Captain Hamer says, “Thank you, Withers, but it’s hardly necessary. Yes, theft. We don’t approve of it in the service. You get to run the gauntlet for it. Do you know what that is, lad? The men line up along the gangway and beat you as you pass through. Very unpleasant. They tend to beat hard. They don’t like a thief on board as they’ve nowhere to safely store their possessions.”
“What…why…I didn’t…” she stammers.
“Those breeches are very fine for a boy like yourself. Buckskin, are they? I don’t have much of an eye for fashion, I admit, but they’re a gentleman’s pair I’d say. They’re far too big for you.”
The ship pitches heavily and she moves her hips, finding her balance. When she meets Captain Hamer’s eyes again, she sees he has noticed. Her mind reaches but finds nothing. What can she say? They belong to Jack? They’d hang her alongside him. “I…”
“You cannot account for your possession of them, can you? And what have you got there?” the captain says, waving his hand. “That thing you’re grasping around your neck.”
She opens her hand and looks down at George’s medal. The silver glints in the sun dropping in through the stern windows. The smell of coffee bores into her nose, sharp and bitter. The captain has a silver pot on his desk. She and George used to sit in the garden with a similar pot set on the wrought iron table, a porcelain cup decorated with forget-me-nots on each side. The coffeepot was one of many wedding gifts.
“The breeches belonged to my father, sir,” she says slowly. “He died at Trafalgar. My mother can’t feed all six of us on her widow’s pension.”
The corners of Captain Hamer’s mouth lift. He looks almost relieved, as if he wanted her to be better than he believed she was. “Is that so? And that’s his Trafalgar medal, is it?”
“It is, sir. It was given to my mother afterward. She gave it to me to remember him by.”
“May I see it?”
She fumbles with the ribbon, fingers stiff with nerves. At last she hands the medal to the captain, who holds it up reverently before handing it back.
“Hm. I admire your spirit, boy, swimming across like that,” Captain Hamer says. “And your father served with Lord Nelson, did he?”
“Aboard theNeptune,sir,” she says, tying the ribbon around her neck again and praying Captain Hamer doesn’t know Captain Fremantle, who commanded theNeptune,or any of his fellow officers. “As second lieutenant, sir,” she says. It would’ve been better to sayas maintopmanoras bosun’s mateor some other fairly anonymous position aboard a man-of-war, but they would not explain the expensive nature of the breeches she’s wearing.
“You seem an enterprising sort. You take after your father, I expect. I suppose it explains your manner of speech, too. I confess you had me confounded for a moment there, lad.”
Inside, she silently swears an oath Dick Pascoe would have been proud of. She hadn’t thought to change the way she spoke; she doesn’teven know how. She worries there are other things she missed in her hurry to get to Jack. What if her entire plan fails because ofit?
Captain Hamer continues, “You’re a strong swimmer, you’ve shown that, but what else can you do? It’s experienced hands we want, not boys barely breeched.”
Isabel says, “I can sew and…and repair things.”
“You know carpentry?”
“A little. I’ve done jobs for my mother. And my father taught me some navigation, sir.” Another deep breath. “Please, sir. I’ll do anything.”
“He taught you navigation? You shall have to show me sometime what you know of it,” Captain Hamer says. “We’re about to get under way.”
Her voice rises dangerously with shock. “We are, sir?”
“Only to the next cove. We have some business to conclude here before we truly set sail. We shall sail to Gibraltar and from there to the East India station. How would you like to go to India, lad?”
“I should like it very much, sir,” she says truthfully. Sailing to India—it’s the stuff of dreams. With Jack at her side, maybe she could, she thinks. Together with him she could go anywhere.
Perhaps Captain Hamer hears the longing in her voice. He says, “Well. You do look keen. That’s that, then. I shall take you on as a ship’s boy for the duration of our next cruise. Prove yourself worthy and you may make an able seaman yet.” He rubs his chin, eyes on her. “Perhaps in time I could persuade a friend to admit you to his midshipmen’s berth. Mine’s overfull, but I feel I must do something for the son of a fellow officer who fell at Trafalgar. Hm. We shall see. For the moment, you’ll have a hammock, three meals a day, and your daily portion of grog. You can send your pay home to your mother.”
Turning to Midshipman Withers, he says, “Take him to the mizzen topmen, Withers, he’ll berth with them. Are you hungry now, lad?”
“Very, sir.”
“You’ll have your supper soon, when the watch changes.”
Captain Hamer takes his quill and writes something on the sheet ofpaper in front of him. Motioning with the quill, his eyes on the sheet, he says, “Now off with you. You’ve made a puddle on my carpet.”
She lingers by the door, awash in emotion. Here’s the man who has condemned Jack to death without a trial, yet he is offering her three meals a day, a hammock to sleep in, the possibility of advancement. No…not her; he’s offering these things to a poor boy who lost his father, a boy who’s hungry, who needs help supporting his widowed mother.
She opens her mouth to say something, but she worries the conflict between the hatred still balled in her chest and the cloak of warmth around it will spill out, so when the captain says a little irritably, “Off with you, I said!” she only says, “Thank you, sir,” and goes.
