MacGahan continues: ‘All I have to do is straighten my arm and the tip will go right through his windpipe.’ She makes a forlorn bird call through her front teeth. ‘Hear that? Tell him that’s the sound the hole will make when he tries to breathe.’

‘We were playing.’ The Cossack is trying not to whine. ‘The boy knows it was nothing serious. Manly humour, that’s all.’ He offers a conciliatory hand to Kolya. ‘If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry.’ Kolya accepts the offered palm. His tiny boyish hand disappears in the Cossack’s paw.

‘Look him in the eye, boy,’ says MacGahan quietly. Kolya’s afraid to meet his tormentor’s gaze but does as he’s told. He finds neither menace nor insincerity in the man’s face. His eyes are as blue as the sky over his native steppe. MacGahan sheathes her sword.

‘Give me that,’ Kolya says, pointing at the salo on the table. He stuffs it in his mouth, chews the creamy fat, and swallows. The crew bursts into raucous laughter. The Cossack claps him on the back. ‘I knew you weren’t a yid,’ he says.

*

MACGAHAN TAKES HER MEALS alone in her cabin. Dass serves the food himself – gussied-up versions of what the crew eat, prettified on the plate and embellished with linen folded into shapes. From the length of time Dass spends turning a recalcitrant napkin into a swan or a boat, it’s clear this is something he takes a certain pride in.

That evening, Dass gestures at Kolya to carry in the tray.

‘Me?’

‘You,’ the cook says, gruffly. Kolya understands he has been asked for.

Heat has been building in the ship all day. The boilers burn constantly, making steam to turn the screws; the sun sears the outside of the hull; the clamour of the pistons fills the galley. Kolya blinks as he emerges into the cool sea air on deck. He knocks on the door of the cabin and is summoned inside.

MacGahan has discarded her dress because of the heat. She is wearing red combination drawers and a pair of reading glasses. Tall and bony, she resembles a crimson wading bird. She doesn’t look up from the charts spread across the map table in front of her. ‘Put it down there,’ she says, indicating a stool in a corner of the cabin.

Kolya does as he’s told and turns to leave.

‘How did you like the pork fat?’ MacGahan asks.

The boy shrugs. ‘More or less. I liked it.’

She takes off the reading glasses and looks over at him. ‘Really? As good as your mother’s? As good as home-made?’

He notes the sly humour in her eyes and decides to make no reply.

‘I bet nothing beats your mother’s cooking,’ MacGahan says with a show of innocence. She folds up the charts and asks Kolya to pass her the tray, then flaps out Dass’s painstaking recreation of a lotus to cover her drawers and grinds black pepper onto the food: another perk of the passenger cabin.