The Old Vengeful

asked me dummy3

to.'

'Hmmm! Very well. . . Would you tell her, when she's ready, that Dr Mitchell is on the terrace, and he'd like a word with her?'

Cathy turned back into the room. 'You mustn't mind Mummy

— she used to be a school-teacher, you know. She says that Dr Mitchell—did you hear?'

'Yes.' Any chance of pumping the child was gone now, and it hadn't been such a good idea in the first place.

'I think it's almost dry now, anyway.' Cathy surveyed her handiwork critically. 'It's going to be like those paintings Daddy likes— sort of Lady of Shalott-ish.'

Frizzy was the word. Elizabeth scowled at her reflection, waiting for the mirror to crack from side to side. 'Yes ... it looks fine, dear.'

Then I'd better go.' Cathy turned at the door. 'Good luck with Daddy, and all that, Elizabeth. And long live the Paul—

and Dunedin!'

The Dunedin? Elizabeth stared at the door. The Dunedin were . . . they were Aragorn's people, of course—the Rangers who hunted those 'dark things' . . .

Her eyes came back to herself, to her own eyes watching her in the mirror, dark-shadowed. It was obvious, what the child meant—so obvious, and also oddly flattering, to be type-cast not as just another school-teacher, like Mummy, but as one of the select band of the Dunedin, the SAS of Middle dummy3

Earth . . . obvious and flattering—and quite wrong.

And, anyway, she must not keep one of the genuine Dunedin waiting on the terrace, thought Elizabeth as she reached for the caftan.

'Ah—Elizabeth!' The genuine Dunadan rose at her approach, looking at her strangely, from out of a welter of scattered type-script.

Strangely, as well he might with the way she looked, she thought, grasping the voluminous silken folds in an effort not to trip as she negotiated the stone steps. And then the whole scene around him took her mind right off her own bizarre appearance.

The suitcase from her interrogation—the pink files were the completed chapters from Father's book, the green ones his vestigial notes and rough drafts—and other things she couldn't place . . . but they were of no consequence compared with Father's Vengeful box, also gaping open—but empty!

Her eyes met Paul's and her mouth opened stupidly, and worried avarice progressed instantly to shame as he grinned at her.

'Don't fret—we haven't made away with your prize-money.

Faith just doesn't like piles of loose cash lying around her house, that's all, so she's locked it all up safely somewhere.'

He reached towards the empty box. ' ' William Willard Pike—

Surgeon, HM Ship Vengefull' —I hope Dr Pike's medical skill dummy3

was more reliable than his spelling . . . But who are these others, inscribed on the inside of the lid? Amos Ratsey, Jas.

O'Byrne, Octavius Phelan and the rest? Would they be the ship's officers?'

'No.' It was a relief to cover her embarrassment with even half-baked information. 'Father thought they might be his grateful patients—the ones who presented him with the box of instruments when he joined the ship. But that doesn't really fit.'

'Why not?' He flipped the lid closed. 'Wasn't he a good surgeon?'

'Nobody knows . . . Father couldn't trace him on shore. But ships' doctors certainly weren't the cream of the profession in those days—a lot of them were failures and drunkards who couldn't make a go of it ashore ... In fact, they weren't even rated as officers until the 1840s—they were warrant officers—

or, technically, they were just civilians, on the same level as the purser and the chaplain, you see.'

'I don't really see. But it doesn't matter.' He picked up the pages he'd been holding when she'd hobbled out of the French windows. 'This is what's fascinating—what a rotten old tub the Vengeful was!'

'She wasn't old. She was launched in 1805.'

'The year of Trafalgar! Okay—not old, but just rotten. Did we always build so badly?' He gestured towards one of the chairs on the terrace. 'I'm sorry, Elizabeth—my manners are dummy3

appalling . . . Do sit down—would you like a drink? Sherry or beer ... or something stronger?'

'Nothing, thank you.' He seemed to have forgotten yesterday completely. 'Does it surprise you that we built inferior ships?'

He shook his head. 'No, not at all, actually . . . We built the first dreadnought in 1905-1906. . . But we didn't build a good capital ship until the 1912 estimates—the Queen Elizabeth class—up to then everyone else seems to have made a better job of it. . . But your father says we actually copied the Vengeful design—from the French?'

'That's right. It was based on a French frigate that was captured in 1797, and measured at Chatham—the French and the Spaniards always built better ships than we did . . . better sailers, with more guns. But it was the