The shadow of the eagle

'Mr Marlowe,' Drinkwater began, 'how is it with you?'

Marlowe's lower lip trembled and he managed to whisper, 'Well enough, sir.'

'What is the matter?'

'Quotidian fever, sir, or so the sawbones says.'

Drinkwater had a rather different perception. He looked round the cabin. A small glass stood in the wash basin, and Drinkwater picked it up and sniffed it. The faint scent of tincture of opium was just discernible. For a moment Drinkwater stood undecided, then he turned back to the invalid, and sat himself down in the single chair that adorned the cabin.

'Mr Marlowe, I do not believe you have a quotidian fever. Pray tell me, to what extent do you owe your present indisposition to the influence of Lieutenant Ashton?' Marlowe's eyes widened as Drinkwater's barb struck home. His eyes glanced at the door to the wardroom, confirming, if confirmation were necessary, the accuracy of Drinkwater's assumption. 'I am aware of your situation vis-a-vis Ashton; perhaps, if you wished, you could confide in me. I cannot afford to have my first lieutenant incapacitated; I need you on deck, Mr Marlowe, gaining the confidence of the people ...'

The shadow of recollection passed across Marlowe's haggard features, then he shook his head vigorously and turned his face away. Drinkwater lingered a moment, then rose, the chair scraping violently on the deck, but even this noise evoked no response from the first lieutenant. 'Damnation,' he muttered under his breath, and stepped back into the wardroom.

Hyde had resumed his reading, though his boots were no longer on the table. Ashton had bent to his writing, but looked up sharply as Drinkwater shut the door behind him and stood before the officers. Realizing their manners, both men made to rise to their feet.

'Please do not trouble yourselves, gentlemen. Good night.'

Rather than returning directly to his own cabin or the deck, Drinkwater descended a further deck in search of the surgeon. He found Kennedy playing bezique with the midshipmen. The intrusion of the captain's features in the stygian gloom of the cockpit produced a remarkable reaction: the midshipmen jumped to their feet, the cards were scattered and Kennedy, who had had his back to Drinkwater, turned slowly around.

'Oh, sir, I er ... Did you want me?'

'Indeed, Mr Kennedy. I would be obliged if you would pull a tooth for me. At your convenience.'

'There's no time like the present, sir. These young devils have a decided advantage.'

Drinkwater, followed by the surgeon, retired to the half-suppressed sound of sniggering midshipmen.

A few moments later Kennedy joined him in the cabin, producing a small bag from the dark and sinister interior of which gleamed the dull metal of instruments. Drinkwater sat down and braced himself, as much against the motion of the ship as in preparation for Kennedy's ministrations. There was a brief exchange between them, then Drinkwater opened his mouth and allowed Kennedy to probe his lower mandible. It took the surgeon only a few seconds to locate the source of the trouble. He withdrew his probe and searched his bag for another implement. His hand emerged with a pair of steel pincers.

'Humour me and rinse those things in some wine, if you please.'

'It is quite unnecessary ...'

'Oblige me, if you please ...'

'Very well.'

Kennedy poured a glass of wine from the stoppered decanter lodged in the fiddles and dipped the closed pincers in it. Andromeda groaned mournfully about them as he turned and approached his patient. Drinkwater's knuckles were white on the arms of his chair. Kennedy opened the grim steel tool and bent over Drinkwater, who felt the uncompromising bite of the serrated steel clamp over his own, less robust tooth. There was an excruciating pain which shot like a white hot wire through Drinkwater's brain and he felt the tooth wrenched this way and that as Kennedy bore down on him, twisting his powerful wrist. A faint grinding sound transmitted itself through Drinkwater's skull as Kennedy wrestled with the resisting fang; then it gave way, Andromeda lurched and Kennedy almost fell backwards. The pincers struck the teeth in Drinkwater's upper jaw, jarring his whole head. The wine glass fell to the deck and smashed.

A stink filled Drinkwater's nostrils as Kennedy waved the rotting tooth under his wrinkling nose. The surgeon dropped the tooth and pincers, took another glass, filled it and handed it to his spluttering patient.

'God damn and blast it!' Drinkwater bellowed, clapping his hand to his mouth.

'I wouldn't recommend you to swallow, sir. Perhaps the quarter-gallery ...'

Drinkwater did as he was bid, rinsed his mouth with wine and spat it down the closet. His tongue explored the gaping hole in his teeth as he clambered back into the cabin, a little dizzy and in some pain from the blow to his upper jaw.

Kennedy was clearing away and Drinkwater refilled his glass and filled another for the surgeon.

'Damn me, Kennedy, but you're a confounded brute, and no mistake.'

'I'm sorry,' Kennedy said, smiling, accepting the glass. 'The confounded ship ...'

'Quite so, but a moment...'

'There is something else, sir?'

'Yes. I wish you to cease giving Marlowe laudanum. I am not certain it is having anything other than a deleterious effect.'

'It generally does,' Kennedy observed with that clinical detachment that sounded so cold, 'though Marlowe will not see it that way'

'I don't much care what way Marlowe sees it. I just want that young man back on the quarterdeck, preferably tomorrow'

'Tomorrow, d'you say?' Kennedy blew his cheeks out and shook his head. 'I don't believe the man is really ill...'

'Well there I disagree with you. I think he is ill, but I don't think his lying in his cot is improving him. I also don't believe his disease is fatal.'

'Well, sir,' responded Kennedy in his touchiest tone, tossing off the contents of his glass with an air of affront, 'what d'you believe his disease is, then? I should be fascinated by your diagnosis.'

Kennedy's irritation amused Drinkwater. 'Oh, his disease is of the heart, Mr Kennedy,' Drinkwater said smiling.

'You mean the man is in love?'

'I mean the man is affected by love, or perhaps I should say infected by love, or at least what passes for love in all its complications.'

'Well, sir,' said Kennedy, putting his glass back in the fiddles, 'I have to confess I hadn't noticed the pox, so I suppose you refer to the disease in its emotional form and there, I think, I must confess to having a somewhat limited expertise in the matter.'

'But you will stop the laudanum?'

'If that is what you wish, Captain Drinkwater.'

'It is, Mr Kennedy, thank you. Oh, and my thanks also for pulling my tooth.'

'Had I not done so you would have been suffering from a quinsy at best and a poisoned gut else, sir.'

'I'm obliged to you.'

'Thank you for the wine.'

"Tis a pleasure,' lisped Drinkwater, withdrawing his tongue from the gap it compulsively sought to explore. And his sibilant farewell seemed echoed as Andromeda's stern sank into the bosom of a wave, then rose as she drove through the swell which seethed, hissing away into the darkness astern.

CHAPTER 8 A Patch of Blue Sky

April 1814

Captain Drinkwater was not the only visitor received by Lieutenant Marlowe that evening, for once word of the captain's interest had reached the wardroom, Lieutenant Ashton determined on showing similar concern for a brother officer.