Elisabeth wished she could have written one more letter to her aunt.

They left the market and went to a bakery for bread and pastries. Then Elisabeth sent Samanta home with the basket of flowers and the food and decided to walk down to the water. She found a bench that looked across the docks and sat down to smoke a cigarette, rolling the tobacco and licking the paper just as Alejandro had taught her all those years ago.

As she lit the cigarette, Elisabeth recognised some ships out on the water that were part of her business interests, unloading cargo and replenishing water barrels. The docks were busy with dozens of luggers coming and going, and there were men leading horse wagons down the piers and carrying sacks on their shoulders and rolling barrels over the smooth flagstones. They wore peasant pants and rope-soled shoes and blue caps. Some of the men looked over at her and smiled. A few were game, tapped fingers to their lips and blew her kisses.

Elisabeth finished her cigarette. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on her face. She stayed like that for a long time.

THE FREDERICK

When they asked him to join the crew (‘Say a word to anyone an’ you’re fuckin’ dead’) John Myer didn’t hesitate. There was nothing he wouldn’t have risked to get away—by this time not even his life, which was only a burden. As the other men pressed him and threatened him, offered the place among them though with coiled reluctance (those stinking, chained, angry men), John Myer had felt the shuddering of the earth beneath his feet, the vibration of it right through his body. He’d arrived at some point that he recognised, that had been waiting for his attention all this time. It was not for him to wonder how or why. All that John Myer knew, intuitively, was there would never be another chance.

Now one of ten desperate men.

Nobody was killed (a few heads were busted) and it was as though the cell keys had been left in the locks. Help yourselves, boys, off you go. And to boot, a nearly finished brig, only a handful of guards (fishing!) and the penal settlement already abandoned except for the convict shipwrights and labourers.

Six weeks later, in the boundless Southern Ocean, they sighted land without a day to spare, their lives in the balance and fading. ‘Huzzah!’ They cracked the Frederick’s hull and sank her, took the longboat into shore. Fixed their stories of shipwrecked sailors and hoped for the best. But never going back, each man swore it in his heart; oh no, never.

‘Mutton and rum!’ Benjamin Russen said. ‘And women to drown in!’

‘You’ll behave,’ James Porter said, eyes on the beach ahead of them. ‘We’re not in the clear yet.’