain Leonard had not taken it seriously, or he was simply too eager to get to Jamaica to allow anything to hinder his progress.
I had paused for a moment by the rail, to organize my thoughts. I pushed back the hair from my forehead, and lifted my face to the cleansing wind, letting it blow away the stench of sickness. Puffs of ill-smelling steam rose from the nearby hatchway, from the hot-water cleansing going on below. It would be better down there when they had finished, but a long way from fresh air.
I looked out over the rail, hoping vainly for the glimpse of a sail, but the Porpoise was alone, the Artemis—and Jamie—left far behind.
I pushed away the sudden rush of loneliness and panic. I must speak soon with Captain Leonard. Answers to two, at least, of the problems that concerned me lay with him; the possible source of the typhoid outbreak—and the role of the unknown Mr. Tompkins in Jamie’s affairs. But for the moment, there were more pressing matters.
“Elias!” I called, knowing he would be somewhere within reach of my voice. “Take me to Mrs. Johansen and the goats, please.”