Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/283



ELSON was watching the disembarkation of the prisoners after breakfast when an orderly tapped him on the arm. "Report to the Exec, Troy," he said.

"What? Where is he?"

"Where would he be? Sitting on the for'ard funnel warming his feet, of course. Get a move on!"

Nelson didn't find the Executive Officer where the orderly said, perhaps because he didn't look for him there. Instead, he went aft and paused before a door opening from the wardroom passage, brushing an imaginary speck from his over-shirt and adjusting a gauze bandage which, running diagonally across his forehead above his right eye, gave him a somewhat reckless look. Then, the door being open, he saluted and: "Ordered to report to you, sir," he announced.

"Come in. What's the name?"

"Troy, sir." 258