Free Powder Monkey by Paul Dowswell

quite cool-headed about it. ‘Whatever you say, chum. Lost souls it is.’
    After we’d eaten I walked up to the forecastle with him. I discovered he was an American who was also in the afterguard larboard watch.
    â€˜Good day to you, Sam Witchall,’ he said with a smile, and shook my hand. ‘My name is Richard Buckley.’
    I was surprised to find an American boy on a British man-o’-war.
    â€˜So, what’s an American doing on the
Miranda
?’ I asked.
    â€˜Oh, I’m not the only one,’ he said. ‘There’s three or four of us. Haven’t you met Binns and Woodruff? They’re on the forecastle in the starboard watch.’
    I hadn’t.
    â€˜Me, I’m learning my trade,’ he said. ‘Been aboard the
Miranda
for a year now. I’d like to go back to Boston one day, and an officer post in a merchantman. May even try for a commission in the United States Navy. And what of you, Sam?’ he asked me. ‘What made you take to the sea?’
    â€˜I want to do something with my life,’ I told him. ‘There’s not much to look forward to in the village I come from. My father wanted me to be a schoolteacher and help out in my uncle’s shop.’
    â€˜That can’t be bad, surely?’ said Richard. ‘Not so that you’d rather be here than there?’
    â€˜No, but there’s got to be more to life than Wroxham. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of it?’ He hadn’t. ‘We had one moment of excitement every month, when me and my father and brother took our horse and cart to Norwich – it’s the big city in those parts.’ As I spoke, it already felt like a lifetime ago. ‘We went to buy the fancier provisions for my father’s shop – tea, coffee andspices mainly. Clip-clop for hours on end, down the rickety road to Norwich. My mother never came with us. She hasn’t left the parish in her whole life.’
    â€˜So what’s so great about Norwich?’ asked Richard.
    â€˜I love Norwich,’ I gushed. ‘It’s so different. It bustles and buzzes and there are shops selling everything you could ever want. It stinks, though – rotten vegetables, dung, coal fires – but you can’t have everything just right, can you?’
    â€˜Sounds just like Boston, ’cept that’s a seaboard port,’ said Richard, and looked a little misty-eyed. ‘I used to beg my mom to take me down to the harbour, just so I could gaze at all the tall ships packed together along the quayside, and wonder what it would be like to sail off over the horizon . . .’
    I thought wistfully of Norwich. Whenever I went there I realised I could not be a country boy for ever.
    â€˜Hey, you’re not listening!’ Richard laughed.
    â€˜I’m a bit like you,’ I said. ‘My mother always said I was too inquisitive for my own good.’
    â€˜She’s right,’ he said. ‘There’s too much to see in the world!’ Then he looked out to sea and grew reflective. ‘I took quite a gamble coming on this ship. Your navy’s supposed to be the best in the world, and my grandpa persuaded my dad that a few years’ service on a British man-o’-war would set me up for the rest of my life. He might be right, but the trick is to stay alive. Mandeville’san ambitious son of a bitch – who knows what trouble he’ll lead us into. Meanwhile, I just behave like a model seaman, especially with the ship’s officers. It’s all a game, isn’t it? I’m damned if I’m letting those stuck-ups get to flog me. So I smile politely, do as I’m asked, and keep my nose clean.’
    Despite his bad start with Edmund Ackersley, Richard often joined Ben and our crew to sit and chat on a Sunday afternoon. I was fascinated by Richard’s accent, and the words he used. He said ‘clever’ when he meant ‘good’,