Voyage of Midnight (14 page)

Even with all the sloshing and creaking of the
Formidable
, my voice sounded dreadfully loud. I reached out to shake him but pulled my hand back, suddenly terrified of what I might find.

I rose from my chair so quickly it clattered to the floor. I fetched the unlighted lantern from its peg and groped for the door latch.

Please, God; please, God!

Finally I stumbled into the darkened passageway, up the hatchway, and out onto the upper deck. The breeze ruffled my sweat-soaked hair. Stars sprinkled the night sky like sugar dust.

McGuire was standing next to the helmsman.

“Higgins!” he cried. That was what he fancied calling me. “Is there a problem?”

“My—my lantern’s out,” I said, trying not to sound panicked and out of breath. “Just need a candle or two to tide me over till morning.”

McGuire grunted, disappeared for a while, then reappeared with two candles. “You owe me.”

“Aye. And may I trouble you for a match?”

Lantern finally lighted and McGuire thanked, I went below.

It was as I’d suspected.

Jonas Drinkwater, surgeon for seven years aboard the
Formidable
, was dead.

Clouds dashed across a sky of powder blue.

The canvas-wrapped body lay on a grating that was balanced on the bulwarks, held in place by several men.

We clustered about Uncle. Dressed in his finest black suit, with a tall beaver hat, he cleared his throat. “If anyone has anything to say, now’s the time.”

At first no one spoke. A hen cackled from the chicken coop. Hemp groaned, stretched tight. Feet scuffed as men shifted their positions.

Then: “Drinkwater was a fair surgeon, he was.”

“Leastways knew how to dull your senses before he—well, you know.…”

“He didn’t leave behind no family.”

“That’s good. I guess.”

“I suppose we were his family.”

Someone slapped an insect on his cheek. Someone else coughed.

“He made a good Father Neptune. Best I ever saw.”

“Drinkwater was always free with his tobacco.”

“He liked his liquor, though. Wasn’t so free with that.”

“Always knew he’d die at sea.”

“The sea keeps her own.”

“Aye.”

“The devil won’t be hard on the poor fellow.”

After the comments trickled away, like sand through fingers, Uncle cleared his throat again, opened his Book of Common Prayer, and began reading. The pages ruffled in the breeze. Uncle’s gold teeth glinted in the sunlight. On and on he read, stumbling over a few passages here and there: “… We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her dead,) and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. Amen.”

The crew echoed, “Amen,” at which time the grating was tilted. The body slid off the grating with a whoosh of fabric and a deep-throated splash into the sea. As one, the crew replaced their caps and began to disperse.

I peered over the side. Swirls of bubbles rose from the sinking form. Large, dark shapes darted toward the disturbance. Weighted with cannonballs, the body quickly sank out of sight.

“I hardly think I’m competent to fill a surgeon’s berth,” I told Uncle later, in his cabin.

“Stuff and nonsense!” said my uncle. “You’re not called upon to be a court physician. Brimstone and molasses, calomel and jalap, and salt water in buckets were Drinkwater’s whole materia medica, and I think you can take a hand at them as well as he.” He thumped me on the back, offered me a goblet of palm wine, and that was that.

So it was that I, Philip Arthur Higgins—small for his age and without a whisker to his name—became surgeon aboard the
Formidable
.

Responsible for the well-being of more than four hundred souls.

I ordered the infirmary scoured from top to bottom. Hot vinegar vapors to cleanse the air. Towels and bandages boiled in salt water. Every black beetle and rat smoked out and killed.

Next the hold. Since Jonas’ burial, owing to some nasty weather, the slaves had been confined below. I knelt beside the hatch and stuck my head down, holding my breath. One glance was all it took. Excrement, vomit, and the devil knows what else was everywhere—in the aisles, smeared on bodies—all of it crawling with vermin and fat rats. I was horrified to see the latrine buckets overflowing with waste. Though it was raining, I ordered all slaves brought on deck and every inch of the hold scoured as clean as a baby’s bottom.

“After this,” I told the bo’sun, trying not to quail before him like a workhouse orphan, “the latrine buckets must be kept emptied.”

“Begging your pardon,
Surgeon
Higgins,” said the bo’sun, thrusting his face into mine. Teags was a greasy sort of fellow with rotten teeth and an equally rotten temper. “But they fill ’em up faster than we can empty ’em.”

I backed away, my eyelid suddenly twitching, finding the deck boards quite interesting. “Uh—very well. Do your best, then.”

He snorted and walked away, murmuring, “ ‘Uh—very well. Do your best, then,’ ” in a mocking tone.

The bo’sun wasn’t the only one unhappy with my new authority. Plenty of grumbling and angry looks were cast my way, some saying I was no Son o’ Neptune; that Jonas Drinkwater, surgeon for seven years aboard the
Formidable
, had understood the way things were, and they didn’t need any boy to tell them how to do their jobs. Uncle just stood back with his half grin and let me fulfill my duties. I fell into bed each night, too tired
even to finish mumbling my prayers before I slipped into a troubled sleep, my door bolted and a ready supply of candles on hand.

Besides the miserable conditions and the various illnesses and ailments, there were the pregnant women. One day I mentioned to Uncle that one of the women was due to deliver and that I’d never delivered a baby, nor cared for a baby’s needs. He waved his hand as if dismissing the matter as trivial and said simply, “Do your best, Mr. Surgeon. And when she’s delivered, bring the baby to me.”

“To you?”

“Aye.”

“So you can care for it?”

Here Uncle flashed his gold teeth, as if I’d told a joke. “Aye, Nephew, I’ll take care of it.”

I returned to the infirmary, where I spent the rest of the day, relieved, at least, that the infant would be cared for. After treating my twelfth case of sore, reddened, swollen, gummy eyes in just two hours’ time, I buried my face in my hands and sobbed like a wretch. I longed for the kindly arms of Mrs. Gallagher; wished my own mother had never died; wished I’d a friend, a
real
friend—all the while filled with guilt because I wished I were anywhere but where I was at that moment, and that I’d never met Uncle.

That night, I awoke, my pillow drenched.
I’ve been crying
, I realized, only then remembering my dream—the workhouse, a beating upon the backs of my knees, cold, pasty porridge, my arm wrenched from my socket, Uncle saying,
Take care, Nephew, for I shall return someday
.

I arose, took the lantern from its peg, unbolted my door, and entered my uncle’s cabin.

He sat up in bed, blinking with sleep, his covers rustling. “Something the matter?”

“Did—did you ever send money to Master Crump, as you promised?”

He knitted his brow. “What the devil are you carrying on about? Do you know what hour it is?”

I almost withdrew, went back to my room, making some excuse, but instead asked again, in a quavery voice, “Did you ever send money to Master Crump, as you promised?”

Uncle groaned and lay back down, waving his hand in a sign of dismissal, saying, “It’s difficult to stay on top of family affairs when one is traveling about the world, battling storms and the like. You know how it is, Philip.”

“Then you sent no money for my welfare?”

“I suppose I sent something a time or two; it’s difficult to remember. Now that I think about it, I’m sure I did.”

For a while I said nothing, not knowing what to believe, what to say, how to feel. The
Formidable
groaned and heeled, and the floor beneath me tilted. A pen slid across the table and onto the floor.

“What, are you going to just stand there like a twit? Let a busy fellow get his rest.”

“But—but why didn’t you come for me?” My voice suddenly sounded like a child’s. “You said you’d return. You
promised.”

Uncle sat up. His blanket fell to the floor. “Bloody hell! Stop dribbling rubbish! Get out of my cabin and leave me be! You’re a man now, engaged in a respectable occupation, not some starving waif.” The dismay must’ve shown in my face, for he sighed and rubbed his forehead. He looked at me again and softened his voice. “Come, Nephew. Don’t think harshly of your old uncle. I’ve always wanted the best for you. Haven’t I? Haven’t I done right by you?”

He laughed then and rose from bed. Taking the light from me, he steered me back into my cabin, hanging my lantern and helping me back into bed as if I were a wee child. Tucking the edges of my blanket under my mattress, Uncle leaned over me. I could see his teeth glinting in the lantern light, the shadow of his whiskers; I could smell his stale tobacco breath. “Now get yourself some sleep. The world always looks different in the morning.” And he playfully punched my shoulder and left. I waited a moment before getting up and bolting the door.

When I finally drifted back to sleep, I dreamed Master Crump was beating me across my shoulders while I cowered in a corner, arms over my head, begging him to stop, stop, oh please, stop! Only this time, instead of camphor, Master Crump smelled of cigars.

It was the following afternoon. I’d decided to take a quick break from my duties in the infirmary, so I’d fetched a book and now emerged onto a steaming deck, where the sun had finally broken through the clouds, and where the slaves danced to the merry strains of Billy’s fiddle.

“Well, I’ll be,” remarked Mackerel. He nudged Roach and pointed at me. “It’s our respectable new
surgeon.”

I ignored Mackerel’s and Roach’s snickering, found an open space against the bulwarks, and opened my book.

“Well, would you look at that,” whispered Roach loudly, “he’s reading Shakespeare.
‘Oh, Romeo, Romeo, ahoy there, Romeo.’
” They burst into peals of piggish laughter, slapping each other on the back. I continued to ignore them.

“Hey, Roach.”

“Yes, Mackerel?”

“Better go empty those latrine buckets. Surgeon’s orders.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. Someone pissed in them.”

Again the backslapping, snorting hilarity.

Twenty minutes later eight bells sounded, and it was time for the change of watch and the afternoon mess. To my relief, Mackerel and Roach left for their duties.

I was beginning Act II of
King Lear
when someone shook my shoulder. It was Teags, the bo’sun, his cat-o’-nine-tails in hand. “Got a problem.”

“What is it?”

“Got a darkie that’s refusing to eat.”

I frowned. “Use the speculum orb, as you always do. It’s simple enough, isn’t it?”

Teags scratched his scalp, looking perplexed. “But, Mr. Higgins, you’re the surgeon. We have to watch you do it so we know how to do it right. A demonstration, so to speak. Otherwise we might bend a hair on their poor woolly heads.”

Again I heard snickers from all about. Mackerel and Roach stood nearby, grinning like pirates. Then there were Calvin, Harold, and Billy the Vermin. All looking at me. I searched for Uncle, but couldn’t see him. Surely this was a joke, a mean prank they meant to play on me. Pea Soup leaned against the longboat, absently picking his fingernails, watching me with interest. Just the sight of him, and knowing his mouth contained horrible, wicked teeth that had been filed to points, made my heart race and my insides tremble. This persistent fear on my part annoyed me. After all, I was the
master
. Master and surgeon.

I closed my book and looked right at Teags’ meaty, greasy face. “Right, then. Show me the fellow and I’ll see to it.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Pea Soup smile.

I followed Teags into the mass of slaves, everyone crowded so closely together about their various food tubs that I had to
plan each step. Teags hollered, “Out of the way!” snapping the cat-o’-nine-tails at those who weren’t fast enough for his liking.

“Here he is,” said Teags, pointing. “That one there. The skinny one with red eyes.”

I stopped short. Chained next to the skinny one with red eyes was Ikoro. He was bent over the food tub, shoveling rice and beans into his mouth with zest. His arms looked as if they could break me in half, and I didn’t relish getting within reach of him, no matter how well behaved he’d been lately.

Teags shoved me toward the two. “Show us how it’s done, Mr. Higgins.”

Something about the situation wasn’t quite right. Something was out of place, but I couldn’t figure out what. Just the white men milling about on the periphery, I supposed, joking among themselves, laughing, and watching me and waiting for their sport, whips coiled on their hips.