Winds of Folly Read Online Free Page A

The third lieutenant, Mr Holroyd, was an exemplary officer in every way – if you discounted the loss of an ear, sliced off by a cutlass in the Caribbean – and the midshipmen and other young gentlemen were coming along nicely.
    In fact, Nathan had very little to do most of the time besides sink into long bouts of the introspection to which he was prone, though he did his best to divert himself with music and prose, even the occasional line of verse. He practised upon the flute, wrote long letters home and shorter despatches to his seniors, swam around the ship to keep himself fit, and played chess with whoever of his officers could be relied upon to give him a respectable game and not let him win too easily – which usually came down to the surgeon McLeish and the youngest but most assured of the midshipmen, Mr Lamb.
    He shifted his position slightly so he had a better view of the waist where a number of the hands had appeared with buckets and swabs. He wondered what new occupation the first lieutenant had found to divert them, for the swabbing of the decks always occurred in the forenoon watch, and from Nathan’s present vantage they still looked as spotless as even Lieutenant Duncan might desire. But it soon became apparent that this was a different kind of ritual. The buckets contained a quantity of fat derived from the boiled meats which coagulated in the galley coppers – commonly known as ‘slush’ – and the hands were applying it to the wheels of the gun trucks to make them slide more easily and make less of a fiendish scream when they were about it.
    Nathan could only approve such zeal, though he wondered idly what kind of bargain had been struck with the ship’s cook, for the slush was one of the perks of this satrap and he usually had some deal going with the purser to sell it off as tallow or even for human consumption as ‘dripping’. But then he noted that the operation was being conducted under the supervisionof George Banjo, who was the acknowledged leader of the African contingent among the ship’s company, and whose impressive powers of persuasion were reinforced by his gigantic bulk. Banjo – Nathan had no idea if this was his real name – had lately been rated gunner’s mate, for his love of the 18-pounders that constituted the
Unicorn
’s main armament was only matched by his skill in handling them, and he had since embarked on a series of measures designed to improve their already creditable performance. Clearly the ship’s cook had been compelled to cooperate in this ambition.
    Nathan had lately been informed by Tully that Banjo’s leadership of the Africans had now been extended to include the entire lower deck, and that even the boatswain’s mates, the official policing agency of those realms, stood in awe of him. As there was no reason to doubt his loyalty to Nathan personally and his manner was generally benevolent, Nathan had no serious argument with this, though he did wonder sometimes if his own position was more nominal than actual and whether the real powers aboard the ship more properly belonged to the triumvirate of gunner’s mate, first lieutenant and sailing master.
    None of which diminished Nathan’s current sense of complacency for he had much to be grateful for, quite apart from the promise of £10,000 in prize money – £12,000, possibly, with the gewgaws thrown in. Though he was approaching his twenty-eighth birthday, he remained in excellent health, he was in possession of a good head of hair and most of his teeth – and the sounding of the ship’s bell alerted him to the fact that it was nearly time for his dinner.
    There was nothing more certain to improve Nathan’s opinion of the world and his position in it than the imminent prospect of a meal, for he possessed a prodigious appetite, and today he had been invited to dine in the wardroom with hisofficers. They had done some brisk