Sea Change (15 page)

But that gave her an idea.

"Yes, please tell him I could use a few casks of good quality olive oil, if he has some."

Fletcher raised the question and
Señor
Martinez grinned while pulling up his pants and fastening them.

"Yes, he has a shipment from Spain that he would be happy to give to you as a gift."

Charley smiled and nodded enthusiastically herself.

"That is one of my most used items, so it will be good to replenish my supply!"

Señor
Martinez peered at the doctor's smiling face and made an offhand comment to Captain Fletcher, who looked horrified and shook his head, then took a step away from Charley.

"What did he say?"

"It is of no importance!"

The Spaniard shrugged and picked up his straw hat, which had fallen to the ground during the impromptu medical exam. Charley looked at Captain Fletcher, but he said nothing further.

They stayed at Santa Rosa the rest of the day, giving Charley enough time to prepare her ointment and collect her olive oil. She could not be sure, but it appeared David Fletcher was avoiding her. He may have feared he would be pressed into service again as a medical translator.

That night the crew feasted again on fresh meat and vegetables before returning to the
Fancy
, but Captain Fletcher did not invite Charley to join him in his cabin for chess or talk or a drink. Instead she played whist with Henry, Mr. Bryant and the carpenter, Mr. Purcell.

It was Henry's turn to shuffle. He tried to steady the cards with his stump and fold them in, but that only scattered them about.

Charley moved to help him gather them up, but felt a blow against her ankle that rattled her teeth. She glared at Purcell, but he only looked at her blandly.

"Drink your coffee, Doctor."

She was going to bark at him for kicking her, but instead sat back, drank her coffee and watched the table from under her lashes. Sweat beaded on Henry's forehead as he struggled with the cards while Purcell talked with Bryant about barnacles. Henry finally rested the cards against his stump and shuffled one-handed, sliding the cards into each other in an awkward over-and-under fashion.

"All right, we're ready!" he snapped.

They played another hand and the cabin grew warm from the heat of their bodies. Henry rose to take off his coat. He was having a difficult time working his arm out and Charley started to rise to help him when she felt another blow against her ankle.

"Stop doing that, you will break my leg!" she hissed.

"Then stop being such an idiot," Purcell said, studying his cards.

Charley was about to say something, but her mouth snapped shut and she stayed in her seat.

When the jokes around the table deteriorated to how Henry was going to have to be careful wiping his arse while wearing a hook, the scales fell from Charley's eyes.

She
was
being an idiot. Their rough, masculine badinage was what Henry needed. The men knew what they were about, making the first mate work with his new reality.

So she relaxed, and lost a few coins, and marveled over how the true practice of medicine, the art that involved bringing people back to wholeness, involved far more than knowing how to stitch and prescribe.

Being the ship's doctor had its ups and downs, but Charley Alcott had to agree she was getting an education few young ladies received.

Which was probably a good thing, she mused to herself, as Brown and Perry debated who could fart the loudest.

She leaned back against the guardrail, enjoying the tropical sunshine, while bets were made and insults flew. Sometimes she felt much like a natural philosopher watching exotic animals in their native habitat. What she had always suspected was confirmed by life aboard the
Fancy
--men were simple creatures with uncomplicated brains.

They wanted food, and drink, and fighting, and sexual congress. They were impressed with their own body's ability to make noise and odor. Their idea of humor was at best crude, at worst painful, yet even after some of the bizarre practical jokes that brought men to her sick bay they were still laughing and bragging about whatever insane thing they'd done that got them in that condition.

So today the doctor had been pressed into service as the judge of the competition over who could generate the most noise breaking wind.

"See, Doctor," Jenkins explained, "you being an expert and all about the human body, you're in the best position to judge here."

"Yeah, and this way you can't make a bet using inside information!" Perry added.

"'struth," Jenkins said, sounding slightly apologetic. "You might know things about their guts that would help you win. All we know is they've been eating beans and cabbage for three days. We want this to be fair and on the level."

"Can't argue with logic like that," Captain Fletcher said, joining her at the rail.

Suddenly the day felt a little warmer, the sun a little brighter. Charley held herself steady, to keep from relaxing her stance, from easing closer to David.

"I still think you should be judging this, Captain," she said studying him. She noticed he was cradling his right wrist. He'd been rubbing it a few nights ago when they played chess.

"Is something wrong with your arm?"

"It's not important."

"What did I say about you sailing the ship and me practicing the medicine? Come to sick bay and I will take a look at it."

"Later. We can't expect these competitors to hold it in forever."

Lewis, who had charge of the bank, said, "Last chance to place your bets, gentlemen!"

After a final flurry of money changing hands, the crowd settled down. The two contestants took their mark, faces intent and focused.

Silence settled over the deck, all eyes on the two men who stared at each other as they stood, slightly hunched over, angling their bodies for the best outcome. The crewmen who were within a few feet moved back. Charley, alas, had to stand close to judge.

"Gentlemen, you may fire when rea--"

"Sail on the starboard quarter, Captain!"

At the call from Miller in the lookout, the crew turned as one to see where he was pointing.

Charley shaded her eyes and saw a ship out on the water. Captain Fletcher climbed up into the rigging like he was born to it, pulled his spyglass out of his coat pocket and brought it up to his eye.

"A Spanish brig, riding heavy," he said. "Battle stations, Mr. Fletcher!"

"Aye, sir!" Henry cried, and the men ran to their posts and made the guns ready, while the weapons lockers were opened and cutlasses and pikes distributed.

"I ain't gonna stand behind Brown!" someone yelled, and the laughter ramped up the excitement of the coming fight.

"The call to action includes you, Doctor."

Charley looked up at the man standing again beside her, his amber eyes gleaming as he watched the brig approaching on an opposite course. The excitement in the air was palpable, especially when the crew cheered as the American colors were run up in preparation for the coming fight. Captain Black Davy Fletcher was in his element, as much a part of the Baltimore schooner as its sails and lines.

There was a part of Charley that longed to stay on deck, beside him, and share in what the men were experiencing. At a brief frown from the captain she went below instead, and paced the quiet sick bay, preparing her supplies while voices yelled and feet ran on the deck over her head.

She knew from her discussions with the men that most merchant vessels surrendered rather than fight, because they were underarmed compared to the privateers, and their owners put it down as the cost of doing business.

The Americans' greatest concern was not to be outmatched by a merchant, but to meet up with a patrolling enemy frigate carrying bigger guns and a heightened desire to capture American ships. The war against their wayward former colonies had not gone as smoothly as the Royal Navy expected, with American frigates hitting crushing blows against the navy that had ruled the waves for so many years.

But the
Fancy
wasn't a frigate like the
Constitution
or the
Essex
, and its beauty lay in its speed rather than its guns.

The schooner came around sharply and Charley cursed and held onto the table, and a moment later the big gun amidships boomed out, and she felt the deck beneath her feet shiver. The guns roared again, and she heard a cheer from above, and more yelling, and the sound of running back and forth.

Either the Spanish vessel struck its colors, or perhaps the Americans aimed Brown in their direction and achieved victory using a miasmic gas.

That brought a small smile to her face that disappeared when the door banged open and Mr. Bryant stumbled in, blood sheeting half his face.

Charley grabbed his arm and helped him to the table. He was cursing the air blue, but she quickly determined it was a torn scalp and began to clean and stitch him up. Seems some of the Spaniards had decided they couldn't give up without trying to repel the American boarding party.

"I remember the first head wound I saw, Mr. Bryant," she said cheerfully as she sewed and he gripped the edge of the table, glaring at her. "Gave new meaning to the term 'bled like a stuck pig,' but these things often look worst than they are. There. You will be fine."

She wrapped a bandage 'round him and told him to come back if he was bothered by severe headaches in the next day.

A crewman came in with a broken arm to be set, but the remaining injuries were minor ones, and the men's spirits were high. She learned the reason when Captain Fletcher came in, freshly washed and wearing a clean shirt. He looked good enough to lick, blast him.

"Doctor! You will not believe what that ship was hauling."

"Jewels? Gold?"

"Almost as good as! Ripe gold! Here, catch."

He tossed a sphere to her and she grabbed it one handed out of the air. It was a fruit, its nubby skin mottled but whole, the fragrance rising up to her nostrils even over the scent of blood and medicine.

"Oranges?"

"Casks and casks of oranges! This cargo will fetch a fortune in New York, Doctor."

"Is that where we're going, New York?"

"No, not us. We put the Spaniards in boats--they'll make it to Santa Rosa unless they die of stupidity--and Henry's going to take our prize in to the United States."

Charley paused and set down the orange, carefully, on her desk.

"If Mr. Fletcher is well enough to leave, then it is time for me to leave as well, Captain."

"Do not bother me with that now! I have a prize to prepare, papers to fill out, men to assign to her-- Doctor, your sense of timing is terrible."

She didn't believe a word of it. Certainly all the preparation he discussed was needed, but he had no intention of putting her off his ship.

Black Davy Fletcher wasn't going to take her to Jamaica. He wasn't going to take her to the United States for an exchange. He was going to keep her here, on the
Fancy
, forever.

She felt like chortling in glee.

But that wasn't the expected response, so she tried to look downcast and concerned. It must have succeeded for he said, "Oh, don't worry, Doctor, eventually you will get where you need to be, but we still need you here for now. That's why I came down here! You said you would look at my wrist."

"Oh yes, the sore wrist. Hop up on the table, Captain."

He looked around. "You have not added many personal touches, Doctor. One would hardly know this is your cabin, as well as sick bay."

"This is only where I sleep until you see fit to release me, Captain. But I would not call it home."

He scowled at that, but sat on the table. She tried not to notice how his nearness to her affected her senses, his scent, the energy that seemed to radiate from him, the clean line of his jaw that made her want to examine it closer, running her fingers along the slight stubble that edged it.

Instead, she kept her eyes down, looking at the wrist thick with muscle, the browned hand with its long fingers, its sinews and scars. She couldn't suppress a small shiver at the thought of that hand touching her...

"Are you cold?"

"No, Captain. A goose must have stepped on my grave. Show me your arm."

"It's my wrist that concerns me."

He unfastened his shirt cuff, then rolled up his sleeve. Charley concentrated on the problem before her, tamping down any other distracting thoughts.

You want to be a doctor,
she mentally scolded herself,
act like one and not a foolish ninny at her first dance!

But it was hard, so hard, when he was so close, and she was holding his wrist and feeling the pulse that beat there, every movement of blood through his veins calling to her own pulse and heart.

"Doctor?"

"This lump on the back of your wrist," she said, feeling around, "how long has it been there?"

He shrugged. "I don't remember when I first noticed it. Is it bad?"

"Hmmmm..." she said, making an all-purpose medico noise. "Stay there, Captain. I need one of my texts."

She pulled her copy of Woodall off the shelf, then came back to stand in front of him, leafing through it.

"Hold out your wrist on the table, and leave it quite still. Do not move."

Before he could realize what she was doing, she snapped the heavy book shut and slammed it down on his wrist.

The next thing she knew she was flying backward, only to fetch up hard against the bulkhead.

"Ow!" She yelped, rubbing the back of her head. "You hit me!"

"You struck me first, you stupid bastard!" He glared at her. "You whacked me with that goddamned book!"

"I whacked you to get rid of that lump in your wrist! It's a ganglion cyst, you great looby! I had to hit it to break it up. If I told you, you would have tensed up."

He stared at her, then started to laugh.

"Looby? Such language, Doctor! And it's 'Captain Looby' to you."

She rubbed her sore jaw and pushed herself off the wall.

He was still chuckling as he cradled his wrist, and then looked down at it.