There are twelve midshipmen all told aboard Gorgon, including yourselves, so the mothers' boys had best work doubly hard to avoid trouble. You will be given postings to gundecks and other parts of ship until you are able to work with the people without making a poor example to them.' Bolitho turned as some men hurried past under the control of a tough-looking boatswain's mate. Fresh from the land by the cut of them, he thought. Taken from debtors' prisons and from the Assize Courts where but for the need of men for the fleet they would be held until transportation to the American colonies. The Navy's appetite for men was never satisfied, and with the country at peace it was even harder to supply its needs. As he watched the hurrying party of men Bolitho thought it hardly made sense of what the lieutenant had just said. Not only the midshipmen were new and untrained. Many of the ship's company were little better. As he slitted his eyes against the rain he found time to marvel at the way a ship like this could swallow such a force of human beings. Gorgon, he knew, contained a company of some six hundred officers, seamen and marines in her fat, seventeenhundred-ton hull, and yet to look along her upper deck it was hard to see more than thirty or so at any one time. 'Ton! ' Bolitho turned as the lieutenant's voice cut into his thoughts. 'I hope I am not boring you?' Bolitho replied, 'I am sorry, sir.' 'I will be watching you.' The lieutenant stiffened as another officer approached from the poop. Bolitho guessed the newcomer to be the first lieutenant.

Mr Verling was tall and thin, with an expression so dour that he could have been a judge about to pass sentence of death rather than offering welcome to some new officers. He had a protruding, beaked nose which thrust from beneath his cocked hat as if to seek out some new crime in his ship, and his eyes, as they wandered along the swaying line of midshipmen, were devoid of pity or warmth.