It felt good to get down out of the rain and wind, and Poe met him on the way to the galley. The boy knew his way around the kitchen well, which was no doubt why Wyatt had suggested him. They fired up the stove and Hadrian watched Poe go to work cooking the morning oatmeal, adding butter and brown sugar in proper amounts and asking Hadrian to taste test it. Despite its name, the skillygalee was surprisingly good. Hadrian could not say the same about the biscuits, which were rock hard. Poe had not made them. He had merely fetched the round stones from the bread room, where boxes of them were stored. Hadrian’s years of soldiering had made him familiar with hardtack, as they were known on land. The ubiquitous biscuits lasted forever but were never very filling. They were so hard that you had to soften them in tea or soup before eating them.

With the meal made, stewards from the mess arrived to gather their shares and carry them below.

Hadrian entered the berth deck, helping the mess steward carry the last of the servings. “Bloody show-off couldn’t even make it up the lines,” Jacob Derning was saying loudly. The men of the tops, and the petty officers, sat together at the tables as befitted their status on board, while others lay scattered with their copper plates amid the sacks and chests. Jacob looked like he was holding court at the center table. All eyes were on him as he spoke with grand gestures. On his head he wore a bright blue kerchief, as did everyone on the foretop crew.

“It’s a different story with him when the sea’s heaving and the lines are wet,” Jacob went on. “You don’t see him prancing then.”

“He looked scared to me,” Bristol the boatswain added. “Thought I was gonna have to go up and wallop him good to get him going again.”

“Royce was fine,” said a thin, gangly fellow with a white kerchief tied over his head and a thick blond walrus mustache. Hadrian did not know his name but recognized him as the captain of the maintop. “Just seasick, that’s all. Once he was aloft, he reefed the tops’l just fine, albeit a bit oddly.”

“Make excuses for him all ya want, Dime,” Jacob told him, pointing a finger his way, “but he’s a queer one, he is, and I find it more than a little dodgy that his first day aloft finds his fellow mate falling to his death.”

“You suggesting Royce killed Drew?” Dime asked.

“I ain’t saying nuttin’, just think it’s odd is all. Of course, you’d know better what went on up there, wouldn’t you, Dime?”