cleared the table and spread out their studies. “Speaking of odd arrangements in alleys, have you seen Captain Ogilvie lately?”
“He returned with me,” Able said, after he stopped laughing. “Is he gone again?”
She nodded. He saw disappointment in her eyes, and regretted his laughter. “It’s these damnable times, Grace,” he said. “He has a baffling ability to vanish and reappear.”
She nodded, hugging her little son to her, and walked to the window in the sitting room that overlooked St. Brendan’s and Portsmouth harbor. She swayed to some inner music until her son slept, then left the room quietly.
Meri had been turning the cuffs on some lad’s shirt. “She’s better here, Able, but she is lonely.”
“Are you?” he asked.
“We’re learning to cope,” she replied. “The nights here are long.”
“They’re long aboard the Mercury, too,” he said. “To think some people believe we like war in the Royal Navy.”
“They don’t live in Portsmouth, do they?”
Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson spent the next afternoon at St. Brendan’s, shown around by Headmaster Croker. They caught up with Able and Harry Ferrier and the Gunwharf Rats in the stone pool beside and behind the monastery, most of them nearly naked and balancing on the floating platforms, taking sextant readings. Others arranged ballast on additional platforms, with advice from Master Ferrier standing beside the pool.
Able had joined the half-naked crew. He saluted the admiral, who laughed and saluted back. Able watched as the little man looked closer at the platform’s name. “HMS Floaty?” he asked.
“Admiral, my son Ben named the platform and christened it with a pint of milk,” Able said.
“Benjamin Belvedere Six, if I recall Sir B told me once?” His eyes, so lively, turned serious. “I miss that man.”
“We all do, admiral,” Able said, thinking how much Sir B would enjoy sharing the deck of HMS Floaty. “Care to join us, sir?”
“Must I strip down, too?”
“No, sir. We’ll take you as you are.”
Admiral Nelson removed his bicorn and hanger and took a leap, balancing himself with some agility on the deck of Floaty. “As you were, men,” he said, and watched as the now-terrified Rats froze. “I mean it,” Nelson said, enjoying himself hugely, if his smile was any indication. “Plot your courses.”
“Catching the last of the August sun, Master Six?” Nelson asked as he stood beside Able on the slightly elevated box dubbed the quarterdeck.
“Aye, admiral,” Able said. “Breathing in great lungsful of Portsmouth at low tide, too.”
Nelson chuckled. He indicated the Rats with a nod. “How are their skills with the sextant?”
“Better and better, sir. No one in the last few weeks has plotted the Floaty upriver in the Amazon.”
Nelson pointed to the other platform. “HMS Platform?” he asked.
“No, sir. Ben thought that should be the HMS Floaty Boaty,” Able said, wondering what the exalted admiral standing beside a man wearing only his small clothes was thinking of all this nonsense.
Admiral Nelson was silent in that self-contained way of his, hand behind his back, minding his own thoughts. Only a few weeks ago south of Cape Finisterre, Able had seen him in much the same pose on the far more exalted deck of HMS Victory, as he looked over an entire fleet.
Am I looking at greatness? Able asked himself. I do believe he regards my Rats with the same effort he expends on well-trained foretopmen, gunners, Marines, and able seamen. He knew better than to interrupt.
One of the younger Rats on Floaty Boaty stepped too close to the edge as he rearranged the ballast and fell into the stone pool. Able felt no alarm. No one entered this pool without proficiency in swimming. Still… His heart swelled with pride as nearly everyone on Floaty Boaty went into the pool after their mate, handing him out to the lad who by designation remained topside, ready to receive him. In a moment they were back at work.
“They look out for each other,” Admiral Nelson said. “Brilliant.”
“It’s what workhouse lads do,” Able said. “None of us would have survived without the others, I among them.”
“Master Six, you are to be commended,” Nelson said. “You and your doughty crew are training a generation of navigators.” He looked around. “And I imagine others, too.”
“We have one lad – our surgeon on the Mercury – who is at Haslar and should be in medical school in a year or two, Admiral Nelson.” He pointed to Smitty, who was helping one of the younger Rats with his sextant. “That tall one will be a fine sailing master soon. He gave