He came down to dinner, but let it go untouched.
"Come up on deck, Fox, and get some exercise on the quarter-deck," he said at length. "I want a yarn with you." (Dr. Fox usually dined with him.)
"Never take a man away from his food to tell him bad news," growled the Doctor, after they had paced the quarter-deck twenty times without saying a word. "Let me know the worst."
"My arm's hurting me, Doc. Can't you ease it?" exclaimed Helston in his most worried expression of voice.
"Well, well, stay still, and I'll just rearrange it, old chap. Now, that's more comfortable, eh? Hand a bit too low; blood too much in the fingers, eh? Have it in the sleeve in another week. Feel better now?" And Dr. Fox made him more comfortable, speaking as if his patient were a little petulant child. "Now, tell me all about it."
"It comes to this," began Helston, wheeling round and rapidly walking up and down. "The Admiral is going to communicate with me in one month from this date, and, in case I cannot report any material progress, he has orders from home to assist me.
"You know very well what that means. My chance of promotion is gone unless I manage to capture the island in four weeks."
Dr. Fox was well aware that a month was all too short a time. He knew only too well Helston's limitations as a commander, and his inability to formulate or to adhere to any plans involving grave issues. He knew, too, the bad effect of this mental indecision and anxiety on his health, his growing inability to sleep, and his increasing irritability of temper, yet he could not, merely as senior doctor of the expedition and old friend of its commander, accept the responsibility of making any suggestion either for further delay or for immediate action.
"It is not my job, and I will not originate anything."
But one thing he did know, and that was that if anybody could do the work it was Cummins, and to Cummins the decision should and must be left.