e feels the lurching again as he lies in the dark, a sensation he cannot make sense of. It is dizziness, perhaps, like when he has drunk too much wine. There are cries from without, shouts of men, like labourers working a job. They are oddly muted though, no sense of echo from the walls of buildings.
He can open his eyes now, he discovers. He has memory of being unable to before. He thinks he was blindfolded. He can see little nonetheless. The room is almost completely in darkness. His hands remain bound together, but his feet are free.
There is a dreadful smell, sharp and choking, and he is aware of a dampness next to his cheek. It is vomit, his own. He remembers nausea, but not the action of being sick. Consciousness has been an occasional visitor of late but not a fast friend. He recalls a blurry semi-waking state, feelings of disorientation, not assisted by his being able to see nothing. Exhaustion despite never being fully awake. Sleep coming as a mercy.
He does not know how long he has lain here. He puts his bound hands to his face and feels the growth. He estimates it has been at least three days since last he shaved.
Slowly come the memories, incrementally into focus like he is minutely twisting the lens on a microscope.
Being dragged to the cellar. Lying there on his own operating table, bound and strapped to it, unable to move. Lacking any sense of time, long fearful seconds turning into minutes turning into hours. Wetting his trousers for there was no option to relieve himself any other way.
Raven and Simpson returning. Neither of them speaking. Raven forming the cone of a handkerchief, dripping the chloroform. Then oblivion. Then this dark chamber, its whereabouts unknown.
He sits up and promptly cracks his head on something. At first he thinks the ceiling must be low, but his hands discern there is a bunk above. There is no window, no lamp, and he cannot see to find a door.
Tentatively he puts his feet over the side and slowly stands up straight. He hits his head again, for the ceiling is indeed low.
He advances, hands extended until they meet a surface. He is lucky, he thinks, for his fingers are touching wood. It is the door. Now he must find its handle.
He cannot. He searches with his hands, and discovers that all around him is wood. What manner of chamber is this? Is he in the country, the forest?
He balls his fists and begins to pound on the wall, shouting to be let out.
Shortly after that, he hears footsteps. Light spills in, dazzling his unaccustomed eyes as a door is pulled open perpendicular to where he had sought it. There are strong hands about him and he is hauled down a corridor. Even here, all around him is wood. The men hauling him along are in uniform. Soldiers. Has he been taken to Edinburgh Castle?
As he ascends a narrow staircase, he hears more shouts of men and once more feels the lurching sensation. With a burning fury, he understands.
He hears the slap of the waves against a hull, feels the stinging cold as he steps onto the deck.
All around is water, horizon to horizon.
He is presented to a bearded gentleman, by his uniform clearly a man of some rank.
‘Good morning,’ he says. ‘I am Captain Douglas Strang.’
‘Where am I?’
‘You are aboard the Royal Navy survey vessel HMS Fearless, bound for South America on an extended mission of coastline cartography.’
‘How long are we from Leith? You must turn around at once!’
Strang laughs. ‘We will not be turning around for some time. Perhaps never, in fact, as we may be circumnavigating dependent upon further orders. Our commission is for three years, initially.’
Beattie feels his legs weaken, and not from the sea.
‘Captain James Petrie volunteered your services as ship’s surgeon. His brother-in-law, Dr Simpson, intimated that you had problems regarding your conduct with women, so I am sure it will come as some relief to know that you will not be in the company of one so long as you remain under my command.’
‘This is illegal. This is press-ganging!’
‘Captain Petrie did forewarn that you may not be satisfied with the arrangement, so we came to an understanding. I am obliged to offer an alternative should you decide you do not wish to take up the post.’
‘And what is this alternative?’