Read The Surgeon's Mate for Free Online Page B

support of his colleague, at least was necessary: but it seemed to carry no conviction at all, perhaps because the surgeon of the Benbow was nearly always drunk, and when sober, notoriously unskilful. The footman looked affectionately at Dr Maturin and said, 'And I hope Captain Aubrey is well, sir? I heard he come ashore off of Shannon as pleased as the Pope and twice as tall.'
    'Prime, Bullock, prime. I shall be seeing him at the hospital directly.'
    'My duty and very best respects, sir, if you please. John Bullock, forecastle-man, in the old Surprise.'
    As prisoners of war in Boston, Aubrey and Maturin had been very kindly treated by their captors; they were penniless, they had no cold-weather clothes, and the officers of the USN Constitution had seen to all their needs. Neither intended to be behindhand in an action of this sort, and as he expected, Stephen found Jack with a wounded American lieutenant.
    'Do you remember a man called Bullock, in the Surprise}' he said, as they walked away.
    'Yes, I do,' said Jack. 'Forecastle-man, and a very good hand.'
    'He sends his old captain his best respects.'
    'Why, that's kind,' said Jack. 'John Bullock: he laid a gun as true as you could wish - dead on the mark, though rather slow. He was captain of the starboard bow-chaser. But I tell you what, Stephen: old captain is dead on the mark too. What with funerals and the blue devils and natural decrepitude, I feel like Methusalem's grandad.'
    'You eat too much, brother, you drink too much, and you allow yourself to brood. A brisk ten-mile walk in the damp but interesting forests of the New World, outpacing the blue devils, will set you up - will renew your animal spirits. Ponce de Leon was of the opinion that the Fountain of Youth was to be found in these parts. And you are to consider, that a packet may arrive from England at any minute.'
    'I dare say you are right about the Fountain of Youth, Stephen, but you are out as far as the packet is concerned. None sails before the thirteenth, and with these everlasting westerlies, we cannot hear for a great while yet. And anyhow, I could not take a walk today, even if there were a dozen Fountains of Youth and a tap-room too at the end of it. I have a damned unpleasant job at the prison, trying to identify the English deserters taken in the Chesapeake: they nearly all of them ran from our men-of-war. But before that I am going to see their master's mate, the one that was not knocked on the head. Shall you come?'
    'No, Sir. The combatant officers are your natural province, the non-combatant mine. My particular concern today is their surgeon, an unusually learned man.'
    The unusually learned man was sitting with a mug of spruce-beer in the empty operating-room, looking careworn, sad and weary, but resolute. He accepted Stephen's offering gracefully, and they talked about some of their cases for a while, taking alternative sips at the mug. When the spruce-beer - 'a dubious anti-scorbutic, sir, but a grateful beverage on such a day, and no doubt mildly carminative' - was done, Stephen said, 'I believe you told me, sir, that before you took to the sea, your practice lay chiefly among the ladies of Charleston?'
    'Yes, sir. I was a man-midwife; or, if you prefer it, an accoucheur.'
    'Just so. Your experience in these matters is therefore very much greater than mine, and I should be grateful for your lights. Apart from the obvious classical symptoms, what do you find to be the earliest signs of pregnancy?'
    The surgeon pursed his lips and considered. 'Well, now,' he said, 'there is nothing wholly reliable, of course. But I believe the general facies rarely deceives me - the thickening of the skin; the pasty complexion in the very first stages, rapidly clearing; the cerous appearance of the eyelid and orbicular folds; the pallor of the caruncula lachrymalia; while the old wives' method of inspecting the nails and hair is not to be despised. And where the physician is familiar with his patient's