It was a most peculiar scene that greeted Matthew Roving’s eyes as he stood on the deck of the Falmouth packet: the weather was sunny, the wind fair, the sea a scintillating mirror of the sky—and all around him men were lying on their backs, writhing, moaning, clawing their bodies with fevered hands. Even Master John Paul and Captain Jones had fallen at Matthew’s feet and were babbling deliriously. Every man was laid low, not because of a battle, but because he’d caught the measles—the same measles every kid back home had got over in third grade with the help of a diet of 7-Up floats and TV.
