For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss

An hour had passed since their first meeting, when Austin, Jefferson, and two navy men sat round a little table that had been laid out upon the _Cumbria_'s bridge deck. It was slightly cooler there than it was below, besides which the mess-rooms reeked with damp and mildew. A lamp hung from one of the awning spars above them, and its light fell upon the men's faces and the remnants of the very frugal meal. The handful of bluejackets who came up in her had apparently gone to sleep beneath an awning on the flooring of the pinnace, which lay alongside, but a sharp clinking rose from the lighted engine room, where a couple of naval artificers were busy with Tom, the donkey-man. The gunboat's surgeon, who had been round the forecastle, was talking to Austin, while her commander lay opposite Jefferson, immaculately neat, in a canvas chair.

"Our tale," he said, "is a very simple one. As we didn't seem to be wanted anywhere just now, we moored ship snugly in the bight behind the island, and decided to get a little painting done. She was getting rusty along the water-line, and one can't get at it well when she's washing through a swell, you know. Under the circumstances, I seized the opportunity to do a little rough surveying. We are expected to pick up any information that may be of use to the Admiralty hydrographers."