Midshipman Quinn

— 4 —

The London Mail drew up outside the George in Portsmouth half-an-hour behind time, and a crowd gathered from nowhere to watch the captured and scowling Jeremy Craw taken off to the local gaol. Septimus Quinn had to receive the thanks of Lady Barry and Philippa, and give his name and address to Mr. Prince (who assured him that fifty guineas would shortly be placed to his credit in the bank) before he could get away.

It was a relief to escape from the neighbourhood of Lieutenant Pyke, whose wounded pride kept him in a state of ill-temper that would not have disgraced an active volcano. Septimus felt sorry for Philippa's brother Charles, who had to be in the same ship with such a curmudgeon. Possibly, he reflected, his career in the Navy might at some time bring him into contact with Lieutenant Pyke again, but he hoped it would not be for very many years.

He got a man with a barrow to take his sea-chest down to the docks. The evening was clearing into sunshine as he stood on the quayside, where a thousand gulls wheeled and screamed above the masts and rigging of a multitude of ships of all kinds. A waterman in a broad-beamed wherry sculled his craft alongside and looked up at him.

"What ship are ye for, sir? Frigate Althea? Layin' to moorings over yonder — put ye aboard in five minutes."

Septimus handed down his sea-chest and got into the wherry. As it shoved off and headed out into the crowded harbour he wondered how long it would be before he set foot on shore again, and what adventures would have befallen him before he came back.

The waterman eyed him knowingly. "Fust ship ye've jined, sir?" he asked. "She's a good 'un, the Althea. Cap'n Sainsbury, he's a proper fire-eater. But they do say as the Fust Lootenant's a rare narsty bit o' work."

This last news was not encouraging. But Septimus cheered himself with the thought that the First Lieutenant of the Althea could hardly be as nasty as Lieutenant Pyke.

"Yonder's your vessel, sir," said the waterman, jerking his head. "His Majesty's frigate Althea."

Septimus craned his neck to stare ahead. A tall ship, lean of hull, with a long bowsprit thrusting forward like a fencer's foil, lay motionless on the calm harbour waters. The black-painted oaken side of her was lined with a broad band of white, in which gaped the row of open gun-ports. Her three slender masts towered overhead into the golden sunshine, reaching up and up until it seemed a wonder that the Althea didn't overturn with such gigantic structures rearing from her decks. As the wherry came closer Septimus could see tiny figures perched high up in the web-like rigging. Sometimes they swung from place to place like spiders on a thread. The clear note of a bell floated across the water: dong-dong, dong-dong.

"Four bells," said the waterman. "Ship's time, that is — ye'll be livin' by that soon. I'll pull round to the larboard side," he added.

As the wherry came close under the frigate's side — it looked an enormous wooden wall from that angle — a voice hailed the boat loudly: "Boat ahoy!"

"Aye aye!" roared the waterman in reply. " 'Ear what I said?" he added to Septimus. " 'Aye aye' means there's an officer in my boat. If there 'adn't been, I'd 'ave said 'no-no', see?"

It was dawning on Septimus that in stepping aboard the Althea, his new home, he was entering a world entirely different from anything he had known, with a new language, new ways of telling the time, and new and somewhat awesome surroundings. To get into it, apparently, he had to climb up a dangling ladder made of slats of wood and lengths of rope. Being agile and neat in his movements, he managed it without trouble and arrived on deck. A thin, youngish officer, with a telescope tucked under his arm, had been awaiting him. Septimus had not yet learned that everyone salutes the quarterdeck as they step on board a warship — a custom dating from the days when a Crucifix always stood there — but he remembered to lift his hat to the officer.

"Septimus Quinn, midshipman, sir," he said as confidently as he could.

"Come aboard, Mr. Quinn." The officer had a pleasant smile. "I'm Lieutenant Gifford. Sea-chest? I'll have it sent to the gun-room where your berth is."

It was at this moment that a tall, red-faced man strode across the deck some yards away and disappeared down a hatchway. Septimus stared after him.

"P-pray, sir, who was that?" he stammered.

"That was the First Lieutenant of this vessel," replied Lieutenant Gifford. "His name is Pyke, Lieutenant George Pyke."