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man, who sat up, swayed and fell back again on to the pillow.
    â€˜Whatever you want to let him alone,’ said Berta slowly, as if every syllable were a tense, muscular act, ‘I will give you. Do you understand?’
    â€˜I should not be mixing myself in this,’ murmured Danno thoughtfully, feeling Mr Feitel’s pulse ‘but if he goes on deck, ’twill be the death of him.’
    â€˜Leave him alone!’ Berta cried. ‘Don’t you believe me? I will come to you when you like.’
    Danno glared at her, suddenly aware of her presence.
    â€˜And are you not ashamed to be talking so with your da on his death-bed?’ he roared. ‘You will stand up now and do what I tell you. You will go to the cook and turn your rolling eyes on him and bring me an ounce of sugar and a teaspoonful of baking powder.’
    â€˜What do you mean? You’re no doctor!’
    â€˜I am in a manner of speaking, though ’tis sheep I treat the most of.’
    â€˜Sheep?’
    â€˜Sure, if you saw one stand on his hind legs,’ shouted Danno, exasperated by her tone, ‘you would know ’tis only human like the rest of us. Be off with you now!’
    â€˜I will not. He shall be on deck if I carry him on my back,’ she said. ‘I know your sort. You only want a chance to say we were disobedient. Your sheep will go where you tell them. They have learned that much!’
    â€˜The devil’s in the girl!’ said Danno. ‘Now will ye listen? The doctor is after telling you your Da must see the captain. ’Tis a lie – though, by Jesus, the shock would have curedhim if it were the sea-sickness he had! But ’tis not the sea, ’tis his stomach.’
    â€˜What do you know?’ she asked contemptuously.
    â€˜Am I not telling you I am a veterinary surgeon and the best sheep-doctor in all Eire? And I know that if it were a sheep or a pig or a horse or a saint from heaven and he sea-sick, he would be breathing fast and slow and jerky as if the soul of him were in torment, and not hungry for air and breathing deep, as is your Da. ’Tis what they call acidosis he has, and though the sea started it, ’tis not the sea any longer nor the fear of the sea that turns his stomach now.’
    Berta stared at him with shining eyes, from which huge tears of relief spilled on to her cheeks.
    â€˜Will ye go to the cook now,’ he coaxed her, patting her hand, ‘and bring me a teaspoonful of baking powder and an ounce of sugar.’
    Berta nodded, and vanished down the passage. Meanwhile Danno soothed, groomed and massaged her father as if he had been a thoroughbred recovering from severe fright – which indeed he was. The old man thanked him in scraps of broken English and, when Berta returned with the remedy, took it trustfully and in absolute faith that it was going to stay down.
    â€˜Now keep him quiet, and he’ll be better before night,’ said Danno. ‘I will tell the doctor ’twas the shock that did it, and he will be speaking of his cure from one end of the ship to the other and that pleased with himself he will order special food for your da.’
    â€˜But you’ll come and see him?’ asked Berta anxiously.
    â€˜You will have him on deck under the awnings tomorrow afternoon, and I will see him then. And I will send you one of them canvas chairs for him,’ added Danno drily, ‘so he shall not be sprawling on the hatches and the doctor and the proud English turning their opera glasses on him and jiggling their feet on the planks.’
    By nightfall Mr Feitel had shown a marked improvement. A breakfast of eggs was followed by a lunch of chicken – obtained through Danno’s outrageous flattery of the doctor– and at five o’clock he was sitting in a deck-chair, watching the flying fish in the strip of blue sky and blue water between the awning and the rail, and thankful for his return to so