STO'B 19

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Two Minutes later Philip mounted the crowded quarterdeck. The master was there, along with the gunner (he carried the lieutenant's watch while Mr Grey was aboard the Chasseur) and all of the midshipman who remained aboard. Philip noticed that the officers, along with one or two of the brighter midshipman, had their sextants already adjusted to something like the correct angle, and indeed, the master was already taking a preliminary sighting. Philip, having left his sextant at the Crown, with all of his other possessions, merely stood aloof, as if taking a sight were beneath a Captain's dignity. Or a Commander's dignity, he reminded himself. Only a Commander.

The minutes passed. The officers shot the sun with their sextants, bringing it down to the horizon to determine the Badger's longitude. "Noon and XXX degrees north, XXX degrees east, sir," reported the master.

"Very good, Mr South. Strike the bell." Philip replied, and the new day officially began. Philip started back down to his cabin to deal further with the furniture before he remembered the master's earlier request about running out the port guns. And, he noted, the port guns were in fact run out. The master, however, was on the port gangway, halfway to the bow, tugging on the standing rigging as he went, so instead Philip merely returned to the cabin.

Here he found the carpenter fixing his desk, and one of the mates fastening the table to the floor. "Almost done, sir," said the carpenter. "Bob, give me a hand when you're done with that table, like."

Three minutes later the carpenter and his mate finished, and Philip dragged one of his chairs over to his newly repaired desk to see what it might hold inside.

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GLOSSARY