“The usual. He is a signalman who is currently suffering from an occupational disease common to young sailors, picked up, I believe, in a bistro called the Silver Harp in Belfast. The sick berth attendant has been feeding him sulpha pills, but I thought that it wouldn’t hurt if you had a look at him.”
“A case of the quick and the dead,” the doctor said as the rum began to warm him.
“Not quick enough I’m afraid,” answered the captain with a short laugh as he let himself down, tiredly, on to the settee.
Chief Petty Officer Frank Cartwright, the coxswain of the Riverford, entered the seamen’s mess, took off his cap, and called across to the hammock which held Leading Seaman McCaffrey. “Hey, Mac, I’ve got a job for you.”
McCaffrey pushed himself up on one elbow and, hanging on to the hammock next to his own, asked, “What?”
“Get up and I’ll tell you.”
“Oh, Jesus, Frank! Let me get my head down. I’ve been up during the morning watch, you know.”
“I know, but this is orders from the Old Man.”
He could hear McCaffrey sitting up somewhere across the expanse of swaying hammocks, then his legs came into view as he pulled on his socks over his dirty feet. McCaffrey jumped down to the deck and found his sea boots under the lockers and pulled them on. When he came out from beneath the hammocks he was rubbing his eyes, which were bloodshot and bright against the dark, ten-day stubble of beard.
“What the hell is it now, Frank? Can’t you get any of the other leading hands for a change?”
“The Old Man told me to get you,” the coxswain replied, sitting down on one of the benches and ducking his head under a low-slung hammock. He gave a critical glance across the deck at the pool of black water with its flotsam of cigarette packages and bread crusts that was slopping to and fro under the lockers with every movement of the ship.
“What does the Old Man want? Two hands to paint the subby’s cabin?” asked McCaffrey sarcastically.
“We’ve got to stow the kid here for the rest of the trip,” the coxswain answered, pointing behind him at the still form on the table.
“Stow him!”
“Yeah, we’re taking him with us to Newfy.”
“Oh, good God! Why?”
“I don’t know. The Old Man and the doc from the St. Helens had me and the chief down in the wardroom. They asked us where was the best place to stow the body until we got in.”
“We can’t carry a stiff that far. How many more days does he think it’ll take?”
“Two or three, I guess.”
McCaffrey shrugged, pursing his lips distastefully. “Where will we put him? In the tiller fiats?”
“No, in the engineer’s stores.”
“Thank God for that!”
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