would do to their families if Agamemnon sank, or whether nobody cared any more. ‘Let’s have a look at the watch rota, shall we?’
Kite stood back against his own desk, absolutely still. He gave Joe a brief wry look, one that said his years of excess energy were so far behind him he probably couldn’t have found them on a map now. Joe stared at him hard. There was a special place in hell for people who pretended to be your friend while they were holding a whip over you. To his surprise, Kite looked down like he was ashamed.
While they’d been talking, other children had arrived, boys and girls, all in the same uniform as Fred, and at the mention of the watch rota, they’d all clustered round a chart on the door, but Fred was tall enough to look over their heads.
The chart was a checkerboard of red and green, and full of names. Down the side was a long list of times: all six-hour slots except one in the middle that split into three hours on either side. Joe couldn’t work out what it was supposed to be describing. A few groans went round, and a few happy cries.
‘Hah,’ said Fred, pleased. ‘We’re on at nine tonight and nine tomorrow morning.’
‘Sorry, how are you reading …?’ said Joe.
‘We’re on a two-set watch. You’re in starboard, with me,’ Fred explained, or he seemed to think he was explaining. He tapped a green square. ‘Red for port, green for starboard. Watches are six hours long. You have one on, one off, at both ends of the day.’ He drew his fingertip down the timetable. ‘So tomorrow will be good for us, we’re not up until nine, but it will be six the next morning. See?’
‘A watch is like a work shift?’
‘Oh. Yes,’ said Fred, looking worried to find that Joe hadn’t known even that. ‘Does that … make sense?’
Joe nodded. It did, sort of. He liked timetables, although he could see he was not going to like sailing jargon.
‘When you come on watch, someone from the last watch will wake you up quarter of an hour before. Then you get up and go to the mainmast.’ Fred smiled. ‘Once you get there, the watch officer will tell everyone what to do. Simple!’
Joe decided not to ruin it and ask what a starboard was.
‘Sorry, I’m probably not quite – but if you’re on for six hours and off for six hours and then on again, surely you never get a full night’s sleep?’
Fred seemed puzzled. ‘Sleep a bit, work a bit, sleep a bit again; you’ll get used to it.’
No wonder Kite looked so exhausted.
The other children were taking seats at the table. None of them were older than about seventeen. Joe felt lost, and then realised with a slow dismay that this was the start of some kind of lesson. Kite was moving chairs; he was putting the ones from his desk at the table. Room for himself, and room for Joe. School; hours after he’d been dragged out of a lighthouse. When Kite said he would be Fred’s tutor, he had meant right now.
Fred tugged Joe’s sleeve to get him to sit down. Joe sat. It was surreal. In passing, Kite gave them a textbook, and then leaned over Joe’s shoulder. He smelled of fresh ironing.
‘So it’s this section,’ he said. ‘The astronomy stuff there, zeniths and meridians and all that, but it’s all basic mathematics. You’ll work it out.’
‘This is …’ Joe was at a total, tumbled loss. ‘I’m teaching children now? Why aren’t you locking me up?’
‘Do I need to?’
Joe didn’t want to think about what a cell would be like aboard a Napoleonic battleship. It was cold in here, in Kite’s own stateroom. A week in a tiny unheated space buried somewhere in the ship’s guts sounded like an efficient way to die before they even reached Edinburgh.
‘No.’
Kite was still leaning on the back of Joe’s chair, because the ship was really swaying now. Perhaps it was the fight to stay upright, or perhaps he was relaxing a bit, but his shoulders sank into a less officerly straightness. ‘Living on a ship is hard. You need friends and people who know you. I don’t want to keep you isolated. You have a better chance of surviving if you’re involved. I’m not playing games with you, Mr Tournier, I’m just trying to keep you alive. Mr Hathaway,’ Kite added to Fred, who had been rubbing one