#tmc2

“I am taking off my shirt.”

“To swim so soon after dinner, and such a dinner? I cannot advise it. You are very corpulent; full of gross, viscous humours after these weeks and months of Poirier’s cooking. And now we are come to the point, my dear, it is my clear duty to warn you against gule, against ungoverned appetite … ” he prosed away while Jack took off his trousers. “So you are determined on your bathe?” he said, looking at his naked companion. “Will you let me see your back, now?” He ran his fingers over the dull-blue scar and asked, “Do you feel it, these days?”

“Just a trifle, this morning,” said Jack. “But otherwise, from the time we cleared the Channel until yesterday, never a twinge. A swim,” he said, slipping over the side and plunging deep into the pure blue water with his long yellow hair streaming out behind him, “is the very thing for it,” he continued, rising to the surface and blowing hard. “God, it is so refreshing, even though it is as warm as milk. Come on, Stephen, bathe while you may.”