Prompt: Starlight, from SheWhoScrawls
There is nothing quite like a long sea voyage to give one time to think, even if one does not necessarily want to think overmuch. The journey from India to London could take up tp twenty days if the wind and currents did not cooperate. After the first five days, during which I was still too weak from my bout with enteric fever to leave my cabin, I found myself idle, with little to do. I was still weak after months of illness during which many were sure I should not survive, so I endeavoured to walk above decks as much as I was able to build my strength. Yet such solitary walks - for I knew no one on this ship - did little to improve my mood and I still spent much time dozing in my cabin.
One night after a week onboard, I found myself unable to sleep and ventured on deck. The inky blackness of the night, dark as only the sea can be, matched the darkness of my current mood. There was no moon and the only visible light aside from our poor lamps was the starlight. I gazed up at the stars, remembering how in the sea tales I read as a boy, sailors of years past used them to find their way home. Yet for me, the stars were only a reminder of how far from home I was. We had only just entered the Red Sea, on our way to the Suez Canal, and the sky was not my home sky that I had been viewing since childhood, but the sky of the Southern Hemisphere. The starlight I now saw came from unfamiliar constellations that did nothing to comfort me. I suppose every man far from home wishes for familiar comforts and I sighed, leaning as best I could on the railing of the ship as it rocked in the waves. My arm was still not healed from the Jezail bullet that had left me unable to use it for months, and I gritted my teeth against the pain as I put more weight on it. I would have to become accustomed to using it, or else I could not return to medical practice, though every doctor I had spoken to told me that I should recover almost completely in time and would be able to continue my career. Right now, I could only trust in their predictions, and felt rather out of control of my own life.
It was thoughts of the future such as this that I had longed to avoid, but it now seemed a futile endeavour. I had entered the British Army as an impoverished young doctor, having just finished my medical degree with no other prospects. I had not had the funds necessary to purchase my own practice then and no luck in finding a position in a hospital. Simple necessity had driven me to what other men chose for the more noble reasons of patriotism and love of duty. It seemed, however, that my decision had only set me farther back. Not only was I returning to England with nothing other than my paltry army pension, I knew that it would be some time before I would be able to return to practice, if indeed I ever could. Despite what I had been told by other doctors in Her Majesty's Army, I was in no mood for optimism. There was too much to think of.
On returning to London, I should have to find lodgings and this seemed a daunting task with only a small army pension and no ability to work at present. I sighed and gazed back up at the stars, which winked innocently in the night sky, though in my current state of mind they seemed to me to be mocking my hardship. My thoughts began to circle in ever more desperate scenarios. What was I to do until I recovered enough to find a position? Surely one would not appear the moment I was ready to return to work and my pension would not last until I found work in London. Even in smaller cities such as Edinburgh or Liverpool I would likely struggle until then, and surely there would be fewer opportunities in the country places I might be able to afford. I found myself facing the prospect of months of recovery and further months of searching before I would be able to support myself again. Even worse, what if my recovery did not take the course I was promised? If I was unable to return to work at all, what should I do then? My pension was small and would only last for nine months, at which point I would have to find my own way. But if I was unable to return to practice, I knew of nothing else I could do that would allow me to support myself. The only thing I had once thought to do other than practice medicine was write, and I had long since given up that idea on the basis of financial necessity, Trying to sell one's writing required a great deal of time and effort that I simply did not have on eleven shillings and sixpence a day. I shook my head. Right now, I did not even have the pleasure and comfort of writing for myself, due to the injury in my shoulder which made writing painful.
I looked up at the stars again, this time more annoyed at myself than at my situation. If I had nothing but time to think, I should use it to plan my future. Certainly my prospects appeared dim, but I was not the first man to return from war to what seemed an uncertain future. Many of my predecessors found their way after such a setback, and I could do no less. I would simply need to plan and exercise some frugality. I ignored that this had not previously been one of my strengths. There must be solution that I had simply not thought of.
Perhaps I would be able to find a lodger to share rooms with, thus lessening the financial burden. I should prefer sharing to being alone, which only threw into sharp relief how very alone I was at the moment. I knew no one I could turn to for help, my parents both being long dead and having no immediate family other than my brother, Henry. I grimaced. From him, I was more likely to have to fend off requests for financial assistance then to receive any. We had been close as children and young men, but after he chose not to finish out his degree and instead began leading a life of frivolous pleasure and debauchery, we had seen and heard little of each other. No, I could not count on him. I thought next of my fellows from medical college, wondering if any of them know of a place where I could find a position upon my presumed recovery or even if any of them might desire a fellow lodger. We had been good friends while at college, but I had disappeared from their ranks into the army soon after taking my degree while they remained behind to become hospital surgeons and private practitioners, no doubt more successful in their careers than I, with no need to share rooms. I concluded sadly that none of them could now be considered close enough friends to ask for assistance. The same held for those men I served with in Afghanistan. I had moved between the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers and the 66th Regiment of Foot, and as such had not cultivated any close friendships that could be counted on in times of difficulty. As an Army doctor, I had been somewhat separate from the men, who viewed me as being in a position of some authority, not a comrade in arms. Yet I was still under the command of the officers and could not associate freely with them either. For all that I had always read of the brotherhood of soldiers who served together far from home, I had not found such in my own army service, save perhaps from my faithful orderly, Murray, who had saved my life with his quick thinking and bravery. Yet he remained in Afghanistan, serving as orderly to my replacement, and was of no help to me now.
No, I should have to find my own way, and I discarded the idea of finding a fellow lodger as fanciful. I would be unlikely to be able to hold up my half of the cost of rooms on my small pension and in any case still needed a great deal of rest that would be difficult to achieve with a man whom I did not know. It would be unfair of me to insist that a fellow lodger take on the burden of my recovery when what I really needed was a nursemaid.
They say everyone sees with perfect clarity when looking backwards on their own life, and it seemed to me a shame that the future cannot be seen with equally clear vision. I had no idea what I should do, other than that joining the army had left my health in ruins and my finances in shambles. Yet I could not turn back the clock and undo that fateful decision, else I would surely have done so at this moment.
I looked out once more at what I presumed to be the horizon, unable to tell where the night sky ended and the sea began before I gave up and returned to my cabin, having made no decision. I could do no less than continue to press on, much as the ship continued its inexorable journey towards England and the stars continued to shine night after night. I resolved finally that I had nine months of a pension and time to recover my health, and set myself to that singular goal, pushing off any further decisions until such a time as I had to. Perhaps, in nine months, under the familiar starlight of England, my prospects would appear different. I hoped so, for I did not believe I could stand nine months of uncertainty only to find my situation unchanged. Surely some solution would present itself by then.