The Althea Frigate at Moorings, Gibraltar. A Drawing in Midshipman Quinn's private Log.
After one first interview, Septimus had seen little of Captain Sainsbury, a dark and silent man who very seldom smiled. Mr. Pyke was supposed to oversee the instruction of the three midshipmen, and though they were taught navigation by Mr. Haswell, the elderly Third Lieutenant, and seamanship by Preece the gunner's mate, the red face of the First Lieutenant was always thrusting itself unexpectedly into their lessons and barking difficult questions at them. He fired his hardest questions at Septimus, but so far the junior midshipman had not given one wrong answer-which seemed only to increase Mr. Pyke's dislike of him. Pyke was always particularly nice to Charles Barry, though Barry was far from bright at navigation, and he had little to say to Fitzroy Cocker, who was as tall as himself and related to an important Member of Parliament. It was Septimus Quinn's blood he was after. Cocker was accustomed to say that if Lobsterface didn't catch out young lickspittle soon he'd burst.
Septimus naturally saw a great deal of the other two midshipmen, and had sized them up in his own quiet fashion. Charles Barry was handsome, inclined to be lazy, and had far less spirit (so Septimus thought) than his pretty sister Philippa who had shown fight when the highwaymen stopped the coach. Fitzroy Cocker might be as eager to fight the French as he boasted, but Septimus had formed a poor opinion of his brain. The redhaired senior midshipman never thought before he acted and did not conceal his contempt for the small quiet boy who had joined the Althea without knowing a bowsprit from a mainyard. Cocker had been in the frigate for nearly a year and had sailed to Majorca and back, and having in that time learned to swear and gamble, considered himself a very experienced sea-officer indeed. However, Septimus was not the boy to look at the worst side of his companions for long. He could admire Cocker's strength and keenness for a fight, and he liked Barry's lazy good manners, though neither of them had shown much liking for him. Mr. Septimus Quinn was never much concerned as to whether folk liked him or not.
As he was applying himself once again to the problem of a vessel's course from Ushant to the Balearic Isles, an unusually violent gust heeled the frigate still further over for a few seconds. Charles Barry clutched at the table and looked rather apprehensively at his messmates.
"She's-she's lying over a bit, isn't she?" he remarked, trying to sound calm.
Cocker laughed scornfully. "Bah! This is nothing. Wait till you're in a real South Atlantic snorter, my boy. You'll have to sleep on the bulkhead and use the deck to hang your hat on-that's the sort of angle she'll take then!"
"All the same," observed Septimus, looking up over the rims of his spectacles, "this isn't the South Atlantic. If I were Mr. Pyke, who is in charge of the deck just now, I would take in that reefed fore-topsail. That was what-"
"Oh, you would?" sneered Cocker, turning on him. "And who asked you to speak? 'In charge of the deck,' demme! I suppose you mean Pyke has the watch-on-deck. What the Hades do you know about topsails, hey?"
"I was about to say," ventured Septimus mildly, "that Mr. Preece made that observation a short while ago. I was merely repeating-"
"Well, keep your baby mouth shut!" interrupted the senior midshipman curtly. "Preece is a gunner's mate, not a First Lieutenant. There, she's righted herself. First-rate little warship, Althea is, mark my words."
Mr. Quinn blinked owlishly at him through his spectacles. "It is reassuring to know that she compares so favourably with all the other ships you have sailed in," he said innocently.
Cocker, red in the face, started to gobble a reply and then, finding it difficult to make a proper retort, turned to Barry.
"I'm sick of sitting here like a demmed schoolboy," he snapped.
"What's the hour, Charles?"
"Six bells went a few minutes ago-didn't you hear them? We're supposed to go on studying for another half-hour, you know. That's why we're let off deck watch."
"Let off!" Cocker repeated, mimicking Barry's tone. "Why, no officer of spirit would want to be 'let off' a watch-on-deck. I'd ten times rather be standing a trick at the wheel than cooped up down here with you two swots. It's no occupation for a gentleman, demme! So-belay it, Charles." He leaned forward and twitched Barry's book away from him, to send it spinning into a corner. "We'll spend the rest of our watch-below to better advantage, hey?"
Barry looked annoyed at this high-handed action, but only for a moment.
"Oh, all right, then," he responded half-heartedly, holding on to the table as the Althea gave another lurch. "What's it to be, Fitz?"
"What but the gentleman's game, my boy-dice!" Cocker produced a small ebony dice-box from his coat pocket and slapped it on the table, holding it on the tilted and swaying surface with his palm. "A main with you, messmates!"
"The dice will fly all over the cabin," protested Charles. "And besides-"
"Besides, we're supposed to go on studying," Cocker mimicked him again. "Demme, forget your studies in a little sport, man! We'll shake 'em in the box, set the box on the table, and that's the throw. And you, young lickspittle," he added to Septimus, "you're in this too, so set aside that paper and be sociable."
"My name, Mr. Cocker, is Quinn, if you please," said Septimus gently. "And I am not interested in dice."
Charles Barry patted him on the shoulder. "Oh, come on, Quinn," he said with his engaging smile. "Fitz can't help being rude. I can't see to read by this candle, anyhow."
Septimus hesitated. Games of chance struck him as being unscientific and therefore uninteresting, and though he had an ample money allowance to supplement his pay he had no mind to risk it on the throw of a pair of dice. All the same, he didn't want to put on the airs of a self-righteous prig. For months, perhaps years, he would be living at very close quarters with these two, and already his application to his studies had made an enemy of the arrogant Fitzroy Cocker. It was all very well to be self-sufficient at Linton Abbott, where he could escape to the woods and fields of the countryside when he felt inclined for solitude, but here things were very different. There was no room for an independent spirit in a small fighting-ship where every man was dependent on his shipmates and the Captain alone had any privacy. So Septimus decided it was time he showed a comradely spirit.
"Very well," he agreed, slipping paper and pencil into his pocket. "Pray allow me to join you. How are we to play?"
"It had better be made easy for our mathematical genius," sneered Cocker, rattling the dice. "Stake what you like, winner take all. No limits. Money on the table-it won't slide off, quite. Here's mine."
He slammed a golden half-guinea on the table with a glance at Septimus.
"Here, I say, Fitz!" Barry protested. "We're midshipmen, not Nabobs worth fifty thousand apiece!"
"It's my custom to play high on the first throw," explained Cocker loftily. "No need for you youngsters to imitate me. Stake up, now!"
Barry fished in his pockets and put a silver crown-piece on the table. Septimus laid a sixpence carefully in front of him, and looked inquiringly at Cocker. That young gentleman's lip curled, but he refrained from comment.