It was a perfectly ordinary little everyday fraud; but it was illegal. Jack did not smile. He went on, 'AB to September 20th, 1798, then rated Clerk. And then on November 10th, 1799, he was rated Midshipman.'
'Yes, sir,' said the purser: not only was there that little awkwardness of the eleven-year-old able seaman, but Mr Ricketts' quick ear caught the slight emphasis on the word rated and its slightly unusual repetition. The message it conveyed was this: 'I may seem a poor man of business; but if you try any purser's tricks with me, I am athwart your hawse and I can rake you from stem to stern. What is more, one captain's rating can be disrated by another, and if you trouble my sleep, by God, I shall turn your boy before the mast and flog the tender pink skin off his back every day for the rest of the commission.' Jack's head was aching his eyes were slightly rimmed with red from the port, and there was so clear a hint of latent ferocity in them that the purser took the message very seriously. 'Yes, sir,' he said again. 'Yes. Now here is the list of dockyard tallies: would you like me to explain the different headings in detail, sir?'
'If you please, Mr Ricketts.'
This was Jack's first direct, fully responsible acquaintance with book-keeping, and he did not much relish it. Even a small vessel (and the Sophie barely exceeded a hundred and fifty tons) needs a wonderful amount of stores: casks of beef, pork and butter all numbered and signed for, puncheons, butts and half-pieces of rum, hard-tack by the ton from Old Weevil, dried soup with the broad arrow upon it, quite apart from the gunner's powder (mealed, corned and best patent), sponges, worms, matches, priming-irons, wads and shot -bar, chain, case, langrage, grape or plain round and the countless objects needed (and so very often embezzled) by the bosun the blocks, the long-tackle, single, double, parrel, quarter-coak, double-coak, flat-side, double thin-coak, single thin-coak, single strap-bound and sister blocks alone made up a whole Lent litany. Here jack was far more at home, for the difference between a single double-scored and a single-shoulder block was as clear to him as that between night and day, or right and wrong far clearer, on occasion.
But by now his mind, used to grappling with concrete physical problems, was thoroughly tired: he looked wistfully over the dog-eared, tatty books piled up on the curving rim of the lockers out through the cabin windows at the brilliant air and the dancing sea. He passed his hand over his forehead and said, 'We will deal with the rest another time, Mr Ricketts. What a God-damned great heap of paper it is, to be sure: I see that a clerk is a very necessary member of the ship's company. That reminds me, I have appointed a young man he will be coming aboard today. I am sure you will ease him into his duties, Mr Ricketts. He seems willing and competent, and he is nephew to Mr Williams, the prize-agent. I think it is to the Sophie's advantage that we should be well with the prize-agent, Mr Ricketts?'
'Indeed it is, sir,' said the purser, with deep conviction.
'Now I must go across to the dockyard with the bosun before the evening gun,' said Jack, escaping into the open air. As he set foot upon deck so young Richards came up the larboard side, accompanied by a Negro, well over six feet tall. 'Here is the young man I was telling you about, Mr Ricketts. And this is the seaman you have brought me, Mr Richards? A fine stout fellow he looks, too. What is his name?'
'Alfred King, if you please, sir.'
'Can you hand, reef and steer, King?'
The Negro nodded his round head; there was a fine flash of white across his face and he grunted aloud. Jack frowned, for this was no way to address a captain on his own quarter-deck. 'Come, sir,' he said sharply, 'haven't you got a civil tongue in your head?'
Looking suddenly grey and apprehensive the Negro shook his head. 'If you please, sir,' said the clerk, 'he has no tongue. The Moors cut it out.'
'Oh,' said Jack, taken aback, 'oh. Well, stow him for'ard.
I will read him in by and by. Mr Babbington, take Mr Richards below and show him the midshipmen's berth.
Come, Mr Watt, we must get to the dockyard before the idle dogs stop work altogether.'
'There is a man to gladden your heart, Mr Watt,' said Jack, as the cutter sped across the harbour. 'I wish I could find another score or so like him. You don't seem very taken with the idea, Mr Watt?'
'Well, sir, I should never say no to a prime seaman, to be sure. And to be sure we could swap some of our landmen (not that we have many left, being as we've been in commission so long, and them as was going to run having run and most of the rest rated ordinary, if not able
The bosun could not find his way out of his parenthesis, and after a staring pause he wound up by saying, 'But as for mere numbers, why no, sir.'
'Not even with the draft for harbour-duties?'
'Why, bless you, sir, they never amounted to half a dozen, and we took good care they was all the hard bargains and right awkward buggers. Beg pardon, sir: the idle men. So as for mere numbers, why no, sir. In a three-watch brig like the Sophie it's a puzzle to stow 'em all between-decks as it is: she's a trim, comfortable, home-like little vessel, right enough, but she ain't what you might call roomy.'