Doctor at Sea

to be in Canning Town by the time the pubs opened. The rain prevented cargo being worked, and the Lotus was not only empty of people but silent, as miserable as a school when the children have gone home.
    My taxi was coming later, so I went up to the deck to look round the docks. The sheds and the cranes did something odd to the Lotus ’s proportions: at sea, when she was alone and stood unhindered from the water, she achieved a touch of dignity. Now that she lay in relation to other pieces of wood and steel she shrank and became ridiculous. The long boatdeck I used to walk was hardly the size of four railway waggons, and the enchanted spot where I sunbathed and watched the flying fish in the afternoon was nothing but a sooty piece of wet planking. Standing in the rain I saw clearly, but with regret, that the land is ever master of the sea.
    I saw Hornbeam, in his blue raincoat, striding alone up and down the few feet of shelter below the bridge.
    ‘Hello, Doc,’ he said as I went up to him.’You off now?’
    ‘In a few minutes. I’m only waiting for my taxi.’
    ‘Oh well, I’m sorry to see you go. We haven’t had a bad voyage on the whole. We’ve made a bit of fun for ourselves.’
    ‘We certainly have.’
    We walked for a minute or two in silence.
    ‘What are you going to do now, Doc?’ he asked.
    ‘I’ve no idea. Find a practice somewhere, I suppose.’
    ‘Do you reckon you’ll go back to sea again?’
    ‘Some day I will. I’m making sure of that.’
    ‘You might, at that.’
    ‘How about you?’ I said. ‘Going on leave?’
    ‘No leave for me, Doc. I’m off to Liverpool tonight to join the Primrose. She’s sailing tomorrow for New Zealand.’
    ‘Of course, I was forgetting. You know, to me our arrival is the end of an isolated adventure. But I suppose to you and everyone else it’s just another stop in port.’
    ’That’s it, Doc. Always on the move. It’s a mug’s life, isn’t it? Still, someone’s got to do it.’
    My taxi came then. I waved to him from the dock, and watched him as I drove away. He was walking up and down the deck again in the rain, an incongruous and lonely figure.

    *

    The first person I went to see in London was the psychiatrist.
    ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘When are you going away?’