baking alleyways. The sailors had even given up on fishing off the guns. There was nothing to catch; the only things that ever passed through here were jellyfish, which put off everything else. Across on the Orion, someone had stretched a washing line between four open gun ports. He could see the shirts pegged on it. The sea was too calm to spray them.
Down on the deck, the sailors were doing decent work of keeping busy, but everyone had slowed down almost to nothing. The heat was rippling and most of them had their shirts tied round their waists. The black men were tanned so dark their tattoos were lost, and the white ones were burning. The bosun, with exactly nothing to do even though he was on watch, was propped against the base of the mast with his rifle, in case there were any birds to take a shot at, but there weren’t. Trying to get rid of the lethargy that had been creeping over him all afternoon, Kite let himself down beside him, even though he had nothing particular to say. He was starting to feel like it was better to be silent in company, at least. The bosun glanced at him and they knocked their knuckles together. Kite made scissors and the bosun made paper. Rock, scissors. Rock, rock. The bosun kicked his ankle.
Across from them, the Agamemnon creaked unpromisingly. The bosun glanced that way too and they both sank into a more depressed silence. It was obvious even from here that it was rigged badly, but there was nothing to do about it. You couldn’t signal across to someone else and complain. It wouldn’t have helped, anyway. Agamemnon was a horrible piece of shipwrighting. It wasn’t old, but whenever Kite saw it, new bits of it were falling apart.
Although Kite didn’t know till much later, the shameful state of the Agamemnon was why its captain hadn’t asked many questions of the six peculiarly well-qualified men who’d signed on two years ago in Portsmouth, when usually he couldn’t get anyone better than the local drunks. It was why he hadn’t cared that they had no real references, and why he’d believed them when they said they’d deserted from the French navy because they just didn’t believe in Napoleon any more. Qualified hands were qualified hands.
‘Sail,’ someone called, uncertainly, from the bow; then, ‘Sail!’
Everyone swung around, searching the horizon. Kite wished they were allowed to put up a signal that said they would all like to personally shake the hand of the first French captain who tried a run on the blockade.
‘It’s the Victory! Lord Nelson’s here!’
Tom shot down the quarterdeck stairs. ‘What’s the signal, can you see?’
Kite had to frown into the heat haze to see Victory’s mast. The flags there said, We have sugar. Come for dinner.
Tom thumped his shoulder. ‘Thank Christ.’
Nelson was waiting for visiting officers on the deck, looking scruffy and only a little more substantial than a collection of dandelion feathers, but cheerful all the same. Victory had pulled in just on the far side of Agamemnon, so it didn’t take long to cross. A couple of men helped them over the rail. Kite wove through the crowd, catching other people’s shoulders when they passed too quickly, and then smiled when he found him.
‘Jem.’
Jem whipped round and snatched him close. He felt more fragile than he should have, but Kite couldn’t tell if he really was, or if it was only that, being older, Jem had always been the same size, while Kite himself had broadened in the last couple of years. Jem gripped his shoulders to get a proper look at him.
‘You look terrible – what’s Tom done to you?’
‘Are you all right now?’ Kite demanded. ‘Your last letter; you said you’d had an accident with the guns and then you didn’t say anything else.’
‘I didn’t want to fuss,’ Jem said easily. He smiled and hugged him again, and bumped their foreheads together. Kite shut his eyes. His whole chest hurt with the effort of not weeping. He wasn’t very successful and he had to put his head down against Jem’s neck. Two years; he felt like he could breathe again. Jem pressed one hand over the back of his skull and curled forward over him. It was all right, though. They weren’t the only ones. Some triplets had just found each other, and even Tom had to push his sleeve over his eyes when he managed to collar Jem’s captain, a