Free Marrying Off Mother by Gerald Durrell

hero, the Captain, was down there in the frozen darkness among the foodstuffs they were consuming. It was best not to contemplate such a horrific catastrophe.
    It was the night before we docked. The ladies were all busy packing and the sounds of this laborious process echoed up and down from cabin to cabin. There was the usual banging of doors and pattering feet. Cries of ‘Lucinda, have you got my green I lent you?’, ‘Mabel, can you come and sit on my suitcase? I don’t know why it is, but suitcases always seem to bite off more than they can chew,’ and ‘Edna, I swear to you, darling, if you pack that whisky in the bottom of your case, you’ll smell like a refugee from Alcoholics Anonymous when we land.’
    I made my way to the bar for a pre-dinner drink. It was empty except for the Chief Officer who was imbibing a brandy. The bottle stood on the bar in front of him and I saw that he had been making very steady inroads on its contents.
    â€˜Good evening,’ I said.
    He straightened up and stared at me. I suspected that he was fairly drunk, but it was difficult to tell from his curious expressionless eyes.
    â€˜Good evening, sir,’ he said. Then after a pause he gestured at the bottle. ‘You will have a drink?’
    â€˜Thank you,’ I said and, since the barman appeared to have become extinct, I got myself a glass from behind the bar and poured myself a drink from his bottle. Silence fell over the two of us like a muffling fog. I let it last for a minute or two and then decided to dispel it.
    â€˜Well,’ I said jovially, ‘I expect you’re glad the voyage is over. Now you’ll be able to have a little rest at home. Whereabouts do you live?’
    He looked at me unhearingly.
    â€˜I am having trouble with the Captain,’ he said.
    I felt a preliminary tingle of apprehension crawl up my spine.
    â€˜What sort of trouble?’ I asked.
    â€˜It is my fault, I should have looked,’ he said.
    â€˜What sort of trouble?’ I repeated.
    â€˜If I had looked it would not have happened,’ he said, and poured himself a formidable whack of brandy.
    â€˜What would not have happened?’ I asked.
    He drank deeply and was silent for a moment.
    â€˜You remember when we took the Captain from his cabin and put him — put him — put him downstairs?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜He was still soft, you understand? Just after that we have bad weather and the ladies are sick.’ He shrugged. ‘Not bad weather for us, but for them, yes. A long rolling swell. It makes people sick.’
    He took another drink.
    â€˜And,’ he continued, ‘it made the Captain move.’
    â€˜Move?’ I said, startled. ‘What do you mean?’
    â€˜We laid him flat but with the movement of the ship he rolled and his legs came up.’
    He lifted one of his bent legs to waist height and slapped his thigh.
    â€˜It was my fault. I did not check. You see he was still warm and so he froze like that, in that position.’
    He paused and drank again.
    â€˜The carpenter had made the coffin, so this evening we went down to put the Captain in it, how you say in English? So he is all shipshape and Bristol fashion ready for his wife.’
    I would not have put it quite like that, but it was not a moment for a lesson in English colloquialisms. I was beginning to feel rather sick.
    â€˜We tried everything,’ he said, ‘everything. I got the two strongest men on the ship, but they could not straighten his legs. It was impossible. And we had to have him in the coffin tonight. The paper work, you know? We had not time to — you know — thaw him.’
    He flooded a large, golden pool of brandy into his glass and gulped it down.
    â€˜So I broke his legs with a mallet,’ he said, and turned and left the bar, weaving slightly from side to side.
    I shivered and poured myself a brandy of equal size to the one the Chief