The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [73]
“Wish I’d a-known,” Tom said, his round face creased with worry. “Me old gran says a sour pickle’s the thing for seasickness. She made me uncle Morris take a jar of ’em, put up special with dill weed, whenever he set to sea. And he never had seasickness, to start with.” He looked at Grey, his expression under the wet seeming to accuse his employer of gross negligence in the provisioning of pickles.
Grey felt himself falling under some kind of horrid trance, as he watched the surface of the ocean rise and fall, rise and fall …
“Yes,” he said faintly. “What a good idea. But perhaps …”
“Your pardon, your honor,” said a voice at his elbow. “Would ye be by way of being friends of the gentleman downstairs what’s sick as a dog, and a tremenjous big dog, too?”
Grateful for the distraction, Grey turned his back on the roiling sea and blinked water from his lashes. The Irishman was a few inches taller than himself, but painfully thin. Despite that, sailing seemed to agree with him; his face was ruddy with cold and wind, pale eyes sparkling, and water gleamed in his spray-soaked curls.
“Yes,” Grey said. “Is he worse?” He made to go past the man, but his new acquaintance put out a hand, reaching with the other into a capacious cloak that billowed round him like a cloud.
“If he was any the worse for it, he’d be dead,” the Irishman said, bringing out a small, square black bottle. “I only wondered, would ye maybe accept a bit o’ medicine for him? I offered it to him meself, only he was too far gone to answer.”
“I thank you, sir,” Grey said, accepting the bottle. “Er … what is it, if you please?”
“Mostly bad whisky,” the Irishman said frankly. “But with the ginger-root and a small little spoon of powdered opium stirred into it, as well.” He smiled, showing a missing eyetooth. “Works wonders, it does. But do shake it first.”
“What have we got to lose?” Tom said practically. He gestured at the deck, now thronged with passengers who had emerged from the companionway, driven upward by the insalubrious conditions in the cramped space below. Many of them were hanging over the rail themselves; the rest glared at Grey, plainly holding him responsible.
“If we don’t do something about him prompt-like, one of that lot’s a-going to knock him on the head. And us.”
JAMIE HEARD FOOTSTEPS approaching and hoped fervently that whoever it was intended to shoot him; he’d heard a few such intentions expressed within his hearing recently. He was all for it but lacked the strength to say so.
“A bit under the weather, are ye, now?” He cracked one eye open, to see Toby Quinn’s beaming face bending over him, surrounded by crazily fluttering shadows cast by the swinging lanterns. He closed the eye and curled himself into a tighter ball.
“Go away,” he managed, before the next wrench of nausea seized him. Quinn leapt nimbly back, just in time, but came forward again, cautiously skirting the fetid little pool surrounding Jamie.
“Now, then, good sir,” Quinn said soothingly. “I’ve a draught here will help.”
The word “draught,” with its implication of swallowing something, made Jamie’s stomach writhe afresh. He clapped a hand to his mouth and breathed through his nose, though it hurt to do so, as spewing bile had seared the sensitive membranes of his nasal passages. He closed his eyes against the horrible rhythmic sway of the shadows. Each one seemed to take his mind swinging with it, leaving his belly poised over some hideous sheer drop.
It won’t stop, itwonteverstopohGod …
“Mr. Fraser.” There was a hand on his shoulder. He twitched feebly, trying to get rid of it. If they wouldn’t have the decency to kill him, could they not just let him die in peace?
The sense of alarm at Quinn’s presence, which would in other circumstances have been pronounced, was so faint as barely to register on the blank slate of his mind. But it wasn’t Quinn touching him; it was John Grey. “Take your hand off me,” he wanted to say, but couldn’t. “Kill you. Take your hand … kill you …”
A general chorus of blasphemy greeted the results when he opened