It was with a peculiar feeling of relief that all on board the sloop
passed out into the open and saw the dull green banks of the mangrove
forest fading away astern. For there had been a haunting feeling of
depression hanging over the vessel which seemed to affect the spirits of
officers and men.
"Hah!" said the doctor, coming up to where the two middies were gazing
over the stern rail, "that's a comfort, boys. I can breathe freely
now."
"Yes," said Murray; "the air seems so much fresher and makes one feel
more elastic, sir. Gives one more of an appetite."
"What!" said the doctor drily. "More of an appetite, eh? I never
noticed that you two wanted that. Gracious, how much do you want to
devour!"
"Oh, I say, doctor, I don't eat so much," said Murray, protesting.
"No, sir; it isn't _so_ much; it's too much."
"You're mixing us up, doctor," said the lad mischievously, and he gave
the professional gentleman a peculiarly meaning look. "You were
thinking of Roberts."
"Here, what's that?" said the middy sharply. "I'm sure I never eat more
than a fellow of my age and size should."
"Oh, I say, Dick," said Murray. "Hear him, doctor? Why, I've seen the
mess steward open his eyes sometimes with wonder."
"Tchah! He's always opening his eyes with wonder, staring at
everything. He's a regular idiot."
"Ah, well," said Murray, "I don't want to draw comparisons."
"Then don't do it," cried Roberts warmly.
"Don't be so peppery, my lad," said the doctor.
"Well, I don't want to be accused of gluttony or eating to excess."
"Pooh! Don't mind what he says," said the doctor good-humouredly. "I
hate excess, but it does me good to see growing boys make a hearty
meal."
"Frank Murray's too fond of bantering, doctor," said Roberts; and then,
involuntarily passing a finger tenderly over the spots where the
incipient bits of whisker had been singed off, "I don't quite look upon
myself as a growing boy."
"Oh, don't you?" said the doctor, rather gruffly. "I should have
thought you had not done putting on inches. There, never mind Murray's
chaff. By the way, why do you keep shaving yourself down the cheeks
with that finger? does the skin feel tender where you were so much
scorched?"
"Yes, doctor, a little," replied the youth innocently enough.
"H'm, yes, but that cream I gave you does good, doesn't it?"
"Oh yes, doctor."
"Nasty scorching you fellows all had. I quite expected to have some bad
patients--burns and spear wounds. Lucky escapes, all of you. That
Titely was the worst, but the way in which a good healthy sailor's flesh
heals up is wonderful. It's just like cutting into a piece of raw
native indiarubber before it has been fooled about and manufactured up
with brimstone--vulcanised, as they call it. You lads ought to bear it
in mind, in case you get a cut or a chop. All that's wanted is to see
that the wound is thoroughly clean and dry, and then squeeze the sides
up together and the flesh adheres after the fashion of a clean cut in
indiarubber. Ah, I like a good clean cut."
"What!" cried the lads together, as half laughingly they stared at the
speaker in surprise.
"Well, what are you both looking at? I don't mean that I personally
like cuts; but they're pleasant to get healed up--not like bullet wounds
or ragged holes through a fellow."
"No," said Murray; "not like holes."
"Not that I mind a clean bullet hole through the flesh so long as it
does not encounter a bone."
"Exactly, doctor; so long as it does not encounter a bone," said Murray
drily.
"That's where the trouble begins, sir," said the doctor, smacking his
lips and making the two middies exchange glances. "You see, you get a
complicated fracture of the bone with tiny fragments that refuse to show
where they are commencing irritation and that sort of thing."
"Yes, doctor," said Murray drily; "but aren't we getting into an
uncomfortable discussion?"
"No, sir, a most interesting one; but when I spoke it was not all about
injured bones or ordinary shot-holes or cuts; I was saying how glad I
was to be out of that river and mangrove swamp where your West Coast
fever haunts the low lands, and miasmatic emanations are always ready to
pounce upon people and set up tasks for the hardest-worked man in the
ship."
"To do what, doctor?" said Roberts.
"I thought I spoke very plainly, young gentleman; I said set up tasks
for the hardest-worked man in the ship."
"But that sounds as if you--that is to say--I--I--You don't mean
yourself, sir?" said Roberts, in a stammering, half-confused way.
"Not mean myself, sir?" said the doctor angrily. "Why, who else could I
mean?"
"That's what puzzled me, sir," said Roberts, staring. "Frank Murray and
I have always thought--"
"Here, I say," cried Murray, laughing and enjoying the verbal engagement
that had sprung up like a squall in the tropics, "don't you begin
dragging me into the discussion."
"Exactly! Certainly not," cried the doctor hotly. "If there is any
need for it I can tackle Master Murray afterwards. I am dealing with
you, sir. You gave me to understand that you did not consider I was the
most hard-worked man in the ship."
"Very well then," cried Roberts warmly, "if you will have it that way, I
don't."
"Oh! Indeed!" said the doctor angrily. "Then what about the last few
days, when I am suddenly brought face to face with a score of wounded
men, and with no one to help me but a surgeon's mate or dresser who is
as stupid as men are made?"
"Wounded, sir?" said Roberts.
"Yes, sir, wounded. Burned, if you like it better. Singed and
scorched. It all comes under the broad term of casualties, does it
not?"
"I suppose so, sir," said Roberts sulkily.
"Better tell me that my services were not called for, and that you could
all have done without me. I call what I have gone through hard work,
and tell you, sir, that it was a time of great anxiety."
"So it must have been, doctor," put in Murray, "and I feel very grateful
for the way you did away with my pain."
"There's a sneak!" cried Roberts angrily. "Who began to bully me for
dragging him into the discussion?"
"You are the sneak, sir," said the doctor, "for trying to dodge out of
the matter like this. Murray spoke out like a man."
"Boy," growled Roberts.
"Very well, sir; like a grateful boy, if that pleases you better. Like
one who appreciates my service and is not ready to turn up his nose at
what such fellows as you call `doctor's stuff,' just as if a medical man
or a surgeon thought of nothing but wasting the ship's stores upon those
who are glad enough to come to them when they are out of sorts, and most
often from their neglect of common sense precautions, or from over
indulgence in the good things of life."
"Precious lot of chances we get to indulge in the good things of life on
board ship!" said Roberts bitterly.
"Let me tell you, sir," said the doctor, shaking his finger at the
midshipman, "that there is nothing better for a growing lad than the
strict discipline and the enforced temperance and moderate living of
shipboard. Better for you, though, if you had not so much idleness."
"Idleness, sir!" cried the lad.
"Yes, sir. You want more work. Ah! You may sneer. Perhaps not quite
so much as I have to do, but more than you get. Yes, sir, when you know
better you will learn to see that the doctor's life is a very arduous
one."
"But you get lots of time, sir, for natural history and fishing and
shooting."
"Not `lots of time,' sir, as you term it, but some time certainly; and
what is that but work in the cause of science? And look here, Mr
Roberts, whenever I do get an opportunity for going ashore shooting or
botanising, or have a boat out for fishing or dredging, do I not
invariably enlist the services of you or Mr Murray?"
"Hear, hear!" cried the latter, in the most parliamentary way.
"Thank you, Mr Murray," said the doctor. "I shall not forget this."
"Don't you believe him, doctor," cried Roberts. "He doesn't mean it.
He's only currying favour."
"Nothing of the kind, sir," said the doctor sharply. "I flatter myself
that I understand Mr Murray better than you do, sir. I understand his
temperament quite as well as I do yours, sir, which is atrabilious."
"Eh?" exclaimed Roberts. "What's that, sir?"
"Black bilious, sir, if you really don't know. I have studied your
temperament, sir, and let me tell you that you would be doing very
wisely if you came to me this evening for a little treatment."
"But I've only just got out of your hands, sir," cried the midshipman,
in a voice full of protest.
"That was for the superficial trouble, sir, due to the scorching and
singeing. Now it is plain to me that what you went through in that
attack upon the blacks' town has stirred up the secretions of your
liver."
"Oh, doctor, that it hasn't!" cried the lad. "And I'm sure that I want
no physicking."
"I think I know best, sir. If you were in robust health there would be
none of that display of irritability of temper that you evince. You as
his messmate must have noticed this irritability, Mr Murray?"
"Constantly, sir," said that individual solemnly. "Oh you!" growled
Roberts fiercely. "Just you wait!"
"There!" cried the doctor triumphantly. "You are proving the truth of
my diagnosis, Mr Roberts. Come to me before night, and I will give you
what you require. There, you have given me ample reason for strongly
resenting your language, Mr Roberts, but now I fully realise the cause
I shall pass it over. You require my services, sir, and that is
enough."
"I don't require them, sir," cried the lad, boiling over with passion
now. "I was hurt a good deal over the expedition, but now that's
better; there's nothing whatever the matter with me; and you are taking
advantage of your position and are about to force me to swallow a lot of
your horrid stuff. I won't, though; see if I do!"
"You see, Mr Murray," said the doctor, smiling in a way which irritated
one of his hearers almost beyond bearing, "he is proving all I have said
to the full. There, be calm, Roberts, my dear boy; we have left the
horrible river and coast behind, and a few days out upon the broad ocean
will with my help soon clear away the unpleasant symptoms from which you
have been suffering, and--"
"Not interfering, am I, doctor?" said a voice which made the two lads
start round.
"Not in the least, Anderson; not in the least. Mr Roberts here is a
trifle the worse for our run up that muddy river, but I shall soon put
that right with our trip through the healthier portions of our globe."
"Through the healthier portions of the globe, doctor!" said the chief
officer. "Why, what do you mean?"
"Mean? Only that the West Coast of Africa is about as horrible a
station as unhappy man could be placed in by the powers that be, while
now we are going where--"
"Why, doctor, you don't mean to say that you do not understand where we
are going?"
"I mean to say I do know, sir--away from the swampy exhalations and
black fevers of the horrible district where we have been cruising, and
out upon the high seas."
"Yes, to cross them, doctor," said the lieutenant drily. "We are going
to leave the black fevers behind, but in all probability to encounter
the yellow."
"What!" cried the doctor. "I did not understand--"
"What the captain said? Well, I did, sir. The skipper has only just
now been vowing to me that he will never rest until he has run down that
slaver."
"Ah! Yes, I understand that," said the doctor. "Then that means--?"
"A long stern chase through the West Indian Islands, and perhaps in and
out and along the coasts of the Southern American States--wherever, in
fact, the plantations are worked by slaves whose supplies are kept up by
traders such as the scoundrel who cheated us into a run up that river
where his schooner was lying. Why, doctor, it seems to me that we are
only going out of the frying-pan into the fire."
"Dear me, yes," said the doctor. "You are quite right. Then under
these circumstances, Mr Roberts," he continued, turning sharply round
upon the midshipman, "the sooner you commence your treatment the
better."
"But really, sir," began Roberts, who looked so taken aback that his
messmate had hard work to contain himself and master the outburst of
laughter that was ready to explode.
"Don't argue, Mr Roberts," said the doctor importantly. "I do not know
how you find him in your dealings, Anderson," he continued, "but as a
patient I must say that of all the argumentative, self-willed young men
I ever encountered Mr Roberts carries off the palm."
"Yes, he has a will of his own, my dear doctor," said the lieutenant,
giving the middy a meaning glance, "but you must take him in hand. I
prescribe my way; when you take him in hand next you must prescribe
yours."
"I intend so doing," said the doctor, and he walked aft with the chief
officer.
This was Frank Murray's opportunity, and hurrying to the side, he leaned
his arms upon the bulwarks and laughed till his sides ached before his
companion fully realised the fact, his attention having been taken up by
the pair who were going towards where the captain was slowly pacing the
deck with his hands behind him.
"Oh, grinning at it all, are you?" said Roberts now. "It's very funny,
isn't it! An abominable, pragmatical, self-satisfied ass, that's what
he is; and are we almost grown-up men to be handed over to be treated
just as he pleases? No; I'll resign the service first. Yes, laugh
away, my fine fellow! You see if I don't pay you out for this! Oh, go
it! But you see if I take any of his beastly old stuff!"