if Cozens were to have a chance of surviving, the bullet would need to be surgically removed. The operation was scheduled for the following day. When the time came, though, the chief surgeon, Elliot, did not appear. Some attributed his absence to a previous fight between him and Cozens. The carpenter, Cummins, said he had heard that Elliot had intended to come but Captain Cheap had intervened. Midshipman Campbell said that he was unaware of the captain ever doing such a thing, suggesting perhaps that conflict was being stoked by disinformation—just as the rumor about Cozens’s wine rations
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