STO'B 6-5 Captain Fitton

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Philip left the medical men gathering their instruments.  Badger’s interior had been largely destroyed in the action which took her (several dozen raking shots through her fragile stern), and the dockyard had thoroughly disturbed what remained when they had fitted her steam engine and propeller, with the result that her internal layout was unlike any craft Philip had ever before seen.  Partial decks cut into the orlop at the bow and stern, and Philip dropped onto the forward one of these unnamed decks, meeting the carpenter and the bosun at the foot of the ladder, standing by their respective store rooms.

He looked into the carpenter’s store first.  The lamp in the light room (more of a light cupboard, really) cast a weak glow, but the carpenter had painted the space white, and enough light entered the space for Philip to make his inspection.  Like Mister Foster, the carpenter was apt to be cross-grained, but he was also highly conscientious and skilled, and Philip had full faith in him.  Mister  Scott had spent most of his stores in rebuilding the Badger after her various actions, but what little was left stood in orderly piles and racks, and the tools gleamed in the half light: clean, sharp, and well-organized.  “Very good, Mister Scott,” said Philip.  “Thank you.”

The bosun had not troubled to paint his store room (his sail room, actually).  He had folded all of his sails properly, including those damaged by gunshot and weather, but after the proud, careful arrangement of the carpenter’s store, the sail room looked a bit slovenly.  It was not criminally so, Philip had seen sail rooms in much worse state, and there was certainly no danger to the sails or the Badger, but the contrast struck Philip strongly.  “Very good, Mister McEwan,” he said.

Down again, to the bosun’s second store room and the cockpit.  The cockpit he gave little more than a glance as the bosun clambered down the ladder - its red-painted walls and timbers smelled of fresh paint but it was otherwise unremarkable, with saws and leather-covered chains hanging from their pegs in the near darkness.  No one was here, the surgeon and his mate being occupied with the men on the gangway.

Philip felt thoroughly depressed by the bosun’s lower store room, however, with its rope rack empty but for several coils of half-inch manila, swaying forlornly as Badger rocked.  Several buckets of tar and pitch stood in sockets along the aft bulkhead, spoils of the Tres Hermanas, but only a few worn or broken blocks hung from hooks.  “Thank you, Mister McEwan,” said Philip again.  “We certainly do need a restock.”

Author's Note|First Post|Previous|Next| last episode with Dr M’Mullen GLOSSARY