Top-rated
Wed, Jul 21, 2021
The ship has reached rich Artic waters. As all crew are urged to help hunt seals, surgeon Patrick Sumner feels obliged to volunteer, but almost drowns and suffers even worse nightmares about Gaurav, the Indian orphan boy he failed to protect as promised. Captain Brownlee insists his right hand Cavendish is present 'as judge of characters' when cabin boy Joseph Hannah, a hereditary simpleton whose 'vague ache' complaints Sumner diagnoses conclusively as brutal anal abuse, is questioned but obviously too scared to denounce the rapist. Recovered, Sumner joins in his first whale hunt, a triumph for now friendly Drax, and even volunteers to help cut the fat, only to assist at a horrible discovery in a stinking barrel being cleared from the hull.