– a capital seaman, that Square – and to the barometer there is a very fair chance of our catching them, three Dutchmen and a Dane, bound for the Havana. So if you like to go ashore this evening with Square you could have a couple of days naturalizing along your river: there is a little Kroo village where you could pass the night. But you would have to be here on the shore and ready to put off without the loss of a minute at high tide on Wednesday.’
‘What time would that be?’ asked Stephen, glowing inwardly.
‘Why, at seven in the evening, in course,’ said Jack, rather
impatiently: even now he found Stephen’s inability to adapt his mind to the rhythm of moon and tide barely credible in a man of his parts. He paused, considered, and then in quite a different tone he went on, ‘Yet Stephen, I cannot but remember what you said about no shore-leave at Freetown after sunset, because of the miasmas and noxious exhalations, and I do beg you will take the utmost care – stay indoors, and walk out only when the day is aired.’
‘Thank you for your care of me, my dear,’ said Stephen, ‘but never let the climate grieve your generous heart. Freetown has a deathly fever-swamp at hand: even horses cannot live long in Freetown. But I shall be walking by a broad brisk river with falls, and miasmata are not to be feared by running water. It is your stagnant pool that engenders fever. Now I must arrange my collecting-bags and paper sheets, choose proper garments
– are there leeches? – consult with honest Square and plan our route. In two days, going steady, we might pass his plain with baobabs and monstrous bats and reach the country of the potto and Temminck’s pangolin!’
Chapter Nine
It was not until several days after they left Philip’s Island that Stephen had a quiet evening in the cabin, to spread his hurried notes and some of his botanical specimens and begin a detailed account of his journey up the Sinon river. He had of course told Jack of the pygmy hippopotamus, the red bush pig, the froward elephant that chased him into a baobab tree, the baythighed monkeys, the chimpanzees (mild, curious, though timid), a terrestrial orchid higher than himself, with rose-pink flowers, the Kroo python that Square addressed in a respectful chant and that watched them, turning its head, as they paced meekly by, the seven different hornbills, the two pangolins, the large variety of beetles of course and a scorpion seven and a half inches long, together with sun-birds and weavers.
‘And your potto?’ asked Jack. ‘I hope you saw your potto?’
‘I saw him, sure,’ said Stephen. ‘Clear on a long bare branch tilted to the moon, and he gazing down with his great round eyes. I dare say he advanced a foot or even eighteen inches while I watched him.’
‘Did you shoot him?’
‘I did not. I am not naturalist enough. Nor would you have done so. But I did shoot a fishing vulture that I prize; and if it prove a nondescript, as I trust it will, I shall name it after the ship.’
Those early days on the island and the opposite shore had been full of activity.
There was some malarial fever already among those who had raided Sherbro, and although the captured slavers – they had sailed confidently into the harbour without the least precaution – had no more than half a cargo each, many of the negroes had been aboard since Old Calabar, and some were in a bad way. Now, however, the two Dutchmen and the Dane had been sent off with prize-crews
to Freetown, and the two-deckers, together with the slow, heavy-sailing Thames and the Aumra, had weighed by night, standing out to sea, well out beyond even the highest tree’s horizon, to head eastward, to the Bight of Benin, thus setting the Commodore’s plan in
motion. In the morning those on the Bellona’s quarterdeck could make out the Laurel’s humble topsails on the larboard beam, and the Laurel was in touch with the inshore brigs; all was in train; the ship settled back into ordinary daily life, and Stephen was able to arrange his specimens in some sort of order, skin his birds, and label everything before sheer quantity (it had been a rich expedition) overwhelmed fallible memory. In all this he had John Square’s informed and valuable help; but when, after dinner, he sat down to the task of writing an exact account he was alone. Usually, once he had sunk into the proper mood and had marshalled all his facts he wrote quite fast; but now, although the picture of that blessed river, the clear strand between the water and the forest, and a fishing vulture overhead was exactly present in his mind, names, time of day and the sequence of events were less clear by far; and they would not easily yield to what mental effort he could bring to bear. Languor: muscular pain: incipient headache: stupidity.
He had drunk a couple of glasses of wine at dinner and a cup of coffee after, and on the supposition that this one cup had not been enough to counteract the meal he went into the great cabin, where Jack Aubrey was busy at his desk, a pot beside him.
Two more cups did produce a laboured paragraph or two, but this was nothing like the happy spontaneous flow that had been running through his head the day before. A modest ball of coca-leaves (he was husbanding his store) scarcely helped his prose but after a while it did prompt him to go to his looking-glass and put out his tongue. Alas, it was scarlet, as he had half suspected; and his eyes, though bright, had a ferrety look round the edges, while his lips might have been rouged. He felt his pulse: quick and full.
He took his bodily temperature with Fahrenheit’s thermometer: a little above a hundred, scarcely more than the surrounding air. He reflected for a while and then went below, where he found Mr Smith
rolling pills in the dispensary. ‘Mr Smith,’ he said, ‘in Bridgetown I make no doubt you saw many cases of the yellow fever.’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Smith. ‘It was our chief killer. The young officers looked to it for promotion. They called it the black vomit, or sometimes yellow jack.’
‘Would you say that there was a facies febris markedly typical of the disease?’
‘Yes indeed, sir: more so than in almost any other.’
‘Then be so good as to come with me when you have finished that board of pills, till I bring you to a good light.’
No light could have been better than the open gun-port by which they stood, nor could any young medical man have been more convincing than Mr Smith. After he had looked at Stephen with the closest, most objective attention he quite naturally assumed the physician’s liberty, raising his eyelids, desiring him to open his mouth, taking his carotid pulse, and asking the relevant personal questions. At length, looking very grave, he said ‘With all the reserves due to my fallibility and relative inexperience, sir, I should say that with one exception you have all the characteristics of a patient in the first stadium of the yellow fever; but I pray I may be mistaken.’
‘Thank you for your candour, Mr Smith: what is the exception?’
‘The visible anxiety and the strongly-felt oppression about the praecordia, which has never been absent in any of the cases I have seen, and which, in Barbados, is held to be most significant.’
‘Perhaps you have never examined a patient fortified by coca, that stoical plant,’
said Stephen inwardly, and aloud ‘In spite of that absence, Mr Smith, we will treat the indisposition as a case of nascent yellow fever, and I shall dose myself accordingly. Have we any calumba root left?’
‘I doubt it, sir.’
‘Then the radix serpentariae Virginianae will answer very well. I shall also take a large quantity of bark. And should the disease declare itself, Mr Smith, I formally direct that there should be no bleeding in this case, and no purging whatsoever: there is no plethora. As much warm water just tinged with coffee may be exhibited – as much as possible without gross discomfort. And sponging, mere sponging – no foolish affusion – would be beneficial at the height of the feverish stadium. Do you undertake to follow my direction, William Smith?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He was about to add something, but thought better of it.
‘Otherwise, a dim light with what quiet a man-of-war at sea can provide, and my pouch of coca-leaves beside me is all I wish. In spite of the estimable Dr Lind and several others I do not believe the yellow fever to be infectious. But rather than distress my shipmates I shall live in my cabin on the orlop for the time being. The little booth is in moderately good order, but I should be obliged if you would have it swept to some extent –