Smith had inherited him. Tall and thin and lantern-jawed, he was obviously sometimes called Horse-Face but usually it was Daddy. Now he fussed around the cabin like an old hen. Daddy was a reservist, not a grandfather like Davies, the Engineer, or some of the others but he looked the oldest man aboard. He had been one of Thunder’s caretaker crew; the only one of that ancient little band who had somehow wangled his way to sea and they said he had been scraped off the dockyard wall along with the ship. He shuffled about in an old pair of plimsolls by express permission of the Doctor because his feet troubled him greatly. They also served him and a lot of the crew as a barometer because he claimed he could predict the weather by the feel of them. “Lovely morning, sir. Sky’s cleared beautiful but I reckon it won’t last. I can tell. Me feet, you know, sir.” “Yes, I know.” Smith sipped at the coffee and thought about Sarah Benson and Cherry.
