Hostile Shores

“I see,” Lewrie said, crestfallen. “He’s dyin’, d’ye mean. I’d hoped…”

Lewrie got to his feet and went to the starboard quarter gallery and brought Toulon back from his solitary roost. He sat him down on the desk between them, and stroked him to calmness as Toulon curled up into a pot roast; paws tucked under his chest and his tail round his hind legs. Toulon had not seen Mainwaring that much but for rare supper invitations with other officers, but he made no move to curry attention, nor did he shrink away as a “scaredy-cat” might. He just sat and blinked, eyes half-slit.

Mainwaring took a deep, pleasing sip of his cool tea, smiled in delight, then leaned forward to touch Toulon, giving him a closer examination. At last, he leaned back into his chair.

“Renal failure, of a certainty, Captain,” Mr. Mainwaring said. “The dullness of the eyes, the lack of body fat, and perhaps of some of his musculature? When one is starved, for whatever reason, fat is the first to go, before the body begins to use up the last source of nourishment, which are the muscles. Note that when I lifted a pinch of his skin, that it did not fall back into place at once, but stayed erect before slowing receding? No matter how much water it drinks, it is of no avail, for the kidneys no longer function.”

“If there was some way to force water into him…?” Lewrie asked with a fretful frown, stroking Toulon with one hand.

“Perhaps with a clyster up its rectum, sir,” Mr. Mainwaring speculated with his large head laid over to one side, “directly into the small intestines, where the water would be absorbed more quickly, but … that would only delay the matter, sorry to say.”

“Perhaps if he’s only ru

“I am certain that it is, sir,” Mainwaring countered, “but, do cats or dogs have the same temperature as people? I could listen to his heart rate, but what is the normal pulse of a cat? How often to the minute is its rate of respiration? I am sure that there are game-keepers who know something of dogs, horse copers and grooms who know how to fleam a sick horse, what feed to provide, or aid the birth of a colt … or calf, or lamb, or whatever, but … it’s all beyond my experience, sir.”

“Is renal failure, and the wasting away, painful, d’ye think?” Lewrie asked, despairing. “He’s been a fine old cat, and I’d not let him suffer.”

“It could be,” Mr. Mainwaring said with an uncertain shrug. “Or, it could be that it will fall into a deep torpor and just pass away. I do recall barn cats in my childhood that limped off or just went off on their own, and the next we saw them, they’d died of old age or some disease. Perhaps you should just let him expire, on his own.”

“Or, find some way to help him along, painlessly, and without terrorising him,” Lewrie wished aloud. “I can’t put a pistol to his head. The crack of the priming’d frighten him.”

“Well, there’s smothering, or a quick wring of its neck, as one does fowl, or, tied up in a bread bag and dropped over—”

“All of which are violent, Mister Mainwaring,” Lewrie snapped. “Sudden, violent, and frightening. From the time he took hold of my coat sleeve and clambered up to my shoulder, Toulon’s known nothing but fun, play, affection, and trust, and to put him down as you suggest would be … he would die in fear, feeling betrayed. No! There must be another way.”

“Well, sir…,” Mainwaring said with a shrug.

“Sorry, Mister Mainwaring, but … I know I must seem overly sentimental,” Lewrie went on in a softer voice. “Toulon’s just a poor cat, after all, but he and Chalky yonder are great comforts, and companions. They’re all the … friends I may allow myself from out of the whole ship’s company. Losing one, or both, is a wrench. I must think that the crew would feel the same if Bisquit died.”

“I shall look into the matter, sir, and get back to you should I find a painless solution,” the Surgeon promised. “Thank you for the cool tea, Captain. It really is remarkably refreshing.”

“Carry on, Mister Mainwaring,” Lewrie said in dismissal as the Ship’s Surgeon departed. Once Mainwaring was gone, Toulon got to his feet and slowly padded over to the edge of the desk to Lewrie’s thigh and rested in his lap, to be gently stroked and petted. He stayed only a minute or two, then cautiously hopped down to the deck and went to his water bowl under the wash-hand stand for a lap or two, then he slowly stalked off for the starboard quarter gallery once more to take up his post atop the wooden crates and sea-chests.

Whatever shall I do with ye, poor thing? Lewrie mourned.

*   *   *

“Perhaps it would be best, sir, did we stand on on this tack at least ’til Noon, and make more Southing before we come about East-Nor’east,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Caldwell, advised as he, Lewrie, and the First Officer, Mr. Westcott, convened in Lewrie’s chart space. “Do we close the shore, making a long board, we should fetch the coast below San Salvador, and enter port with the Sou’east Trades large upon our starboard quarters.”

“Which would beat fetching North of the port all hollow, aye,” Lewrie agreed. “We’d end up short-tacking off-and-on most of the day, else, just t’get level with the bloody place.”

“Sou’-Sou’west it will be, then, all through today and tonight, and ’til Noon Sights tomorrow,” Lt. Westcott said with a pleased nod. “Lieutenant Spendlove and I will be standing the Evening and Middle Watches, and thought to let the Mids of the watches have more responsibility … without any radical alterations of course, or the need to pipe ‘All Hands’. Loaf aft by the flag lockers? Let them run the ship on their own?”

“Just so long as the weather allows,” Lewrie cautioned. “Might you wish to borrow my pe

“Don’t know about Spendlove, but I could do some sketchings,” Westcott said with a small laugh.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Lewrie told Westcott. “Do so. And I, on my part, will stay below as much as possible, t’give ’em a sense that they’re really ru

“Very good, sir,” Westcott said with a brief, savage grin.

Lewrie lingered in the small chart space after the others had left the great-cabins, puzzling over his copy of the chart of San Salvador which he’d purchased at Funchal, noting how far out one would have to anchor off most of the African shore in the Gulf of Guinea. He had seen woodcuts and paintings of the work of slavers who came for “Black Ivory”; but for the trading forts and barracoons which held the captive Africans established at the mouths of the great rivers, most of those infamous ships, even the middling-sized ones, anchored far out, and sent their boats in several miles. The local Africans had low-sided canoes for fishing, which barely drew a foot of water. Low tide produced beaches and flats nigh a half-mile deep, and one could wade another whole mile before the sea got up to one’s thighs! When the weather got up, the rollers and breakers were tremendous, flooding inward over those wide, shallow shoals.

San Salvador was on a minor river, its bay barely large enough to anchor the hundred-or-so ships under Popham’s command. Why would he choose the place to get firewood and water? Lewrie speculated; he would have avoided San Salvador like the plague!

Leaving the chart space, Lewrie headed aft towards his sleeping space, a wide-enough-for-two hanging bed-cot slung from the over-head deck beams. The bed-cot was a wooden box with stout heavy-weather canvas bottom and lining, a rigid hammock with a thin mattress of cotton batt. It looked very inviting, for the oppressive heat of the sun as they closed upon the Equator created a torpor that Lewrie could gladly sleep right through. Before throwing a leg over the edge and rolling in, though, he went aft to the starboard quarter gallery once more to check on Toulon.