Maiden Voyage

FORTY-EIGHT

Sir Peregrine suddenly said, "Maude, where did you leave my pipe?"

He opened his eyes. He looked up at Dr. Fields and frowned.

"Maude?" he asked.

"It's Dr. Fields, Sir Peregrine. There's nobody called Mavis here."

"Ah," said Sir Peregrine. His jaw slackened slightly. "I could have sworn I was talking to Mavis." Then, with another frown, "Are you sure Maude isn't here?"

"Only me, sir, at the moment, and Nurse Queensland."

"Nurse... ?"

"Queensland, sir. You must remember Nurse Queensland?"

"Ah," breathed Sir Peregrine. "Yes..."

"You've been very ill, I'm afraid," said Dr Fields. He took out his clinical thermometer and shook the mercury down with two or three flicks of his wrist. "You were very lucky it wasn't fatal."

"Fatal? But I've just been to tea with... the Borages, was it? Where have I just been?"

"You haven't been anywhere, Sir Peregrine. You've been lying here in your bed unconscious."

"I could have sworn..." said Sir Peregrine. "I could have sworn that I was talking to that fellow Borage. He said something about Black Prince strawberries. He was trying to bring some on early, under glass. Didn't you hear him? He was only... just over there... somewhere..."

Doctor Field sat down on the edge of Sir Peregrine's bed. "You've had a stroke," he said soberly. "A burst blood vessel in the brain. You were very fortunate that it didn't kill you at once."

Gently he took the commodore's wrist, and peered down at his pocket watch. "Your pulse is well over a hundred," he said. "You're going to have to take things very easy from now on." He leaned forward and tucked the thermometer under Sir Peregrine's tongue. "Don't bite it. It's the only one I've got.'

Sir Peregrine frowned around him in bewilderment as Dr. Fields waited for the mercury to rise. As soon as the thermometer was taken a of his mouth, he said, "I can't understand why Maude isn't here."

"Perhaps she went out," said Dr. Fields, as kindly as he could. Sir Peregrine was rolling his eyes from side to side, and he was obviously distressed.

"Out?" asked Sir Peregrine. "But where? Why should she have gone out?"

"I don't expect she's gone for long," Dr. Fields told him. "Just to powder her nose, perhaps. Or to get some fresh air."

"But I was sure that..."

"Yes? You were sure that what?"

"I don't know," said Sir Peregrine. His face folded up like Rudyard's message. "I'm not sure what I was sure of. I'm not at all sure."

Dr. Fields stroked the back of the old man's hand. It was veined, weatherbeaten, speckled with liver spots. On the wedding-ring finger was a ring engraved with the crest of the Keys Shipping Line. Dr. Fields said, "Who's Maude?"

"Maude?" retorted Sir Peregrine, staring at him. "You don't know your own sister? Well, that's nonsense, Borage. Tripe. That's what it is. Tripe. Now, where has she hidden herself? Playing games, is she? I've been looking for her all afternoon. You can't possibly say that she's..."

The old man suddenly let his head drop back, so that he was staring at the ceiling of the sitting room above him. Curved panels of mahogany, beaded and polished. A modern reproduction of Nelson's quarters on the Victory. He tried to focus, but then he gave up, and lay back with his eyes watering and his face grey with desperation. "I don't understand," he said, as if he were pleading with someone. "I don't understand this at all. You said she was going to be here. I wrote. Look, my letter's still there, by the clock. She must have seen it. Surely she read it. Surely she read it. I don't understand why she's—"

He was silent for almost a minute, panting softly and licking his lips. Then he whispered, "My dear Maude, I am not a man who is accustomed to begging. I have never begged anything from anyone in my life. But now, please hear me out. Without you, Maude, my existence will have very little meaning. Why should I worry if the sun rises, Maude, if I can no longer expect to see you during the day? Why should I bother to eat and drink, to keep myself alive, if I can never be with you? Maude—"

He gagged and choked on phlegm. Dr Fields lifted his head up, and called Nurse Queensland to bring him a glass of water. Nurse Queensland was there in a moment, a bustle of starch. She was one of the nurses of the old school. Trained at Barts. Served in field hospitals on the Somme. A red face, a nose that looked like a fire-alarm button, and a bust as broad and white and crisp as the Slessor Glacier.

"He's delirious," said Dr. Fields. "He keeps talking to someone called Maude."

Nurse Queensland said, "I saw boys like that at Passchendaele, just before they died. Talking to their sweethearts back home just as if they could see them standing right there in front of them. Perhaps some of them could. When you've been through a war like the last one, you believe in the supernatural."

"At least there won't be any more wars like that one,' said Dr. Fields. He had himself served for a year on a troopship in the Mediterranean, and he had seen eighteen-year-old boys go through agonies that not even he could understand, after years of medical practice. How do you cope with boys who haven't even lived yet, but whose arms have gone, whose faces have gone, whose sex has been reduced to gristle? He let Sir Peregrine's head fall back on the pillow, and stood up. The old man was breathing more evenly now. His eyes were closed, and to all appearances he was deep in a dreamless sleep.

"You ought to have a rest now, Dr. Fields," said Nurse Queensland. "Don't you worry about the commodore. I'll take care of him."

Dr. Fields looked down at Sir Peregrine and nodded. "Very well, Nurse. I am sure you can manage. There's one thing, though. If he should talk of Maude... well, don't disillusion him. Tell him that she should be back with him very shortly, and that he mustn't worry about her."

Nurse Queensland said, "Poor old chap. He's probably been worrying about his Maude all his life, if he could only have told anyone about it."

"Yes," said Dr. Fields. "That's usually the way."