“Is that so? One of your feet would be big enough, without using the other at all. When those clothes are dry, you’d better get into ’em, Mr. Neptune, and then feed your face with some gruel—if you can eat it, which I misdoubt. Then report to me in the engine room. Get that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right-o!” Clancy viewed him with a fierce scowl, dropped one eyelid in a portentous wink and swung himself out.
Only the cook was left now, save for the occupants of one or two bunks who stirred uneasily in their sleep. The cook had improvised a clothes line above the electric stove and Nelson’s things were already gently steaming.
“Wet clothes is against the rules entirely,” observed the cook cheerfully. “But if the luff passes ’em it’s not for me to be kickin’. Now I’ll start that gruel for you, Nep, but I don’t know what it’ll be like, for I never made none!”
“It doesn’t matter,” murmured Nelson. “I’m not hungry.”
“Makes no difference. If the luff says you eat, you eat if it kills you.”
Nelson digested that in silence a moment. Then: “How many are there aboard here?” he asked.
“Three officers and twenty-one men. And one fresh young Reservist,” he added as an afterthought.
“Meaning me? If you call me fresh I’ll report to Clancy that your gruel’s no good.”