Medical Life in the Navy

Chapter Eleven.

An Unlucky Ship. The Days when we went Gipsying. Inambane. Quilp the pilot and Lamoo

It might have been that our vessel was launched on a Friday, or sailed on a Friday; or whether it was owing to our carrying the devil on board of us in shape of a big jet-black cat, and for whom the lifebuoy was thrice let go, and boats lowered in order to save his infernal majesty from a watery grave; but whatever was the reason, she was certainly a most unlucky ship from first to last; for during a cruise of eighteen months, four times did we run aground on dangerous reefs, twice were we on fire – once having had to scuttle the decks – once we sprung a bad leak and were nearly foundering, several times we narrowly escaped the same speedy termination to our cruise by being taken aback, while, compared to our smaller dangers or lesser perils, Saint Paul’s adventures – as a Yankee would express it – wern’t a circumstance.

On the other hand, we were amply repaid by the many beautiful spots we visited; the lovely wooded creeks where the slave-dhows played at hide and seek with us, and the natural harbours, at times surrounded by scenery so sweetly beautiful and so charmingly solitary, that, if fairies still linger on this earth, one must think they would choose just such places as these for their moonlight revels. Then there were so many little towns – Portuguese settlements – to be visited, for the Portuguese have spread themselves, after the manner of wild strawberries, all round the coast of Africa, from Sierra Leone on the west to Zanzibar on the east. There was as much sameness about these settlements as about our visits to them: a few houses – more like tents – built on the sand (it does seem funny to see sofas, chairs, and the piano itself standing among the deep soft sand); a fort, the guns of which, if fired, would bring down the walls; a few white-jacketed swarthy-looking soldiers; a very polite governor, brimful of hospitality and broken English; and a good dinner, winding up with punch of schnapps.

Memorable too are the pleasant boating excursions we had on the calm bosom of the Indian Ocean. Armed boats used to be detached to cruise for three or four weeks at a time in quest of prizes, at the end of which time they were picked up at some place of rendezvous. By day we sailed about the coast and around the small wooded islets, where dhows might lurk, only landing in sheltered nooks to cook and eat our food. Our provisions were ship’s, but at times we drove great bargains with the naked natives for fowls and eggs and goats; then would we make delicious soups, rich ragouts, and curries fit for the king of the Cannibal Islands. Fruit too we had in plenty, and the best of oysters for the gathering, with iguana most succulent of lizards, occasionally fried flying-fish, or delicate morsels of shark, skip-jack, or devilled dolphin, with a glass of prime rum to wash the whole down, and three grains of quinine to charm away the fever. There was, too, about these expeditions, an air of gipsying that was quite pleasant. To be sure our beds were a little hard, but we did not mind that; while clad in our blanket-suits, and covered with a boat-sail, we could defy the dew. Sleep, or rather the want of sleep, we seldom had to complain of, for the blue star-lit sky above us, the gentle rising and falling of the anchored boat, the lip-lipping of the water, and the sighing sound of the wind through the great forest near us – all tended to woo us to sweetest slumber.

Sometimes we would make long excursions up the rivers of Africa, combining business with pleasure, enjoying the trip, and at the same time gleaning some useful information regarding slave or slave-ship. The following sketch concerning one or two of these may tend to show, that a man does not take leave of all enjoyment, when his ship leaves the chalky cliffs of old England.

Our anchor was dropped outside the bar of Inambane river; the grating noise of the chain as it rattled through the hawse-hole awoke me, and I soon after went on deck. It was just six o’clock and a beautiful clear morning, with the sun rising red and rosy – like a portly gentleman getting up from his wine – and smiling over the sea in quite a pleasant sort of way. So, as both Neptune and Sol seemed propitious, the commander, our second-master, and myself made up our minds to visit the little town and fort of Inambane, about forty – we thought fifteen – miles up the river. But breakfast had to be prepared and eaten, the magazine and arms got into the boat, besides a day’s provisions, with rum and quinine to be stowed away, so that the sun had got a good way up the sky, and now looked more like a portly gentleman whose dinner had disagreed, before we had got fairly under way and left the ship’s side. Never was forenoon brighter or fairer, only one or two snowy banks of cloud interrupting the blue of the sky, while the river, miles broad, stole silently seaward, unruffled by wave or wavelet, so that the hearts of both men and officers were light as the air they breathed was pure. The men, bending cheerfully on their oars, sang snatches of Dibdin – Neptune’s poet laureate; and we, tired of talking, reclined astern, gazing with half-shut eyes on the round undulating hills, that, covered with low mangrove-trees and large exotics, formed the banks of the river. We passed numerous small wooded islands and elevated sandbanks, on the edges of which whole regiments of long-legged birds waded about in search of food, or, starting at our approach, flew over our heads in Indian file, their bright scarlet-and-white plumage showing prettily against the blue of the sky. Shoals of turtle floated past, and hundreds of rainbow-coloured jelly-fishes, while, farther off, many large black bodies – the backs of hippopotami – moved on the surface of the water, or anon disappeared with a sullen plash. Saving these sounds and the dip of our own oars, all was still, the silence of the desert reigned around us, the quiet of a newly created world.

The forenoon wore away, the river got narrower, but, though we could see a distance of ten miles before us, neither life nor sign of life could be perceived. At one o’clock we landed among a few cocoa-nut trees to eat our meagre dinner, a little salt pork, raw, and a bit of biscuit. No sooner had we “shoved off” again than the sky became overcast; we were caught in, and had to pull against, a blinding white-squall that would have laid a line-of-battle on her beam ends. The rain poured down as if from a water-spout, almost filling the boat and drenching us to the skin, and, not being able to see a yard ahead, our boat ran aground and stuck fast. It took us a good hour after the squall was over to drag her into deep water; nor were our misfortunes then at an end, for squall succeeded squall, and, having a journey of uncertain length still before us, we began to feel very miserable indeed.

It was long after four o’clock when, tired, wet, and hungry, we hailed with joy a large white house on a wooded promontory; it was the Governor’s castle, and soon after we came in sight of the town itself. Situated so far in the interior of Africa, in a region so wild, few would have expected to find such a little paradise as we now beheld, – a colony of industrious Portuguese, a large fort and a company of soldiers, a governor and consulate, a town of nice little detached cottages, with rows of cocoa-nut, mango, and orange trees, and in fact all the necessaries, and luxuries of civilised life. It was, indeed, an oasis in the desert, and, to us, the most pleasant of pleasant surprises.

Leaving the men for a short time with the boat, we made our way to the house of the consul, a dapper little gentleman with a pretty wife and two beautiful daughters – flowers that had hitherto blushed unseen and wasted their sweetness in the desert air.

Our welcome was most warm. After making us swallow a glass of brandy each to keep off fever, he kindly led us to a room, and made us strip off our wet garments, while a servant brought bundle after bundle of clothes, and spread them out before us. There were socks and shirts and slippers galore, with waistcoats, pantaloons, and head-dresses, and jackets, enough to have dressed an opera troupe. The commander and I furnished ourselves with a red Turkish fez and dark-grey dressing-gown each, with cord and tassels to correspond, and, thus, arrayed, we considered ourselves of no small account. Our kind entertainers were waiting for us in the next room, where they had, in the mean time, been preparing for us the most fragrant of brandy punch. By-and-bye two officers and a tall Parsee dropped in, and for the next hour or so the conversation was of the most animated and lively description, although a bystander, had there been one, would not have been much edified, for the following reason: the younger daughter and myself were flirting in the ancient Latin language, with an occasional soft word in Spanish; our commander was talking in bad French to the consul’s lady, who was replying in Portuguese; the second-master was maintaining a smart discussion in broken Italian with the elder daughter; the Parsee and officer of the fort chiming in, the former in English, the latter in Hindostanee; but as no one of the four could have had the slightest idea of the other’s meaning, the amount of information given and received must have been very small, – in fact, merely nominal. It must not, however, be supposed that our host or hostesses could speak no English, for the consul himself would frequently, and with a bow that was inimitable, push the bottle towards the commander, and say, as he shrugged his shoulders and turned his palms skywards, “Continue you, Sar Capitan, to wet your whistle;” and, more than once, the fair creature by my side would raise and did raise the glass to her lips, and say, as her eyes sought mine, “Good night, Sar Officeer,” as if she meant me to be off to bed without a moment’s delay, which I knew she did not. Then, when I responded to the toast, and complimented her on her knowledge of the “universal language,” she added, with a pretty shake of the head, “No, Sar Officeer, I no can have speak the mooch Englese.” A servant, – apparently newly out of prison, so closely was his hair cropped, – interrupted our pleasant confab, and removed the seat of our Babel to the dining-room, where as nicely-cooked-and-served a dinner as ever delighted the senses of hungry mortality awaited our attention. No large clumsy joints, huge misshapen roasts or bulky boils, hampered the board; but dainty made-dishes, savoury stews, piquant curries, delicate fricassees whose bouquet tempted even as their taste and flavour stimulated the appetite, strange little fishes as graceful in shape as lovely in colour, vegetables that only the rich luxuriance of an African garden could supply, and numerous other nameless nothings, with delicious wines and costly liqueurs, neatness, attention, and kindness, combined to form our repast, and counteract a slight suspicion of crocodiles’ tails and stewed lizard, for where ignorance is bliss a fellow is surely a fool if he is wise.

We spent a most pleasant evening in asking questions, spinning yarns, singing songs, and making love. The younger daughter – sweet child of the desert – sang ‘Amante de alguno;’ her sister played a selection from ‘La Traviata;’ next, the consul’s lady favoured us with something pensive and sad, having reference, I think, to bright eyes, bleeding hearts, love, and slow death; then, the Parsee chanted a Persian hymn with an “Allalallala,” instead of Fol-di-riddle-ido as a chorus, which elicited “Fra poco a me” from the Portuguese lieutenant; and this last caused our commander to seat himself at the piano, turn up the white of his eyes, and in very lugubrious tones question the probability of “Gentle Annie’s” ever reappearing in any spring-time whatever; then, amid so much musical sentimentality and woe, it was not likely that I was to hold my peace, so I lifted up my voice and sang —

with a pathos that caused the tears to trickle over and adown the nose of the younger daughter – she was of the gushing temperament – and didn’t leave a dry eye in the room. The song brought down the house – so to speak – and I was the hero for the rest of the evening. Before parting for the night we also sang ‘Auld lang syne,’ copies of the words having been written out and distributed, to prevent mistakes; this was supposed by our hostess to be the English national anthem.

It was with no small amount of regret that we parted from our friends next day; a fresh breeze carried us down stream, and, except our running aground once or twice, and being nearly drowned in crossing the bar, we arrived safely on board our saucy gunboat.

“Afric’s sunny fountains” have been engaged for such a length of time in the poetical employment of “rolling down their golden sands,” that a bank or bar of that same bright material has been formed at the mouth of every river, which it is very difficult and often dangerous to cross even in canoes. We had despatched boats before us to take soundings on the bar of Lamoo, and prepared to follow in the track thus marked out. Now, our little bark, although not warranted, like the Yankee boat, to float wherever there is a heavy dew, was nevertheless content with a very modest allowance of the aqueous element; in two and a half fathoms she was quite at home, and even in two – with the help of a few breakers – she never failed to bump it over a bar. We approached the bar of Lamoo, therefore, with a certain degree of confidence till the keel rasped on the sand; this caused us to turn astern till we rasped again; then, being neither able to get back nor forward, we stopped ship, put our fingers in our wise mouths, and tried to consider what next was to be done. Just then a small canoe was observed coming bobbing over the big waves that tumbled in on the bar; at one moment it was hidden behind a breaker, next moment mounting over another, and so, after a little game at bo-peep, it got alongside, and from it there scrambled on board a little, little man, answering entirely to Dickens’s description of Quilp.

“Quilp!” said the commander.

“Quilp!! by George!” repeated our second-master.

“Quilp!!!” added I, “by all that’s small and ugly.”

“Your sarvant, sar,” said Quilp himself. “I am one pilot.” There certainly was not enough of him to make two. He was rather darker in skin than the Quilp of Dickens, and his only garment was a coal-sack without sleeves – no coal-sack has sleeves, however – begirt with a rope, in which a short knife was stuck; he had, besides, sandals on his feet, and his temples were begirt with a dirty dishclout by way of turban, and he repeated, “I am one pilot, sar.”

“Can you take us over the bar?” asked the commander.

“How much water you?”

“Three fathoms.”

“I do it, sar, plenty quick.”

“Twenty shillings if you do.”

“I do it, sar. I do him,” cried the little man, as he mounted the bridge; then cocking his head to one side, and spreading out his arms like a badly feathered duck, he added, “Suppose I no do him plenty proper, you catchee me and make shot.”

“If the vessel strikes, I’ll hang you, sir.”

Quilp grinned – which was his way of smiling.

“Up steam, sar!” he cried; the order was obeyed.

“Go ’head. Stabird a leetle.”

“And a half three,” sung the man in the chains; then, “And a half four;” and by-and-bye, “And a half three” again; followed next moment by, “By the deep three.”

The commander was all in a fidget. We were on the dreaded bar; on each side of us the big waves curled and broke with a sullen boom like far-off thunder; only, where we were, no waves broke.

“Mind yourself now,” cried the commander to Quilp; to which he in wrath replied —

“What for you stand there make bobbery? I is de cap’n; suppose you is fear, go alow, sar.”

“And a quarter less three.”

“Steady!” and a large wave broke right aboard of us, almost sweeping us from the deck, and lifting the ship’s head into the sky. Another and another followed; but amid the wet and the spray, and the roar of the breakers, firmly stood the little pilot, coolly giving his orders, and never for an instant taking his eyes from the vessel’s jib-boom and the distant shore, till we were safely through the surf and quietly steaming up the river.

After proceeding some miles, native villages began to appear here and there on both shores, and the great number of dhows on the river, with boats and canoes of every description, told us we were nearing a large town. Two hours afterwards we were anchored under the guns of the Sultan’s palace, which were belching forth fire and smoke in return for the salute we had fired. We found every creature and thing in Lamoo as entirely primitive, as absolutely foreign, as if it were a city in some other planet. The most conspicuous building is the Sultan’s lofty fort and palace, with its spacious steps, its fountains and marble halls. The streets are narrow and confused; the houses built in the Arab fashion, and in many cases connected by bridges at the top; the inhabitants about forty thousand, including Arabs, Persians, Hindoos, Somali Indians, and slaves. The wells, exceedingly deep, are built in the centre of the street without any protection; and girls, carrying on their heads calabashes, are continually passing to and from them. Slaves, two and two, bearing their burdens of cowries and ivory on poles between, and keeping step to an impromptu chant; black girls weaving mats and grass-cloth; strange-looking tradesmen, with stranger tools, at every door; rich merchants borne along in gilded palanquins; people praying on housetops; and the Sultan’s ferocious soldiery prowling about, with swords as tall, and guns nearly twice as tall, as themselves; a large shark-market; a fine bazaar, with gold-dust, ivory, and tiger-skins exposed for sale; sprightly horses with gaudy trappings; solemn-looking camels; dust and stench and a general aroma of savage life and customs pervading the atmosphere, but law and order nevertheless. People of all religions agree like brothers. No spirituous liquor of any sort is sold in the town; the Sultan’s soldiers go about the streets at night, smelling the breath of the suspected, and the faintest odour of the accursed fire-water dooms the poor mortal to fifty strokes with a thick bamboo-cane next morning. The sugar-cane grows wild in the fertile suburbs, amid a perfect forest of fine trees; farther out in the country the cottager dwells beneath his few cocoa-nut trees, which supply him with all the necessaries of life. One tree for each member of his family is enough. He builds the house and fences with its large leaves; his wife prepares meat and drink, cloth and oil, from the nut; the space between the trees is cultivated for curry, and the spare nuts are sold to purchase luxuries, and the rent of twelve trees is only sixpence of our money. Happy country! no drunkenness, no debt, no religious strife, but peace and contentment everywhere! Reader, if you are in trouble, or your affairs are going “to pot,” or if you are of opinion that this once favoured land is getting used up, I sincerely advise you to sell off your goods and be off to Lamoo.

Chapter Twelve.

Pros and Cons

Of the “gentlemen of England who live at home at ease,” very few can know how entirely dependent for happiness one is on his neighbours. Man is out-and-out, or out-and-in, a gregarious animal, else ‘Robinson Crusoe’ had never been written. Now, I am sure that it is only correct to state that the majority of combatant3 officers are, in simple language, jolly nice fellows, and as a class gentlemen, having, in fact, that fine sense of honour, that good-heartedness, which loves to do as it would be done by, which hurteth not the feelings of the humble, which turneth aside from the worm in its path, and delighteth not in plucking the wings from the helpless fly. To believe, however, that there are no exceptions to this rule would be to have faith in the speedy advent of the millennium, that happy period of lamb-and-lion-ism which we would all rather see than hear tell of; for human nature is by no means altered by bathing every morning in salt water, it is the same afloat as on shore. And there are many officers in the navy, who – “dressed in a little brief authority,” and wearing an additional stripe – love to lord it over their fellow worms. Nor is this fault altogether absent from the medical profession itself!

It is in small gunboats, commanded perhaps by a lieutenant, and carrying only an assistant-surgeon, where a young medical officer feels all the hardships and despotism of the service; for if the lieutenant in command happens to be at all frog-hearted, he has then a splendid opportunity of puffing himself up.

In a large ship with from twenty to thirty officers in the mess, if you do not happen to meet with a kindred spirit at one end of the table, you can shift your chair to the other. But in a gunboat on foreign service, with merely a clerk, a blatant middy, and a second-master who would fain be your senior, as your messmates, then, I say, God help you! unless you have the rare gift of doing anything for a quiet life. It is all nonsense to say, “Write a letter on service about any grievance;” you can’t write about ten out of a thousand of the petty annoyances which go to make your life miserable; and if you do, you will be but little better, if, indeed, your last state be not worse than your first.

I have in my mind’s eye even now a lieutenant who commanded a gunboat in which I served as medical officer in charge. This little man was what is called a sea-lawyer – my naval readers well know what I mean; he knew all the Admiralty Instructions, was an amateur engineer, only needed the title of M.D. to make him a doctor, could quibble and quirk, and in fact could prove by the Queen’s Regulations that your soul, to say nothing of your body, wasn’t your own; that you were a slave, and he lord – god of all he surveyed. Peace be with him! he has gone to his account; he will not require an advocate, he can speak for himself. Not many such hath the service, I am happy to say. He was continually changing his poor hard-worked sub-lieutenants, and driving his engineers to drink, previously to trying them by court-martial. At first he and I got on very well; apparently he “loved me like a vera brither;” but we did not continue long “on the same platform,” and, from the day we had the first difference of opinion, he was my foe, and a bitter one too. I assure you, reader, it gave me a poor idea of the service, for it was my first year. He was always on the outlook for faults, and his kindest words to me were “chaffing” me on my accent, or about my country. To be able to meet him on his own ground I studied the Instructions day and night, and tried to stick by them.

Malingering was common on board; one or two whom I caught I turned to duty: the men, knowing how matters stood between the commander and me, refused to work, and so I was had up and bullied on the quarter-deck for “neglect of duty” in not putting these fellows on the sick-list. After this I had to put every one that asked on the sick-list.

“Doctor,” he would say to me on reporting the number sick, “this is wondrous strange —thirteen on the list, out of only ninety men. Why, sir, I’ve been in line-of-battle ships, —line-of-battle ships, sir, – where they had not ten sick —ten sick, sir.” This of course implied an insult to me, but I was like a sheep before the shearers, dumb.

On Sunday mornings I went with him the round of inspection; the sick who were able to be out of hammock were drawn up for review: had he been half as particular with the men under his own charge or with the ship in general as he was with the few sick, there would have been but little disease to treat. Instead of questioning me concerning their treatment, he interrogated the sick themselves, quarrelling with the medicine given, and pooh-pooh-ing my diagnosis. Those in hammocks, who most needed gentleness and comfort, he bullied, blamed for being ill, and rendered generally uneasy. Remonstrance on my part was either taken no notice of, or instantly checked. If men were reported by me for being dirty, giving impudence, or disobeying orders, he became their advocate – an able one too – and I had to retire, sorry I had spoken. But I would not tell the tenth part of what I had to suffer, because such men as he are the exception, and because he is dead. A little black baboon of a boy who attended on this lieutenant-commanding had one day incurred his displeasure: “Bo’swain’s mate,” cried he, “take my boy forward, hoist him on an ordinary seaman’s back, and give him a rope’s-ending; and,” turning to me, “Doctor, you’ll go and attend my boy’s flogging.”