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STOKER SLUGGS MARTIN, like several others, decided that while the submarine was dived, quiet and level, this would be an excellent time to shave the bristles off his face. It was a very strange idea, this shaving in the middle of a patrol, but the Captain had said they had to, and Sluggs had no doubt that anyone who didn’t do it would get into serious and immediate trouble.
Mac was an easy-going bloke, always ready for a pint of wallop if you met him ashore, but he could be a bloody terror when he was angry and the quickest way to find that out was to ignore an order. It had been tried once or twice, in the early days of the commission, but nobody tried it any more.
Well, if you were going to shave, this was the time, with the boat steady as a rock; moreover, there’d be a queue for th
