Free In Distant Waters by Richard Woodman

victims.
    â€˜God’s bones,’ muttered Drinkwater crouching down before his legs gave under him. His first shot had indeed hit Witherspoon, hit the breast and heart. Witherspoon must have died instantly, so silently that even Hogan himself had not realised until after Drinkwater’s escape, the damage that single shot had done. For Witherspoon’s breast was exposed as Hogan had desperately sought to stem the bleeding wound. The shirt was torn back and the two officers stared down at the shapely breasts of a young woman.

CHAPTER 4
March 1808

The Chase
    â€˜I’m damned if I understand why we’re not cruising off the Isthmus,’ complained Mount as he lounged back in his chair and awaited the roast pig whose tantalising aroma had been permeating the ship for much of the forenoon. ‘It is common knowledge, even to Their Lordships, that Panama is the focus of Spanish power.’
    â€˜I think you jump to conclusions, Mount,’ replied Fraser, cooling himself with an improvised fan fashioned from a sheet of discarded cartridge paper. The wardroom was insufferably hot, even with a windsail ducting air from the deck, and its occupants were as frayed as the end of the canvas pipe itself. ‘Besides, preoccupations with opportunities for prize-money are an obstruction to duty.’
    â€˜Don’t preach to me, Fraser . . .’
    â€˜Gentlemen, gentlemen . . . such querulous behaviour . . . it’s too exhausting by far . . . be so kind as to leave the preaching to me.’
    â€˜God save us from that fate,’ said Mount accepting the glass from King, the negro messman, and rolling his eyes in a deprecating fashion at Fraser. Both officers looked at the temporiser in their midst.
    The Reverend Jonathan Henderson, chaplain to His Britannic Majesty’s frigate
Patrician
, laid a thin, knotted finger alongside his nose in a characteristic gesture much loved by the midshipmen for its imitable property. It invariably presaged an aphorism which its originator considered of importance in his ministry. ‘I am sure they know what they are about and it will avail us nothing if we quarrel.’
    â€˜What else are we to do, God damn it?’ said Mount sharply.
    â€˜Come, Mr Mount, no blasphemy if you please.’
    â€˜I’m a military man, Mr Henderson, and accustomed to speak my mind within the mess, and I’ve been too long at sea to have much faith in the wisdom of Their Lordships.’
    â€˜If you’re referring to my relatively short career . . .’
    â€˜
Short?
Good God man, you’ve not been at sea for a dog’s watch! What the devil d’you know about it.’
    â€˜Come sir, I was chaplain to the late Admiral Roddam . . .’
    â€˜Admiral Roddam? He spent the American War swinging round his own bloody chicken bones and port bottles until they had to move the Nore light to mark the shoal . . . Admiral Roddam . . . hey King, refill my glass and deafen my ears to sacerdotal nonsense.’
    Henderson looked furiously at the grinning negro and rounded on Mount.
    â€˜Mr Mount, I’m a man of God, but I’ll not . . .’
    â€˜Gentlemen, pray silence . . . you raise your voices too loudly.’ Fraser straightened up from the rudder stock cover from which vantage point he had been trying to ignore the petty squabble.
    â€˜There has been a deal too much argument since that business at Juan Fernandez . . .’
    â€˜There is usually a deal too much argument when empty vessels are banging about.’
    â€˜Very well, Mr Lallo,’ snapped Fraser at the surgeon who, until that moment, had occupied a corner of the table with his sick-book, ‘belay that.’ Lallo shrugged and pocketed his pencil. ‘Tell us how Mylchrist is.’
    â€˜He’ll live, but his shoulder’ll be damned stiff for a