Strachan remarked, “It’s gettin’ pretty rough up top. I wouldn’t like to be takin’ part!” He shook his grey head. “It was as black as a pig’s belly when I last took a look!”

Onslow, the big seaman from the Cassius, sauntered across and stared thoughtfully at Ferguson for several seconds. In his checked shirt and tight canvas trousers he looked even taller and more formidable than usual, and his thick hair was tied to the nape of his neck with a piece of red ribbon.

He said, “You’ll be staying aboard then?” He smiled. “And quite right, too.” He rested his hand on Ferguson’s thin shoulder. “You save your energy, my lad. I’ll want to be knowing what is happening down aft in the cabin.”

Ferguson stared at him. “I—I don’t understand?”

Onslow yawned and spread his arms. “It’s always just as well to know what the officers are planning next, y’see. That’s what stops men like us staying rabble. With knowledge,” he tapped his forehead meaningly, “we are equal to them, and ready!”

Lugg, a gunner’s mate, ran down a ladder and squinted through the gloom. “Right, you lot! On deck and lively about it! Each man take a cutlass and muster aft!”

Onslow eyed him calmly. “What, no pistols?”

Lugg replied coldly, “I’ll pistol you if you don’t learn some manners!”

There was a rasp of steel as each hurrying figure took a cutlass, and once or twice Ferguson spoke to a passing familiar face, but each time he received no answer.

Strachan wiped his hands and muttered, “Save, yer breath, mate. They’re thinkin’ of what lies ahead. There’ll be talk enough later, I shouldn’t wonder!”

John Allday hung back to the last. Then he picked up a cutlass and swung it slowly in the lamplight. Quietly he said, “Be careful of Onslow, Bryan. He is a born troublemaker. I don’t trust him an inch!”

Ferguson studied his friend with surprise and something like guilt. Since his unexpected change of jobs to captain’s clerk he had seemingly drifted away from Allday’s quiet protection, and whenever he had returned to the berth deck it had always been Onslow or his friend Pook who had dragged him into a tight circle of chatter and speculation.

Allday saw the uncertainty on Ferguson’s face and added, “You saw the flogging, Bryan. Be warned!”

“But Onslow is on our side, surely?” Ferguson wanted to understand. “You heard him talking today. He was as sickened as the rest of us!”

“I heard him.” Allday’s mouth twisted in a grim smile. “But he only talks. He is never the one who goes to the gratings!”

Old Strachan mumbled, “I seen a lad like ’im in the old Gorgon. Stirred up the men till they never knew which way ter jump. They ’anged ’im in the end!”

“And they’ll hang all of us if he keeps up this mutinous talk!” Allday’s eyes flashed. “We are here, and we must make the best of it!”

Lugg peered down the ladder and bellowed, “Come up on deck, you idle bugger! You’re the last as usual!” But there was no real anger in his voice. He was as tense and jumpy as everyone else aboard.