"Good," says Mr. Pelham. He turns to the Bo'sun's Mate of the Watch and says, "Acquaint Mr. Wheeler here with the rest of the square sails and make sure he knows them. Then on to the fore-and-aft sails. We must ensure that Senior Midshipman Faber will not have our young Mr. Wheeler lashed to the grating and whipped for not having yet mastered the principal sails and all the attendant lineage by nightfall, as she has promised would befall him."
I step up on the quarterdeck, salute, and say, "Good morning, Sir. I hope you are well."
"Yes, Miss Faber, I am quite well," he says drily. "What do you want now?"
"Sir, I would like the other midshipmen to have assignments for Quarters, Special Sea Detail, in fact all the Special Conditions on the Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill."
"And that has not yet been done?"
"No, Sir. The midshipmen have not been aboard that long," I say, to cover up any officer's negligence in not making those assignments. I know how things go here. If there is no direction from the top, then there is no direction.
"Why is it, Miss Faber," he says with a heavy, theatrical sigh, "that I am sure that you have some suggestions concerning this?"
"Well, Sir, I think it would be well if Mr. Raeburne was made head of Division Two, the after four port guns, just aft of my Division One, so that I might be able to pass on to him any small knowledge of gunnery that I might have, such that we might get to such a level of competence that Mr. Smythe could give us some real instruction in the art of gunnery, Sir." There, I've covered Smythe's tail, too. He really should have been doing that all along. But then, if he's not given the powder, how can I blame him?
"And just where did you learn this rudimentary gunnery?"
"On the deck of HMS Dolphin, Sir. The quarterdeck was my station in all the Special Conditions, and I was able to observe much."
"Ah, yes. I forgot. 'Bloody Jack,' and all that. So that book is true?"
"Some of it, Sir."
"All right. What of the others?"
"Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Barrows would serve well as Fire Snuffers. It is a common midshipman billet. As for Mr. Piggott, I would like to keep him close to me, as he is young and has much to learn."
I see Tom's chest rise in a bit of pride at being given a real job and not lumped in with little Georgie. Males are so transparent, whatever their age.
"Consider it done, Miss Faber. Join me below in the gun room after my watch and we will pen them in."
"Thank you, Sir," and with that I salute, do an About-face, and head for my division.
"Harkness, I was much pleased with yesterday's drill. We will carry on in the same way today. Stations, everyone! On my signal ... Now!" Tucker and Georgie dash off for the powder and the drill is on.
After an hour, we have got the turnaround time down to two minutes. Not quite good enough, but better than yesterday's mess. I leave Harkness in charge and go to help Robin set up his crew. They have been observing my crew and it goes well. So well, in fact, that Robin is able to assign a good man, one Seaman Merrill, to conduct the drills and follows me to the berth to start on the boys' academic education. Robin will do the math, and I will do the reading and writing.
I believe Robin is standing up somewhat straighter today.
The boys are certainly not lacking in some education, being nobs and all, compared to the Dread Brotherhood of the Dolphin, us bein' street scum and all. Except for Jai—Never you mind.
At the ringing of Seven Bells in the Morning Watch, which means eleven thirty, I get up and say, "That's it for today. Take up your slates, lads, and I'll meet you on deck and we'll do a sun line for longitude. Briskly, now. I must go see Mr. Harvey for some equipment."
I knock on the door to the gun room, the place where the officers hang out and take their meals.
"Enter."
I go in and look about. I see the doors leading to the officers' rooms. I see a long table, no doubt where they dine. I see books and charts. I see Mr. Harvey seated at the table, engrossed in writing in what appears to be a journal. He has a glass containing some brown liquid in front of him. He looks up and sees me. He doesn't groan out loud, but I know he wants to.
"What is it, girl?"
"Midshipman Faber," I say, correcting him. "I would like to borrow a quadrant and a local chart to take a sun line with the other midshipmen."
He barks out a short, bitter laugh. "Of course. A Child Shall Show Us the Way. Right over there in that cabinet."
I follow his gaze and go to the oak box and begin to bend over and then think better of it. I kneel down in front of it instead. The less I wave my tail around in the air, the better, I figure, no matter which male is in attendance.
The quadrant is lying on a velvet cushion and I gently take it up. As I rise, Mr. Harvey hands me a rolled-up chart.
"And a parallel rule, too, if you would, Sir, and then I will bother you no more."
He reaches back on the shelf behind him and slides it over to me, smiling in a strange sort of way. "Oh, but you have bothered me, you have, Miss. But think nothing of it," he says.
As I leave, I'm thinking it's a little bit early for him to start in to drinking.
"Mr. Pelham, may I borrow Mr. Wheeler for this exercise?" I ask.
"What? And give up the indispensable Mr. Wheeler? Oh, very well. I imagine we shall survive his absence." There are some snickers from his watch. Mr. Pelham is a man who hugely enjoys his own wit, I have seen, but I like him anyway.
"Thank you, Sir," I say as Tom joins Robin, Georgie, and Ned by the starboard rail. "And, Sir, if you will tell us the time when we say, 'Mark,' I will thank you for it." He nods and pulls out his watch.
"Now, lads, here's the way of it. Robin will take the quadrant here and find the sun in this little smoked mirror here on the bottom. No, you idiots! Don't look directly at the sun. You'll go blind! You three just look at the scale here while Robin rocks the quadrant back and forth, making the mirror image of the sun swing back and forth, this image of the sun's lower edge just touching the horizon, and read out the degrees on that scale right there. They will get bigger and bigger until the sun reaches its apogee and that will be the Local Apparent Noon, and then the degrees will get less, and you'll say, 'Mark!' when that change happens and Mr. Pelham will mark the time on his watch and then we'll be able to figure out our degree of longitude by comparing the time here with Greenwich time to which Mr. Pelham surely has set his watch. Simple but elegant, don't you think?"
"I can't see the horizon, Miss Faber," says Robin, squinting through the eyepiece. "France seems to be in the way."
I look out and see the truth of that. Damn! Every time I get full of myself I get slapped down!
There are guffaws from the quarterdeck.
"Come up here, all of you," says Mr. Pelham, laughing. "Try shooting it off the fantail where you have a horizon to the south. You ought to know, Miss Faber, that, unless you have willed it otherwise, the sun does rise in the east and sets in the west, so the south would be the place to take its apogee."
My cheeks are burning. The whole ship has seen my stupid mistake. I meekly take my place with the other boys as Mr. Pelham explains the procedure much more clearly than I did, and soon they are reading the numbers as Robin swings the quadrant back and forth, now making the sun's image just touch the knife-edge horizon.
"Sixty-eight degrees, two minutes, seven seconds ... eight seconds ... nine seconds ... eight seconds. Mark!"
Mr. Pelham looks at his watch. "Twelve o'clock, two minutes, thirty-five seconds. Get out your slates and figure it out, lads!"
The boys whip out their chalks and cipher away. To make up for my mistake on the horizon, I disdain the slate and do the figuring in my head and I do it fast.
"Three hundred and forty-nine degrees, twelve minutes, thirty-five seconds, Sir!" I bark out.
A smirk crawls across Mr. Pelham's face. He spreads out the chart on a table that is there for just that purpose. "Let's see here. Hmmm. What have you got, Mr. Raeburne?"
"Three hundred and fifty-nine degrees, twelve minutes, thirty-five seconds, Sir." Robin looks at me sheepishly, like he knows something.
Fifty-nine degrees? Oh, Lord, another mistake! I forgot to carry the nine!
"Wait, Sir...," I stammer, but I am not to get out of it.
"Now, now, Miss Faber. Let's just see where you have us now." He affects a look of amazement. "Why, my word! You have placed us right here in the very middle of Paris, itself!"
There is laughter, not only from the deck, but also from the rigging.
I bow my head and get ready for more abuse. Mr. Pelham strides over to the rail and looks down. "Why, our bow is cleaving the very cobblestones of le Boulevard de la Madeleine right now! See how they part and fall to the side."
There is more laughter ... and then there is not.
There is a dead silence and a chill. I turn around. The Captain has come on deck. He looks around at us and says to Mr. Pelham, "Playing with the brats, are you, Pelham?"
I quietly say, "Attention on deck," and get my boys in a line.
"No, Sir, begging your pardon, I was merely instructing the midshipmen in taking a sun line," says Mr. Pelham. The Second Mate keeps his head up, showing some spine, it seems to me.
The Captain looks down the line of my midshipmen. "Why are they here?"
I save Mr. Pelham from more woe by stepping out and saying, "As Senior Midshipman, I have instituted an education program for the middies, as well as adding them to the Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill." I pause. "If it please you, Sir."
Well, it doesn't please him. He turns on me and says, "You are a cheeky one, ain't you?" he says, looking around my back all plain at my bottom. "In any number of ways."
Maybe it would be well if these britches weren't quite so tight.
"Well. We shall see about your cheekiness soon, shan't we?" says the Captain.
Mr. Pinkham is by his side and the Captain turns to him and says, "The same sailing orders as yesterday. Do not diverge from them in the slightest degree. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir," says Mr. Pinkham.
"Good, now, now call ..." and a spasm of pain crosses the Captain's face and he doubles over and almost falls to his knees.
"Sir!" says Mr. Pinkham, putting his arm under his Captain's and trying to hold him up.
"Damn!" says the Captain, sinking to his knees.
It is plain that he is very sick. Mr. Pelham goes over to him and takes his other arm and helps him to his feet.
"My cabin! Get Earweg! Tell him medicine ... and I need to be bled!" gasps the Captain, and the two officers take him down. Before Mr. Pelham leaves the quarterdeck, he says, "Mr. Wheeler has the con. I will be right back."
Tom looks up at the sails, astounded. Well, after all, he was the Junior Officer of the Deck at the time and it is his right. I am jealous, of course, as I feel that I should have been the first middie to have the con, but so be it.
***
At the noon meal, served by the still sullen Weisling, whom I have nicknamed the Weasel, to the delight of the lads, the dinner really is meal with some bits of meat in it. I tuck it in and head back out to see about things.