章節 42: Smoke for a Life
Serenica grabbed her bag of essential healing items and ran to meet Gadfly, who was already running on the deck.
"It's Heike! He's having a seizure of some sort!"
It was too early for anyone to be dying. Serenica had not had her habitual morning pipe session yet. She feared those becoming a thing of the past for her.
If the drunkard died on her arms now, she would not get her dosage of tobacco from the Admiral anymore.
Callous or not, the thought scared her. She didn't feel functional without her pipe. Her jaw was hurting, she was salivating more than usual, and her temples felt tight. She did curse herself for getting addicted, but there was little she could do to sensibly wean herself off and still remain able to work in such a high-stress environment. The dull ache was something she was determined to never experience again.
Eyes rolled back, foam in his mouth, unable to control his jerking movements, let alone his bowels, Heike was lying on the deck. Serenica quickly secured his position so that he would not injure himself.
She took her bottle of anticonvulsive mixture that was made of valerian and lemon beebrush extract and a few other herbs. She forced quite a few drops into his mouth and held him as still as she dared to.
"Does anyone have anything that would contain magnesium sulphate?!" she yelled. "Myorka! Do yo have natural bath salts?"
"Say no more." The bookkeeper ran to fetch a jar of bath salts.
The moment Serenica spent waiting for her friend to return felt like a small eternity, but Myorka did return, and Heike received a pinch of the salt under his tongue. Serenica tried her best to prevent him from accidentally swallowing it too soon.
She made mental calculations about the time it took for the convulsions to pass. It was not the longest seizure she had seen, but still long enough to leave irreparable damage. Modern science didn't know yet just how bad it was for the patient's brain, and she cursed her decision to obey Gadfly and go to sleep without checking that Heike had a suitable amount of alcohol for the morning. She sat there, feeling his pulse, trying to protect him in all ways she could, she sat there and everything was smelling like the kind of excrement only heavy drinkers produced.
She was praying to all known and unknown gods to let the hardened sailor live. He was too useful for them. She had often seen him take care of a whole sail by himself, climbing in the rigging with unparalled agility that was downright frightening for a man of his age. She also hated the thought of facing Kinley without as much as a pinch of pipe tobacco.
The seizure ended despite her fears and a reassuringly loud snoring noise escaped from Heike's throat. The poor old drunkard had suffered a lot. It was better to just let him sleep.
Serenica ordered a few strong fellows to carry him into her workspace. She could easily monitor his wellbeing there, and besides, she did have work to do. She had finally managed to piece together a cohesive account of the health of all men and women on board. She had to add on Heike's paper that he was extremely prone to seizures.
On her own file, she wrote a few words as well and frowned.
"Prone to vomiting easily and being addicted," she said out loud. "Suffers from headaches."
Heike didn't react, instead, he let out some obnoxiously loud snoring.
The Admiral came to her in the evening, carrying a generous bag of tobacco with him, silent and respectful, as he most often was.
"You've done well," he said. "It was looking bad enough that I waited a while to give you this, but he seems to be sleeping peacefully. Take it. You have earned it."
"Thank you." Serenica had managed to sustain her addiction with a cigar that Spade had given her as a token of his appreciation, but the taste had been too earthy for her liking. She was grateful, of course, and she fancied that the men were really starting to respect her.
"Want to smoke with me?" she asked. "I could use the company of a sane individual right now. I have heard nothing but snoring all day. I might cut his throat if it goes on."
"I am sorry, I can't," the first mate groaned. "Your other patient and the whole crew require my attention. I wish I had a moment for you."
Serenica remembered Little John and a sudden spike of pain stabbed her chest.
"John Longlines. How is he?"
"Not well," the Admiral said and shook his head. There was an ounce of sorrow in his eyes, at times they were as green and pale as the tropical shallows, and at other times they looked deeply blue. This was one of the blue moments. The shade communicated his weariness of the world perfectly, or so Serenica thought. She liked to romanticize things like that. It took the edge off from living under a constant threat of death or worse.
"Should I go see him?" Serenica asked.
"It's your call, but I would like to have you here to watch over Heike. John is being forcibly fed and given enough water. No one has been able to get anything sensible out of him, he is so beyond help right now."
Serenica didn't like to think about it, but John being unable to speak his mind meant that Spade would try and interrogate him after his death. The mere idea was offensive. The young man had tried to help them. He had done nothing wrong and now he would be subject to unholy experiments.
Serenica had to fill up her pipe to soothe herself after those quite unwanted thoughts. The Admiral joined her, apparently deciding he did have a moment to take care of his mental health.
After the loosest, uppermost layer of tobacco had been tucked into the bowl of her pipe, Serenica took one of those lethally dangerous matches and lit it up.
As the first, heavenly puff of the billowing smoke reached the insides of her cheeks, she spoke out the one thing that made it all make sense.
"This is some good tobacco."
"It is," her friend agreed.
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