An Officer's Room in Belem

Maturin yawned, and Padstowe lifed his gaze to look at him. Stephen was suffering too, it would seem, but so far he had only troubled him withhis own.

He put the unfinished tea down onto the beside table, and then carefully inched his way to lie down, pulling the blankets close around his shoulders.

Stephen noted with satisfaction that Padstowe was able to lie down without aid at least. A few more hours, and then he would sleep for a while...

Padstowe sensed the doctor's eyes on him, and turned to look at him - but, forgetting amoment about his shoulder, he turned his head and jarred the collarbone. He stifled the groan, but his skin went a shade paler.

Stephen looked up, catching sight of a slight jerk in his peripheral vision. "Are you all right, Jonathan?"

Determined to deny the mistake, Padstowe gave Maturin a smile (albeit a somewhat fixed smile).

"Fine, thank you."

He edged his head round to lay in the opposite direction, releasing some of the tension from the strain and sighing gently, letting out his breath and closing his eyes. Idiot...!

Stephen saw the stiffness of the smile, but did not press him; he was a proud man himself, and decided to leave Padstowe some pride as well. Another cipher, and more names...

The captain, head turned away from the doctor, tried to get his protesting shoulder to relax, and pulled the blankets even further up, so all that was visible was the very top of his untidy hair on the pillow. Within the darkness of his blanket Padstowe wondered whether he should start keeping a diary - of his thoughts and his recovery. He could write a little now, albeit with some effort, but it would be something to occupy his mind more actively than just writing random letters and names. And as long as he used his own personal cipher there would be no problem - unless it feel into the hands of either Sir Arthur or Hogan.

An hour after midnight, Stephen had only a few sheets left to decode, and a much more thorough understanding of the French intelligence agencies in Portugal, except on one name: Ducos. It appeared every now and again, always in Prideaux's personal, heavily encoded secret papers, but never more than a name or a location in northern Spain or Portugal or the very ominous "Ducos knows this also," as it had appeared on the description of Esteban Domanova. When his eyes simply grew too tired to flicking from original the workings to clean sheet, Stephen packed the papers back into his knapsack, blew out the candle, and went to find a bed for the few hours before dawn.

[Stephen's story continues here.]

Thankfully the nightmare did not return to haunt Padstowe. Instead he dreamed that he was chasing a brown tabby cat from the kitchen at home - loosing sight of it, finding it again, then cahsing it through every single room of the house (even some that he had not noticed were there before). It was a most desperate persuit, but by the time he woke in the the first light of morning the cat had still eluded him.

Somewhat bemused, and seeing the Stephen was not yet there, Padstowe reached across for a sheet of paper and the pencil which had been left on the bedside table, and began to write.

"Dreamed that I was chasing a brown tabby cat at home. Started out in the kitchen andwent through every room; but I failed to catch it. An odd thing to dream, but far more preferable than the nightmare I'd had earlier last night..."