“Those sandglasses need to be run against each other, Mr Wellard,” said Bush, nodding over to the binnacle. “Run the minute glass against the half‑hour glass as soon as they turn it at seven bells.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Mark off each minute on the slate unless you want to lose your reckoning,” added Bush.
“Aye aye, sir.”
It would be something to keep Wellard’s mind off his troubles without calling for physical effort, watching the sand run out of the minute glass and turning it quickly, marking the slate and watching again. Bush had his doubts about that half‑hour glass and it would be convenient to have both checked. Wellard walked stiffly over to the binnacle and made preparation to begin his observations.
Now here was the captain coming back again, the big nose pointing to one side and the other. But now the mood had changed again; the activity, the restlessness, had evaporated. He was like a man who had dined well. As etiquette dictated, Bush moved away from the weather rail when the captain appeared and the captain proceeded to pace slowly up and down the weather side of the quarterdeck, his steps accommodating themselves by long habit to the heave and pitch of the ship. Wellard took one glance and then devoted his whole attention to the matter of the sandglasses; seven bells had just struck and the half‑hour glass had just been turned. For a short time the captain paced up and down. When he halted he studied the weather to windward, felt the wind on his cheek, looked attentively at the dogvane and up at the topsails to make sure that the yards were correctly trimmed, and came over and looked into the binnacle to check the course the helmsman was steering. It was all perfectly normal behaviour; any captain in any ship would do the same when he came on deck. Wellard was aware of the nearness of his captain and tried to give no sign of disquiet; he turned the minute glass and made another mark on the slate.
“Mr Wellard at work?” said the captain.
His voice was thick and a little indistinct, the tone quite different from the anxiety‑sharpened voice with which he had previously spoken. Wellard, his eyes on the sandglasses, paused before replying. Bush could guess that he was wondering what would be the safest, as well as the correct, thing to say.
“Aye aye, sir.”
In the navy no one could go far wrong by saying that to a superior officer.
“Aye aye, sir,” repeated the captain. “Mr Wellard has learned better now perhaps than to conspire against his captain, against his lawful superior set in authority over him by the Act of His Most Gracious Majesty King George II?”
That was not an easy suggestion to answer. The last grains of sand were running out of the glass and Wellard waited for them; a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ might be equally fatal.
“Mr Wellard is sulky,” said the captain. “Perhaps Mr Wellard’s mind is dwelling on what lies behind him. Behind him. ‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept.’ But proud Mr Wellard hardly wept. And he did not sit down at all. No, he would be careful not to sit down. The dishonourable part of him has paid the price of his dishonour. The grown man guilty of an honourable offence is flogged upon his back, but a boy, a nasty dirty‑minded boy, is treated differently. Is not that so, Mr Wellard?”
“Yes, sir,” murmured Wellard. There was nothing else he could say, and an answer was necessary.
“Mr Booth’s cane was appropriate to the occasion. It did its work well. The malefactor bent over the gun could consider of his misdeeds.”
Wellard inverted the glass again while the captain, apparently satisfied, took a couple of turns up and down the deck, to Bush’s relief. But the captain checked himself in mid‑stride beside Wellard and went on talking; his tone now was high‑pitched.
“So you chose to conspire against me?” he demanded. “You sought to hold me up to derision before the hands?”
“No, sir,” said Wellard in sudden new alarm. “No, sir, indeed not, sir.”