‘You think we hard done by. Scrimps are men at the end of the line. Fall down drunk, have no money, looking for a quick loan. Sign up to sailoring, don’t even know it. Get carried on board. Get half the rations the crew get. Have nothing left to lose.’

Peachy speak the truth, one of them scrimps so sick and poorly him fall overboard. Too weak, quickly sink, get eaten by a shark.

A few more weeks into the voyage, I wake up one morning feeling poorly. Me head is pounding and I have a stomach-ache. The worst is me throat. It feel raw, sore, and then it get so swollen, I can barely talk. I try to ignore it, but James Smith say I must report it and McDuff send me off to sickbay to see Surgeon McKay.

‘Is me throat,’ I start to say, before I cough, and when him tell me to spit in a little cup, up come pus and blood.

‘Acute tonsillitis,’ McKay say after him prod and poke me, look down me throat. Straight away assign me to a bed.

I spend a few days lying in the cot, drifting in and out of sleep. Listening to the coughing and moaning coming from the other sick beds. Two of them filled with island boys, one named Powell, the other named Reid.

When they came on board, they was already very poorly indeed. Powell had a hacking cough, we heard it all through the night. Him bunk under the ports, the seawater leaking in on him. Reid meanwhile just lay in him bunk, didn’t move much, stared out at nothing. Moaned whenever him changed position or got up to do him business. Little by little, the story came out, he was kicked in the side by a horse and him never heal. Insides must be all mash up. Was hard for Reid to get him keg filled up to get him ration of food, so me and James Smith took turns doing it for him. Pretty soon though, him followed in Powell footsteps, got sent off to sickbay.

Laying beside Reid I notice him turn even thinner, don’t move much. Powell is over the other side, can hear him hacking cough.

I wake one night, hear Reid begging for water. Say him insides burning up. I check the water barrel under him bed, is almost empty, but I manage to fill a little in his cup. Hold it up to him lips while he take a few sips, then smile a thin smile of thanks. I think Reid going fall back to sleep, but he grip me hand something fierce, look into me eyes, straight and alert.

‘Remember me,’ him beg me. ‘Thomas Reid. Me name is Thomas Reid. And when you remember, think of me kindly, hold me in you prayers.’