don’t you?” said the doctor, rather gruffly. “I should have thought you had not done putting on inches. There, never mind Murray’s chaff. By the way, why do you keep shaving yourself down the cheeks with that finger? does the skin feel tender where you were so much scorched?”
“Yes, doctor, a little,” replied the youth innocently enough.
“H’m, yes, but that cream I gave you does good, doesn’t it?”
“Oh yes, doctor.”
“Nasty scorching you fellows all had. I quite expected to have some bad patients – burns and spear wounds. Lucky escapes, all of you. That Titely was the worst, but the way in which a good healthy sailor’s flesh heals up is wonderful. It’s just like cutting into a piece of raw native indiarubber before it has been fooled about and manufactured up with brimstone – vulcanised, as they call it. You lads ought to bear it in mind, in case you get a cut or a chop. All that’s wanted is to see that the wound is thoroughly clean and dry, and then squeeze the sides up together and the flesh adheres after the fashion of a clean cut in indiarubber. Ah, I like a good clean cut.”
“What!” cried the lads together, as half laughingly they stared at the speaker in surprise.
“Well, what are you both looking at? I don’t mean that I personally like cuts; but they’re pleasant to get healed up – not like bullet wounds or ragged holes through a fellow.”
“No,” said Murray; “not like holes.”
“Not that I mind a clean bullet hole through the flesh so long as it does not encounter a bone.”
“Exactly, doctor; so long as it does not encounter a bone,” said Murray drily.
“That’s where the trouble begins, sir,” said the doctor, smacking his lips and making the two middies exchange glances. “You see, you get a complicated fracture of the bone with tiny fragments that refuse to show where they are commencing irritation and that sort of thing.”
“Yes, doctor,” said Murray drily; “but aren’t we getting into an uncomfortable discussion?”
“No, sir, a most interesting one; but when I spoke it was not all about injured bones or ordinary shot-holes or cuts; I was saying how glad I was to be out of that river and mangrove swamp where your West Coast fever haunts the low lands, and miasmatic emanations are always ready to pounce upon people and set up tasks for the hardest-worked man in the ship.”
“To do what, doctor?” said Roberts.
“I thought I spoke very plainly, young gentleman; I said set up tasks for the hardest-worked man in the ship.”
“But that sounds as if you – that is to say – I – I – You don’t mean yourself, sir?” said Roberts, in a stammering, half-confused way.
“Not mean myself, sir?” said the doctor angrily. “Why, who else could I mean?”
“That’s what puzzled me, sir,” said Roberts, staring. “Frank Murray and I have always thought – ”
“Here, I say,” cried Murray, laughing and enjoying the verbal engagement that had sprung up like a squall in the tropics, “don’t you begin dragging me into the discussion.”
“Exactly! Certainly not,” cried the doctor hotly. “If there is any need for it I can tackle Master Murray afterwards. I am dealing with you, sir. You gave me to understand that you did not consider I was the most hard-worked man in the ship.”
“Very well then,” cried Roberts warmly, “if you will have it that way, I don’t.”
“Oh! Indeed!” said the doctor angrily. “Then what about the last few days, when I am suddenly brought face to face with a score of wounded men, and with no one to help me but a surgeon’s mate or dresser who is as stupid as men are made?”
“Wounded, sir?” said Roberts.
“Yes, sir, wounded. Burned, if you like it better. Singed and scorched. It all comes under the broad term of casualties, does it not?”
“I suppose so, sir,” said Roberts sulkily.
“Better tell me that my services were not called for, and that you could all have done without me. I call what I have gone through hard work, and tell you, sir, that it was a time of great anxiety.”
“So it must have been, doctor,” put in Murray, “and I feel very grateful for the way you did away with my pain.”
“There’s a sneak!” cried Roberts angrily. “Who began to bully me for dragging him into the discussion?”
“You are the sneak, sir,” said the doctor, “for trying to dodge out of the matter like this. Murray spoke out like a man.”
“Boy,” growled Roberts.
“Very well, sir; like a grateful boy, if that pleases you better. Like one who appreciates my service and is not ready to turn up his nose at what such fellows as you call ‘doctor’s stuff,’ just as if a medical man or a surgeon thought of nothing but wasting the ship’s stores upon those who are glad enough to come to them when they are out of sorts, and most often from their neglect of common sense precautions, or from over indulgence in the good things of life.”
“Precious lot of chances we get to indulge in the good things of life on board ship!” said Roberts bitterly.
“Let me tell you, sir,” said the doctor, shaking his finger at the midshipman, “that there is nothing better for a growing lad than the strict discipline and the enforced temperance and moderate living of shipboard. Better for you, though, if you had not so much idleness.”
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