My Promotion to Surgeon’s Mate
Approximately six weeks after the narrator’s arrival, the surgeon summons him to present a warrant appointing him as the ship’s third surgeon. This promotion comes courtesy of the surgeor’s influence at the Navy Office. The surgeon also secures his own advancement to a second-rate vessel, departing with expressions of mutual esteem. Before departing, he generously bestows upon the narrator a chest of clothes befitting his new elevated station. With his circumstances improved, the narrator determines to uphold the dignity of his position against future affronts.
A Boxing Match with Crampley
The narrator’s former adversary, the midshipman Crampley, continues his persecution even after the narrator’s promotion. During a medical procedure, Crampley sings a song offensive to Scottish honor, prompting the narrator to retort that Scots expect enemies among the ignorant and malicious. This defiance so enrages Crampley that he strikes the narrator in the face. Following Morgan’s intervention, the two agree to settle their grievance through boxing. Though Crampley possesses superior technique learned at Hockley-in-the-Hole, the narrator eventually prevails by delivering a powerful combined head, hand, and foot attack that sends Crampley tumbling down the main hatchway. The fall leaves Crampley unconscious with a dislocated shoulder. Morgan pronounces the injury serious but not fatal, and the narrator gains considerable reputation from the twenty-minute bout.
Captain Oakum Comes Aboard
The ship receives sailing orders, and Captain Oakum arrives to assume command, bringing with him a new surgeon named Mackshane. This replacement immediately reveals the magnitude of the loss from Doctor Atkins’s departure. The new surgeon proves grossly ignorant, imperiously arrogant, false, vindictive, and unforgiving—a merciless tyrant to subordinates who compensates through abject sycophancy toward superiors.
The Captain Disputes the Sick List
The first mate presents the sick list to the captain according to custom. Oakum reacts with furious indignation at finding sixty-one sick aboard his vessel, declaring he will suffer no sick men on his ship. When Morgan explains his duty in presenting the list, the captain flings the document at him and declares there shall be no illness while he commands. Morgan’s retort that the captain should direct his anger at Providence rather than medical officers provokes further rage, with Oakum threatening to have Morgan pinioned to the deck. The proud Welshman begins to assert his gentle birth in response, but the captain’s steward removes him from the cabin before the situation escalates further.
The Inhumane Muster of the Sick
Oakum orders all sick men brought to the quarter-deck for examination, an inhuman decree that shocks the medical staff who know certain patients cannot survive such movement. At the review, the captain derides the patients as worthless idlers eating the king’s provisions. Mackshane callously examines each case. A man just recovered from fever is pronounced healthy despite his weakness, then beaten at the gangway for allegedly feigning illness before collapsing. A quartan ague patient in his interval of health is declared fit for duty but dies the following day. Another with pleuritic symptoms and blood-spitting is ordered to exercise at the pump and suffocates from a lung hemorrhage. A fourth with severe dropsy is sent aloft and nearly drowns when he falls from the shrouds. Many feverish patients arrive delirious from the ordeal, some expire on deck, and others assigned to duty soon expire among their shipmates. The sick count drops below a dozen as the captain and surgeon congratulate themselves.
The Madman Attacks the Captain
A bound madman sends word begging for release, claiming Morgan’s personal grudge motivates his confinement. Morgan urgently warns the captain the man is dangerously insane and should remain restrained, yet Oakum orders him unbound despite warnings of consequences. The madman calmly argues for his sanity so persuasively that witnesses lean toward believing him. Morgan counters with evidence of the man’s violent behavior two days prior, corroborated by a waiter who rescued Morgan from the patient’s strangling attempt. The man responds by accusing the waiter of being Morgan’s creature, revealing Morgan’s wife keeps a gin-shop in Ragfair—an anecdote that produces laughter at the Welshman’s expense. Oakum orders the man unfettered, threatening to exchange Morgan’s position with his. The instant the restraints are removed, the madman attacks both captain and surgeon with fury, declaring himself commander of the vessel. He pummels them mercilessly and wounds numerous sailors who attempt restraint before finally being mastered.
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