They shook hands. Brackett must have spent his whole career at Stonehouse, which was to the advantage of numerous wounded men, Douglas knew.
“?’Tis nay, Owen,” Douglas said, with a shake of his head. “I couldn’t bring myself to take the offer.”
“Which was … ?”
“Assistant superintendent.”
“I turned him down too,” Brackett said. “I have my eye on a private practice in Ashton, Kent, and we leave in two weeks. Aggie’s idea, and I didn’t argue. You ever marry?”
“Never on land long enough to convince some poor lady of my nonexistent charms.”
The other surgeon held his umbrella over them both as they continued toward the street. “You can’t be a day over forty-five,” Brackett told him. “You’ll find a willing widow somewhere.”
Douglas winced. “I’ll be thirty-seven next Tuesday.”
“Beg pardon.” Brackett recovered quickly and laughed. “Nothing like a constant sea voyage to age a man, eh? You need a little wrinkle salve, that’s all.”
Douglas smiled at his friend. “I have all my parts, howsomever. I’m thinking about a practice, too, someplace where I cannot see the ocean.”
“You know that won’t work.”
“Certainly it will,” Douglas assured him. “I’m weary of water.”
Brackett shrugged. He gestured to one of the row houses that the admiral had touted as a main attraction for continued employment in the Royal Navy. “Come inside for luncheon? Aggie will be happy to see you.”
Douglas should have said yes. He had nothing more pressing on his schedule than a walk in the rain to Plymouth. He could have hired a hack, but he suddenly longed to be alone as he contemplated his unrelenting wartime career and the unease that peace was bringing.
He begged off, after promising Captain Brackett that he would drop him a line in Ashton when he was settled somewhere. Precisely where, Douglas had no idea yet, but Brackett didn’t need to know.
The dockyards still bustled with activity, and always would as long as England needed a navy. Quieter now, the hospital would still function. The turmoil of war had left in its wake a certain sadness that went beyond death and suffering. Douglas did not understand his feelings, except that peace was already proving to be onerous. He knew he could not bear to stay much longer in Plymouth, unwilling to see the worn-out ships—masts and sails gone—placed in ordinary. Theywere now as superfluous as he was, and he didn’t relish watching the end.
He stood another few minutes at the dry docks, which gave him the most concrete indication that the war was over. Of the three docks, a keel had been laid in one, and the other two graving docks were empty. He wondered if the shipwrights and carpenters had retired like him or if they had been dismissed. The ropeworks lay idle.
Improbably, the two miles to Plymouth through still-busy streets cheered him. He was unused to the nearly forgotten pleasure of walking and walking in any direction, unimpeded by a ship’s railing. True, he had walked up and down the deck, mulling over this wound, or that amputation, or that scrofulous tumor until he either solved the problem or wore himself out. He knew exactly how many steps in any direction were his allotment on the average frigate of King George.
Satisfied, Douglas watched people at work, laborers passing, children arguing, women hawking fish. He saw ordinary life through new eyes, since it was not ordinary to him.
Once back in the Barbican, that rabbit warren of medieval narrow streets and buildings so old they leaned, Douglas went directly to Carter and Brustein’s counting office.
He was ushered in with all usual politeness and welcomed in a few minutes by David Brustein, looking older and grayer than Douglas remembered, but didn’t they all? David introduced him to his son, Solomon, a youth still, but evidently learning the family business that began when the late Jonathan Carter took on a Jewish clerk, name of Ezra Brustein.
“Yes, another generation coming up,” David said. “How may I help you, Captain Bowden?”
Only a bare half hour served to assure Douglas that his prize money earned through the years was chugging along sturdily and growing his funds at a pleasant rate.
David leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers across an ample chest. “I predict that you will be able to live quite comfortably on the interest alone, Captain, until you are at least one hundred and twenty.” He looked heavenward. “God willing.”
They laughed, the satisfied sound that men of means can make. Douglas left a few minutes later, his inside breast pocket heavy with sufficient for his needs until such time as he found a permanent home. He bid them a fond good-bye, still amazed, somewhere down deep, that a cooper’s son could have done so well. Maybe Napoleon had been good for something, even if the price had been extraordinarily high.
He arrived at the Drake in time for late luncheon, which he knew Mrs. Fillion had held back for him. With fewer officers lingering about the premises these days, she couldn’t afford to be less than obliging to latecomers.
After a peek in the empty cardroom, where he reflected on the death of the perpetual game of whist that had lasted through a generation of war, Douglas seated himself in the dining room. Mrs. Fillion started him with her excellent soup, hot and flavorful and worlds better than anything on board ship.
“Leek soup?” he asked, supremely pleased.
“I know how you men like it,” she said.
She hesitated a moment, and while she hesitated, Douglas gestured to the chair beside him. Mrs. Fillion was no lady, but she had manners.
