Free The Golden Ocean by Patrick O’Brian

year of your father’s living at the very least. How did you come by it?’
    Peter, his heart’s blood flowing again and a delightful tide of joy surging in his stomach, told him; and the tale was interrupted by the meaningless chuckles of happiness in its purest state.
    The chaplain said, ‘Your good old lady was right, I am sure. It must have come from some ship of the Spanish Armada—many were wrecked on your shores, as I understand. What a curious reflection, that it should have come from a galleon to fit you out to serve against that same contumelious nation. If you choose, I will turn this stone into a sea-chest, and a reasonable purse besides; for otherwise the merchants might be tempted to take advantage of your youth and inexperience; and we must never expose others to temptation, in case they should fall. But now I believe we must eat a piece of cake and drink a glass of Madeira, to welcome you aboard, and to repose our minds after their anxiety.’
    Back in the midshipmen’s berth, with his mind duly reposed, Peter found it empty except for a very large cat and a verysmall boy. FitzGerald had gone. The hatch was now open, and the very small boy sat on a locker, looking up it and singing, in a remarkably high-pitched soprano,
    ‘The secret expedition ho
The secret expedition hee,’
    over and over again. Peter stood, contemplating the pink-cheeked singer and wondering first where FitzGerald was and secondly how this child could have got aboard; and presently the song came to an end.
    ‘Tell me, my boy,’ said Peter kindly, ‘have you seen …’
    ‘Who the—do you think you are?’ asked the child, with an unflinching stare.
    ‘You should not use such words,’ said Peter, quite shocked.
    ‘And you should not use such an infernally impertinent form of address to your seniors,’ piped the very small boy. ‘I suppose you are one of the new horrors that the Admiralty in its wisdom has inflicted upon us. What the—do you mean by addressing me as your boy? Eh? Damn your impertinence,’ and growing pinker with wrath the child went on. ‘Five years seniority, and to be called “my boy” by something that has crept up out of the bilge when the cat was asleep. Rot me, by—, I’ve a month’s mind to have you keel-hauled.’
    ‘I am sorry,’ said Peter, much taken aback. ‘I was not aware.’
    ‘In future you will address me as Mr Keppel,’ said the child severely, and returned to his song.
    Peter, to preserve his countenance, stroked the cat, a shabby animal, black where it had any hair, and dull blue where it was bald. The cat suffered this for a minute, lashing its tail; then with a low growl it seized his hand and bit it, like a dog.
    Peter recoiled and bumped into a large, yellow-haired, florid, thick man, whose ordinarily good-humoured face was clouded with discontent.
    ‘Nah then, cully,’ said he, in a hoarse whisper, seeing Peterand the cat so closely joined; ‘don’t you tease that cat.’
    ‘It’s the cat won’t let go, so it won’t,’ cried Peter, waving it in the air.
    ‘Don’t you go a-teasing no animals here, for I won’t have it. And that’s flat,’ said the newcomer, detaching the cat with a powerful heave. ‘Poor Puss,’ he said, sitting down on a locker to comfort it. ‘Pretty Agamemnon.’
    ‘I was stroking it,’ said Peter.
    ‘You don’t want to go around a-teasing of animals,’ was the only reply. ‘Puss. Poor old Ag. Pretty Ag.’
    ‘Ransome,’ said Keppel, ‘did you have any luck?’
    ‘No,’ said Ransome. ‘I took the gig’s crew to a wedding at Fareham, thinking to snap up a few as they came out of the church. But the women set on us in the churchyard—knocked us about something cruel—while the men all got out of the vestry. Who’s this been stowing all this stuff on my locker?’ He looked crossly at FitzGerald’s portmanteau, and after a moment he pushed it off with his foot.
    ‘That is my portmanteau, sir,’ said FitzGerald, who