Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
I'm disappointed in you.  |
Yes, I'm late - sorry, yesterday was busier than I anticipated. Let me see...
I'll have to redact a name, or it'll be too easy.
Quote:
"Your certificates, please," said the right-hand face.
[Name] handed them over, and as he waited for them to be examined, the left-hand face suddenly spoke. "You are clause-hauled on the port tack, Mr. [Name], beating up the channel with a nor-easterly wind blowing hard, with Dover bearing north two miles. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now the wind veers four points and takes you flat aback. What do you do, sir? What do you do?"
[Name]'s mind, if it was thinking about anything at all at that moment, was thinking about rhumb lines; this question took him as much aback as the situation it envisaged. His mouth opened and shut, but there was no word he could say.
"By now you're dismasted," said the middle-face—a swarthy face; [Name] was making the deduction that it must belong to Black Charlie Hammond. He could think about that even if he could not force his mind to think at all about his examination.
"Dismasted," said the left-hand face, with a smile like Nero enjoying a Christian's death agony. "With Dover cliffs under your lee. You are in serious trouble, Mr.—ah—[Name]".
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