You vindictive old devil, Tyndall thought dispassionately. Go on, damn you, enjoy yourself.

"At the risk of seeming rather Victorian and melodramatic", impatiently Starr waited for Turner to stifle his sudden fit of coughing, "we may say that the Ulysses is being given the opportunity of-ah-redeeming herself." He pushed back his chair. "After that, gentlemen, the Med.

But first, FR 77 to Murmansk, come hell or high water!" His voice broke on the last word and lifted into stridency, the anger burring through the thin veneer of suavity. "The Ulysses must be made to realise that the Navy will never tolerate disobedience of orders, dereliction of duty, organised revolt and sedition!"

"Rubbish!"

Starr jerked back in his chair, knuckles whitening on the arm-rest. His glance whipped round and settled on Surgeon-Commander Brooks, on the unusually vivid blue eyes so strangely hostile now under that magnificent silver mane. Tyndall, too, saw the angry eyes. He saw, also, the deepening colour in Brooks's face, and moaned softly to himself. He knew the signs too well, old Socrates was about to blow his Irish top. Tyndall made to speak, then slumped back at a sharp gesture from Starr.

"What did you say, Commander?" The Admiral's voice was very soft and quite toneless.

"'Rubbish,' repeated Brooks distinctly. 'Rubbish.' That's what I said. 'Let's be perfectly frank,' you say. Well, sir, I'm being frank. 'Dereliction of duty, organised revolt and sedition' my foot! But I suppose you have to call it something, preferably something well within your own field of experience. But God only knows by what strange association and sleight-of-hand mental transfer, you equate yesterday's trouble aboard the Ulysses with the only clearly, cut code of behaviour thoroughly familiar to yourself." Brooks paused for a second: in the silence they heard the thin, high wail of a bosun's pipe, a passing ship, perhaps.