amongst you?' Bolitho saw the anxious exchange of glances, the way that the snug contentment had given way to something like panic. He said, 'I think I am, sir. Richard Bolitho.' The lieutenant eyed him suspiciously. 'So be it. March 'em to the sallyport and report to the boat's cox'n. I will be along shortly.' He raised his voice. 'And when I get there, I want every mother's son of you ready to leave, see?' The smallest midshipman said desperately, 'I think I'm going to be sick! ' Somebody laughed, but the lieutenant roared, 'You're going to be sick, sirl Say sir when you address an officer, damn you! ' The landlord's wife watched the untidy cluster of midshipmen hurrying towards the rain. 'Yew'm a bit hard on 'em, Mr Hope, sir.' The lieutenant grinned. 'We all had to go through it, m'dear. Anyway, the captain's difficult enough as it is, what with one thing and t'other. If I'm adrift with the new midshipmen then I'll be in for a broadside! ' Outside on the wet cobbles Bolitho watched some seamen loading the black chests into an assortment of barrows. Burly and tanned, they looked like experienced sailors, and he guessed that the captain was taking no chances by allowing less reliable members of his company ashore in case they deserted. In weeks, even days, he would know these men and many more. He would not fall into the old traps as in his other ship. He knew now that trust was something you had to earn, not a gift which went with the uniform. He nodded to the senior hand. 'We will move off directly.' The man grinned at him. 'Not the first time for you then, sir?' Bolitho fell in step beside Dancer. 'Or the last.' At the sallyport they found the boat's coxswain sheltering behind the wall. Beyond it the Solent heaved and broke to endless ranks of cruising wavecrests, and against the leaden sky the few gulls looked like white spindrift. The coxswain touched his hat. 'I suggest you get 'em all aboard, sir. There's quite a tide runnin' an' the first lieutenant wants the boat to do another trip afore the dog watches.' He dropped his voice. ' Ts name is Mr Verling, sir. Be warned. 'E's a mite rough on some young gennlemen. Likes 'em to try their 'ands at everythin' 'e does.' He chuckled un•feelingly. 'Gawd, look at 'em. 'E'll 'ave 'em for breakfast.' Bolitho snapped, 'And I you, if you don't stop gossiping.' Dancer stared at him as the man hurried away. Bolitho said, 'I've met his sort before, Martyn. The next minute he'd be asking permission to go off for a quick tot of rum.' He grinned. 'I think the lieutenant back there would be displeased, never mind the formidable Mr Verling.' The officer in question appeared by the wall, his eyes somewhat glassy. 'Into the boat! Lively there! ' Dancer said quietly, 'I think maybe my father was right! ' Bolitho waited for the others to clamber down the slippery ladder towards the pitching longboat. 'I'm not sorry to go back to sea.' And he was surprised to find that he meant it. The journey from the sallyport-to the anchored two-decker took the best part of an hour. During the trip in the madly leaping longboat the midshipmen who managed to survive being violently sick had plenty of time to study their new home as she grew larger and taller through the relentless rain. Bolitho had made it his business to learn something about his next appointment. Seventy-fours, as these sturdy two-deckers were nicknamed, made up the bulk of the fleet. In any big sea battle they were always predominant in the line where the fighting was hardest. And yet he knew from experience, and what he had heard old sailors say, that each one was as different from the other as salt from molasses. While the oarsmen pulled the boat over each angry crest he kept his attention on the ship, seeing the towering masts and crossed yards, the shining black and buff hull with its lines of closed gunports, the scarlet ensign at her high stern and the jack at her bows making patches of colour against the background of grey sea and sky. The oarsmen were getting tired from their hard efforts, and it took the repeated stroke from the coxswain and several threats from the red-faced lieutenant to keep them working in unison.
Around and under the long bowsprit and jibboom, beneath which the brightly gilded figurehead seemed to stare down at the silent midshipmen with something like hatred. It was a splendid if frightening example of a wood- carver's art. The Gorgon's figurehead was a mass of writhing serpents, the face below set in a fierce glare, the eyes very large and edged with red paint to give an added effect of menace. And then, panting and scrabbling, they were being pushed, hauled and bundled unceremoniously up the ship's side, so that when they arrived on the broad quarterdeck it seemed almost sheltered and calm by comparison. Bolitho said, 'She looks smart enough, Martyn.' He ran his eyes quickly along the neat lines of the quarterdeck nine-pounders, their black barrels gleaming in the rain, the trucks freshly painted, every piece of tackle neat and carefully stowed. Seamen were working aloft on the yards and along the gangways on either beam which joined quarterdeck to forecastle. Beneath the gangways, at the same regular intervals, were the upper deck batteries of eighteen-pounders, while on the deck below them were the ship's main armament of powerful thirty-two pounders. When required, Gorgon could and would speak with loud authority. The lieutenant shouted, 'Over here! ' The midshipmen hurried to obey, some fearful and already lost. Others wary and careful to watch what was required of them. 'In a moment you will go to your quarters.' The lieutenant had to raise his voice above the hiss of rain, the persistent din of wind through rigging and furled sails. 'I just want to tell you that you are now appointed to one of the finest ships in His Majesty's Navy, one with high standards and no tolerance of laggards. There are twelve midshipmen all told aboard Gorgon, including yourselves, so the mothers' boys had best work doubly hard to avoid trouble. You will be given postings to gundecks and other parts of ship until you are able to work with the people without making a poor example to them.' Bolitho turned as some men hurried past under the control of a tough-looking boatswain's mate. Fresh from the land by the cut of them, he thought. Taken from debtors' prisons and from the Assize Courts where but for the need of men for the fleet they would be held until transportation to the American colonies. The Navy's appetite for men was never satisfied, and with the country at peace it was even harder to supply its needs. As he watched the hurrying party of men Bolitho thought it hardly made sense of what the lieutenant had just said. Not only the midshipmen were new and untrained. Many of the ship's company were little better. As he slitted his eyes against the rain he found time to marvel at the way a ship like this could swallow such a force of human beings. Gorgon, he knew, contained a company of some six hundred officers, seamen and marines in her fat, seventeenhundred-ton hull, and yet to look along her upper deck it was hard to see more than thirty or so at any one time. 'Ton! ' Bolitho turned as the lieutenant's voice cut into his thoughts. 'I hope I am not boring you?' Bolitho replied, 'I am sorry, sir.' 'I will be watching you.' The lieutenant stiffened as another officer approached from the poop. Bolitho guessed the newcomer to be the first lieutenant.
Mr Verling was tall and thin, with an expression so dour that he could have been a judge about to pass sentence of death rather than offering welcome to some new officers. He had a protruding, beaked nose which thrust from beneath his cocked hat as if to seek out some new crime in his ship, and his eyes, as they wandered along the swaying line of midshipmen, were devoid of pity or warmth. He said, 'I am the senior in this ship.' Even his tone was clipped, with all the compassion honed out of it. 'Whilst on board you will attend to your various duties at all times. You will become so involved with your training and preparation for examination as lieutenants that you will eventually put it before all else, and any sort of leisure will be seen even by you as both selfish and pointless.' He nodded to the other officer. 'Mr Hope is the fifth lieutenant and will be keeping an eye on you until you are settled in your allocated watches. Mr Turnbull, the master, will of course expect a high standard in navigational studies and the general working of the ship at sea.' His gimlet eyes fastened on the smallest figure at the end of the line, the one who had been violently sick in the longboat, and who looked as if he was about to repeat it. 'And what is jour name?' ' Eden, s-sir.' 'Age?' The word was like a knife cut. 'T-twelve, s-sir.' Hope said, 'He has a stutter, sir.' Even his earlier belligerence had faded in the presence of his superior. 'Has he indeed. I am certain the boatswain will take care of that before he reaches thirteen years, if he lasts that long! ' Verling seemed to tire of the encounter. 'Dismiss them, Mr Hope. We will weigh tomorrow if the wind stays with us. There is much to do.' He strode away without another glance. Hope said wearily, 'Mr Grenfell will take you below.' Grenfell, it turned out, was the senior midshipman. A thickset, unsmiling young man of about seventeen, he relaxed as soon as Hope had disappeared. He said, 'Follow me. Mr Hope is a fair man, but he is worried about his promotion.' Bolitho smiled. In a ship of the line promotion was always difficult, especially without a war to thin the ranks. As fifth lieutenant Hope had only one officer junior to himself in the wardroom, and unless the lieutenants above him were promoted, sent into other ships or killed he was hard put to find advancement. Dancer whispered, 'In the flagship we had a sixth lieutenant who was so desperate that he learned to play the flute merely because the admiral's wife liked it! ' They fell silent as they followed the senior midshipman down the first companion ladder to the deck below, and the deck below that. The deeper they went into the hull the more confined it seemed to become. They were surrounded by shadowy figures, faceless and unreal in the half-darkness, their heads bowed beneath deck beams and the carefully slung equipment for each tethered cannon. The smells too seemed to rise to meet them. Salt beef and tar, bilge and packed humanity, while all around them the massive hull creaked and groaned like a live thing, the deckhead lanterns spiralling and throwing shapes across the great timbers and seamen alike, as in part of a vast painting. The midshipmen's berth was on the orlop deck. Beneath the lower gundeck, and indeed lower than the waterline itself, it had no light other than from the hatches and the swaying lanterns. Grenfell said offhandedly, 'This is it. We share it with the senior master's mates.' He grimaced towards a white-painted screen. 'Although they choose to stay aloof from us.' Bolitho looked at his companions. Without difficulty he could imagine what they were feeling. He
