Heavily our old hooker wallows along, and we raise the land fast.
"Anchors all ready, Mr. Senex?" from the skipper.
"All clear, sir."
"Right! See everything ready for the pilot."
"Ay, ay, sir!"
A half-hour passes, and South Head is close aboard, the surf breaking high. Another few minutes and the "Captain Cook" slides in a piratical fashion from behind a rock and makes for us. After some difficulty, for we are light ship and rolling heavily, the pilot hops aboard.
"You're to go up to Woolwich, Cap'n. The dry dock's all ready for you. Full ahead, please. Port a bit," and we make for Watson's Bay. A little manœuvring, then—"Stand by your anchor.... Let go!" and away goes the mudhook with a roar and a cloud of rust-dust.
In another few minutes a smart launch comes alongside, and the port medical officer mounts the side-ladder, slowly and majestically, as befits his official dignity. He's a broth of a boy all right—the biggest man I ever saw, I think. He looked about eight feet, and built in proportion. His boots would have made a London policeman green with envy, and he had a fist like a boxing-glove. Big as he was the suit he had on that day was too large, and hung on him like a purser's shirt on a handspike. A sport though, he took the rather audibly expressed surprise his appearance created in the mustered lines of the crew in good part, and proceeded to examine us for smallpox symptoms. A pause. Then the captain—"Where's the second engineer? Mr. Senex, I thought you had seen——"
"ALL right, sir. I'll go and rouse him up," and away I went.
Diving down the engineroom ladder, I find Mr. Crafter frantically tugging with a spanner at a refractory nut.