The Patriot's Fate by Alaric Bond Page A

cruise ashore. With three years’ wages in his pocket he should have been able to spend a happy week or so in the Torbay brothels and tap houses, and to find his plans so drastically altered had thoroughly spoiled Surridge’s day.
     
    He walked down the berth deck where others from Egmont were also finding their way about and commenting on the situation. There was Cox, a former miner who had been a gun captain; and Joshua the negro, one of the servers, and strong enough to haul a thirty-two back almost single-handed. It would be an education to see how they took to the pop guns they would be using. A gawky midshipman was calling out names from a sheet of paper; presumably they were setting out the messes. Surridge caught the eye of Cox, who acknowledged him good-naturedly.
     
    “Whatcha think, Suggs?” he asked. “Bit more space than the old girl, eh?”
     
    Surridge sneered and looked about. Admittedly the lack of guns on the berth deck gave generous room for the two hundred or so men who would be sleeping there. But no artillery also meant no proper divisions; messes would be spilling out into one another; there would be a lack of privacy and no shortage of draughts.
     
    “I been in frigates afore,” Surridge grunted. “She’ll be cold, damp, and constantly on the move.”
     
    Cox shrugged. “Maybe so, but given the choice between ‘er and the Egmont , I’d choose ‘er,” he said. “No smell of wet rot, an’ you got more than an even chance of seeing port.”
     
    Surridge took a furtive glance about, then spat generously on the deck. Cox looked his surprise, which bolstered the quarter-gunner’s mood still further. “B’now I should have been deep in the arms of Nellie Lake,” he confided. “Biggest apple shop in the West Country, she has.”
     
    Cox opened his mouth to comment, when his face became fixed on something beyond his friend’s shoulder.
     
    “You there,” it was a lad’s voice, but not without authority. “Wipe that up!”
     
    Surridge turned to see a midshipman glaring at him, and pointing to the spittle on the deck. “What’s that?” Surridge demanded.
     
    “I said, wipe that up,” the lad repeated. “An’ you call me Mister Rose.”
     
    “Rose?” Surridge’s eyebrows twitched and a faint look of scorn appeared across his grubby face. The midshipman’s uniform was slightly too small for him, emphasising his age, and making the surname seem even more appropriate.
     
    “Mister Rose,” the boy insisted, still pointing at the spittle.
     
    Surridge smirked, and extended a bare foot. He wiped the spot with his sole, smearing it into the deck, then regarded the boy once more as if he was assessing him for a minor task.
     
    Rose’s face was mildly flushed. “What is your name?”
     
    “Surridge.” The man paused. “ Mister Rose.”
     
    “Very well, Surridge. “The next time I catch you behaving like that it will be a report to the lieutenant.”
     
    “I’ll remember,” Surridge’s expression was not quite a smirk, and certainly nothing that could be officially regarded as insubordination, but he noticed the glow on the boy’s face had increased, and knew that the lad would remember as well.
     
    * * *
     
    Throughout the next day Scylla ‘s men worked. The last of the water was taken in, along with a further, unexpected, and very welcome consignment of fresh vegetables. Then the tallow finally arrived, together with several barrels of oil, what seemed like a lifetime’s supply of candles, and even some soap, all of which was instantly claimed by Mr Dudley, the purser.  
     
    Amongst the hands there was a good deal of confusion at first. The men were of vastly differing backgrounds and intellects. Some, mainly those new to the Navy, found pretty much everything confusing, and could not be expected to remember much beyond their own names, while the experienced hands blatantly ignored their correct messes and gravitated to previous mates, much to the