Medical Life in the Navy by Gordon Stables (the dot read aloud .txt) 📕

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.

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 combatant [Note 1] 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."

I dared not trust myself to reply. With a face like crimson I rushed

below to my cabin, and--how could I help it?--made a baby of myself for

once; all my pent-up feelings found vent in a long fit of crying.

True, I might in this case have written a letter to the service about my

treatment; but, as it is not till after twelve months the

assistant-surgeon is confirmed, the commander's word would have been

taken before mine, and I probably dismissed without a court-martial.

That probationary year I consider more than a grievance, it is a _cruel

injustice_.

Cabins? There is a regulation--of late more strictly enforced by a

circular--that every medical officer serving on board his own ship shall

have a cabin, and the choice--by rank--of cabin, and he is a fool if he

does not enforce it. But it sometimes happens that a sub-lieutenant

(who has no cabin) is promoted to lieutenant on a foreign station; he

will then rank above the assistant-surgeon, and perhaps, if there is no

spare cabin, the poor doctor will have to give up his, and take to a

sea-chest and hammock, throwing all his curiosities, however valuable,

overboard. It would be the duty of the captain in such a case to build

an additional cabin, and if he did not, or would not, a letter to the

admiral would make him.

Does the combatant officer treat the medical officer with respect?

Certainly, unless one or other of the two be a snob: in the one case the

respect is not worth having, in the other it can't be expected.

In the military branch you shall find many officers belonging to the

best English families: these I need hardly say are for the most part

gentlemen, and gentle men. However, it is allowed in most messes that

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

A man's man for a' that;"

and I assure the candidate for a commission, that, if he is himself a

gentleman, he will find no want of admirers in the navy. But there are

some young doctors who enter the service, knowing their profession to be

sure, and how to hold a knife and fork--not a carving-fork though--but

knowing little else; yet even