By the Mast Divided by David Donachie

servants or midshipmen since before they were breeched. Like he had looked to Rodney, they had looked to him to get them a place, and Ralph Barclay had endured more than one painful interview in which, thanks to the intransigence of Sam Hood, he had been obliged to disappoint his followers.
    The lesser officers he could do nothing about. No naval captain chose his Purser, Boatswain, Carpenter or Cook – they served on board a ship to which they were permanently attached by warrant. His crew he would come to know in time, and he expected they would fear to displease him, because he had and was proud of his reputation as a strict disciplinarian, something that would be known by any old Navy men. The rest, landsmen pressed or volunteers, would learn soon enough the boundaries of naval discipline as applied by their captain.
    ‘Mr Roscoe.’
    ‘Sir,’ replied the First Lieutenant, stepping forward. Roscoe had a lopsided countenance, one half seeming, with a lazy eye and collapsed cheek, to have no muscles, and that affected his speaking voice. He also had a drooping lip, which often made a very ordinary look seem amused. Yet a person had only to glance at the sound half of his face to see that there was a man to whom humour appeared alien.
    ‘I require an explanation as to why we have yet to complete our stores?’
    ‘I plead the shortage of hands, sir, and the boats, barring one, were with you.’
    ‘It did not occur to you to request hands and boats from another ship, a guard ship perhaps or one that has the luxury of time?’
    What could Roscoe say? That Davidge Gould had got to the guard ships before him, and no commander of a fighting vessel in his right mind – the only option left – would lend men to someone like Ralph Barclay, captaining a ship short on its own complement and with orders to weigh. So he took refuge in saying nothing.
    ‘Keep an eye out for our boats coming down river with the hands I have recruited.’ Barclay paused, thinking he might actually have to weigh before they got here, then added, ‘Some twenty in number, Mr Roscoe.’
    ‘Sir.’
    ‘I am surprised, sir, that you can take such a statement in so calm amanner,’ He looked to include the second lieutenant, a grey-haired, slow speaking Dorset man called Thrale, with the face of a kindly uncle, a nonentity; a touch deaf, timid and lacking in confidence. He thought of that Admiralty waiting room with the crowd of lieutenants begging for a ship. How had such a man so impressed Sam Hood as to get himself a place on this one? ‘You too Mr Thrale, given your own failures in that department.’
    It was these men he had sent ashore, when first commissioned to command this frigate, with his posters and his money, for which he had been forced to pawn his possessions, and the way they had let him down rankled every time he looked at them. Neither Roscoe nor Thrale responded. Nor did Roscoe add the obligatory, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
    Ralph Barclay knew that his Premier had deliberately left out the acknowledgement that was his due, which made him growl as he looked at the mass of stores piled in various places, and the untidy ropes that littered the deck planking. A goat was wandering about as it pleased, and the lowing of the beef cattle in the waist grated as much as the clucking of the hens in the coop behind the wheel. His Standing Orders, detailed instructions for the running of the ship, written so that all his subordinates would have no doubt as to how he wished things done, had been very particular about that – no ship could ever be brought to a high standard of cleanliness if the most visible part of it was untidy.
    ‘And this deck, Mr Roscoe! No doubt you will tell me it was holystoned this very morning but I cannot say it is evident.’
    ‘If I may be allowed to go about my duties…’
    ‘You had better, Mr Roscoe,’ Barclay interrupted, ‘for I shall be back on deck within the hour, and I expect to find it spotless and clear of