“Let’s hope he doesn’t. . . . Thirty degrees starboard.” Mister Jewish directed the helmsman to take evasive action.
“Does this mean we’ve caught up with the Queen William?” I knelt beside Captain Maldemerde and whispered the question.
“No. It means they’re even further ahead of us than I thought.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “They’ve already completed their first layover in Nassau. That puts us a full day behind. We stay in Trinidad eight hours.” Click-click.
“They’ve stopped shooting,” Mister Jewish said. “They’re bearing down on us.”
“They’re going to ram us!” Click-click.
“No. They’re drawing alongside. I can make out Captain Grabass on the foredeck. He’s got a megaphone.”
“A boarding party!” Maldemerde’s teeth were chattering. “Those pirates will slaughter us all! Run up a white flag! Tell them we surrender!” Click-click.
“Ahoy, Captain Maldemerde!” The high voice screeched out across the narrowing area of ocean between the Queen William and the Lascivia. “This is Captain Grabass speaking. Can you hear me?”
Mister Jewish looked at the cowering Captain Maldemerde and shook his head sadly. He picked up a megaphone and went out on the wheelhouse deck. I followed along.
“Ahoy, Queen William!” Mister Jewish yelled through the megaphone. “What do you want?”
“Where’s that little sparrowfart Maldemerde?” Captain Grabass inquired.
“Captain Maldemerde is indisposed. This is First Mate Jewish speaking. I’ve got the con. Repeat. What do you want?”
“Well, hello there, Sugarpie. Haven’t we met somewhere before?” It wasn’t close enough to see, but it sounded like Captain Grabass was fluttering his eyelashes.
“Repeat. What do you want? Why are you shelling us?”
“What time do you go off duty, tall, dark and handsome?”
“Why have you fired on us?” Mister Jewish wanted to know.
“Just a friendly greeting, Number One,” Captain Grabass crooned. “So you’re Number One,” he added. ‘Tm a Captain now, but I used to be One, too.” He chortled. “Truth is, I still am one. How does that grab you, big boy?”
“Your shells were dangerously close for a greeting. A formal protest will be lodged when we get to port.”
“A formal protest? Oh dear! I had hoped that you and I could keep it informal, honeybunch.”
“You’re impeding our progress. Stand off!” Mister Jewish said firmly. “Stand off and let us proceed.”
“It won’t do you a bit of good, sweetness. Still, if you insist.” Captain Grabass waved a graceful hand at the Queen William’s helmsman. A moment later the liner banked slowly away from us. “Ta-ta.” Captain Grabass waved a limp wrist at Mister Jewish. “Look me up at the Gay Barnacle if you ever make it back to New York, sweet-muscles. I’m simply dying to see your tattoos.” He blew a kiss as the Queen William picked up speed and steamed away from us.
“What did he want?” Captain Maldemerde had finally gotten up the courage to join us on deck. Click-click.
“My ass,” Mister Jewish told him.
“Number One! I will not countenance foul language or insubordination from my officers!” Click-click.
“Sorry, sir.”
“Let there be no mistake about that.” Click-click.
“No, sir.”
“It’s one thing I want to make perfectly clear!” Click-click.
“Yes, sir.”
“I run a tight ship, Mister!” Click-click. “No sloppy permissiveness! Discipline will be maintained!”
“Ah beg gezunt.”
“What was that, Mister Jewish?”
“Sorry, sir. It’s Arabic for ‘Yes, sir.’ I sometimes forget myself and fall back on my native tongue.”
“Well, speak English, Mister.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s an order!” Click-click.
“Yes, sir.”
“Excuse me, sir.” Dr. Quotabusta had entered the wheelhouse.
“What do you want?” Maldemerde snarled.
“I don’t want to be an alarmist, sir, but I’m worried,” Dr. Quotabusta told him.
“I’m not your psychoanalyst! Why do you bring your anxiety attacks to me?” Click-click.
“I mean! I’m concerned about the passengers, sir. About their health.”
“That’s what you’re paid to be concerned about,” the Captain sneered.
“There have been five people in the dispensary already this morning and—”
“Am I to understand that you’re complaining about being overworked, Doctor?” Click-click.
“No, sir. What I’m trying to tell you is that all five had the same complaint.”
“Colds are catching.” The Captain shrugged.
“It’s not colds, sir. All five of them are suffering from an uncontrollable itching sensation in the groin.”
“Do they have rashes?”
“I can’t tell, sir. In all five cases the crotch area is so red and raw from scratching that it’s impossible to make an accurate diagnosis about a rash.”
“Jock itch.” Maldemerde made his own diagnosis.
“Three of the patients are women, Captain.”
“Oh.” The Captain’s eye fell on me. “Since our ship’s doctor seems incapable of coping with this obviously simple matter, perhaps you’ll be good enough to consult with him, Victor.” Click-click.
It was a dismissal. I followed Quotabusta out on deck. “The Captain doesn’t realize how serious this could be,” he told me. “From a medical standpoint, I mean.”
“I don’t think I’ll be much help,” I answered honestly.
“What I’m afraid of,” the African doctor said, “is an outbreak of venereal disease.”
“Are there symptoms of that?”
“Just the itching. As I said, I can’t tell about rashes. I did some research on VD in Africa and I learned some frightening things about both syphilis and gonorrhea. Venereal germs are very adaptable, very hardy, and they can mutate. There are new strains that don’t respond to penicillin or the sulfa drugs. If that’s what we have here, in a close-quarter shipboard environment, we could end up with a full-scale epidemic on our hands!”
“BEWARE PROMISCUITY ABOARD THE S.S. LASCIVIA!” I remembered the threatening note Baron Duvivier had shown me back in Nassau. “THE WAGES OF SINNING WILL BE PAID BY ALL WHO SAIL . . . THE WAGES ARE VENEREAL!”
I told Dr. Quotabusta that I didn’t think I could be of any use to him with the medical problem, but that I’d appreciate his letting me know if any more cases turned up. He said he would, and he kept his promise. The following morning he reported six additional cases to me. Eight more turned up during the next two days.
Still, Dr. Quotabusta couldn’t pinpoint the cause, nor identify the ailment. His suspicion that it was contagious, however, had become almost a certainty by the time we docked at Port of Spain, Trinidad. He went ashore with the first boatload of tourists to consult with a British VD specialist he knew there.
I stayed on board during the eight-hour layover. I’d been in Trinidad before, and with the possibility of a venereal plague looming over the Lascivia, I wanted to put the time to better use. I spent it with Chief Purser Yenta, going over the dossiers of the passengers and crew. One of them, maybe more than one, had to be the saboteur.
By a process of elimination that was at least as much intuitive as anything else, I managed to rule out about three-quarters of the people aboard. Of course, that still left me with a list a mile long. On it were all of the passengers I’d encountered personally and most of the officers, including Yenta.