A Navigator on Wheels

Wednesday. The finest navigator I have had aboard this year came in a wheelchair, and she took the chart table as if she had been born at it.

Each of my submarines takes one wheelchair a session. One or two controls aboard sit awkwardly for anybody seated, and her party knew it; they had decided in the car park who would reach for what. She did not reach. She directed. The others reached.

Her uncle, in the same party, is hard of hearing, so my voice through the speaking tubes, magnificent as it is, was largely wasted on him. His niece repeated everything I said, with improvements. Meanwhile he worked the dials and levers, which make their point without a word.

Barnacle has asked whether he might have a wheelchair. I have reminded him that he has ten legs. He says that is not the point.