CHAPTER XXVII

"But I tell you I _must_ see the admiral!"

"That's all right, old man; you just lie still as you are for a bit and we'll see what we can do about it." The fleet-surgeon bends over the cot in the sick bay where the patient is temporarily accommodated, and with his best bedside manner rearranges the pillows beneath the bandaged head of the sick officer. He believes in humouring cases of this sort; it is no good contradicting them--that only upsets them; far better pretend to give in to their idle fancies.

And all the while, beaming suavely and answering soothingly to the distracted appeals, he is thinking, "I hope to goodness that hospital drifter will come alongside soon. Once they have got him on board the hospital ship they can deal with him all right; they've got plenty of sisters and nurses to look after him and keep him quiet if he gets fractious, but with the small staff I've got here--well, I shan't be sorry to get rid of him!"

"Confound it, man, can't you see there's nothing the matter with me? It is most important that I should go and see the admiral at once. I must go, I tell you!"

"They always do think it most important that they should get out of bed and go off somewhere or other," thinks the fleet-surgeon; "these cases of slight concussion are the very deuce and all."

And he nods almost imperceptibly to the sick-berth steward across the bed; by which the latter understands that he is to go and summon the attendant to help hold the patient down in case he gives trouble.

Really, it is not a very serious case of concussion, to judge by all the symptoms; the eyes look all right, and there is no sign of torpor. Moreover, there are no bones broken to complicate the case. It must be just the general shock which accounts for this excited condition--that, and the reaction after the distressing events connected with the loss of the _Marathon_.

"Would you care for a lemon drink?" says the fleet-surgeon, evading the patient's excited remarks; "they make an awfully good brand of it in the sick bay here. I tell you, lots of fellows try to go sick just on purpose to get some. Would you like to sample it?"

"Lemon drink be damned!" cries Stapleton, losing his temper completely. "I'm as well as you are, and if you weren't a blithering fool you ought to be able to see it for yourself without my telling you! Why are you keeping me here? What in the world do you imagine is the matter with me?"

This particular fleet-surgeon believes not only in humouring his fractious patients; he even goes so far at times as to talk straight to them about their ailments, without any evasion or pretence. It is rather a bold plan, but sometimes it has marvellously good results.

"Well, old man," he says, "it's just this. You have had a pretty bad time of it--got a pretty bad biff on the head, you know; and unless you keep quiet and rest for a day or two I won't answer for the consequences."

"But I assure you I feel perfectly well," answers Stapleton in a tone of aggrieved surprise. "I'm only just a bit shaken--that's nothing. My mind is absolutely clear, and I'm not wandering, or anything of that sort. There really is something which the admiral ought to be told immediately. It isn't hallucination on my part or any rot of that sort!"

"I'll tell you what we'll do," offers the fleet-surgeon with engaging frankness; "you turn round and go to sleep for an hour or two, and then, when you wake up, if you still have the same idea we shall both know that it is genuine and no hallucination. Come now, that's a fair offer, isn't it?"

Stapleton finds it increasingly difficult to keep down his rising anger in face of this plausible palavering. Yet he is sensible enough to see that he must do so, if he will not fall deeper into suspicion as one who is wandering in his mind.

"No," he says, "I'm afraid that won't do at all. You see, I must tell my news to the admiral at once, while the court of enquiry is sitting. Before, if I can get to him in time."

He speaks so quietly and reasonably that the fleet-surgeon is almost convinced, against his will.

"I am quite willing to undergo any test you may like to put me to," continues the patient with quiet earnestness; "ask me any questions you like, try me in any way you will, and I'll prove to you that my brain is in perfect working order. As for the rest of me, I'm quite all right in that respect too, except for a slight feeling of stiffness and bruises."

"Well," says the fleet-surgeon, thinking it wise to take him at his word, "tell me exactly all that happened to you last night, and how you came to be in the condition you were found in this morning. How did you manage to fall over the cliff?"

"Fall over the cliff? Did I fall over it?"

"Hm! Don't you remember it, then?"

"I remember going ashore--and I remember being helped into the boat just now. Do you mean to tell me that--oh, of course it must be so--that was last night and this is this morning!"

"How did you get so near the cliff, away from the path? And who was the sailor with you?"

"Sailor? What sailor?"

"You _don't_ remember, then?"

"Oh, hang it all, I remember borrowing the skiff and going away by myself. I pulled in, and made fast to the landing-place. My intention was to look for the admiral, as I believed him to be still somewhere on the island, and I wanted most urgently to see him so as to tell him--what I still want to tell him!"

"Yes? And what then? What happened after that?"

A blank, puzzled look overspreads Stapleton's features.

"I--I'm blest if I know!" is his crestfallen reply. "Stop a minute. I've got it! No,--it's gone again!"

"There you are, see!" exclaimed the fleet-surgeon triumphantly. "What did I tell you? You see, your brain is not quite in working order: but, if you do as I tell you and keep quiet, we'll have you right again before you know where you are."

"Now, what the deuce did happen after I landed?" muses the other, paying no attention to the doctor's words, but engaged in trying to worry the thing out.

A voice at the door of the sick bay makes an interruption in this colloquy.

"Hospital drifter just come alongside, sir. How soon can you be ready?"

It is the officer of the forenoon watch who speaks, the same young sub-lieutenant who allowed Stapleton to take the skiff away in the last dog of the previous evening. And his soul within him is stirred with righteous wrath against the offending officer.

"I never came across any one like him for causing so much trouble in a short time," he complains in bitter meditation. "First he blows on board and turns me out of my cabin; then he keeps the steamboat as his own blooming private yacht the whole of the afternoon; then he takes away the skiff and loses her, and consequently gets me strafed by the commander; and finally pinches four of the hands to carry his blighted cot just when I haven't got a man that can be spared! I hope to goodness they will drop him in the ditch and drown him!"

"What's that about a hospital drifter?" enquires Stapleton in an ominously quiet voice.

"Well, you see, old man, you will be able to get better food and more attention in the hospital ship; so I'm sending you there for a few days."

"I'm damned if you are!" shouts the stalwart patient, flinging aside the bed-clothes and springing out of the cot. "Here, give me my things at once; I'm going to dress. I've had enough of this dashed tomfoolery!"

"Hold his legs! Here, you! Come here and help! Ah, is that your game?"

Stapleton has flung the unfortunate steward sprawling across the adjoining cot, and turns threateningly upon his chief tormentor.

"If you lay a finger on me I'm afraid I shall have to do the same to you," he cries.

The fleet-surgeon, is no athlete, but he has the heart of a lion; he needs it in his job. He braces himself for an effort; there are the makings of a very pretty rough house in the situation.

Fortunately, its development suffers a timely check; the captain of the ship at this moment enters, politely solicitous as to the welfare of his sick guest.

It is a very unexpected tableau that meets his surprised eyes.

"What on earth--hallo, what is happening?" he not unnaturally queries.

Explanations follow, somewhat confusedly, those of the fleet-surgeon being much more voluble and pointed than the account given by Stapleton, who stands quietly biding his time until the other has finished.

Then he tells his story, lucidly and calmly, again insisting with the utmost earnestness that he has most important information for the admiral.

"But," says the captain, "can't you see for yourself that this may be nothing more than a trick of the imagination? That knock on the head you have got may account for the whole thing; the fleet-surgeon says it is so, and although you seem clear enough in your mind on other matters, I think it is quite possible that you may be suffering from the effects of the shock you have had. You say you can't remember what took place last night after you landed on the island?"

"Unfortunately, no, sir. I have a perfectly clear recollection of everything else, but just how I happened to fall over the cliff remains a blank to me. I can only imagine that in the dark we must have got too near the edge, and either grabbled hold of the other man to save him or he must have grabbled hold of me. But, though I have no explanation to offer of that, the point is that I distinctly remember going ashore for the very purpose of finding the admiral and speaking to him. That doesn't fit in with the hallucination theory, does it?"

"What do you think, P.M.O.?"

"Well, sir, I wouldn't altogether like to say what there may not be something in what he says, but----"

"Why can't you tell me all about it instead of the admiral?" breaks in the captain, seeing a way out of the difficulty.

Stapleton also sees hope in this, and grasps at the suggestion.

"I can't tell you all, sir," he replies with eagerness, "but I can tell you enough to let you see how very essential it is that I should go to the admiral at once."

Inwardly he is fuming with impatience; the court of enquiry, as he knows, must have already opened, and if matters are delayed much longer he will be too late.

But it is no use giving way to this impatience. He must collect his wits to tell the captain just enough and no more.

The fleet-surgeon tactfully withdraws from the sick-bay, beckoning to his attendants to do the same, and leaves Stapleton to his private interview with the captain.

Just how much Stapleton tells him is known to those two alone. But it has its effect--the captain is evidently greatly impressed; more than that, he is convinced. Stapleton's patience and insistence have won, after all.

Summoning the fleet-surgeon again, the captain states his conviction that the sick officer really has some secret information which ought to be imparted to the court of enquiry; and the man of medicine is so far persuaded that at last he consents to let Stapleton go, only stipulating that he himself shall accompany him as a necessary precaution.

This is enough. The hospital drifter is sent away again, and in her place the steamboat is called away. Stapleton and his cautious medical adviser get down into the boat and start off immediately.

Will he be in time? That is Stapleton's one thought now.

And the sub-lieutenant on watch looks gloomily after the departing steamboat, and murmurs pessimistically, "More trouble! I hope the P.M.O. will give him a dose of poison!"

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