26th May, morning at anchor

The guardboat had delivered its passenger to the entry-port and shoved off directly to retrieve the drifting barge. Cartwright watched the men in the waist warily, not trusting their intentions with a woman aboard.

Fortunately, the surgeon had come on deck and was making his way through the milling crowd of seamen with definite purpose.

Oops. Time to go... Especially as Mister Colburn had appeared on deck, swinging his rope's end threateningly. He winced as the rope landed across his shoulders. He was moving, wasn't he?

And... oh, boy. Mister Cartwright was on the quarterdeck. He'd see de Guarde the second he reached the bottom of the companionway down to the gun-deck. Couldn't be helped, that.

He slipped down the fore companionway himself, hoping to find somewhere he could get a clear view of what was going on up on the weather deck.

The young woman babbled incoherently, seemingly overwhelmed by the trauma.

"I speak some Portuguese, sir," Perry told the lieutenant, offering a salute. In spite of the order to return to duties, he seemed to be rooted to the action here. "She's sayin' her arm is hurt, sir."

Bush glared at Perry, probably the last person he wanted to see at the moment. As if the situation was not already irksome enough...

"Learned it from your Portuguese 'wife,' I suppose," he remarked, raising an eyebrow slightly. Even though he disliked the idea of having to trust Perry's translating skills, if it meant he could get the woman off the ship and on her way as soon as possible, Bush was willing to go along with it. "Very well, Perry. You may translate for her."

The seaman scarcely suppressed a smile and hid his face partially with another salute. "Sir." He turned to the woman and fired off a quiet string of gibberish, looking nervously at the approaching surgeon. She responded in kind, seeming to argue with him, and he could not hide a grin as he muttered a few words back.

"She says... she's ever so grateful to the lads for pulling her outta the water. And can someone look at her arm. Sir."

She was claiming to be injured. Lovely. That was all Bush needed right now.

"You can tell her the surgeon is coming, Perry. She can see him for herself if she would actually look around," he snapped. Though he resisted the urge to add she would not have been hurt if she had been sensible and refrained from coming to the ship in the first place.

Having heard the shrieks, shouts and general commotion from where he had been below, Leat emereged up the aft companionway onto the quarterdeck, wincing as the bright light hit his eyes. He made his way over to Bush.

"What's all the noise?" he asked. Beneath his sunburn his skin was horribly pallid, and the black eye that he had gained from last night's misfortune was now a fetching shade of deep purple. Before Bush could answer though he saw the wet Portuguese woman, recognised her despite his headache and blinked.

"Oh dear."

"Quite so, Mr. Leat. It seems we have a visitor," Bush grumbled.

A glance at Leat told him that he was surely feeling just as awful as Bush himself was feeling this morning. The aggravation the woman was causing was certainly not going to do either one of them any good.

"She claimed to be bringing wine for me, which is a definite falsehood, being as I told her no several times. So I can only wonder what her true motive was for coming to the ship."

Judging by the way the woman was looking at Bush Leat found that he did not have to wonder at all. It was not the time to embarrass his colleague, though, so he merely said-

"It is a mystery indeed. Has anyone looked at her barge - to see if she actually has brought any wine?"

"The barge started to drift off after she fell in, but the guardboat has gone to retrieve it. Surely they will inspect it once they do," Bush said, "The sooner they get it back, the sooner she can be on her way."

Leat merely decided to nod in agreement with his superior, but winced as the motion brought a flash of pain searing through his skull, and clapped a hand to his forehead.

Perry had been about to speak up in the woman's defense - how was she to know a British naval surgeon by sight? - but he thought the better of it and spoke to her instead, carrying on an extended conversation. One of her comments made him laugh aloud.

"That'll do, lad," the surgeon said, coming up on the scene. "Now. Let's have a look at her. Has she any complaints?"

Perry returned to sobriety immediately. "It's her arm, got scraped by the boat hook I reckon. Her arm, o braço," he added for the woman's benefit. She folded back a wet sleeve to display the limb for the surgeon's examination. The red line across her upper arm was dotted with blood here and there.

"I suspect she'll live, Perry," Leat quipped dryly. It could probably be said that neither of the lieutenants on the quarterdeck were in a sympathetic mood.

"Sir," Perry answered with nod. He spoke to the woman in a low voice, and this time she replied at length. The words "Terpsichore" and "Kinsella" could be heard, ("Oh, aye, Kinsella's the lad in the boat what pulled you out," Perry answered in English) but as her speech continued, the seaman's eyes grew wide and he turned to look at the lieutenants in surprise.

It was one of those injuries that looked worse than it honestly was. Farley used a short length of linen to clean the arm, then wrapped it carefully with a clean handerkerchief. It would hold until the officers decided what to do with her.

She looked at the bandage and then at the surgeon, giving him a little smile and a prettily accented "Thank you, sir."

"What are you gawping at, Perry?" Bush demanded, seeing the shocked look the sailor was giving both him and Leat, "You offered to interpret for her, so now that her arm has been tended to, you may tell her that she can be on her way back to shore."

In an even more gruff tone, he added, "Nevermind the fact that she had no business coming out here in the first place."

Perry cast his eyes respectfully down immediately. "Sorry sir. She was just tellin' me... Just a minute, sir." He spoke to the woman again and she responded. He bit back a grin and swallowed it, but he could not keep the merriment from his eyes. "She says she has sommat for you, sir. In the barge."

"For you, Meester Bush," she confirmed with a smile. "In the barge."

"Ma'am, how many times do I have to say that I don't want any of your bloody wine!" Bush snapped, "I don't know where you ever got that idea into your head!"

Between this un-ending aggravation and his pounding headache, he was quickly reaching the end of his tether. What could he do to get rid of the woman?

She shook her head, undaunted by his outburst or by the many pairs of greedy eyes that were still watching covertly. "No wine," she said, correcting him with a small wagging finger. "É a Bíblia santamente."

Her translator stared in amazement. "She says it's a Bible, sir."

Bush was so surprised by this comment that for a brief moment, he simply stared at the woman. What in God's name did she want to give him a Bible for?

"You wish to give me...a Bible?" he asked at last, still in utter disbelief. "Why?"

She simply smiled, a bright flash of pretty teeth, and moved to look over the rail to where her rabelo had been brought alongside. "Barge? I go for... Bible."