Doing No Harm Read online

  London was much as he remembered it, busy and crowded, the streets reeking with the stink of horse manure. That was one virtue of the sea life—yes, the ships smelled to high heaven too, but it wasn’t horse poop.

  He secured a hotel frequented by fellow officers and took his letter to the Navy Board. The clerk sighed to see it and looked at him over smudged spectacles.

  “Captain, who in the world will take care of our sailors?”

  “Someone other than I,” Douglas said cheerfully. “I take it you have been dealing with many of these?”

  “The number is legion,” the clerk said. “Sir.”

  He was sent to another office, where a second overworked man stamped approval to his desire to sever himself from the Royal Navy; then he sent Douglas on to yet another functionary intent upon changing his mind.

  “Captain Bowden, you have no idea how many surgeons have decided to swallow the anchor,” Captain Bracewood told him. With reluctance, as though the stamp was too heavy to lift, he suspended it over Douglas’s written resignation. When one pleading look went nowhere, Bracewood sighed the sigh of centuries as he stamped, initialed, and dated the letter.

  I am a free man, Douglas thought, even as he tried to look properly sympathetic. “Look at it this way, Captain: perhaps there will be another war soon.”

  That didn’t go well. Captain Bracewood’s face turned an amazing color not ordinarily found in nature, and he pointed to the door. Douglas snapped off as fine a salute as he had ever executed, did an about-face, and took the hint.

  He stayed another week in London, visiting a tailor recommended by his last captain. He commissioned three new civilian suits, more shirts, some ordinary trousers, and a low-crowned beaver hat that he thought looked stupid. He was so used to the intimidation factor of his lofty bicorn that he felt like a midget from Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, which he also visited. He kept one good uniform to be buried in eventually.

  A morning at a balloon ascension was followed by a visit to the shabby sheds that housed Lord Elgin’s famous marbles. He stayed a long time, walking around the pieces and remembering a visit to Athens when the statues were still in their proper places high up in the Parthenon.

  A night in Drury Lane Theatre observing the great Edmund Keane portray Othello had charged his tired brain but mainly served to remind Douglas of his own time spent in Cyprus, doing what he could during an outbreak of diphtheria. Most of his patients had fared no better than Desdemona, which meant he added those Cypriot corpses to his never-ending list when he was supposed to be sleeping.

  His most enjoyable bit of tourism took him to the British Museum solely to look at poor dead Sydney Parkinson’s magnificent watercolors drawn in Australia and South Sea islands, during one of Captain Cook’s voyages. He had to ask a bored clerk to let him see the delicate little beauties, stored in the nether regions of the museum. Douglas admired the exquisite drawings and felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. They reminded him of better times at sea, including a lengthy stopover in Otaheite, with its lovely women. They were not the stuff of nightmare, thank the Almighty; quite the opposite.

  When he collected his new clothes at the end of the week, Douglas had to agree that even if he didn’t cut a dashing figure—too many wrinkles, hair too gray at thirty-seven—at least he was comfortable, especially in the trousers. Who knew that really good tailors could actually add a little extra fabric to whichever side where a man needed more room?

  Then it was back to the mail coach, with his new clothing and the old smallclothes and nightshirt folded carefully into an equally new traveling case. He wore one of his new suits, since his navy days were done. His boat cloak remained useful and would probably never wear out. Back went his one good bicorn into its hatbox, and everything else into his duffel bag. He wore the beaver hat but with regrets.

  As usual, he carried his capital knives and medical kit in the same battered leather satchel, which he rested on his lap when the coach was crowded, and set next to him when it was not. All his worldy possessions except for a trunk and box of shells were right there on the Royal Mail, going who knew where.

  The rain had let up. He sat back and enjoyed the beauty of an English spring as the coach rocked its way north. The swaying never bothered him, even though one of the passengers turned green and threw up into his hat. This misdemeanor set off a small child and required the coach to stop and the driver’s assistant to sluice out the interior. Such was travel.

  It was pain in his hinder parts that finally caused Douglas to surrender several days later at Pauling, a village high in the Pennines. He got out, stretched, and looked around, wondering if this was the place for him. Under the discreet protection of his boat cloak, he rubbed his backside, thinking that perhaps he could stay here a few days and make a decision. He had seen a quantity of pleasant villages in the last few days; when had he become so picky?

  Wisdom acquired during his journey encouraged him to seek a public house away from the inn where the mail coach stopped. He found such a place in the next block, which fulfilled the requirements of relative silence, and from the odors emanating from the open door, good victuals.

  A clean room on the second floor, followed by a meal of stuffed quail and tender asparagus that nearly reduced him to tears, affirmed his choice. He followed it with ale the golden color reminiscent of the hair of a woman he knew in the Baltics, and then local cheese, one piece after another until he almost hurt himself.

  Since the sky still held some color, he did what he usually did and climbed the nearest hill. He stood at the summit and looked in vain for a glimpse of ocean. He walked down, nodding his head, and then retired to his bed, made cozy with a thoughtful warming pan. His dreams were no worse than usual, but certainly no better.

  He slept through the sound of the mail coach leaving and woke to more kitchen fragrances. The innkeep had said something last night about thick slabs of bacon and shirred eggs with cheese. Douglas smelled bread and put his hands behind his head, thinking of a piece the size of a Portuguese roof tile, slathered with butter.

  He stayed two more days in Pauling, walking the countryside. When Douglas inquired, the innkeep told him with a sorrowful shake of his head that there was no physician or surgeon any closer than ten miles.

  “You don’t look pieced out and ruinated, sir,” the keep ventured.

  “I’m as healthy as they come,” Douglas assured him. “I’m a surgeon just retired from the Royal Navy and looking for a place that needs a doctor.”

  “We’re it, then, sir,” he said, his expression brightening. “Wait’ll I tell the missus and the vicar!”

  “Hold off, man. I haven’t quite decided,” Douglas cautioned. “Just give me another day.”

  He used that day to walk by a deserted stone house, two stories, just across the street from the inn. He even went around back to look in the windows, gratified to see sound floors. He could have an office, waiting room, and surgery on the main floor, and he suspected two bedchambers upstairs, one for him and the other for a patient who might require closer observation.

  When he inquired at the inn, the keep told him that the local magistrate owned the house. He gave Douglas directions to the man’s house and looked at him expectantly.

  “Tomorrow is soon enough to decide,” Douglas warned him.

  “You don’t rush into things, do you, sir?” the keep asked.

  Douglas thought of all the surgeries and frantic first aid on a bloody deck that he had rushed into. “On occasion I do,” he said. “I’ve never owned a house or set down roots before.”

  The keep pushed a glass of golden ale toward him. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.”

  Douglas didn’t argue. He drank slowly, savoring the bright taste of the ale as he rolled it around his mouth. Something in the back of his brain suggested to him that he should be more eager to visit the magistrate, now that he had found the perfect setting for the rest of his life’s work.

  After supper—shepherd’s pie with crust so flaky that he ate too much—Douglas walked up the tallest hill again, wondering why he kept doing that. Pauling met every need. Why this blasted hill? Still he climbed.

  The same view met his gaze, rolling hills, covered now with the white blooms of hawthorn, sheep, and little lambs capering about on stiff legs, without even a glimpse of the ocean.

  Suddenly he knew. Both Mrs. Fillion and Captain Brackett had been absolutely correct. He tipped his head back to look at the sky and laughed at his folly.

  “Douglas Bowden, you are a fool,” he said out loud. A ram on the other side of the fence glared at him. “You can no more live without a view of the ocean than a dolphin.”

  That was it, plain as day. He came down the hill more slowly, shaking his head over his own idiocy. When he came in sight of the inn, he hoped that the innkeeper had kept his word and not said anything. Douglas reckoned he hadn’t. Good publicans could generally be trusted with all manner of drunken secrets, or in his case, stupid ideas.

  As it turned out, the man hadn’t breathed a word. Douglas asked for another glass of ale and told the keep to pour one for himself. Elbows on the counter, Douglas offered his confession that he would be more likely to grow gills than live without a view of the ocean.

  His drinking companion took it philosophically, which meant another glass for each of them.

  “What now, sir?” the keep asked, after a discreet belch.

  “I’m not one to backtrack. It’s bad luck,” Douglas said. “Thoughts?”

  The innkeep looked at the spout. “Are you still shouting?”

  “Aye. Pour away.”

  He topped himself another one and drank, leaving foam on his upper lip. “Keep going north and then turn a bit west.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Aye. Scotland.”

  Douglas blinked. “That’s the best you can do?” he teased as the fumes tunneled into his brain. Getting up tomorrow was going to be a sore trial.

  “If Scotland can’t cure what ails you, you’re hopeless, sir.”

  “What ails me, my good man?”

  “Too much peace all at once.”

  Chapter 3

  He crossed the Scottish border in the rain, which, all things considered, was appropriate. He had heard rumors about Scottish weather from the first luff of the Corinthian, when they were stuck without wind in the South Seas and sitting practically bare in their smallclothes on the deck years back.

  “Nobody in my village would believe this much sun,” the luff had said. “I swear it rains every day at home. Thank the Almighty that I joined the Royal Navy and discovered sun.” He had laughed and turned over, to toast the other side. “Did’ye not know that God is Scottish? Frugal with the sun.”

  Douglas smiled at the memory as the coach bowled along. He had left the Royal Mail behind in Carlisle and trundled his goods into a less colorful bonecracker that took him to Gretna Green, a town famous for marriages over the blacksmith’s anvil. He looked around with interest, but no one appeared to be lined up for matrimony.

  He spent the night at Dumfries. In the morning, this innkeep, in his well nigh impenetrable brogue, informed him of an even smaller carriage headed south to Dundrennan and on to the Gatehouse of Fleet on Solway Firth. The helpful man may have suggested other routes, but Douglas was already having second thoughts about trying to live and work where he could barely understand the natives.

  Still, the clouds lifted to show off the Firth of Solway. Douglas saw little fishing boats, nets stretched behind them, trolling the cold water. He felt his whole body relax and his respirations slow down because he knew he was watching salt water again.

  Luncheon in Dundrennan was a hurried affair, with the coachman itching to make up time lost lollygagging behind a flock of sheep. Douglas ate what looked like a pasty, all crisp and light brown, but with the disturbing taste of liver, mutton, and oats that he knew he would be belching up for at least a week.

  He checked Scottish food off his mental list. He had eaten far worse in his years with the fleet. I could stand by a window in my dining room, eat this loathsome fare, and still have a view of the ocean, he thought, which made him smile.

  Before they left Dundrennan, he asked the coachman if the little town had any physicians.

  “Och, aye! Twa. And aren’t they always going after each other’s patients?” the man exclaimed. “They’ve divided the town clean in half!”

  Douglas crossed Dundrennan off his mental list as he began to wonder if Scotland was a good idea after all. “Tell me, please, about the other towns on this route?”

  He shrugged. “There’s Wilcomb, a bonny place if you don’t mind smugglers; Castle McPherson, ditto; Whitby, where the people are daft, half of them; Edgar …” He stopped, as if trying to think of something kind to say about Edgar. “Smells like fish.” He brightened. “Miss Grant’s Tearoom.” He leaned closer. “I’ve seen grown men weep over her lemon curd, although I am partial to orange marmalade.”

  “I’ve never considered settling in a place just because of a tearoom,” Douglas joked.

  “I suppose many a man has said just that,” the coachman joked in turn. His face turned serious then. “Nay, not Edgar for you. It’s a poor fishing village. You’d mentioned physicians. Lad, if you’re in need of one, you’ll die before ye find one close to the likes of Edgar.” He rubbed both his thumbs and forefingers together. “Doctors need money like us all.”

  “No money in Edgar?”

  “Nay. A physician there would get no more than herring and neeps in payment.”

  Douglas gave the grimace that he knew was expected of him, but didn’t cross Edgar off his mental list. He could at least try Miss Grant’s lemon curd on some toast so the stop wouldn’t be a total waste.

  The coachman glanced at his timepiece and evidently discovered he had no more time to discuss Scotland’s more obscure destinations. He hurried three old ladies into his carriage and asked Douglas to help him heave his traveling case and duffel on top, where they were strapped down. He shook his head over the odd-shaped hatbox with the Royal Navy fouled anchor embossed on the side. “What in blazes is this?” he asked as he tied it down.

  “My bicorn. I’m recently severed from the Royal Navy,” Douglas said. “Looking for a place to settle down.”

  “And ye came here?” the coachman asked in amazement. “Laddie, good thing I warned ye about the fish and rain and poor folk.” He chuckled and climbed into his box. “Weren’t you listening to me?” he called down.

  Maybe I should consider Whitby, where only half the people are daft, Douglas thought, wondering why a reasonably intelligent man should suddenly turn stupid once out of the Royal Navy. He seated himself next to one of the ladies, a thin one, who still frowned at the space his medical satchel took up. He sighed inwardly and put it on his lap, vowing to travel north to Glasgow tomorrow and inquire about passage to Canada.

  Still, he found his gaze lingering on the view outside the little coach’s window: low hills that particular shade of green that meant spring in the British Isles, a sight he had not seen in years. To look the other way meant to watch the firth, which would do for the ocean. He saw fish and kelp drying on racks and children running along the shore barefoot, for the most part, even though the air was chilly and damp. Tough people, these Scots, he thought.

  The hour lacked half to noon when they turned slightly north and paralleled a river. They crossed on a stone bridge that arched so prettily over the water. The arch was pronounced enough to suggest that fishing boards could likely travel underneath.

  Still training north, the carriage bumped over a marginal road for another vertebrae-compressing mile, then slowed. He tried to peer ahead and was rewarded with the view of a village, nothing as charming as Dundrennan, with its competitive physicians. This was a sturdy, no-nonsense-looking town, but with pastel-colored stone houses that surprisingly reminded him of the Italian coast.

  He looked at the thin woman seated next to him. He hadn’t said a word to her or any of them, because they hadn’t been introduced, but he asked, “Is this Edgar?”

  She nodded, and no more. He tried his luck again. “And the river?”

  “Dee,” she said, either marvelously frugal with words, or determined not to speak to an upstart she didn’t know; probably it was both.

  He smiled inside, wondering that if it had been the Albemarle River if she would only have said “Alb,” figuring that was all courtesy demanded.

  “Home of Miss Grant’s peerless lemon curd?” he asked the other travelers in general, idly wondering if any of these serious-faced ladies would unbend.

  One of them opened her mouth—whether to reply or shush him—when the coachman pulled to a sudden stop. Douglas looked out the window, drew in his breath, and was out the door before the wheels quit rolling, already yanking at his neck cloth.

  A woman far gone in pregnancy stood in the road, screaming for help, as she carried a boy too big to lift, but whose oddly bent leg spurted blood.

  “Set him down,” Douglas demanded.

  The woman stared at him with terrified eyes, almost as though she did not understand what he demanded. When she made no move, Douglas grabbed the boy from her and laid him in the road, swiftly tightening his cravat two inches above the wound where a snapped bone protruded. The boy, pale as milk, stared at him, then quietly fainted.

  “I’m a surgeon,” he told the woman as she tugged at his arm. “Leave me be!”

  She understood him now. She sank down beside him, her bloody hands to her face. “I’ve been telling and telling my man to fix the stone steps to the cellar, but does he ever do anything but drink?”

  By now, heads were popping out of store doorways. They drew back in as a man staggered toward Douglas, a stick in his hand, which he slammed down on the woman’s back, shouting in a language Douglas recognized as Gaelic.