Free Ship's Surgeon by Celine Conway

way?”
    “The envelope was ... empty.”
    The clerk laughed. “Then it was certainly a joke. Someone high-spirited who found Gib unexciting. But you might let us know if you get another. The Skipper would climb the wall if he heard of a passenger receiving anonymous letters.”
    Pat didn’t destroy the second envelope; she slipped it into a pocket of her cosmetic case. And she didn’t leave a slip of paper bearing the word ‘yes’ on the dressing table, though she felt hollow inside when she went to dinner without having obeyed that command. In the corridor she hesitated. Should she ask the steward to watch her cabin? Or enquire, carelessly, whether he left his master-key in a place where it could be taken by someone else? She didn’t meet the steward and was rather glad. The whole business made her flesh crawl, and was better forgotten.
    She was off food that night. She saw that the doctor had an American couple at his table, that Kristin was wearing a peculiarly lovely sea-green dress and that Vernon Corey looked as huge and well turned out as ever. Pat did without coffee, strolled on to the deck and felt the new Mediterranean warmth in the atmosphere. There was a thin curve of moon, brand-new and lemon-silver, and there seemed to be a scent of lemons, too.
    Pat felt a physical ache near her heart, a tired rawness in her throat. If only Alan were here, with his teasing and banter, his total inability to be serious about anything except his work. At one time she had wondered if his lightheartedness were a fault in him; not now, though. Alan would soon put the cryptic anonymous messages where they belonged.
    She went below at about ten-thirty, found herself looking about her apprehensively, for a sign of some other presence. But gradually her nerves settled and she got into pyjamas. She lay on her blanket and tried to read, heard the clatter of stilt heels, the baritone speech of men as the filmgoers went to bed. Then it was quiet, till a summons came; a summons she had expected the first nights at sea but gradually forgotten to expect. A hurried thumping at her door, the thick urgent tones of Mrs. Lai.
    “You are there, Miss Fenley? Please come to Deva ... quick! You hear? Please come!”
    Pat flung on a wrap and was still knotting the girdle as she sped along the corridor at Mrs. Lai’s side. “What happened?” she demanded.
    The panting woman flapped her white sari. “She slept early. I too slept. Then there is this noise in my ears, a wailing, and I wake to find Deva sitting on the floor and weeping. You tell me I must never lift her alone, so I leave her there and come.”
    Pat tore up the staircase to A Deck, sprinted along to the stateroom. Deva sat near the wall with her head back and tears streaming soundlessly down her cheeks. Pulses hammering, Pat got down beside her and slipped a hand over her heart. She turned to the older woman.
    “Find the steward and go on to the hospital and get the night nurse to call the doctor. You can’t get him on this phone at night. Hurry, Mrs. Lai!”
    The woman was light on her feet but not nearly quick enough for Pat. With a wet face towel, Pat bathed Deva’s forehead with a stroking motion, murmuring soothing words as she did so. The girl’s face was grey, her eyes huge and lustrous, and as she swallowed her throat moved, painfully.
    “Deva darling ... you’re all right. There’s no need for tears. You can see that now, can’t you? We’re all here on the ship ... you and Lallie and me ... you’re going home to see your family. There’s nothing to cry for, lovey...”
    Bill strode in, knelt beside them. “Well, well,” he said quietly, and Pat felt a huge wave of thankfulness for his detachment and calm, the bulwark of his knowledge and strength.
    Bill did not ask questions. He used a stethoscope and a thermometer, passed his fingers almost absently over the smooth forehead and hair, and smiled. “Stay where you are for a bit,” he said casually. “I