The great ship, weighted down with her starboard guns helpless and smashed, slowly turned, majestic like what she was, a dying ship, The Majestic. Admiral Cornplaster, his wooden leg broken under him, cradled the wheel, and smiled, for he had one last trick in him. "Swinton!!" he howled, and through the debris, Captain Swinton, his other arm now having joined its mate at the bottom of the Mediterranean, swayed forward. "Sorry I can't salute anymore, sir," he said gamely.
"Damme, no time for saluting," spat the Admiral, "Heave the anchor to, and reef the topsails, and be smart about it."
Captain Swinton, for a moment, was sure he had misheard, amid the thunderous crashes, the yelling and screaming of dying men awash over the maststrewn deck, and then the possibility reached him too. "Gad, sir!! Will it work??"
The Admiral heaved himself over the wheelhouse, knocking Swinton into the gunwhales. "If it worked at Copenhagen, it will bloody well work here!!!!"