Nor were the points of the compass limited to the compass and the bread barge: tots of rum were also graded. Raw spirit was due north, while water was due west, so a mug of nor'wester was half rum and half water, while three quarters rum would become a nor'nor'wester and a quarter of rum would be west-nor'west and find itself nobody's friend.
The seven men now sitting at mess number eight's table piled up their plates and basins. Three used old pewter plates, but four, the latest to join the mess, used bowls and looked forward to the Calypso taking her next prize, Rossi having explained carefully that a French prize years ago had yielded the three pewter plates in defiance of the eighth Article of War, which forbade taking 'money, plate or goods' from a captured ship before a court judged it a lawful prize. There was an exception which the three men interpreted in their own way - unless the object was 'for the necessary use and service of any of His Majesty's ships and vessels of war'. Admittedly such objects were supposed to be declared later in the 'full and entire account of the whole', but as Stafford said at the time with righteous certainty in his Cockney voice: 'S'welp us, we clean forgot.'
'Feels nice to be warm again,' Stafford remarked, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. 'England's never very warm but the Medway's enough ter perish yer. The wind blowin' acrorst those saltings ... why, even the beaks of the curlews curl up with the cold.'
'Curlew? Is the bird? Is true, this curling?' Rossi asked, wide-eyed.
Jackson, the captain's coxswain, who owned a genuine American Protection issued to him several years earlier, shook his head. 'Another of Staff's stories. All curlews have long curved beaks whether it's a hot day or cold.'
'Anyway, I'm glad we're back in the Tropics,' Stafford said cheerfully. 'Don't cross the Equator, do we?'
Jackson shook his head. 'Not even if we go all the way to Cayenne. What's its latitude, Gilbert?'
The Frenchman shook his head in turn. 'I am ashamed,' he said, 'but I do not know it.'
When another of the French asked a question in rapid French, Gilbert translated Jackson's question, and the Frenchman, Auguste, said succinctly: 'Cinq.'
'Auguste says five degrees North,' Gilbert said.
'Five, eh? When we're in the West Indies, up and down the islands, we're usually betwixt twelve and twenty,' Stafford announced, and turned to Jackson. 'There, you didn't know I knowed that, didja!'
'Knew,' Jackson corrected automatically, and Stafford sighed.
'Oh, all right. You didn't knew I knowed that, then.'
'Mama mia,' Rossi groaned, 'even I know that's wrong. Say slowly, Staff: "You didn't know I knew that." How are these Francesi going to learn to speak proper?'
'Don't sound right to me,' Stafford maintained. 'And I come from London. You're an American, Jacko - Charlestown, ain't it? And you're from Genoa, Rosey. So I'm more likely to be right.'
Jackson ran his hand through his thinning sandy hair and turned to Gilbert. 'You'd better warn Auguste, Albert and Louis that if they are going to speak decent English, they'd better not listen to this picklock!'
'Picklock? I do not know this word,' Gilbert said.
'Just as well, 'cos I ain't one,' Stafford said amiably. 'Locksmith, I was, set up in a nice way of business in Bridewell Lane. Wasn't my business if the owners of the locks wasn't always at 'ome; the lock's gotta be opened.'
Gilbert nodded and smiled. 'I understand.'
'Yer know, the four of you are all right for Frenchies. Tell yer mates wot I said.'
Gilbert translated and considered himself lucky. Just over a year ago he was living in Kent, serving the Count while they were all refugees in England. Then, with the peace, the Count had decided to return to France (and Gilbert admitted he wished now he had taken it upon himself to mention to the Count the doubts he had felt from the first). Then everything had happened at once - the Count had been taken away to Brest under arrest, Lord and Lady Ramage had managed to escape, they had all recaptured the mutinous English brig and now the four of them were serving in the Royal Navy!
His Lordship had been very apologetic, although there was no need for it. Apparently he had intended (this was when he expected to sail the Murex back to England) to keep them on the ship's books as 'prisoners at large', and recommend their release as refugees as soon as they reached Plymouth, so they would be free to do what they wanted.
Gilbert could see his Lordship's motives, but he was forgetting that three of them - Auguste, Louis and Albert - did not speak a word of English and would never have been able to make a living. Serving in the Royal Navy, at least they would be paid and fed while they learned English, and life at sea, judging from their experience so far, was less hard than life in a wartime Brest, and no secret police watched ...
Anyway, his Lordship had explained this odd business of 'prize money'. Apparently it was a sort of reward the King paid to men of the Royal Navy for capturing an enemy ship, and as the Murex had been taken by the French after the mutiny, she became an enemy ship, so recapturing her meant she was then a prize.
Apparently, though, after they had recaptured the Murex and sailed her out of Brest, it seemed that only his Lordship would get any prize money because he was the only one of them actually serving in the Royal Navy. That seemed unfair because her Ladyship had behaved so bravely. Certainly neither he nor Auguste, Albert nor Louis had expected any reward, but his Lordship had thought otherwise and he had talked to the Admiral, who had agreed to his proposal. The result was that if the four of them volunteered for the Royal Navy, their names would be entered in the muster book of the Calypso and (by a certain free interpretation of dates) they would get their share.
So here they were, members of mess number eight, and Auguste and Albert were put down on the Calypso's muster book as ordinary seamen while he and Louis were still landmen, because they did not yet have the skill of the other two.
And this mess number eight: although no one said anything aloud, Gilbert had the impression that while Jackson, Rossi and Stafford were not the captain's favourites - he was not the sort of man to play the game of favourites - they had all served together so long that they had a particular place. It seemed that each had saved the other's life enough times for there to be special bonds, and Gilbert had been fascinated by things Jackson had explained. Gilbert had noticed his Lordship's many scars - and now Jackson put an action and a place to each of them. The two scars on the right brow, another on the left arm, a small patch of white hair growing on his head ... It was extraordinary that the man was still alive.
However, one thing had disappointed Gilbert: no one, least of all Jackson, Stafford and Rossi, seemed to think they had much of a chance of finding L'Espoir. Apparently once she left Brest she could choose one of a hundred different routes. Oh dear, if only the Count had stayed in Kent. The estate he bought at Ruckinge was pleasant; even the Prince of Wales and his less pleasant friends had been frequent guests, and the Count never complained of boredom. But undoubtedly he had a grande nostalgie for the château and, although expecting it, had been heartbroken when he returned to find everything had been stolen. He had -
The heart-stopping shrill of a bosun's call came down the forehatch followed by the bellow 'General quarters! All hands to general quarters - come on there, look alive... ' Again the call screamed - Jackson said the bosun's mates were called 'Spithead Nightingales' because of the noise their calls made - and again the bellow.