Maiden Voyage

FORTY-TWO

Rudyard's diagnosis, as it turned out, was not entirely accurate. According to Dr. Fields, the commodore had suffered an attack of apoplexy—the rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain—brought on by drinking three bottles of Haitian rum one after the other, and by the unusual tension in his cerebral arteries caused by the excitement of arguing with Rudyard.

"You need not blame yourself, Mr Philips," he said. "The commodore was well overdue for something like this."

"Will he die?" asked Rudyard.

Dr. Fields was rummaging in one of his coat pockets for something.

"Die? Well, he may. In fact it's quite likely. He's a very sick man indeed."

Rudyard looked over Dr. Field's shoulder, through the half-open door of Sir Peregrine's bedroom, where the commodore was lying on his bed, his face reposed, but oddly cream-coloured, as if it had been carved out of cold semolina, except for two flushed spots on his cheeks, like blobs of raspberry jam.

"He's in a coma," said Fields. "It's quite common after an apoplectic attack. He may gradually recover from it, or he may die within a few hours. There is very little that any doctor can do."

"If he recovers...?" asked Rudyard.

Dr. Fields was an experienced ship's doctor, and nobody's fool. "If he recovers, Mr. Philips, he will probably be paralysed down his right side. I can tell that already by lifting his arms and his legs, and seeing how they fall. He won't be able to resume his duties for months, if at all. I doubt if he will ever command the Keys fleet again, or the Arcadia."

Rudyard stared at Dr. Fields and swallowed so loudly that he was sure that Dr. Fields had heard him. If Sir Peregrine was unable to command the Arcadia again, that meant simply that Rudyard, as the next most senior Keys officer, would take over. He had won, after all. Sir Peregrine had toppled himself, in the greatest act of poetic justice that Rudyard had ever heard of. Rudyard looked around Sir Peregrine's sitting room and thought to himself: this is going to be mine. Where that picture of the Shannon hangs, there I shall hang the Chinese watercolour that Toy gave me on our first anniversary, birds on a summer evening. And over there, on that bureau, I can set out my photographs of Matthew and Janet.

Dr. Fields said, "Sir Peregrine isn't a bad man, you know. He's pompous, of course, but then I think that he has a right to be. The saddest thing of all is that he wanted to be a great liner captain, of the same stature as Sir James Charles, and somehow that lustre always seemed to escape him. I hope, when you command this ship, that you will remember him occasionally and with some charity."

"That's a very old-fashioned speech," Rudyard smiled at him.

"Loyalty and respect are old-fashioned values," said Dr. Fields. "Why do you think I wear a wing collar? Not out of affectation, but to remind myself that there was once a time when people treated each other according to certain codes of courtesy."

"Well, yes," said Rudyard uncomfortably. "I suppose I'd better get to the bridge."

"It's all yours, Mr. Philips," Dr. Fields told him.