STO'B 28

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Two minutes later Dr Patrick M’Mullen stood at the Viceroy’s entry port, clutching his parcel and watching two sailors muscle his trunk down to the Badger’s launch. The men reached to boat, where its crew pushed and pulled the trunk into place, and Patrick began his own laborious descent, gripping the criminally shallow steps as tightly as he could without dropping his parcel.

He held onto it until the last step, when the Viceroy, responding to a gust of wind, heeled over, tipping him far past vertical. He made a cataleptic grasp at the ladder, dropping the parcel as he did so. At the same time the launch’s cox’n, to avoid being crushed by the rolling Viceroy, pushed away from the ship’s side, and Patrick’s parcel fell into that water between the two.

Once Dr M’Mullen was safely in the boat, the ingenious use of oars and a boathook retrieved the parcel, but by then it was thoroughly soaked, and Patrick willed the boat across the water to the Badger with uncommon force of mind, not to mention the clenching of his abdominal muscles. “Rowed of all,” called the coxswain, and the crew pulled in their oars in preparation for hooking onto the Badger.

The Badger, being a de facto brig (though she was styled a sloop de jure) had no entry port, of course, and Patrick arrived on board in full view of the entire crew. Philip, recognizing Dr M’Mullen’s importance, and perhaps feeling a bit guilty over their last encounter, ordered man ropes to be draped over the Badger’s side, with white-gloved side boys holding them out to form a sort of bannister, and Patrick made it without discredit in spite of the still dripping parcel held in his teeth. He transferred his parcel to his hands, bowed to the assembled officers and crew. His trunk came aboard in a sling, hoisted by the Badger’s donkey engine, still warm after its exertions with the coal, and Captain Fitton led his guest below, placing him in the great cabin and moving himself into his dining cabin.

Once Dr M’Mullen was situated in the cabin, Philip, aware of the importance of being on good terms with a guest in such cramped quarters (to say nothing of a guest who was clearly on such good terms with the admiral), told his steward to lay the table for dinner for four, inviting Dr M’Mullen, the master, and the surgeon (a man he didn’t particularly know) to join him.

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GLOSSARY