For all Capt. Alan Lewrie, RN, knew, his Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, that humourlessly dour prim and ponderously long suffering fellow had been taking the auspicious auguries of seagull guts down in the dark of the orlop. However he did it, Winwood had lifted his nose just after sunrise, and had requested that the ship be fetched-to for trial casts of the deep-sea lead line.
After the insistent icy fury of the half gale they'd suffered, fetching-to to relative stillness had sounded like a fine idea, and an opportunity to dry things out below, relight the galley fires, and cook a hot breakfast for the weary, banged-about, and chilblained crew for the first time in days. And brew coffee… most especially coffee!
Mr. Winwood now stood on the starboard gangway amidships, with two of his Quartermasters, Motte and Austen, amid a horde of curious, expectant sailors who had no duties to perform while HMS Proteus was cocked up to windward and only making a slight half-knot sternway; men of the duty watch, off-duty men wakened by the sudden stillness and the sounds and slack motion of an idling hull, found cause to gather round below in the waist and watch, or help with the hoisting winch; on-duty men on the gangway itself casually joshed and japed in soft tones with those poor fellows selected to go overside to tend the deep-sea plumb, who had to wear the chest-deep harsh canvas hawse-breeches and leggings with the cork-soled feet on them, and work on the main-chains platform just feet from the curling, chilly sea, tend the safety lines that kept their mates from being plucked away or drenched by an errant roll or a rogue wave.