"Dr. Carpenter, it must be. Welcome to the wardroom. I'm Benson. Take a seat, take a seat."

I said something, appropriate but quick, then asked, "What's wrong? What's been the hold-up? Why aren't we under way?"

"That's the trouble with the world today," Benson said mournfully. "Rush, rush, rush. And where does all the hurry get them? I'll tell you — "

"Excuse me. I must see the captain." I turned to leave but he laid a hand on my arm.

"Relax, Dr. Carpenter. We «are» at sea. Take a seat."

"At sea? On the level? I don't feel a thing."

"You never do when you're three hundred feet down. Maybe four hundred. I don't," he said expansively, "concern myself with those trifles. I leave them to the mechanics."

"Mechanics?"

"The captain, the engineer officer, people like that." He waved a hand in a generously vague gesture to indicate the largeness of the concept he understood by the term "mechanics." "Hungry?"

"We've cleared the Clyde?"

"Unless the Clyde extends to well beyond the north of Scotland, the answer to that is, yes, we have."

"Come again?"

He grinned. "At the last check we were well into the Norwegian Sea, about the latitude of Bergen."

"This is still only Tuesday morning?" I don't know if I looked stupid: I certainly felt it.

"It's still only Tuesday morning," he laughed. "And if you can work out from that what kind of speed we've been makin in the last fifteen hours, we'd all be obliged if you'd keep it to yourself." He leaned back in his seat and lifted his voice. "Henry!" -