More likely, Hastie thought, it was the cleaner and airier conditions on the ship now that the soldiers and other useless men were gone ashore. He’d also arranged for fires to be lighted down below (in closed-in iron pots for fear of conflagration) and sulphur burned, and vinegar splashed and scattered over everything. At nights, though, the air was still appalling with the buzz and whine of insects. There was not a man on board who wasn’t eaten half alive. Men did begin to die, mainly on shore but also on the ships. The first to go on Hinchinbrook was a marine, who had gone down with malaria but was thought to be recovering. Hastie had no hand in caring for him, but Dr Dancer insisted an increase in the supplies of wine and beer forced down his neck would ‘do the trick,’ and when the man soon died said it was merely a mortification brought on by lack of exercise. On land, the insects seemed to bite far worse, and there were truly more of them.
What do You think about Nelson: The Poisoned River?
