"I need to pee."

"Have you considered the benefits of not going to the lavatory?" I asked.

"Such as?" replied Francois Devine.

"Such as… my not having to help you go to the lavatory, your not having to suffer the indignity of my having to help you go to the lavatory, my not having to live with the consequences of living with you knowing that you suffered the indignity of my having to help you go to the lavatory, your having to live with me knowing that I know the indignity you suffered when I helped you go to the lavatory…"

"Yes yes yes – I’ve considered all that and more" be told me, "and I still need to go."

"Don’t you consider this a rather selfish course of action?" I suggested.

"It is a basic bodily function" he protested.

"We don’t discuss the B and F words in this house" I said haughtily. "Is it really so urgent that you can’t wait five or ten hours until such time as a rescue attempt is successful?"

"I feel as though my insides are about to burst."

"I fear there is nothing I can do."

"I am in impossible agony."

"I would consider it my duty to help were there anything I could do."

"I might die."

"Tragic as that would be I simply cannot assist you."

"If I pass water and relieve my bladder it might give us that little bit of lee-way and I might be able to get free."

I was defeated and I knew it. I had been checkmated by a mere draughts player. I did what any gentleman would do in such circumstances – I salvaged the moral high ground.

"Wipe that look of your face, sonny" I snapped and went in search of something useful.

I listened to Francois Devine’s pitiful cries as I gathered together almost my entire supply of high density wadding, a pair of rubber gloves and a long-distance mechanical arm. I stood in the hall for a moment or two, enjoying the sounds coming from the drawing room, before going in to see him.

"This isn’t going to be easy or pleasant for either of us" I began reassuringly, "but it is the only way. I propose to use this mechanical arm to open your trousers and stuff them with high density wadding. This will allow you to pass fluids freely with 98% of them guaranteed to be fully absorbed or I get my money back."

"You want me to go in my own trousers?" he moaned.

"Well I’m certainly not lending you any of my trousers to go in" I said firmly.

"Oh that it should come to this – relieving myself while fully dressed."

"Brave heart, Francois Devine. Worse things happen at sea."

"Such as?"

"Scurvy, communal singing, sun burn, not being able to carefully select your crew mates, no proper archive facilities for thousands of miles, the strong possibility of a lingering death, the romantic attentions of a hook-handed psychopath who is missing female company…"

"STOP! You’d convinced me with communal singing. You have a warped imagination, Dennis Brent. Prey hurry along with your mechanical arm."

I hadn’t used my mechanical arm since that unfortunate business when I was banned from the basement section of the written records archive and had to do my research through an open window. I learned some vital information about the production schedules on the second block of filming for the third series of "Survivors" but ended up with a crick in my neck and muscle spasms in places I didn’t think housed any muscles.

"Up a bit" said Francois Devine as I had a first test run with the mechanical arm.

"Down a bit" he said after my second approach.

"Down a little more and a shade to the left" he added after run number three.

"How's this?" I asked when I attempted it for real.

"It might improve your aim a little if you were in the drawing room" he called.

"Nonsense – I’m just as effective out here in the hall where I’m not in danger of seeing something I’ll regret."

"Very well" he mumbled. At least I think he mumbled – the door was only open a crack so he may have been speaking at normal or possibly even slightly above normal levels.

"Have I ever let you down?" I asked rhetorically.

"You advised me to purchase shares in Deborah Watling when you knew the issue to be a hoax" he replied, obviously not realising that the question was rhetorical.

"That was richly comic" I chuckled.

"Careful!" he wailed as my spasms of laughter caused the mechanical arm to sway slightly.

Eventually I got my groove back (as young people say) and was able to manoeuvre the mechanical arm with my customary skill. Just as I could remove an annotated page from a camera script and leave the remaining pages in place, all while being technically outside the building, so I was able to unzip Francois Devine’s trousers and insert several bundles of high density wadding. With one final flourish I was able to zip him up and even give a mechanical thumbs up that he could start letting nature take its disgusting course.

"AHHHHH" he sighed as his relief was apparent. I donned my protective goggles (just in case) and ventured back into the drawing room. The beam on Francois Devine’s face was wide enough to make him look like a "Peanuts" character who is having an extremely productive day.

"Thank you, Dennis Brent, you have saved my life" smiled Francois Devine.

"Again" I corrected. "I believe that is the seventeenth time I have saved your life. Not that I’m counting or anything…"

"You mean the chart on the refrigerator is a jest?" he asked.

"Ah – I assumed you wouldn’t see it in your haste to open the refrigerator."

"I only saw it because it fell loose and almost became a filling in one of my small sandwiches."

"Are you still emptying?" I enquired gingerly.

"Oh yes – I predict this will be a lengthy session."

"I feel uncomfortable talking to you during."

"I can assure you it is quite safe."

"That’s as maybe but I think I’ll take a stroll into the hall."

I went out and took a deep breath. Talking to a colleague while the latter is urinating had given me an unwelcome insight into what it must be like to be a woman. I slapped myself about the face until I felt better.

"DENNIS BRENT" called Francois Devine from the drawing room.

"Yes?"

"Can you come in here more or less urgently?"

I went in and was frankly amazed by the sight before me. Francois Devine’s trousers were bulging alarmingly as the high density wadding absorbed the liquid still emanating from him.

"I think my trousers are about to burst."