Artemis - Kydd 02 (37 page)

* * *

A lassitude seemed to be stealing down on the ship, a torpor that was more evident in some than others, bewildering in the general lift of spirits that went with a homeward course.

'Haaaands
to make sail!' That would be Rowley wanting to spread the weather fore topsail stuns'l, of somewhat questionable benefit to speed, given that they were going large and the sail would almost certainly be blanketed by canvas on the main. As Kydd jumped to the bulwarks with the others of his watch for the brisk climb aloft, he noticed that one of them, Millais, a reliable Jerseyman, was not with them. Instead he was looking upward from the deck, anxiously clinging to one of the shrouds. Disturbed, Kydd dropped back down beside the man. 'Lay aloft, Millais,' he ordered, conscious that Rowley would be impatient with delay.

Millais stared back at Kydd. 'I - I can't—' he began, swayed, and then, before Kydd's disgusted eyes, vomited helplessly. Sick drunk at this hour? Millais crumpled to his knees and looked up piteously. 'I don' feel s' well, mate,' he croaked. The words were not slurred. Kydd felt a creeping fear and bent to help the man to his feet. Even at that distance he felt a raging heat radiating out from his body.

'Get aloft, you infernal rascals!' came Rowley's irritable bellow from the quarterdeck.

Kydd hurried aft and confronted Rowley. 'Sir, that man's got a fever.' He watched Rowley stiffen. It was the worst possible news. Kydd sensed a scurrying down the main hatch and guessed that the news was being spread even as they spoke.

'Sling his hammock in the gundeck forward and put him in it,' Rowley snapped. It was the only thing possible. Frigates did not have even the rudimentary sick berths of a larger ship. 'And tell the surgeon,' he added.

Kydd touched his hat and ra
ttle
d down the ladderway. The sooner the surgeon could take strong measures the better for all. The musty gloom was tinged with apprehension: Kydd had never had occasion to visit the surgeon professionally, and like most healthy men, felt uneasy there.

He took off his hat and crossed the wardroom to the louvred door of the surgeon's cabin, knocking firmly. He was about to knock again when the door flew open, nearly hitting him. 'You?' said the surgeon, puzzled. Kydd stepped back in surprise: the surgeon was in his usual rumpled black, but it was stained and there was a rank, unpleasant odour about him.

Kydd collected himself, and reported, 'Sir, respects from Mr Rowley, an' he wishes you t' come - he thinks we have fever aboard.'

The surgeon looked at him and frowned. 'Pray inform milady, Jenkins, that she must persist in the measures or I will not hold myself responsible for the outcome.'

Blinking, Kydd said carefully, 'Sir, my name is not Jenkins. Could y' come now? Mr Rowley is very concerned.'

'No. You will tell Lady Bassett that I have done all I can. All! There is no hope - none. I grieve for you all. Goodnight.' The door slammed. Taken aback, Kydd hesitated.

Across the wardroom Party emerged from his cabin, wiping his face with a towel. 'What is it, Kydd?' he asked.

'Could be fever aboard, sir,' Kydd said respectfully. He felt ill at ease in officers' private territory.

Parry paused. 'You have seen this?'

'Aye, sir.'

Striding past Kydd, Parry hammered at the door. 'Doctor, we have a crisis, sir. Please be so good as to come on deck at once.' There was no reply. 'There is a fever on board, damn your blood!'

The door remained closed, but from within Kydd heard a desolate, 'No hope! None!' and a quiet sobbing.

Parry slapped the towel at his side in frustration. 'We'll get nothing from that useless ninny. I'll be on deck shortly.'

Fever! It was feared more than any number of enemy cannon, and with reason: in a ship there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape to; every man aboard must face risking his life in the unknown miasma that brought the fever.

Supper was a silent meal. Kydd slowly spooned his pease pudding. Across the table eyes followed his movements; he glared back. Haynes coughed — every eye swivelled to watch, then dropped at his savage expression. Mul-lion seemed sunk in misery, pushing away his wooden plate.

'A pox on it!' snarled Haynes. A twisted smile acknowledged his unfortunate turn of phrase, but he went on forcefully, 'Don't sound like any ship-fever I know - an' it ain't scurvy. Could be nuthin' a-tall.'

Renzi raised his head. 'Or it could be deadly . . .' The table glowered at him collectively. He lapsed into silence. Kydd watched him narrowly — there was a half-smile that he could only remember seeing before
battle
.

Haynes tugged at his neckerchief. 'Port Royal, now that's th' place fer a fever. See them soldiers arrive, chirpin' merry an' all in their lobsterback rig. A week later an' they're sweatin' and writhin' with the yeller jack, only a coupla days afore they tops their boom.' He brooded. 'Must be thousan's left their bones there.'

'Must be a spankin'-size graveyard!' said Kydd, hoping to joke away the pall.

It was Stirk who replied. 'No, mate, very small. See, they buries 'em the same day at the Palisades, spit o' sand away from the town. Come night, all these 'ere land crabs pops out 'n' digs 'em up fer a feast. Rousin' good eatin', should you get yerself a dish o' them crabs.'

Kydd interrupted him. 'What's this, cuffin?' He had noticed how Mullion held his head in his hands, obviously in distress.

'Me head, mate, aches somethin' cruel.' Looks were exchanged around the table.

Haynes stood up. 'Gotta get aloft — that scurvy crew in the foretop not done yet, I'll 'ave their liver.' Crow rose, mumbled something, and they both left.

Stirk turned his gaze to Kydd. 'An' you?' he said.

Kydd stared him down, then stood. 'Bear a fist, then, y' hen-hearted lubbers!' Mullion was difficult to handle as he staggered haphazardly. They tumbled him into his hammock forward on the gundeck where he lay, biting off moans. Kydd saw that there were slung numbers of hammocks now, each bearing its burden of suffering.

The warm, pleasant airs on the open deck were a relief, but there was a sense of dread: the ship had turned into a prison that was confining its inmates to permit an unknown death to overwhelm them.

Kydd turned to Renzi. The half-smile was still there. 'What chance . . .'

'My dear fellow, my education does not include physick. I cannot say.'

They glanced aft. With a pugnacious stride and jutting chin, Powlett was now pacing the quarterdeck as if he had never left it. 'I do wish, however, that the surgeon had retained but a modicum of his intellects,' said Renzi, still watching the Captain. 'It was churlish of him to take leave of them at this time.'

The loblolly boy held a bowl of thin gruel over Mullion, trying to spoon it in, but Mullion twisted away his head. 'Fer Chrissakes!' the lad muttered. This was no time for games, there were too many others to attend to.

'Take it, Jeb, y' needs the strength,' Kydd urged.

Mullion focused his dull eyes on him. 'No, mate, give it ter the others,' he whispered. 'This is me punishment, I knows it. 'Cos I didn't hold on ter him — I let 'im go ter his doom. He'd be aboard now an' alongside us if I'd've held on.' He looked away in despair.

Not knowing what to do, Kydd took the gruel from the loblolly, who pulled aside Mullion's shirt. Kydd recoiled: the torso was suffused by a pink rash and it glistened with sweat. 'That's yer sign,' the loblolly said, and took back the gruel to limp over to the next man.

Suddenly gripped by an urgent desire for the open air, Kydd hurried on deck. He saw Haynes by the boat-space: he was motionless, staring out to sea, his grip on a rope bringing white to his knuckles. Kydd sensed the man's fear. 'Comin' for y'r grog?' he said, in as friendly a manner as he could.

Slowly Haynes turned his stare on him. In horrible fascination Kydd saw a betraying pinkness above the line of his open-necked shirt. 'I got it, ain't I?' Haynes mouthed.

There was no point in denying it. 'Y' may have it, but it's a fever only, nobody died.'

'You a sawbones, then?' Haynes came back, but with
little
spirit. He resumed his stare out to sea.

At barely six bells it was not yet time for Kydd to go on watch at the helm, but he was not ready to go below, and swung forward. Abreast the fore-hatch was an anxious group in troubled conversation; Kydd saw Petit's lined features and nodded to him. Petit came over and touched Kydd's arm. 'I'd be beholden were yer mate Renzi ter help us,' he said in subdued tones.

'Nicholas says as how he's no physician.'

His forehead creased with worry, Petit appealed, 'Yair, but 'e's book-learned, he is, knows a mort more'n he says. Say that it would be kind in 'im jus' ter step down an' clap peepers on Billy Cundall - he's very bad.'

Kydd touched him on the shoulder. 'I'll tell him, Elias.'

Renzi snorted. 'Rank superstition! If I top it the physician, it would be a mockery. I will not!'

'Nicholas, could ye not go to them? Some words o' yours,
little
enough t' ask, they'd bring some comfort.'

Renzi frowned with irritation, but Kydd pressed on, 'They trust you, an' even should ye not know the medicine, y' words will give ease.'

With reluctance Renzi allowed himself to be dragged down to the berth deck, to the familiar mess of before. Cundall was lying in his hammock in the centreline of the ship, moaning and writhing. Grimacing at the charade Renzi stood beside him and the others crowded around.

‘I
see,' he began hesitantly.

Cundall looked up at him with piteous eyes, a lost soul who barely resembled the loquacious braggart of before. Renzi took a wrist and made to feel the pulse - he had no idea what to do, so nodded sagely and let it drop. 'How long has the rash been present?' he asked gravely.

'A coupla days. Will I die?' Cundall cried.

Renzi was at a loss. He had come prepared to go through a few token motions, to offer the reassurance of his presence, but he was speaking to a man who was ill of an unknown fever, asking him to pronounce sentence: life or death. He thought briefly of physicians he had seen, solemnly descending the staircase after visiting a sickroom, and asked the same question. His conscience tore at him at the prospect of laying either alternative before the victim.

He cleared his throat. 'We see here as clear a case of
persona non grata
that I have yet seen.'

Petit looked pleased. 'Be damned! Will 'e be better?' There was a perceptible lightening of mood among the onlookers.

Renzi moved quickly to head away from the moral quicksands of an answer. 'Do you steep six ounces of
Calamintha Acinos
for two hours, and bathe the afflicted region every hour. That is all.'

'We don' have yon
calaminthy,
Nicholas,' Petit said respectfully.

'Oh, a pity, it is a common herb in England, the basil,' Renzi said, in lordly tones.

'Hey, now!' Quashee pushed himself forward. 'My conweniences! I have basil in my conweniences, Mr Renzi!'

'Splendid! Its carminative properties are always useful you'll find. I must go.' Renzi left speedily.

'Cundall is in good hands, I see,' Kydd said, hurrying to keep up. His open admiration for his friend caused Renzi to wince. 'May I know what is your "carminative"?'

Renzi stopped; turning to Kydd he spoke slowly but intensely. 'My "carminative" means that an essence of basil is said to be excellent for the quelling of flatulence — farting, if you will. Now pray do me the service of
never again
putting my sensibilities to hazard in this way. Physician indeed!'

It was clear that Mullion was sinking. He barely moved; the ferocious muscular pains coursing in his legs and back caused spasms that stopped his breath for long moments, his face racked with suffering. Kydd patted his shoulder. There was littie he could do — he was now acting quartermaster with Hallison down, and he was due on watch soon.

Kydd left to go aft, but at the main hatch he bumped into Renzi. 'Mullion is draggin' his anchors for the other world,' he said. 'Could ye not—'

'I could not,' Renzi said cu
rtly
.

Coughing respectfully Petit appeared, standing with his hat off before him. 'Thanks t' you, Mr Renzi,' he said, 'an' Billy Cundall sends 'is respects, an' the rash is quite gone, now.'

With a groan, Renzi waited for Petit to leave, then glared at Kydd. 'So they all believe me now a master of physick.'

'Aye, Nicholas,' said Kydd meekly.

The number of sick had risen sharply, and there was now a significant effect on the balance of men skilled in specifics in the watches; Fairfax was const
antly
worrying over his watch and station bill. Kydd's temporary new rate as quartermaster was an important one. He took up position at the conn, with responsibility for the watch glass, the slate of course details and other navigational matters, leaving littie time to dwell on illness.

The watch drew on, the officer-of-the-watch, Party, unforgiving of the slightest sign of sloppiness. Later in the afternoon Rowley emerged on deck to take the air. It was not the custom for officers to promenade the fo'c'sle: the quarterdeck was their proper place. There was no alternative open to Rowley other than to begin a slow circuit of the quarterdeck, unavoidably confronting Party on each lap. Kydd had always felt uncomfortable at the clear dislike the men had for each other, and hoped that Rowley would soon go below.