Another prospective journey in West Africa filled me with delight, and no more blithesome soul stepped on the Elder Dempster liner Akabo the morning she left the Princes’ Quay at Liverpool.
A smooth course through the Irish Sea takes us next morning round Land’s End and across the mouth of the English Channel, which is in anything but a friendly mood; and, as usual on the second day out, the chronicler promptly goes into involuntary retirement. In previous similar experiences he had not troubled the ship’s doctor, but on the present occasion a slight trouble not yielding to the applications from his own medicine-case, he thinks it well to utilise skilled, professional treatment.
As promptly as if he were carrying out a three-guinea visit, Dr Hanington appears. A British Columbian with an exceedingly rapid delivery of words, before you have finished your explanation, not a look at tongue nor a touch at the pulse, he has darted out of the cabin and almost instantaneously returns, holding a tube of gelatine in the left hand and a tumbler of water in the other. You cannot gulp down drug and liquid and splutter or stammer your thanks in time for them to catch the swiftly disappearing doctor, who whilst you have been employed in the operation of swallowing has ejaculated, with a delightful Irish brogue, “That will put you right. You will be skipping about the deck to-morrow.”
Three times that day Dr Hanington came unsolicited to see the patient, the two later visits extending to interviews with conversations. They were of the bright, cheery kind, such as, “The Channel is always beastly. I am usually sick there myself. We shall be through the Bay to-morrow noon. It will be smoother than this choppy water”—a glance through the glass of the porthole—“and then you will be running along the promenade deck.” That seems a far-distant vision to the helpless victim of grievous mal-de-mer, though its manifestation is limited to intense headache.
Meanwhile prompt attention is forthcoming from the berth steward, W. Harrison. The measure of your suffering is indexed by your feed. The first morning of being down Harrison enters the cabin and asks tenderly, “What can I get you for breakfast, sir?” holding out a menu-card. “Don’t show me that” is the shuddering reply. The sight certainly the thought, of it provokes an internal protest against food. “My stomach no fit for chop,” as the natives down the Coast would say. Anglise: “I cannot possibly eat.”
Midday Harrison appears in an enquiring attitude, “No, thank you; not now.”
The evening brings him again. The situation is slightly on the mend, for a few grapes are requested and a large bunch is sent in by the chief steward, Mr James Toner. Next morning there is a brighter outlook. Life appears worth living. Dry biscuits and grapes are readily asked for. The doctor makes a call, which is repeated a few hours later, and each time he insists, in his quick manner of expression, that the still-stricken patient is appreciably nearing the stage of tearing about the deck.
Lunch-time the menu-card, which Harrison on his calls has evidently been holding behind him, out of sight, no longer creates the former revulsion, and a little cold meat, mashed potatoes and biscuits are selected. The fulfilment of the doctor’s prophecy still, however, feels a long way off, but he urges the powers of the sea, the fresh air and the breeze, adding that “the close breathing in a cabin gives as much trouble as the rolling waves.”
Two efforts were made to dress. They had to be abandoned. The prone position was the only one endurable. An hour or two and a third endeavour. Very laboured was each stage of the toilet. There were strong indications that internal influences would prevail. Fortunately the perpendicular balance was maintained until the last touch had been given, and then a washed-out looking object crawled upstairs and huddled itself in a deck chair. Dr Hanington’s declaration was not as far removed from justification, after all, for the fresh air proved wonderfully recuperative, and by the following morning the patient was, like Richard, himself again. It was the shortest of his many terms of mal-de-mer, the limited span entirely due to the excellent doctor of the Akabo.