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saw Fred when I delivered the midday meal. The men were divided into two watches, a starboard watch and a larboard watch and they alternated on deck. Fred was in the larboard watch.
    “The food’s good on this ship,” Fred said as I placed the mess pail on the table.
    “Really?” I said.
    “Yeah, it’s fresh, not like on a long voyage when all you get is salt meat and hard tack. It’s because we’re on a short hop to New Zealand, you see, and don’t have the inconveniences of a long voyage. Are you getting your fill?”
    I nodded. While I still had to get used to the taste of the ship’s food, there was plenty of it and I could have as much as I liked. My appetite had returned and I took advantage of the free fodder.
    “Good, maybe you’ll start to put some flesh on those bones of yours.”
    But I had other concerns besides eating. “Fred,” I whispered to him. “I need to get into the captain’s cabin to get the watch back.”
    Fred looked at me, startled. “You’ll not get into the commodore’s cabin, not unless you’re ordered. It’s mutiny otherwise and for that you’ll be flogged … or hanged.”
    The cook’s shout pulled me away from the table and I returned to the galley, despondent. It would not be easy to get into the commodore’s cabin and I could not rely on Fred’s help.
    The evening meal was served a mere four hours later but was a lighter one and did not require as much preparation as the midday meal. Even so, it was well after seven o’clock before I put away the last scoured pot, fed the slops to the pigs in the sty and dried my cracked and bleeding hands. Wearily, I climbed the gangway to the deck and the cool evening air. It was halfway through the second dog watch and the starboard watch was at leisure. Some had gathered towards the bow and I hesitantly made my way towards them.
    “Here’s the lubber,” said Pat.
    “Leave him be, mate, can’t you see he’s fair worn out?” It was the boy again. “Come here, lad, let’s see your hands.”
    “Those are landlubber’s hands, John,” said Pat. “Not yet toughened up.”
    “Goose fat will see those hands right; I’ve got some in my kit. Wait here.”
    John disappeared down the hatch and returned a few minutes later with a pot that he opened and held out to me. I took some and worked the greasy substance into my hands. It stung at first and then soothed the cracks in the skin at the knuckles and tips.
    I sat down on the deck and leant back against a gun. The sun was just setting but there was enough light to see the masts and rigging above me. John, having returned the pot back down below, sat down next to me and said, “You have a funny way of joining the British Navy.”
    “I didn’t mean to.”
    John laughed. “That’s what we all say.”
    I watched as Fred climbed the ropes in a lattice framework at the side of one of the masts and swung onto the platform at the top. His movements were fast and precise, yet I could not imagine myself going that high while the ship rolled and swayed beneath me.
    “I hope they don’t send me up the mast,” I said.
    “No, not a little one like you; besides, you’ll never get up the shrouds.”
    “The shrouds?” I repeated, thinking of the sheet in which they wrapped the dead. My mother’s shroud had been her blanket.
    “Yes, the netting at the side of the masts,” Pat said. “And them’s sheets,” he said, pointing at ropes close by that ran through pulleys.
    “That’s a rope,” I said.
    John laughed again. “The only thing called a rope on a ship is one that’s not attached to something.”
    “What about them?” I asked, indicating the many lines of rope that spread from each mast to the deck.
    “That’s the standing rigging, the fore and aft lines are called stays, because they make the masts stay in place.”
    “He don’t know much about boats, do he, John?” one of the men shouted out.
    “Take no notice, Sam,” said John. “Here, I’ll give you a