"Morning, Pills!" he shouted. "She's called away: won't be long now." He wiped his mouth and came across the deck to where the other was standing. "Fine morning for a pull," he observed, throwing his nose into the air and sniffing like a pointer. "Smell the heather? Lor'! it does me good to see all you young fellow-me-lads turning up here bright and early with the roses in your cheeks."
The Young Doctor turned a gamboge-tinted eye on the speaker.
"Dry up," he said acidly.
The Officer of the Watch was moved to unseemly mirth. "Where's your crew, Pills? I don't like to see this hanging-on-to-the-slack the first morning of the training season. You're too easy going for a cox, by a long chalk, my lad. You ought to be going round their cabins now with a wet sponge, shouting 'Wet Bobs!' and 'Tally Ho!' and the rest of it."
"Dry up!" was the reply.
"An even temper, boundless tact, a firm manner and an extensive vocabulary—those were the essentials of the cox of a racing boat when I was a lad at College. Why did they make you cox, Pills?"
"'Cos I'm light," retorted the Doctor. "'Cos I'm a damn fool," he added with a sudden access of bitterness. "Look here, Tweedledee, what about this bloomin' boat? Here I've been standing for the last five minutes—ah, there she is."
He gazed distastefully at the lower boom, where two members of the galley's crew were casting off the painter that secured the boat to the Jacob's ladder.
"Now, then," said a loud and cheerful voice at their elbows, "where's this boat we've been hearing such a lot about?" A tall, athletic figure in football shorts and swathed about with many sweaters, with a bright red cushion under his arm, stood gazing in the direction of the lower boom. "Well, I'm blowed," he said, "not alongside yet? You're a nice person, Pills, to leave the organisation of a racing boat's crew to." He looked round the quarterdeck. "Where're all the others? Lazy hogs! Here we are with the sun half over the foreyard and the boat not even manned."
The Surgeon eyed him severely. "You're none too smart on it yourself,
Bunje. Where's Thorogood? Where's Number One? Where's Gerrard?
Where's—ah, now they're coming."