"I'll go up and see him," he said. "When we're... When there's time. His mother rang me yesterday. She was very kind. Kinder than she ought to have been." He looked up. "Coffee? Solveig's made a pot of the good stuff. I'm told you've been at the hospital all night."
"Most of it."
He poured two cups from a thermos on the chart table without asking how she took it, and put milk in hers and no sugar, which was right, and which he had last done fourteen years ago. She took it. She did not drink it.
"So," he said. "Here we are. You'll have read the report."
"I've read it."
"The crane's being tested at two. Lachlan's replaced the shackle, and the swivel, and he's gone over every pin and sheave on the thing with a magnifying glass. If the surveyor signs it off, we can lift the tender by four, have it lashed by half past, and be off the pier by five. Lenora at Tidemark says we want to be past Brenton Reef by eighteen hundred. I've had the agent sort the outbound clearance. We're fueled. We're provisioned. The crew are rested..."
"Are they?"
He stopped.
"Are they rested, Aled?"
"They've been ashore most of the weekend. I stood everybody down Saturday and Sunday except the watch. They're as rested as they're going to be."