Free Girl on the Orlop Deck by Beryl Kingston Page A

to do but wait for the Admiral’s return. The forenoon watch passed peacefully, they were piped to dinner, which was a very leisurely meal, and then left to their own devices for the rest of the afternoon watch. The sun was so warm it made the watch on deck lethargic. They basked, smoked their pipes, gossiped, told stories, and waited.
    And then, just when Marianne was half asleep, the longboat put out to fetch Lord Nelson back and two British frigates breezed into the harbour. She was very cross. What a useless time for them to arrive, she thought, when the supplies are bought and aboard and the Admiral’s coming back and there’s no reason for anyone to go ashore. If they’d put on more canvas they could’ve been here the same time as us.
    ‘Stir your stumps, you great lazy lump,’ a midshipman said, as he marched by her, trim in his uniform and full of importance. ‘Haven’t you any work to do?’
    It took her an effort to pull her mind round to what he was saying. ‘What?’
    ‘What?’ he echoed. ‘What d’you mean what ? What sort of word is what ? Here’s the Admiral been hard at it since first light and you think you may lollop about the decks doing nothing. Stir your stumps, my sonny, or you’ll know the reason why.’ And he walked on feeling pleased with himself.
    Stupid puppy, Marianne thought, glaring at his back. Giving himself airs! If I’d met him on Spice Island afore all this, I’d’ve cut him down to size in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. But there was no time to feed her fantasy because eight bells were sounding and it was the start of the first dog watch and there was work to be done.
    It began as soon as the Admiral had been piped aboard. The two frigates sent a boat across with mail for Captain Hardy and the Admiral, and were sent orders by return that they were to guard the straits. Not long afterwards the Amphion weighed anchor. Captain Hardy and Admiral Nelson stood on the poop deck to guide their departure and Marianne Templeman busied herself on the deck below and watched them, wondering where they were all off to and how long it would be before they got there.
    She got her answer at supper time. ‘Malta,’ Johnny Galley said. ‘On account of we got to meet up with Sir Richard Bickerton’s squadron what’s there a-waitin’ for us, seemingly.’
    He was in a good mood so she ventured to ask him how long it would take.
    ‘As long as it needs, my sonny,’ he said. ‘Our Nelson’s in no partic’lar hurry, d’you see, on account of he wants the Victory to catch up with us. We shall have to wait an’ see. Patience is a virtue at sea, so they say.’
    In the long days that followed, the Amphion made very slow progress through the Mediterranean. It grew hotter by the day, there was very little wind and the coastline they passed was interminably the same, long and brown and silhouetted with odd foreign-looking buildings, brown as the shoreline with bulbous domes that caught the sun and sharp narrow spires that looked like needles.
    ‘Mosques,’ Johnny said, when Marianne asked him what they were. ‘Where the Musclemen goes to pray.’
    Who were the Musclemen?
    ‘Heathens,’ Johnny said, ‘what you don’t want to have nothin’ to do with. Very nasty there are.’
    ‘Well I en’t surprised they’re heathens,’ Marianne said. ‘Livin’ out here in all this heat. ’Tis enough to turn anyone heathen.’ The sweat was running down her back and her jacket was sticking to her, as if it had been glued. ‘Is it always as hot as this?’
    ‘We’re a deal further south than we was, my sonny,’ Johnny told her, ‘an’ ’tis high summer, what’s always hot in these parts. Take yer jacket off if it’s plaguing you.’
    But she couldn’t possibly do that, so she shook her head and looked away from him.
    He laughed at her, showing his broken teeth. ‘Go on, boy,’ he teased. ‘Don’t be shy. You wouldn’t be the only one.’
    Which was true enough, for there were