Sunday 21st - afternoon or thereabouts

"No," Fletcher agreed, turning his head at the hullaballooing on the forward mast. "But then there are lots of things that must be done that we don't want to. I expect it will happen eventually, but I hope not soon. I should think that I would slip."

It was probably also why he was a midshipman and not a topman; but even the ship's boys did not get sent up to the tops regularly. Aloft was not the domain of the inexperienced, so skill and knowledge had to be built up gradually; and Peter was helping Simon to do that.

"You shouldn't slip today, at least. The ropes are dry, the wind is nice and steady..." Which was so, there was only the occasional shiver as a wave caught the ship at an awkward angle. The wind kept them pressed against the shrouds. But in a storm, or the cold...

Peter looked across at Fletcher, and smiled. "Do you remember Julian, telling us about climbing up with the men, when they went round the Horn, and how terrified he was? I am sure it was the truth, but he made a joke of it."

Again, Fletcher nodded.

"I do," he replied as they passed the main top. "I remember how he said the ice froze onto the ropes and the spray turned to snow in the air. I don't know if he was making that up too, but somehow I'd never doubted he'd actually done it. I think I would be frightened too."

Poor Julian. He would never have told them an outright lie, though doubtless his stories had always been embellished somewhat.

"Although I'm surprised he never said he'd met a polar bear. Nelson killed a polar bear when he was a midshipman."

A flurry of wind caught Peter's hair and whipped it across his cheek.

"Julian went south, and you don't get polar bears down there. He did see penguins and the great birds that never land.... But he didn't say he'd killed one of them." Below them, the look out in the maintop stared to the north, on the watch for the first sight of the Oporto blockade.

"If we go right to the top, we might be the first to see the ships," he said. "We'll be higher than the boys, anyway."

Embarrassed by his ignorance regarding polar bears, Simon merely agreed and followed Yates up to the topgallant trees, more than aware (although he did not look) that the deck was getting further and further away from them and they continued to climb.

Beyond the topgallant trees there were no ratlines, and the boys would have to climb the rope hand over hand. The topmen did it, and Peter was certain that Mr Leat could do it. Possibly he could - although he would like to practice rather lower down. Or not. It was not going to be a skill he needed, he realised, and the relief made him grin broadly at Fletcher, moving round to allow him to reach the trees.

He screwed up his eyes to peer to the north. "If you have a hand - are those sails?" he asked. Because they ought to be coming up with the Oporto blockading squadron soon....

Feet firmly in place on the trees and one hand secured, Fletcher scrabbled down the front of his shirt and handed Peter his glass. At this distance the white flecks on the horizon could easily be cloud.

"I don't know. Will you be able to see with that?"

Peter took the telescope with a smile, and extended it, looping one arm round the mast. "I don't ...." There was that moment of total confusion as the close image replaced the distant one. Focus on the horizon, and it's a point or so starboard of the foremast.... With a telescope to one eye, and the other closed, the rise and fall and sway of the mast was as magnified as the image, and Peter had difficulty in lining it up, even using hte foremast as a guide. And the boys were making enough noise to waken the dead - had they totally forgotten poor Dr Crozier, lying there just below them?

"I ...." He remembered that it was Fletcher's telescope and handed it back to him. "I'm not sure - what do you think?"

Fletcher took the telescope and held it up to his eye, shortening the tubes a little to focus it better to his eyes. The waves came and down, swallowing the targets intermittantly, but Fletcher focussed hard, determined to make something of it.

"I think there's more than one," he said hesitantly. "And they're big. Seventy-Fours, perhaps? Old Jim says that you can tell her colours by the cut of her sails, but I can't."

"I can't either - I wouldn't know what to look for." Peter stared at what was no longer white cloud, but sails. "They will be ours, but we had better go down and tell the officer of the watch. Those idiots on the foremast are making so much noise we'll never be heard!"

He readied himself and then glanced across at Fletcher. "Will you be all right on the way down? You can take your time - it will be an hour or more before we're up with them."

"I will be," Fletcher replied, a little disappointed. He had hoped to stay up the mast and talk to Peter for a while whilst he got used to being aloft; but duty had once more overtaken them. Which was right and proper - the Navy, as the Admiral would say, was not for pursuit of leisure. "I will follow you."

Perhaps in that hour he could find Miss Emily and see if she would get rid of the nest of rats Simon was sure was in the hole behind his sea chest. He had been meaning to do it for some time, but kept oin forgetting to do it...

Peter looked longingly at the backstay. He would have liked to try that trick again, just once, but if he did, Simon might follow, and - well, he hardly knew the best way to do it himself, let alone instruct someone else. Mr Leat would no doubt show Fletcher, when he thought he was old enough - or big enough.

Peter started back down the shrouds, the lubber's way. But soon he would be a lubber again.

Simon looked at Peter goin down the shrouds, then to the backstay in confusion, then back to confusion again.

"Were we not to go down the backstay?" he asked. "It would be quicker, and we could let the captain know our news sooner."

And Fletcher was, now he was up here, was keen to give the backstay a try. He had seen Chandos do such things, and the boys on the forward mast were engaging in such energetic and exciting pursuits - why not they?

Peter looked up at Simon's words. And stopped. "Do you know how to go down it? Without falling off, or burning your hands and legs to shreds? Mr Leat did it, and I went down after him, but I ...."

Fletcher was younger, and he ought to look after him. If it was the British squadron, they would merely join it at a suitable time. And it would not be long before the lookout on the maintop saw it, or one of the boys....

Peter sighed and climbed back up to join Fletcher on the trees.

"Mr. Leat has had more practice," Simon said, then brightened again as Peter returned to the trees. "Please show me, Peter. No one else will, show me, and I don't think I could bear knowing I can't do something that they can do."

He indicated the ships boys carousing up and down the forward mast. He had learnt almost as soon as he had gone to school that the only effective way to avoid being a subject of ridicule was to try and keep up with the rest of the boys; if not you would become left behind and belittled for that.

"But I don't know the secret," said Peter patiently. "Mr Leat was already on the stay and sliding out of sight - his last words were Your speed is controlled by your feet, and the secret is not to burn your hands."

He put one hand on the mast and crossed his feet, although as he was not dangling from a backstay the demonstration lacked immediacy. "The stay passes between your calves and you brake using the soles of your shoes. But you have to hold on with your hands, and you can be burned very nastily - even more badly than if you hold the line too tightly when taking the log. I came down most inelegantly and still hurt my hands. Well, I would have asked Mr Leat for more advice, before trying it again. But..."

He had not wanted to tell anyone - they would miss him for a spell, but he did not want to explain. But Fletcher deserved something, and the ships were in sight now. "I am leaving Terpsichore as soon as we reach the army. I will go with Dr Maturin, until we can decide what is best for me to do."

Fletcher could not have looked more shocked had a ghost materialised before him. His mouth hung open and his eyes widened considerably as he stared at the other boy, confused.

"You're leaving?" he managed to repeat weakly. Speech suddenly didn't seem to come naturally.

"Yes," Peter said. "I'm not suited to the Navy at all. I ha.... I will be happier on land, I think."

Simon wrestled to dampen his surprise, to stop staring like a loon, but surprise was only replaced by a keen sense of sadness and disappointment. He dropped his eyes away from Peter and down to the sea below.

"Oh." He said softly.

Peter saw the change in Fletcher's face and turned away to look north. "Well," he said briskly, "the backstay may be the faster, but neither will be faster if we stand up here - I'm going down the easy way. First one down gets to tell the quarterdeck."

He swung himself back onto the shrouds and began carefully but as quickly as possible to climb down. Once or twice he slipped as his mind wandered - to the shore and an uncertain future, or to the look he had seen in Fletcher's face.

And before he could say anything more constructive in reply Peter was over and back down into the shrouds, fast descending to the deck again. It took Fletcher a second or so to realise what had happened - that Peter was running away from him rather than tell him why he was leaving - and there felt to be some deep, personal rebuke in that fact.

He put the telescope back into his shirt, then swung his legs over the edge of the edge of the trees and began to make his way down hesitantly, and not as fast as Yates. Peter would undoubtedly make it back down onto the deck first, but Simon did not really care about being first to report to the captain; it was the thought that Yates would find an excuse to not tell him again.

Peter reached the deck and ran up the stairway to the quarterdeck. Mr Bush - on watch - had clearly seen the boys on hte way down and waited while Peter said that they had seen what he took to be the sails of the squadron off Oporto. As Kinsella ran off to confirm the sighting, Peter walked back to the foot of the mast to wait for Fletcher to join him.

By the time Fletcher reached the bottom of the mast Yates had already been to inform Mr. Bush of their sighting. Kinsella narrowly missed colliding with him on his way up, so eager to confirm the sighting, but he managed to descend without injury or embarrassment. He stood looking up at Peter.

"So what will you do now?" he asked.

Peter bit his lip. "I don't know," he said after a short pause. "I ... Go home, I suppose." His smile was crooked. "Unless the Doctor wants an assistant. I can read and write ... "

"Why are you going?" Fletcher asked the question before he could stop himself. He'd had no conception of men leaving ships once they were aboard them or with a commission, and for Peter to take the decision to when it had been what he wanted before...