Talking in Your Sleep
Note-This is a one time thing. Just one chapter for your enjoyment. This is the night before the last battle in the movie with the French, so Calamy has already been promoted and is staying in the lieutenant's berth.
Wearily, Tom Pullings took off his jacket and hat and dropped them on the floor underneath his hammock. He was bone tired from the preparations for the battle that had gone on all that day. Yawning, he climbed into his hammock and closed his eyes, but couldn't go to sleep-he was drifting between unconsciousness and wakefulness. Someone was talking, which was annoying him, but why? Who would be talking at this time of night? Calamy was too shy to speak to either him or Mowett yet. Is it Will, then? Tom thought sleepily, eyes still shut tight. But who would he be talking to?
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and glanced over at his friend's hammock. All he could see was the top of Mowett's head poking out from beneath his blanket. He appeared to be muttering something under his breath.
Calamy was also awake, and was watching Mowett over the top of his book with mild interest. "Is he awake?" Tom asked the new lieutenant.
"I don't know, sir," said Calamy, putting down his book now that the officer was addressing him. "Should I check?"
"All right," Tom said, half expecting Mowett to appear, chuckling at their stupidity, from beneath the blankets. But he did not. He just kept mumbling incoherently.
Timidly, Calamy gave Mowett a gentle shake. "Er-sir? Mr. Mowett?" he said awkwardly.
Mowett grunted and rolled over, gave a loud snore, and continued muttering. "I-I think he's saying a poem, sir," Calamy told Tom in amazement. "Something about the Acheron, I believe." He leaned a bit closer to Mowett's blanketed form to hear better. "And-something about swords clashing and Frenchman dying." He grinned. "I rather like the sound of that myself."
Tom sat up and peered at Mowett intently. "I don't think he's faking," he admitted. That was very true-William would have broken out into peals of laughter by now if he was really playing a joke. But this was very odd; as far as Tom knew, he had never talked in his sleep before. Why was he doing it now? "Do you think we should fetch the doctor?" he asked Calamy.
The boy shrugged. "This doesn't seem to be doing any harm, sir," he said, then added instantly, "Not meaning to contradict you or anything, sir. I'm very sorry if I offended you."
Tom rolled his eyes mentally and answered, "No, no, not at all. Maybe you're right." He noticed that a small crowd had gathered by the door, which Tom had accidentally left open when he came in. So, William had woken up half the crew too. Wonderful. When they noticed he was watching them sternly, they hastily saluted and backed out of the door. But Tom didn't order them to leave. He just didn't have the energy to deal with two things at once right now.
Calamy looked to Tom, hoping for orders. Tom sighed, heaved himself over the edge of the hammock, and dropped to the ground heavily. Rubbing his eyes, he walked over to where Calamy was standing and shook Mowett roughly by the shoulder, muttering, "Oh, for God's sake, stop talking to yourself! Wake up!"
Mowett's voice rose momentarily, and Tom heard something about "the smoke from the guns, like a thick fog around," but then the Second Officer curled up in a tighter ball, pulled the blanket tighter about himself, and shrugged out of Tom's grasp. He was still fast asleep.
"Wake UP!" Tom snarled in Mowett's ear, but his fellow officer slept on, unaware of all the frustration he was causing Tom.
Calamy looked on curiously. "Er, d'you want me to fetch the doctor now, sir?" he asked.
"No," snapped Tom. He glanced over at the door, where the crew was still watching, fascinated. "As senior officer, I give you permission to wake him up without being punished," he said, amazed that he hadn't thought of it before. "Don't bother to wake me up if you get him to stop."
Tom jumped back up into his hammock, turning his back on the gleeful crew, who were all gathered around Mowett's hammock and poking him. He put his fingers in his ears and closed his eyes, and was almost asleep when a shout of alarm jolted him back to the present. He sat up straight, and as he did so, a dirk zipped through the hammock where his head had been seconds ago.
Glaring, he turned to the crew, a murderous expression on his face, but they were all staring at Mowett, who was still asleep.
"He sleeps with a dirk under his pillow?" gasped Barret Bonden. "Sorry sir, Davies 'ere must have shook 'im to hard. Good Lord, he threw that thing faster than that bird the doctor's got, what's it called, the skimmer!"
Tom glowered at the still-sleeping Mowett. "That's it," he announced. He got out of his hammock, grabbed one end of Mowett's hammock, and tipped him onto the floor.
He sat up straight as soon as he hit the ground, then looked around indignantly for the culprit. "Hey, what the devil d'you think you're doing?"
But he was speaking to thin air. The crew had vanished out the door, and Calamy and Tom were both in their hammocks, presumably asleep. Suddenly, however, Tom sat up and grinned at William. "Sorry, mate, you must have been sleepwalking!"