The North Water

CHAPTER NINE

They come to him with wounds and bruises, headaches, ulcers, hemorrhoids, stomachaches, and swollen testicles. He gives them poultices and plasters, ointments and balms: Epsom salts, calamine, ipecac. If nothing else works, he bleeds or blisters them, he induces painful vomiting, explosive diarrhea. They are grateful for these attentions, these signs of care, even when he is causing them discomfort or worse. They believe he is an educated man and that he must, therefore, know what he is about. They have a kind of faith in him — foolish and primitive perhaps, but real.

To Sumner, the men who come to him are bodies only: legs, arms, torsos, heads. Their flesh forms the front and rear of his concern. Towards the rest of them — their moral characters, their souls — he remains solidly indifferent. It is not his task, he thinks, to educate or move them towards virtue, nor is it his task to judge, soothe, or befriend them. He is a medical man, not a priest or a magistrate or a spouse. He will heal their lesions, remedy, where it is possible, their maladies and disease, but beyond that they have no call on him, and he, reduced in spirits as he currently is, has no comforts available to give.

One evening, after supper has concluded, Sumner is visited in his cabin by one of the ship’s boys. His name is Joseph Hannah. He is thirteen years old, slightly built with dark hair, a broad, pale brow, and gloomy, sunken eyes. Sumner has noticed him before and remembers his name. He looks, as the ship’s boys do, grubby and disarranged, and he appears, as he stands in the doorway, to be suffering from an attack of shyness. He is twisting his cap in his hands and wincing every now and then, as if even the thought of addressing the surgeon is painful.

“Do you wish to speak to me, Joseph Hannah?” Sumner asks him. “Are you feeling ill?”

The boy nods twice and blinks before responding.

“My stomach is bad,” he confesses.

Sumner, who is seated at the narrow fold-down shelf which serves him as a desk, gets to his feet and beckons the boy forwards.

“When did this problem begin?” Sumner asks him.

“Yesterday night.”

“And can you describe the pain to me?”

Joseph frowns and looks perplexed.

“How does it feel?” Sumner asks.

“It hurts me,” he says. “It hurts me a good deal.”

Sumner nods and scratches the dark nub of frostbitten tissue at the end of his nose.

“Climb onto the bunk,” he says. “I will examine you there.”

Joseph doesn’t move. He looks down at his feet and shudders slightly.

“The examination is a simple one,” Sumner explains. “I just need to check for the source of the pain.”

“My stomach is bad,” Joseph says, looking up again. “I need a dose of pepperine.”

Sumner snorts at the boy’s presumption and shakes his head.

“I’ll decide what it is you need or don’t need,” he says. “Now lie down on the bunk, if you please.”

Joseph reluctantly does as he is asked.

Sumner unbuttons the boy’s jacket and shirt, and tugs up his flannel vest. The abdomen, he notes, is not distended and there is no sign of discoloration or swelling.

“Does this hurt?” Sumner asks. “Or this?”

Joseph shakes his head.

“So where is the pain?”

“Everywhere.”

Sumner sighs.

“If it is not here or here or here,” he says, prodding the boy’s belly impatiently with his fingertips, “then how can it be everywhere, Joseph?”

Joseph doesn’t answer. Sumner sniffs suspiciously.

“Any vomiting?” he asks. “Any diarrhea?”

Joseph shakes his head.

There is a dank, fecal odor arising from the boy’s scrawny midsection which suggests that he is lying. Sumner wonders if he is touched in the head or merely more stupid than average.

“Do you know what diarrhea means?” he asks.

“The flux,” Joseph says.

“Remove your trousers, please.”

Joseph gets to his feet, unlaces and removes his boots, then unbuckles his belt and shrugs off his gray worsted trousers. The unpleasant odor increases in strength. Outside the cabin, Black shouts and Brownlee coughs enormously. The boy’s knee-length drawers, Sumner immediately notes, are stained and stiffened at the breech with blots of blood and shit.

Piles, for God’s sake, Sumner thinks. The boy clearly doesn’t know the difference between his stomach and his arsehole.

“Take those off too,” he says, pointing, “and be sure not to touch anything else with them as you do so.”

Joseph reluctantly pulls off his reeking drawers. His shanks are slight, almost muscleless; there is a faint black arc of hair around the otherwise pale purity of his cock and balls. Sumner instructs him to turn around and put his elbows on the bunk. He would normally be too young to develop piles, but Sumner assumes that the crude shipboard diet of salt junk and biscuits has done for him.

“I will give you some ointment,” he says, “and a pill. You will feel better soon enough.”

Sumner parts the boy’s arse cheeks and glances in for confirmation. He stares for a few seconds, stands back, then looks again.

“What is this?” he says.

Joseph doesn’t move or speak. He is shivering intermittently as if the cabin (which is warm) is bitterly cold. After a minute’s thought, Sumner steps out into the gangway and calls up to the cook for a bowl of warm water and a rag. When they arrive, he washes between the boys cheeks and applies a mixture of camphor and lard to his lesions. The sphincter is distorted and torn in places. There are signs of ulceration.

He dries the boy with a towel and gives him a pair of clean undergarments from his own cabinet. He washes his hands with what remains of the water.

“Put your things back on now, Joseph,” he says.

The boy dresses slowly, making sure as he does so not to catch the surgeon’s eye. Sumner goes to his medicine cabinet, selects a bottle labeled No. 44 and shakes out a small blue pill.

“Swallow this now,” he says. “Then come back tomorrow and I will give you another one.”

Joseph scowls at the taste, then swallows it with a gulp. Sumner looks at him carefully — his sunken cheeks, his narrow, twiny neck, his hazy and faraway eyes.

“Who did this to you?” he asks.

“No one.”

“Who did this to you, Joseph?” he asks again.

“No one did it to me.”

Sumner nods twice, then scratches his cheekbone hard.

“You may go now,” he says. “And I’ll see you tomorrow for the other blue pill.”

After the boy leaves, Sumner goes back out into the empty mess cabin, opens the iron stove, and pushes the stained underwear far back onto the banked and glowing coals. He watches it catch, then closes the stove and returns to his stateroom. He pours a dose of laudanum but doesn’t drink it. Instead he takes down his copy of The Iliad from the shelf above the desk and tries to read. The ship jolts upwards; the timbers grate and whimper. He feels, despite himself, a tightening in his throat and a warm, liquid accumulation in his chest like the beginnings of a sob. He waits a minute longer, then closes the book and goes back out into the mess room. Cavendish is standing by the stove smoking a pipe.

“Where is Brownlee?” Sumner asks him.

Cavendish nods sideways towards the captain’s cabin.

“Snoozing, most likely,” he says.

Sumner knocks anyway. After a pause, Brownlee calls for him to enter.

The captain is bent over the logbook, a pen in his hand. His waistcoat is unbuttoned and his gray hair is standing upright. He looks up at Sumner and beckons him inside. Sumner takes a seat and waits while Brownlee scratches out a final few words, then carefully blots his work.

“Little enough to report, I expect,” Sumner says.

Brownlee nods.

“When we reach the North Water, we’ll sight more whales,” he says. “You can be sure of that. And we’ll kill a few of ’em too, if I have anything to say about it.”

“The North Water is the place to be.”

“These days it is. Twenty years ago, the waters about here were full of whales too, but they’ve all moved north now — away from the harpoon. Who can blame them? The whale is a sagacious creature. They know they are safest where there is most ice, and where it is most perilous for us to follow them. Steam is the future, of course. With a powerful enough steamship we could hunt them to the ends of the earth.”

Sumner nods. He has heard Brownlee’s theories on whaling already. The captain believes the farther north you sail the more whales there will be, and he has come to the logical conclusion, based on this fact, that at the top of the world there must exist a great ice-free ocean, a place not yet penetrated by man, where the right whales swim unhindered in numberless multitudes. The captain, Sumner strongly suspects, is something of an optimist.

“Joseph Hannah came to see me today complaining of a foul stomach.”

“Joseph Hannah, the cabin boy?”

Sumner nods.

“When I examined him, I discovered he had been sodomized.”

Brownlee stiffens briefly at this intelligence, then rubs his nose and frowns.

“He told you this himself?”

“It was evident from the examination.”

“You’re sure?”

“The damage was extensive, and there are signs of venereal disease.”

“And who, pray, is responsible for this abomination?”

“The boy will not say. He is frightened, I imagine. He may also be a little simple-minded.”

“Oh, he is stupid enough,” Brownlee says sourly. “That’s for sure. I know his father and his uncle both, and they are fucking imbeciles also.”

Brownlee’s frown deepens, and he purses his lips.

“And you are sure that this happened on board this ship. That the injuries are recent?”

“Without a doubt. The lesions are quite fresh.”

“The boy is a great fool then,” Brownlee says. “Why did he not cry out or complain if this was being done to him against his will?”

“Perhaps you could ask him yourself?” Sumner suggests. “He won’t speak to me, but if you order him to name the culprit it’s possible he’ll feel obliged to do so.”

Brownlee nods curtly, then opens the cabin door and calls to Cavendish, who is still standing by the stove smoking, to have the boy brought aft from the forecastle.

“What’s the little shit done now?” Cavendish asks.

“Just bring him to me,” Brownlee says.

They drink a glass of brandy while they wait. When the boy arrives, he looks pale with terror, and Cavendish is grinning.

“You have nothing to be frightened about, Joseph,” Sumner says. “The captain wants to ask you a few questions, that’s all.”

Brownlee and Sumner are seated next to each other; Joseph Hannah is standing nervously on the other side of the round center table, and Cavendish is standing behind him.

“Should I stay or leave, Captain?” Cavendish asks.

Brownlee thinks for a moment, then gestures for him to sit.

“You know the habits and personalities of the crewmen better than I do,” he says. “Your presence may be useful.”

“I certainly know the personality of this little savage,” Cavendish says, cheerfully lowering himself onto the upholstered bench.

“Joseph,” Brownlee says, leaning forwards and attempting so far as possible to soften his habitually vigorous tone, “Mr. Sumner, the surgeon, tells me you have sustained an injury. Is that true?”

For a long moment, it seems as if Joseph has either not heard or not understood the question, but then, just as Brownlee is about to repeat it, he nods.

“What injury is this?” Cavendish asks skeptically. “I’ve not heard of any injury.”

“Mr. Sumner examined Joseph earlier this evening,” Brownlee explains, “and found evidence, clear evidence, that he has been ill-used by another member of the crew.”

“Ill-used?” Cavendish asks.

“Sodomized,” Brownlee says.

Cavendish raises his eyebrows but seems otherwise unalarmed. Joseph Hannah’s expression does not change at all. His already sunken eyes seem to be receding into his skull, and his breath is coming out in brief but audible pants.

“How did this occur, Joseph?” Brownlee asks him. “Who is responsible?”

Joseph’s bottom lip lolls slick and rubicund. Its sensual obviousness contrasts disconcertingly with the funereal gray of his cheeks and jaw and the dark, helpless recession of his eyes. He does not reply.

“Who is responsible?” Brownlee asks him again.

“It was an accident,” Joseph whispers in response.

Cavendish smiles at this.

“It is awful dark in that forecastle, Mr. Brownlee,” he says. “Is it not possible the boy merely slipped one night and landed on his arse in an unfortunate fashion?”

Brownlee looks across at Sumner.

“That is meant as a kind of joke, I assume,” the surgeon says.

Cavendish shrugs.

“The place is cramped and cluttered. There is barely an inch of space to move around in. It would be easy enough to trip.”

“It was not an accident,” Sumner insists. “The idea is ridiculous. Such injuries as I saw could occur in one way only.”

“Did you fall, Joseph,” Brownlee asks, “or did someone deliberately injure you?”

“I fell,” Joseph says.

“It was not an accident,” Sumner says again. “That is entirely impossible.”

“Strange, then, that the boy thinks it was,” Cavendish points out.

“Because he’s scared.”

Brownlee pushes himself back from the table, gazes at the other two men for a moment and then at the boy.

“Who are you scared of, Joseph?” he asks.

Sumner is surprised by the stupidity of the question.

“The boy is scared of everyone,” he says. “How would he not be?”

Brownlee sighs at this, shakes his head, and looks down at the rectangle of polished walnut framed by his outstretched hands.

“I am a patient sort of fellow,” he says. “But my patience surely has its limits. If you have been mistreated, Joseph, then the man who has mistreated you will be punished for it. But you must tell me the whole truth now. Do you understand?”

Joseph nods.

“Who did this to you?”

“No one.”

“We can protect you,” Sumner says quickly. “If you do not tell us who is responsible, it may happen again.”

Joseph’s chin is touching his breast, and he is staring fervently down at the floor.

“Do you have anything to say to me, Joseph?” Brownlee asks. “I will not ask you again.”

Joseph shakes his head.

“It is being in the captain’s cabin which has made him lose his tongue,” Cavendish says. “That’s all. When I found him in the forecastle, he was laughing and making merry with his friends. Any injury he may have suffered, if he has suffered any injury at all, has had no great effect on his character, I can tell you that.”

“This boy has been grievously assaulted,” Sumner says, “and the man responsible is aboard this ship.”

“If the boy will not identify his attacker, and if he insists, indeed, that he has not been attacked at all, but only suffered some kind of accident, then nothing further can be done,” Brownlee says.

“We can seek witnesses.”

Cavendish snorts at this.

“We are on a whaling ship,” he says.

“You may go now, Joseph,” Brownlee tells him. “If I wish to speak to you again I will send for you.”

The boy leaves the cabin. Cavendish yawns, stretches, and then gets to his feet and follows after.

“I will instruct the men to keep their quarters tidier in future,” he says, looking back facetiously at Sumner, “to avoid any more such accidents.”

“We will move the lad out of the forecastle,” Brownlee assures Sumner when Cavendish is gone. “He can bed down in steerage for a while. It’s a displeasing business, but if he refuses to point the finger, then the matter must be dropped now.”

“What if Cavendish himself is the culprit?” Sumner says. “That would explain the boy’s silence.”

“Cavendish has a good many faults,” Brownlee says, “but he is certainly not a sodomite.”

“He seemed amused by the situation.”

“He is a prick and a brute, but so are half the men on this bark. If you are seeking persons of gentleness and refinement, Sumner, the Greenland whaling trade is not the place to look for them.”

“I will speak to the other cabin boys,” Sumner suggests. “I will find out what they know about Cavendish and Joseph Hannah and then I will come back to you with my findings.”

“No you will not,” Brownlee answers firmly. “Unless the boy changes his tune the matter will be dropped now. We are here to kill whales, not root out sin.”

“A crime has been committed.”

Brownlee shakes his head. He is becoming irritated by the surgeon’s unwarranted persistence.

“One boy has a sore arse. That is all. It is unfortunate, I agree, but he will recover soon enough.”

“His injuries were more severe than that. The rectum was distended, there were signs…”

Brownlee stands up, making no effort now to hide his impatience.

“Whatever particular injuries he may have, it is your job, as surgeon, to treat them, Mr. Sumner,” he says. “And I trust you have the skills and necessaries to do so successfully.”

Sumner looks back at the captain — his heavy brow and fierce gray eyes, his crumpled nose and stubbled, leaden jowls — and decides, after no more than a moment’s hesitation, to accede. The boy will live after all. He is right about that.

“If I lack for anything, I will let you know,” he says.

Back in the cabin, he swallows the laudanum and lies back down on his bunk. He is weary from the effort of arguing and soured by his sense of failure. Why would the boy not help himself? What power could the culprit have over him? The questions grab and trouble Sumner, but then, after a minute or two, the opium begins to take effect, and he feels himself sliding back into a soft, warm, familiar state of carelessness. What does it matter, he thinks, if he is surrounded by savages, by moral baboons? The world will continue on as it wants to anyway, as it always has, with or without his approval. The anger and disgust he felt for Cavendish minutes before are like smudges on the far horizon now — ideas, suggestions only, nothing more important or noticeable than that. I will get to everything in its own good time, he thinks vaguely, there’s no need to rush or hurry.

* * *

Sometime later, there is a knock on his cabin door. It is Drax the harpooner complaining of a gash on his right hand. Sumner, blinking, invites him to come in. Drax, squat and broad-shouldered, his beard dense and reddish, seems to fill the small space almost completely. Sumner, feeling still a little light-headed and imprecise from the laudanum, examines his wound, then wipes it clean with a piece of lint and applies a dressing.

“It’s not serious,” Sumner assures him. “Keep that dressing on for a day or so. It will heal quickly after that.”

“Oh, I’ve had worse,” Drax says. “Much worse than this.”

Drax’s barnyard scent, dense and almost edible, dominates the room. He is like a beast at rest in its stall, Sumner thinks. A force of nature temporarily contained and pacified.

“I hear one of the cabin boys was hurt.”

Sumner has finished rolling up the remaining bandage and is returning the scissors and the lint to the medicine chest. The edges of his vision are faintly blurred, and his lips and cheeks feel chill and numb.

“Who told you that?”

“Cavendish did. He said you had your suspicions.”

“They’re more than that.”

Drax looks down at his strapped hand, then brings it up to his nose to sniff.

“Joseph Hannah is a well-known liar. You shouldn’t believe what he tells you.”

“He hasn’t told me anything yet. He won’t speak to me. That’s the problem. He’s too scared.”

“He’s feebleminded, that one.”

“How well do you know the boy?”

“I know his father, Frederick Hannah,” Drax says, “and I know his brother, Henry, also.”

“Captain Brownlee has decided the matter is closed anyway. Unless the boy changes his mind, nothing more will be done.”

“So that’s the end of it?”

“Probably.”

Drax peers at him carefully.

“Why did you choose to become a surgeon, Mr. Sumner?” he asks. “An Irish fellow like yourself. I’m curious.”

“Because I wished to advance. To rise from my humble origins.”

“You wished to advance, but now here you are on a Yorkshire whaler fretting over cabin boys. I wonder what has happened to all those grand ambitions?”

Sumner closes the medicine chest and locks it. He puts the key in his pocket and glances at himself quickly in the wall mirror. He looks a good deal older than his twenty-seven years. His brow is scored, and his eyes are rimmed and baggy.

“I have simplified them, Mr. Drax,” he says.

Drax grunts with amusement. His lips stretch out into a pantomime version of a grin.

“I do believe I’ve done the same,” he says. “I do believe I have.”