Lost without trace by Gareth George

The appearance of large bubbles on the oily surface between the ship and the quay was all that was left to mark the passage of the City of Lucknow's magnificent display board.  One minute we were undoing the lashings and the next it seemed to develop a mind of its own and drop straight into the sea.  Norman Leslie and I gazed incredulously over the companionway guard rail in the vain hope that if we looked hard enough it might miraculously reappear on the surface and prove this was all just a nightmarish dream. My fellow cadet, known to us all as Norrie,  immediately made his position quite clear.  His response to my questioning look was to lay the whole blame for the incident on to my shoulders. “You’re senior to me,” might seem to the uninitiated to be an unrelated remark but within the close-knit community of the cadet ship this short sentence sealed my fate and relieved him from all responsibility for the dreadful blunder.