Part 1 (2/2)

'It is indeed singular. A most unforeseen occurrence.'

'D'you reckon Cap'n Hughes suddenly remembered summat he'd left behind in Bermuda?'

Dido sighed, remembering how many months she had already been away from her family and friends in Battersea, London. Her family were not particularly lovable indeed her mother and elder sister had often been extremely unkind to Dido, and her father, though he could be larky when the spirit took him, frequently forgot his younger daughter for weeks on end. But still, she wanted to see them again, if only to tell her adventures how she had been all round the world on a whaler, and had helped rescue a girl called Dutiful Penitence from a wicked aunt who turned out to be no aunt at all but a Hanoverian rebel, planning to blow up St James's Palace with a long-range cannon.

There was also a friend of Dido's called Simon whom she wanted to see very much indeed.

'Maybe Cap'n Hughes just slipped a mite off course,' she suggested hopefully.

But the Thrush sailed on, along her new course; the moon, now large and pink as a peony, remained obstinately on the right-hand side, casting a pearly path over the dark water.

'I will take these below,' said Mr Holystone. 'It may be that I can discover what has caused the change.'

His cat, El Dorado, who had come on deck with her master, stretched elaborately, first her front paws, then her back.

'Come on, Dora,' said Dido. 'Let's us go too, and find out what's happening.'

She picked up the copper-coloured cat. Dora's immensely long tail instantly went twice round Dido's neck.

The big three-masted man-o'-war was breasting large Atlantic waves; the deck rose, dipped, and rolled from side to side in a long continuous cork-s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g glide. But Dido crossed it with practised ease, making for the captain's companionway. As she pa.s.sed them, several sailors nodded to her in a friendly manner, but they did not speak. Captain Hughes was a strict disciplinarian. One or two of the mids.h.i.+pmen gave her cautious grins. A man called Silver Taffy, on account of his impressive, s.h.i.+ning, hall-marked dentures, cast a malevolent look at both Dido and the cat, making a figure eight with fingers and thumbs as he spat over the side.

'Pair o' Jonahs!' he muttered as Dido pa.s.sed him. 'I know what I'd do if I had charge o' this vessel.'

Dido scowled at him. He had been one of the crew aboard Queen Ettarde, the vanquished pirate s.h.i.+p, and had elected to become a member of the Thrush's crew rather than go to jail in Bermuda. He'll bar watching, Dido thought, as she climbed down the companion ladder. I'd as soon not run across him on a dark night.

She pa.s.sed the door of the officers' wardroom, from which came a strong smell of fried onions and salt pork. The officers except for those on watch were at supper. Dido as she pa.s.sed could hear what they said, for it was very hot below-decks, and the door was braced open.

'Plaguy tedious change of course,' said Mr Windward, the first lieutenant. 'I wanted to get home to Blighty and spend my prize-money. What possessed the captain to turn south?'

'Maybe he had an order?' suggested Bowsprit, the second lieutenant.

'Who gave it? Where the deuce could it have come from?'

'The Admiralty, of course. Where else do orders come from?'

'How did it get here, sapskull?'

'Sealed, maybe,' suggested one of the mids.h.i.+pmen. 'You know: not to be opened till two months out at sea.'

'We'd have heard about it before,' said Lieutenant Windward.

'Not from old Mumchance. He'd not tell you it was Tuesday.'

Dido went on to her own cabin, a tiny box next to the captain's big day-cabin ('So that I can keep an eye on you and see you don't get into trouble,' he had said severely, supervising her removal from a much more comfortable cabin farther off). She took her meals with Mr Holystone in his galley, where he prepared food for the captain. She went to the galley now, and found Mr Holystone thoughtfully paring off thin curls of coconut, and laying them on a silver dish. Captain Hughes was partial to tropical food.

'Here,' said Dido, 'lemme do that.' She took the knife from Mr Holystone, inquiring, in a lower tone, 'What's to do? Cap's up on the quarterdeck walking to and fro looks as pothered as a flying-fish that's forgot how to swim.'

'He had a message.' Mr Holystone gave a stir to a cauldron of shark soup, turned a mutton-ham on its roasting-spit, then began kneading a pan of dough and breaking it into rolls.

'He did have a message? From the Admiralty?'

'No, from Admiral Hollingsworth at Trinidad.'

'How the blazes did it get here?'

'By carrier-pigeon.' Mr Holystone put his rolls in the oven.

'Hey was it that pigeon that Dora nearly caught this morning?'

'There it is.'

Now Dido noticed the same pigeon perched on top of the dish-rack, with its head under its wing. Must be tuckered out, she thought, if it's flown all the way from Trinidad. Wherever that is. 'Best watch Dora don't get it, Mr Holy!'

But the cat El Dorado was engaged in gnawing some shark-sc.r.a.ps on a tin pan which her master had put down for her.

'Lucky Noah Gusset caught the pigeon afore Dora got to it, or Cap'n Hughes'd never have got the message,' Dido remarked.

'And we would have been spared much trouble.'

'Why? What was the message? Did you find out?'

'Si si.' Mr Holystone sometimes absently lapsed into Spanish or Latin. When he was fifteen his adopted father had sent him to be educated at the University of Salamanca, in Spain. He was so fond of learning that he had remained there for ten years. In consequence he knew a great deal about almost everything, and spoke nine languages fluently.

'Talk English, please!' said Dido, who did not.

'Excuse me! Captain Hughes has been instructed to sail down the east coast of Roman America to the port of Tenby, in New c.u.mbria.'

Mr Holystone did not look particularly happy about this change of plan.

'Is that a long way?' asked ignorant Dido.

'I should say so! Two thousand miles, I daresay. We must cross the equator.'

'Two thousand miles?' Dido gasped. 'But I thought we was on our way home, bound for London river.'

Her mouth drooped. Mr Holystone looked at her with sympathy.

'Poor young Miss. It is a sad feeling to be so far from home.'

'Where's your home, Mr Holy?'

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