as i was now a senior share holder in the borne line , and as such almost his boss , he felt that he could talk confidentially to me about her , so dispatching the luckless third officer to fetch carols file from below we then went through it page by page , and apart from the write-up from the captain of her last ship , her career had been exemplary throughout , and whilst she had been on sea sprite , she had , on numerous occasions , acted up to chief officer , a rank that she had by law to be capable of assuming at a moments notice , and once , during an outbreak of something very nasty , to captain for a week , and didnt break anything .