“Mr. Wellard hasn’t finished testing the glasses, sir,” said Bush in one last feeble attempt to postpone the issue.
“Nor will he,” said the captain.
Here came the bosun hurrying aft on his short legs, his two mates striding behind him.
“Mr. Booth!” said the captain; his mood had changed again and the mirthless smile was back on his lips. “Take that miscreant. Justice demands that he be dealt with further. Another dozen from your cane, properly applied. Another dozen, and he’ll coo like a dove.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said the bosun, but he hesitated.
It was a momentary tableau: the captain with his flapping coat; the bosun looking appealingly at Bush and the burly bosun’s mates standing like huge statues behind him; the helmsman apparently imperturbable while all this went on round him, handling the wheel and glancing up at the topsails; and the wretched boy beside the binnacle—all this under the grey sky, with the grey sea tossing about them and stretching as far as the pitiless horizon.
“Take him down to the maindeck, Mr. Booth,” said the captain.
It was the utterly inevitable; behind the captain’s words lay the authority of Parliament, the weight of agesold tradition. There was nothing that could be done. Wellard’s hands rested on the binnacle as though they would cling to it and as though he would have to he dragged away by force. But he dropped his hands to his sides and followed the bosun while the captain watched him, smiling.
It was a welcome distraction that came to Bush as the quartermaster reported, “Ten minutes before eight bells, sir.”
“Very good. Pipe the watch below.”