men his father and grandfather wereâ'
I turned over and groaned, then cursed at the thunder of ten regiments of horses inside my skull, regiments provided gratis by Captain Judge's liberality with his wine. As I began to stumble into my clothes, I dimly recalled my return to the
Jupiter,
and Vyvyan's grudging provision of blankets for me to lie in James Harker's surprisingly comfortable sea-bed. Praying to see the face of Phineas Musk was a new and unusual experience, but as I sat in the house of office in the quarter-gallery, the captain's exclusive place of easement, I longed for the old rogue to arrive with my belongings.
I prayed fervently for another arrival, too. For I desired, with all my heart, the presence of Kit Farrell aboard the
Jupiter.
I needed his steady advice. I desperately needed to begin the lessons he had promised me in Kinsale, all those months before. Above all, I needed on this ship one man, just one, that was my own.
For all his youth and strangeness, Vyvyan was an efficient and quietly competent lieutenant, as far as I could then judge such things; for those were the days when all ships, no matter how great, had but one lieutenant, and yet seemed to work as well as they do nowadays, when even the smallest frigates have lieutenants galore crawling out of every inch of the bilges. Nevertheless, I could have done without his bringing the ship's warrant officers to my cabin to be formally introduced to me over a prolonged breakfast of bread, veal, eggs, and small beer. I was not feeling myself, and had wished to avoid my fellow men as long as possible. As it transpired, I need not have been concerned, for rarely in my life have I encountered a more unimpressive group of men (other than when facing a committee of the House of Commons).
Boatswain Ap was the most talkative of them, though this was not much to the good for he was virtually unintelligible. I gathered that he came from some unpronounceable hole north of Cardigan, though he might just as likely have said Cardiff, or Carmarthen, or Caernarvon. It was impossible to be certain from the gabble that came from his mouth, but I quickly learned that an occasional nod and a
just so, Boatswain,
would suffice to keep him happy. Stanton, the gunner, and Penbaron, the carpenter, were devout members of Harker's Cornish coterie, too distraught at the loss of their master (and probably at their employment prospects, also) to manage much in the way of conversation. Although I had enough of a knowledge of guns to be able to find some common ground with the portly, guarded Stanton, there was none at all with the small and wiry Penbaron, for like most captains, I never could properly tell a keelson from a futtock, and to me the wooden world of the carpenter was wholly anathema. He attempted to engage me upon the subject of the mizzenmast, which was apparently held aloft only by the ministrations of the angelic host; but I had no wish to spoil my breakfast so gave him little encouragement.
Then there was Skeen, the ship's surgeon. Thin and dirty, he was a profoundly ignorant and insignificant man, a Londoner whose hearing had been shattered by too many Dutch broadsides a decade before. After James Vyvyan, he had been the first man to inspect James Harker's body, but had done no more than eventually and solemnly to pronounce that the captain was indeed dead, a fact that Vyvyan and the whole crew had known well enough twenty minutes earlier. Skeen would have been an obvious suspect for the poisoning of Harker, but it was hard to imagine this repulsive and foul-smelling little creature being competent enough to bring off such a cunning and secretive crime. I prayed privately to Our Lord for good health through our voyage, that I would have no need of Skeen's ministrations.
The lowest of our warrant officers, in rank at least, was one William Janks, a bluff old Norfolk man and the provider of the excellent veal to which I found myself unable to do
I turned over and groaned, then cursed at the thunder of ten regiments of horses inside my skull, regiments provided gratis by Captain Judge's liberality with his wine. As I began to stumble into my clothes, I dimly recalled my return to the
Jupiter,
and Vyvyan's grudging provision of blankets for me to lie in James Harker's surprisingly comfortable sea-bed. Praying to see the face of Phineas Musk was a new and unusual experience, but as I sat in the house of office in the quarter-gallery, the captain's exclusive place of easement, I longed for the old rogue to arrive with my belongings.
I prayed fervently for another arrival, too. For I desired, with all my heart, the presence of Kit Farrell aboard the
Jupiter.
I needed his steady advice. I desperately needed to begin the lessons he had promised me in Kinsale, all those months before. Above all, I needed on this ship one man, just one, that was my own.
For all his youth and strangeness, Vyvyan was an efficient and quietly competent lieutenant, as far as I could then judge such things; for those were the days when all ships, no matter how great, had but one lieutenant, and yet seemed to work as well as they do nowadays, when even the smallest frigates have lieutenants galore crawling out of every inch of the bilges. Nevertheless, I could have done without his bringing the ship's warrant officers to my cabin to be formally introduced to me over a prolonged breakfast of bread, veal, eggs, and small beer. I was not feeling myself, and had wished to avoid my fellow men as long as possible. As it transpired, I need not have been concerned, for rarely in my life have I encountered a more unimpressive group of men (other than when facing a committee of the House of Commons).
Boatswain Ap was the most talkative of them, though this was not much to the good for he was virtually unintelligible. I gathered that he came from some unpronounceable hole north of Cardigan, though he might just as likely have said Cardiff, or Carmarthen, or Caernarvon. It was impossible to be certain from the gabble that came from his mouth, but I quickly learned that an occasional nod and a
just so, Boatswain,
would suffice to keep him happy. Stanton, the gunner, and Penbaron, the carpenter, were devout members of Harker's Cornish coterie, too distraught at the loss of their master (and probably at their employment prospects, also) to manage much in the way of conversation. Although I had enough of a knowledge of guns to be able to find some common ground with the portly, guarded Stanton, there was none at all with the small and wiry Penbaron, for like most captains, I never could properly tell a keelson from a futtock, and to me the wooden world of the carpenter was wholly anathema. He attempted to engage me upon the subject of the mizzenmast, which was apparently held aloft only by the ministrations of the angelic host; but I had no wish to spoil my breakfast so gave him little encouragement.
Then there was Skeen, the ship's surgeon. Thin and dirty, he was a profoundly ignorant and insignificant man, a Londoner whose hearing had been shattered by too many Dutch broadsides a decade before. After James Vyvyan, he had been the first man to inspect James Harker's body, but had done no more than eventually and solemnly to pronounce that the captain was indeed dead, a fact that Vyvyan and the whole crew had known well enough twenty minutes earlier. Skeen would have been an obvious suspect for the poisoning of Harker, but it was hard to imagine this repulsive and foul-smelling little creature being competent enough to bring off such a cunning and secretive crime. I prayed privately to Our Lord for good health through our voyage, that I would have no need of Skeen's ministrations.
The lowest of our warrant officers, in rank at least, was one William Janks, a bluff old Norfolk man and the provider of the excellent veal to which I found myself unable to do
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