The Blood: What secrets lie aboard? (Jem Flockhart Book 3) Read online

  A narrow jetty led out to her mooring, a spindly staircase zigzagging up the ship’s scrofulous flanks to the quarterdeck. Makeshift sheds clustered about the sawnoff masts like toadstools sprouting about the base of a severed tree. Between these, a series of washing lines had been strung, hanging with limp, grey bed linen. Her hull had been modified over the years, with hutch-like structures, balconies and staircases crudely fixed to her greasy wooden sides. In stark contrast, new, freshly painted frigates bobbed in the water fore and aft, their hulls gleaming, their sails neatly furled. Rotten and swollen, blotched with patches of mould and scabrous with rude repairs, the Blood loomed between them in a grim memento mori.

  ‘Do we have to shout “ahoy there”?’ said Will.

  I shaded my eyes and looked up. For a moment, up there on the deck, a figure was silhouetted against the sky – a man, tall and thin, but stooped, his black top coat loose on rounded shoulders. His hands gripped the rail like claws.

  Behind us, on the yard-arm of one of the new frigates, a magpie croaked and hopped.

  ‘One for sorrow,’ muttered Will.

  When we looked back the man had gone.

  We climbed the flimsy steps that clung to the ship’s starboard side, the rope banister as brown and sticky as if it had been fashioned from chewed tobacco. I found myself wondering how many diseased hands had gripped it, and I resolved to wash my hands as soon as I was able to. There was no one about, though from a hatch in the deck of the ship I could hear the familiar sounds of sickness – coughing, hawking, moaning. St Saviour’s Infirmary had sounded the same. I missed the old place, though I had to admit that there were some things – coughing, hawking and moaning amongst them – I would have been happy never to see or hear again.

  The hatch, and thus the bowels of the ship and the hospital proper, were accessed by a steep wooden ladder-staircase. ‘Down there?’ Will looked at the hatch, his expression appalled. ‘The place stinks like a latrine, even from up here.’ Downstairs, I knew from experience, was far worse than Will could ever imagine. I was glad not to be destined for the ’tween decks that day.

  I pointed to the quarterdeck. ‘Aberlady’s apothecary is in the former captain’s cabin, up there at the back – cramped, compared to St Saviour’s, but spacious enough. Below it are his living quarters.’

  Will started forward, his relief evident. ‘Then perhaps we should go up there directly—’

  ‘You!’ cried a voice. ‘You there! Where do you think you’re going?’

  The deck towards the front of the ship – an area of the vessel Aberlady had always referred to as ‘the fo’c’sle’ – had been roofed over to create a committee room, and a library cum consultants’ sitting room. It was from the latter that two men had appeared. Behind them, through the open door, I could see walls covered with books and a cluster of brocade-covered armchairs. A breath of warm fragrant air billowed out, heated by the fire that danced behind the door of a large round-bellied stove.

  The first man was old, tall and gaunt, and recognisable as the fellow I had seen looking out at us before we boarded. His eyes were pale, greenish and watery, like sputum, his greyish-coloured skin covered with a powdery sort of eczema, so that he looked as though he had been fashioned from ash, and might crumble away to nothing if the wind blew. The other was much younger, small and red-faced above a cleric’s collar. Tiny oval spectacles sat crookedly on his nose, obscuring his gaze.

  ‘Who are you?’ It was the old man who spoke this time, his voice harsh as a crow’s.

  I knew who he was, for I had met him before, though he had never deigned to speak to me.

  ‘Dr Sackville,’ I said. ‘My name is Flockhart, and this is my friend Mr Quartermain.’ I held out my hand. His grip was firmer than I had expected. The parson’s was moist, as if he had been licking his palms. I explained that we were ‘just passing by’ and hoped to see Mr Aberlady. ‘I assume he’s still your apothecary?’

  ‘Aberlady?’ said Dr Sackville. He glanced at his companion. ‘We were just speaking of him. He is our apothecary, sir, but for how much longer I cannot say.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He is, at best, indolent and, at worst, a danger to us all – when the fellow bothers to appear,’ said the man who had introduced himself as ‘the Reverend Dr Ambrose Birdwhistle’.

  ‘A danger?’ I said. ‘In what way, sir?’

  Dr Sackville shook his head. ‘Where might one begin—?’

  ‘Perhaps with the snakes?’ butted in the parson. ‘Or the scorpions? Not to mention the matter of his infidel’s views. He reads Ruskin, you know. To the patients!’

  ‘Ah, the snakes,’ Dr Sackville chuckled. ‘Yes, the fellow’s certainly very fond of them. I’m surprised he’s abandoned them – that big one especially. He often brings it on deck when the sun’s out. Oils its skin with linseed and a cloth. The men enjoy it too – they all want a go.’

  I smiled. I remembered Aberlady’s fondness for his snakes – a nasty-looking stripy viper and a brown, muscular python. ‘That big one’ had always been his favourite. It was hard to like the smaller, striped creature, with its fangs and its vicious ways with the pigeons.

  ‘Is he here?’ I said.

  ‘He is not,’ said Dr Birdwhistle. ‘We have not seen him for a week. We have sent ashore to look for him more than once, but he’s nowhere to be found.’ He turned to his companion. ‘I fear we may need to replace him altogether, Dr Sackville, no matter how long he’s held the post. The ship has descended into complete misrule. There’s gambling below decks, sir, and worse, since Aberlady vanished. I’m afraid I really must take the matter before the Governors. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Mark, chapter eight, verse thirty-six—’

  ‘Gentlemen, you find us perplexed and inconvenienced in equal measure by our apothecary’s disappearance,’ said Dr Sackville. ‘I have been away for a number of days or the matter would have been addressed before now, but I believe he has quite disappeared.’ He turned to his companion. ‘I fear I cannot stop you, Dr Birdwhistle. If you wish to bring the matter of Mr Aberlady’s “infidel’s views”, as you call them, to the governors then bring it you must, though perhaps it might be wise to find the fellow first. Perhaps if a matron might be engaged too? She might at least be prevailed upon to stop our nursing staff from running away.’ He frowned at me. ‘Do we know one another, sir? Flockhart, you say? And Quartermain?’ His lips twitched into the beginnings of a gleeful smile. ‘I remember now. Your father, Flockhart—’

  ‘Was murdered,’ I said, irritated by his insinuating tone. ‘By the hangman at Newgate. I think you’ll find it was a member of your own profession who was responsible for what happened at St Saviour’s, and to my father.’

  ‘You do me an injustice, sir. I was about to say that your father was a good man – from what I knew of him. We are rather out of the way of things here on the river, and my private practice never took me near to St Saviour’s, but I knew of his reputation. I was sorry to hear of what happened.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I felt myself blush to the roots of my hair. And yet, I could not help but feel that this was not what Dr Sackville had intended to say at all, but that he had quickly changed his sentiments purely for the pleasure of seeing me discomfited. He was watching my embarrassment with something like relish. I cleared my throat. ‘But we are here about Aberlady—’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said mildly. ‘Aberlady. Has he taken anything, Birdwhistle? Anything that might tell us where he’s gone or for how long?’

  ‘His quarters are as they usually are, and the apothecary is so untidy it’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Might we see?’ I asked.

  Dr Birdwhistle frowned. ‘I’m not sure it’s appropriate—’

  ‘Come now, Birdwhistle,’ said Dr Sackville. ‘What harm can it do? Besides, should Aberlady fail to return, or – assuming you get your way – be turned out altogether, we may well need the assistance of men
such as Mr Flockhart. You carry on, sir. I’ll show these gentlemen around.’

  The apothecary was low-ceilinged, tall enough for a man to stand up in but not tall enough to hang herbs up to dry, though the air on the river was too damp for such practices, and Aberlady generally bought what he needed from a wholesaler, or from the herb woman who came round with her cart. The stove was lit and the room warm, and the place smelled strongly of rosemary and lavender – we were all of us sorely troubled with moths – along with the sweet, distinctive smell of liquorice root. Beneath this I recognised the earthy scent of chickweed and cleavers, both excellent against the itch – another perennial problem in the close confines of ill-ventilated wards. There was a strong aroma of citrus too, from a crate of oranges and limes that stood beside the table – contraband, no doubt, for the docks were all around us.

  It was a bright room, with astragalled windows looking out on three sides – at the ships that were moored alongside, at the shore, and out to the river – their ledges lined with a familiar array of bottles glinting with coloured liquids. Beneath them were ranked rows of labelled drawers. I had the same in my own premises on Fishbait Lane. I tried to keep my shop tidy, as my father had always taught me. Here, however, the paraphernalia of the apothecary was spread out in such disorder and confusion that even Gabriel, a boy of the most slovenly habits, would have been appalled.

  I glanced around me. Aberlady was a knowledgeable and capable man. Despite his protestation that he was faced daily with the most banal of complaints, he was also keen, and dedicated to his work. I was surprised to see how disordered his remedies were, and how run down his stock of herbs and tinctures. What distractions had caused him to neglect his duties so badly?

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Aberlady left the place in a terrible muddle, though I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be set straight in no time by a man of your capabilities,’ said Dr Sackville. ‘We’re currently reliant on his apprentice, a girl from Siren House. The League for Female Redemption,’ he added, by way of explanation. ‘Aberlady took her on as a grinding boy – I mean girl.’ He tut-tutted. ‘You know I can’t for the life of me get into the habit of describing her as a girl. She has no place here, not really, no place at all amongst the materia medica of physic. I saw her earlier – Pestle Jenny, Aberlady calls her – though where she has got to now I have no idea.’

  ‘A girl?’ I said.

  ‘Good Lord!’ cried Will.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Dr Sackville. ‘Can’t imagine what he was thinking! Another experiment, no doubt. A girl could never be an apothecary, I told him, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  A cushion on the floor bore the imprint of a pair of bony buttocks, beside which a pestle and mortar had been set. There was no sign of Pestle Jenny, though she had clearly been there only moments earlier, for the cardamom she had been grinding hung fresh on the air, and the chewed end of the liquorice root she had left on the table was still moist. But Dr Sackville was still talking.

  ‘Of course, the physic we use here is no different to what you might find elsewhere, though we are sorely troubled by the ague, as so many men have spent time in the tropics.’

  ‘You prescribe cinchona?’ I said absently, looking about. I noted the desk in the corner, the writing slope with sheaves of cheap paper upon it, the pen missing from the inkstand.

  Dr Sackville shrugged. ‘Certainly. We all prescribe it.’

  ‘How many of you are there on board, sir?’ asked Will.

  ‘Of patients, some two hundred or more. We have – or had – Mr Aberlady, and of course a number of students. Of doctors, we have five – I include myself, though I am here rarely these days. My health—’ He held a hand over his heart. ‘I’m an old man now, and we do not last forever. But there are others here, young men, keen and ambitious, as I once was.’ He smiled indulgently. ‘I have high hopes for two of them, at least – Dr Cole and Dr Antrobus. Do you know of them?’

  I admitted that I did not. I saw Will looking at the signatures in the prescription ledger that lay on the table beside a carboy of witch hazel and a large jar glistening with leeches. ‘Dr Septimus Cole. Dr David Antrobus. How long have they worked here?’

  ‘Cole and Antrobus have been with us some five years. Dr Cole is assistant physician, Dr Antrobus assistant surgeon.’

  ‘And Dr Rennie,’ said Will, his finger still poised upon the prescription ledger. ‘Dr James Rennie. What are your hopes for him?’

  James Rennie. I had not heard the name for a long time, though as a child I had thought of him often. For James Rennie was the stuff of nightmares. I had first met him when my father had sent me to the Seaman’s Dispensary. His face was scarred from small pox, wrinkled from the sun, and bore the yellowish tinge of the malaria sufferer. Most macabre of all was his eye patch. Having spent much of his working life as a naval surgeon, Dr Rennie had seen numerous engagements, during one of which his right eye had been skewered by a flying splinter, and his cheek torn away by a musket ball. To cover the wound, and replace his missing feature, he had fashioned a metal plate painted in flesh-coloured enamel. It was decorated with an eye, blue and flawless, a perfect copy of the one that was lost. The whole thing was held in position by a ribbon tied about his head. When he was a younger man the eye must have been ingenious – precise and lifelike. But time works upon flesh and metal in different ways, and the former was now weathered and sagging, the living eye as pale and moist as an oyster. Beside it, the painted eye shone as bright and unblinking as ever, as though the young James Rennie still peeped out from inside the old. I could hardly believe the man was still alive, for he must have been over eighty years of age.

  ‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘Dr Rennie is still with you, sir?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Dr Sackville.

  ‘You know him, Jem?’ said Will.

  ‘A little,’ I said. I told him what I knew. ‘Dr Rennie lives on the Blood – has been aboard since she was first rigged. Cape St Vincent, the Nile, Trafalgar – the Blood was a ship of the line at all three battles and James Rennie was her surgeon. Am I right, Dr Sackville?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘He stayed with the Blood while she was on active service, and chose to remain when she became a hospital. “Older than the ship, with a past as murky as the Thames”, that’s how my father used to describe him.’

  ‘I’m afraid he is not what he was,’ said Dr Sackville. ‘His mind, you know.’

  ‘Poor fellow,’ said Will. ‘And yet he still treats patients?’

  ‘Oh yes. The ague, the pox, remedies for boils and sores – he can manage those well enough. He’s been treating them all his life, and the routine of sameness seems to comfort him. But these days there is little Dr Rennie remembers. I am sorry for it, though it comes to many who live so long.’

  We did not stay. With Dr Sackville standing beside me there was little in the apothecary I could examine closely. I had the feeling he was watching me, waiting to see whether I might notice something he himself had missed, and I was unwilling to give him the satisfaction. The grinding girl might be worth talking to, I thought, should I be able to get her alone, but I would not do so in front of Dr Sackville. I sensed that the girl was hiding in a cupboard, but if she had reason to conceal herself from strangers, or from Dr Sackville, now was not the time to find out why. Will was anxious to leave, I could tell, though as I knew what awaited us at Deadman’s Basin I was in no hurry. I had not been to the Blood for a long time, and was intrigued by the picture of misrule that Dr Birdwhistle had painted, so when Dr Sackville asked if we would like to see the place I agreed.

  We went down the hatch amidships that we had seen earlier. The steps were steep and slippery, the rope handrail moist and gummy to the touch, like a great length of twisted intestines. Descending without taking hold of it was quite impossible, and I saw Will wipe his hand on his handkerchief in disgust as soon as he was able to let go.

  The place had changed little since my last visit, some fift
een years ago, with what had once been the gun decks now known as the top ward, mid ward and lower ward. To left and right, narrow beds mounded with grubby blankets were set out side by side in neat ranks running down the ship from stern to bow. The light that filtered through the thick glass of the gun-port windows – those that were not closed and shuttered – gave the place a dark, fish-tank air. A beam of sunlight entering on the starboard side illuminated dust particles floating like flecks of plankton. A hunched figure moved towards the privy with the slow, heavy steps of a man underwater, so that the whole effect was as if we were caught in a wreck at the bottom of the deep. There were no attendants visible, though beyond the beds I could make out the dim glow of a lantern and the dark bulk of human shadows. The place echoed with coughing and talking, and here and there small huddles of men in grey nightshirts were gathered. Beneath their muttering came the rattle of dice and the slap of cards. The smoky, gamey stink of frying bloaters was thick about us, and I could hear the spit and crackle of hot fat, and the cough and cackle of nurses. The silhouette of a woman, tall and angular, moved amongst the beds, bending towards each occupant, one after the other. I heard the chink of the spoon against a bottle – laudanum, perhaps, or the tincture of cinchona I had seen in the prescription ledger. The air was wreathed with blue-grey smoke, and as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could make out pale smudges – men’s faces, each garnished with a pipe, the bowls of which trickled more of the stuff into the thick atmosphere.

  ‘They smoke in their beds?’ said Will.

  ‘They probably hide their pipes in their bedclothes if anyone tries to stop them,’ I said in a low voice, for a dozen faces had turned towards us. ‘It was the same at St Saviour’s. Besides, it probably deters the parasites, though I imagine the place is pestilent in the extreme no matter what.’

  Will coughed, and stifled a retch with his handkerchief. ‘How could this fellow Aberlady bear it here,’ he muttered. ‘It makes St Saviour’s look luxurious. Had he no ambition to go elsewhere?’