Coming Aboard

"Runnin'. Ain't healthy for them that does it. An' I should know - I'm a Marine, after all." He sighed.

"How am I supposed to run when I'm locked in here with you?"

"You ain't s'posed. S'why you's down here with me. But don't even think it when you ain't down here any more, that's all."

Perry sighed, looking forlorn again. He rested his arms and head on his knees again, staring at the iron rings around his ankles and thinking.

"Could be worse, cully," Thompson said. "You get a place to sleep, three square meals a day, prize money and all that sort of thing. It ain't a bad life, really." He sighed. "I'd've bin pressed, if I hadn't took the King's Shillin', y'know."

He looked up with a dull glare. "I already have all that. Except prize money, course, but I have a wife and home, and that's better. And I earn more working for her pappa than being a naval seaman."

"How much d'you get, then?" Thompson asked, curiously. "' Cause I got twenty pound in prize money, and that's just from one ship. Matter of... half an hour's hard fightin'? Summat like that. I got enough to buy me a tavern when I gets home to Chatham, I know that much." He grinned. "It'll be a nice place, not too far from the river. Dunno what I'm goin' to call it, though."

"Twenty pounds? I don't believe that. There'll be all sorta stoppages, I'll warrant."

Thompson looked at him as though he'd grown a second head."Outta prize money? There ain't, not outta prize money. There might be outta pay, but that don't mean anythin'."

Perry was unconvinced, eyeing him skeptically. "Well how often do you take prizes like that?"

He shrugged. "Depends. We are at war, after all, an' in a King's ship, too. An' with a good captain. There's plenty more prizes out there, just waitin' to be took by us."

Perry sniffed noncommittally.

"Suit yourself, mate," Thompson said, and grinned. "There anythin' else you want to know 'bout the Navy? Or Terpsy? Or, anythin'?"

"Only how to get out of it," he muttered, not caring if the marine heard or not.

That wasn't going to happen any time soon, of course, though Thompson gave no sign of having heard.

"Well, what Terpsy is, mate, is a thirty-two gun frigate, six years old, launched at Portsmouth just after the Peace. She's one of the best frigates in His Majesty's Navy; lucky, an' with a good captain. You'm goin' to be signed on her books as a sailor, prob'ly an ordinary. Me, I'm a Marine, an' there's Marines in every ship in the Navy. There's Captain Bolitho, Mister Bush, Mister George and Mister Leat, who's the lieutenants. And there's Mister Cartwright, the Marine lieutenant, who's new. And Mister Tadcock, who's the Master. He's in charge of navigation an' such, under the Captain. And there's Mister Crozier, the surgeon."

He had only barely been listening at the start, but he stopped listening altogether at the middle. "Ordinary!" he scoffed. "I ain't an ordinary seaman."

"Lucky you, then, bein' able to say you'm an able. Where did you learn your sailorin', anyhow?"

"The sea."

"There's lots of that, mate. Where in partic'lar? I mean, me, I've bin to the West Indies, the Med, even round the Horn, but I'm still on'y a Marine an' in the afterguard."

"Aye." He looked askance at the marine, satisfied that at least the man knew his place. "I been all up and down the American coasts, all of 'em, around the horn near half a dozen times. Saint Bartholomew every year for nigh on... six or seven years, and used to go to Saint Martin too, and all over the caribbean. And I been up and down Spain, Portugal, France. Britain too. Greenland - you ever seen a ice berg?"

"Once, down in the South Seas. Huge great island of ice. Could've squashed us like we was a fly." But it did seem as though the man sitting on the deck was a valuable catch, which was something. "Never bin that far north, though."

"Heh. South seas ice ain't near so big as north seas. You ever seen a white polar sea bear?"

"Said I ain't been so far north as you, didn't I. Though I heared tell as Admiral Nelson tried to kill one, when he weren't but a middy."

"I heard that too. Don't know if it's true though. One of them bears could take your head off, just like that," he said, demonstrating an easy swipe of the hand. "Their paws are big as... dinner platters." He thought on the northern seas for a moment, feeling sentimental. "I wouldn't mind - apart from Madalena and all - I wouldn't mind seeing some of those places again."

Thompson did feel sorry for him, being pressed right out from under his girl's nose, but they were at war, and he should never have hailed a Royal Navy ship's boat in English and then turned to run. "You got anythin' you want to ask me?" he said instead. "'Bout Terpsy, or me, or... anythin'?"