"Killick," Jack bawled. "Preserved Killick, is the luncheon ready for eating?" He bowled through the chipped doors of the great cabin, damaged in countless storms and scuffles. Killick rubbed an already mirror-finished spoon with a dirty cloth and a spiteful glare. "Coming in when nothing's to rights and everything's dirty, making me look bad... Your good coat's in the wardrobe, sir; I sewed three buttons on again..." Killick sighed in an uncanny imitation of the late Mrs General Aubrey.
"Thankee Killick," Jack said absently. "Ahh, Mr Pullings!" he exclaimed, manifestly glowing at the sight of his old friend and first lieutenant, "Did I yet tell you the one about my mother-in-law and the badger?"
"And how she believed it was possessed, so tried to have the vicar in to dispose of it?" Pullings grinned as he shut the cabin door. "You never told me how it ended, sir."
"Well, she did have the vicar in, and she took him out to the spinney where the poor thing had its nest - Mr Mowett! Do come in; I was just telling Mr Pullings about my mother-in-law and how she nearly badgered the vicar to death, ha! ha!" Captain Aubrey became consumed by a fit of hearty cackling, and struck Pullings briskly across the back, nearly knocking the young first lieutenant into the table.
Pullings grabbed the back of a chair barely in time to avoid a close meeting with Killick and a massive tureen. "Watch yerself," the steward growled. "Didn't slave over this for hours so a young pup like you could splash it over the cabin - which I'd have to slave over for hours getting clean again-"
"Sorry, Killick. What did happen when the vicar met the badger?"
"Well, he bent over the nest very carefully, like he were playing statues, and called down into it-" Jack affected a timid, nancyish voice- "'You creature, are you in there? I say again, are you in there?'"
"What next?" Mowett lifted the lid of the tureen and hastily replaced it when he met Killick's thundering glare.
"The badger rushed out and fastened its teeth to the vicar's ankle, and the vicar lit out across the field with the badger coming every step of the way! And he never would speak to my mother-in-law again. He believes she put the badger up to it after his rather avant-garde Palm Sunday sermon." The quarterdeck bell rang once, twice, eight times total, the last echoing sullenly. Jack put up one finger. "Listen to that. Hear the way the bell rings? We're coming into fog."
Mowett glanced up anxiously. "Sir, I understood that we were not far from the coast of Brittany."
"And so we are, and so I'll order less speed. But first - luncheon." Jack sat, swiftly followed by Pullings and Mowett, who had come off the forenoon watch and were visibly famished. "Madeira, Killick, if you please." Killick came forward with the bottle from his corner and stared in silent, grizzly contempt at both young officers, making perfectly obvious that he served them as a grim duty and not by his own choice. Aubrey jumped slightly. "But where is the doctor? Mr Mowett, did you perhaps pass him in the corridor?" Great leaping cats, he thought nervously, checking his pocketwatch. One quarter of one hour, he said, and it has been one half.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I did not. Mr Pullings and I came down together, and the doctor's cabin door was shut. I knocked, but there came no answer. Perhaps the doctor is asleep, sir." Mowett gulped heartily at his wine.
"Ahh, perhaps, perhaps." Jack wrung his napkin unconsciously. "Mr Mowett, if you could pass the word for Mr Simmons, please."
"Sir? Mr Simmons the surgeon's mate?" Mowett's eyebrows lifted. "Yes, sir, of course." He vanished into the corridor, calling softly. "You there! Pass the word for Mr Simmons to the captain's cabin." He sat back down and stared at his Madeira.
"Forgive my intrusion, sir, but is something the matter with Doctor Maturin?" Pullings, concerned, leaned closer to Captain Aubrey.
Jack dropped his napkin and dived after it, ferretting about under the tablecloth. "No," he called in muffled tones. "The doctor is capitally well." Cold-blooded liar, he thought, snatching the napkin and regaining his chair with a shred of dignity. "Mr Mowett, dare I ask your opinion of the Madeira? You have fixed it with a rather inhospitable glare."
"The madeira is very fine, sir," Mowett mumbled insincerely, blushing. "If you will forgive me, sir, I feel quite indisposed. Please excuse my rudeness." Mowett rushed ungallantly from the table, sweating visibly. Pullings and Aubrey stared after in blank astonishment. The captain reached for Mowett's glass and sniffed. "Upon my word of honour, Mr Pullings. Mr Mowett's wine has had something added to it."
Pullings stood up, alarmed. "Has our wine been adulterated as well?"
Captain and first lieutenant stared in oblique horror at their brimming goblets of imported wine. A soft knock came at the cabin door.
Jack opened his mouth several times, quite unable to answer. He gulped, wetting his dry throat. "Enter."
A slender male with an off-centre neckcloth and a very untidy blond queue sidled through the door. He popped his knuckles anxiously, wrinkling his long and horselike nose. "You sent for me, sir?"
"Yes, Mr Simmons. We believe that a person or persons unknown has added some substance to the wine. Could you offer a medical opinion?" Jack plucked his glass of Madeira from the tabletop and handed it to the pale surgeon's mate, who put his nose to it and inhaled deeply. His eyebrow lifted.
"I couldn't say with exact certainty, sir, but I believe your wine has had croton oil added to it. Have either of you consumed any wine?" he asked, blinking protruberant grey eyes.
Jack stared at Pullings, who shook his head mutely and addressed Mr Simmons in trembling tones. "Neither myself nor the captain has, but Second Lieutenant Mowett had half a glass, as you can see. He fled the cabin in quite some hurry and sweating like Paddy's pig." He swallowed feebly. "Is croton oil - would it - would croton oil be likely to have deletrious effects upon Mr Mowett?"
Simmons shook his head, replacing Mowett's glass gingerly. "He cannot have consumed much, sir. As far as the known effects of croton oil - well! I should very well think that Mr Mowett is at the heads, and will be found there in considerable distress until the evening watch is rung." He coughed euphemistically, raising his eyebrows at Captain Aubrey. "He will recover, never you worry. I must ask, sir; have you any notion of how the croton oil came to be added to your wine?"
Have you any notion of the doctor's indisposition, Mr Simmons? Jack jumped, and smoothed his breeches nervously. "No, no. None whatsoever. I must confess that I wonder the same thing, Mr Simmons. Ha! ha! By my mother-in-law's petticoats, I should not be surprised if Killick had done it to revenge himself upon me for needing a button sewn on again." Grinning painfully, Jack paced to the window and stared out. "That is all, Mr Simmons. Thank you."
"I am glad to be of service, sir." Simmons vanished as unobtrusively as he had come, leaving Jack and Pullings in a brooding silence, the latter eyeing the former with concerned curiosity.
"Captain Aubrey - " Pullings paused and drummed the table pensively.
"Yes, Mr Pullings?"
"I cannot help but have misgivings, sir."
"Misgivings, Mr Pullings? Upon my word. Whatever might these misgivings concern?" Jack sighed, not budging from his rigid stance. And Stephen has never come.
"Sir, forgive my presumption, but if you asked Mr Simmons here to discuss the adulteration of the wine, then I am the Empress Josephine." Pullings sat down heavily, resting his chin awkwardly on one hand.
Jack chewed his lower lip against a thorough disintegration. Shedding his over-warm coat with undignified haste, he stepped ponderously to the table and sat opposite Pullings, feeling an irksome trickle of sweat cross the nape of his neck as he covered his face with both great florid hands. "Oh, red hell and death. Beelzebub's mother! Tom," Aubrey asked, uncovering his face and leaning tensely forward, "Have you been at leisure to observe Dr Maturin since our commission's start?"
Pullings raised an eyebrow, plainly set off-balance. "I cannot honestly say that I have - observed - the doctor at any intimate distance, sir. I did notice that he looked rather like he hadn't been eating properly. I recall jibing him over it just out of Portsmouth."
"I see. I see." Jack snatched up his wineglass, then set it down again at a horrified gesture from Pullings. "What I am about to tell you, Tom, you must never disclose to another living soul - or a dead one neither, as a living soul may be nearby to hear it. Is that plain as plain?"
"It is, Captain Aubrey." Pullings folded his arms somberly. "Has something untoward happened to the doctor?"
"Untoward? Great guts, Tom, he has not been spotted in flagrante delicto with a goat or a sheep or the Empress Josephine. No," Jack cried, leaping out of his chair and rummaging carelessly through his sea-chest, "It is ever so much more consequential than that!" Seizing an almost-full bottle of French brandy, booty from a previous commission's prize, he plumped down again, grinning malevolently at Pullings. "Mr Pullings, the doctor has become afflicted with an ancient and fatal malady, which made its first serious manifestation this morning."
Pullings's eyes widened. "Certainly, sir, you are having me on. It's.. impossible. Preposterous."
Jack swilled at the liquor willingly. "Certainly, Mr Pullings, I wish it were what you have said." He stoppered the bottle and stared at the tabletop. "No, Tom, I am not perpetuating some elaborate practical joke. Dr Maturin -" he gulped dryly, and passed a hand over his face. "He has the consumption. I thought to ask the advice of Mr Simmons - but I could never. As I was told in strictest confidence, I am telling you in stricter. Tell. No. One."
Pullings nodded slowly. "I und-" From the upper deck came a sudden and total chaotic clamour, of bells and the eager voices of men, of scurrying feet and the rumble of gun-trestles. The voice of the sailing master bawled out, one clear note above the general din.
"Beat to quarters!"
A/N: Sorry to end that on a cliffhanger, but I'm late updating. I hope you all enjoy!
Keeper: That's why I accept anonymous reviews :P I'm not worthy of your glowing words, but thank you!
Latergator: Everybody needs a spare friend or three. Thank you for the review!
G.Eliot: I hope you'll get around to reading Chaps 2 and 3, as they are the continuation.. Thank you!
Ash Phox: Thank you so much! I've got fears that this chapter fell short of the mark - if it did, please alert me. At least I think I can be proud of "The Sheets." :P The speech went decently, but I was a bit over time and nobody understands medical terminology even if you explain it in plain English! Surely "a hardened mass of white blood cells and dead tuberculosis bacilli" is an adequately clear explanation of "tubercle"?
Mary Anne Talbot: Stephen is a lizard.. he's cold-blooded and dry and enjoys flicking his tongue at silly people. Perhaps he studies reptiles when he feels lonesome for his family :P Thank you for reviewing!
Sarince: I'm looking as lively as one who might be favourably compared to a sheet can :P School keeps me busy while my anti-tuberculosis medication (I have a dormant infection; I harbour germs but am not sick like Stephen) knocks me flat on my bum! Thank you for reviewing, and I hope you enjoy!