Hostile Shores

A day or two more and they would cross the Equator, where the Bosun, Mr. Sprague, and his mates and some of the other older, saltier hands would hold court. They were already cackling among themselves and rubbing their hoary palms in glee.

It was then that Pettus, over breakfast, pointed out to Lewrie that Toulon was not acting his normal self.

“Toulon? What’s wrong with him?” Lewrie asked. His older cat had been all laps and affection the last week. He looked to the foot of his dining table, where Toulon and Chalky sat by their food bowls.

“He doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite, sir. At first, I took no notice, but now?” Pettus said, pointing down-table.

Yeovill had whipped up the last of the eggs purchased at Funchal in an omelet, a third of it laced with dried sausage bits and shreds of bacon just for the cats. Chalky was nibbling away at his bowl, but Toulon was just hunkered down over his, paying no heed to the welcoming aromas, and just staring off into the middle distance, eyes half-slit as if he was napping. And, when Chalky had polished off his own bowl and nudged Toulon aside to wolf down his as well, Toulon paid no heed. He had never been the assertive cat, but allowing himself to be robbed?

Lewrie left his plate, and his chair, to go to the other end of the table and stroke Toulon. “What’s wrong, littl’un? What’s put you off your victuals? Are ye feelin’ ill?”

Toulon looked up at him, made a meek little Mrr, and licked at Lewrie’s hand. Lewrie pulled out the chair at that end of the table and sat down to gather Toulon into his arms, where the cat went willingly, starting to purr.

“My Lord, he’s light as a feather!” Lewrie exclaimed. “Ye can feel his ribs, and his backbone. Here, Toulon, have a wee bite or two. Come on, now.” Lewrie dug into the food bowl for a tiny morsel of sausage and put it under Toulon’s nose, but he would have none of it.

Jessop had come to the end of the table to watch.

“’E’s been pissin’ a lot, too, sir,” Jessop informed him, “an’ ’ardly ever in their sand box. Seems all ’e warnts t’do is sleep, an’ drink water. Won’t play like ’e usedta.”

“Whenever you’re on deck, sir, he’s most likely to be found in the starboard quarter gallery,” Pettus contributed, “napping atop the crates and chests, so he’s level, with the windows. I thought that he was just watching sea birds.”

Lewrie cradled Toulon, stroking his cheeks and chops with one finger, and Toulon tilted his head to look up and meet Lewrie eye-to-eye, slowly and solemnly blinking. He might be softly purring, but his tail tip did not move.

Lewrie sat him back on the table right over his food bowl, now all but empty after Chalky’s raid, got to his feet, and went for the door to the ship’s waist. Coatless and bareheaded, he mounted to the quarterdeck. Lt. Spendlove, the officer of the watch, began to move leeward to cede the weather rails to his captain, but Lewrie stopped him with a question. “Have you seen the Surgeon, Mister Spendlove?”

“At breakfast, sir,” Spendlove replied, knuckling the brim of his hat in salute. “I believe he is forrud, holding the morning sick call. Shall I pass word for him, sir?”

“No, I’ll go forrud,” Lewrie told him, and went back to the deck to make his way to the forecastle. Bisquit the ship’s dog darted out of his cobbled-together shelter under the starboard ladderway and came bouncing to join him, prancing for attention, Lewrie took time to give Bisquit some pets and “wubbies” before reaching the forecastle.

HMS Reliant was a modern ship. Her sick-bay was not below in the foetid miasmas of the orlop, but right forward, where the warmth from the galley fires could keep patients comfortable in cold weather, and still provide fresher air during their recovery. In battle, surgeries and the treatment of wounded men would still take place on the orlop, in the Midshipmen’s cockpit, but after as many wounded as could be accommodated under the forecastle would be moved there.

“Good morning, Mister Mainwaring,” Lewrie began.

“Ah, good morning, Captain,” Mr. Mainwaring cheerfully replied. He was a burly, dark-haired, and swarthy-complexioned man, with hands and fingers more suited to a blacksmith or butcher, but he had turned out to be a skilled and able surgeon for all that.

“How are things this morning?” Lewrie asked.

“Tolerable, sir,” Mainwaring told him, “I’ve one bad tooth that needs pulling, some saltwater boils to lance, and more men with sunburn. Collins, yonder, I’ve put on light duties for three days, after he pulled some muscles at pulley-hauley.”

“Fetchin’ up fresh water casks, was it, Collins?” Lewrie asked.

“Aye, sir, it was,” the young fellow shyly admitted, gri

“Enjoy it while you can, Collins,” Lewrie said, then turned to the Ship’s Surgeon. “When you’re done here, Mister Mainwaring, I’d admire did you attend me in my cabins.”

“Shouldn’t be more than an hour, sir, then I am at your complete disposal,” Mainwaring agreed, turning back to the bare buttocks of one sailor bent over a rough wood table, waiting for the jab of a lancet.

“Wonder if t’ Cap’um’s askin’ f’r t’ Mercury Cure,” one sailor whispered in jest once Lewrie was gone. “Mad as ’e is over quim, it’s a wonder ’e ain’t been Poxed yet. Has the lucky cess, ’e does.”

“Now, we’ll have none of that, Harper,” Mr. Mainwaring chid him. “There’s your boils to be seen to, next, hmm?”

“It’d be Mister Westcott, more in need than Cap’um Lewrie,” one of the others snickered.

“Now, now,” Mainwaring cautioned again, trying to appear stern; though his mouth did curl up in the corners in secret amusement.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Ship’s Surgeon, Mister Mainwaring, SAH!” the Marine sentry at Lewrie’s doors cried, stamping his boots and musket butt on the deck.

“Enter,” Lewrie called back. “All went well, sir?” he asked as Mainwaring stepped inside and approached the desk in the day-cabin.

“Quite well, sir,” the Surgeon replied. “What may I do for you, Captain Lewrie? Some malady that ails you?”

“It is a rather odd request, but I wonder if you might be able to use your general knowledge of anatomy to aid me.”

“Indeed, sir?” Mainwaring said, a bit perplexed.

“A glass of wine, sir?” Lewrie said, pointing to a chair before his desk in invitation.

“Ehm … I’ve been told by the others in our mess that your cool tea is quite refreshing, Captain,” Mainwaring said with a hopeful grin. “I would prefer to sample that, have you any brewed.”

“Always,” Lewrie said with his own grin. “Pettus, a glass of tea for the both of us.” Once the Surgeon was seated, Lewrie went on. “It is not my health that is in question, Mister Mainwaring. It’s my cat.”

Mainwaring pulled a dubious face, mugging in surprise. He had been a Navy Surgeon long enough to know that most ship’s captains were possessed of some eccentricities, and some of them daft as bats.

“Bless me, Captain … your cat, did you say?” Mainwaring said. “I fear that I know next to nothing of dogs or cats. I doubt if anyone does, really. What symptoms does it present?”

Lewrie laid out the moroseness, the sudden lack of appetite and the sudden weight loss, the incontinence, and thirst. Mainwaring sat and hmmed, nodding sagely here and there.

“And how old is it, sir?” Mainwaring at last enquired.

“Over eleven,” Lewrie told him. “I got him as a kitten in the Fall of ’94, just as we were evacuating Toulon during the First Coalition. That’s how he got his name. That, and him, were calamities.”

“Well, off-hand, I’d say that it is suffering renal failure,” Mainwaring supposed, “a malady which comes to man and beast in their dotage. The kidneys stop working, for one reason or another, and the sufferer wastes away, becoming enfeebled. There’s little that I may do for it, sir … little that even a skilled, university-trained physician may do for a man in such a situation.”