Read Online The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3) by J.A. Sutherland - Free Book Online

that spoke to many visits.
    He was hunched over, still in his sweat-soaked underthings but wrapped in the blanket, hair disheveled from his suit helmet, and hugging his knees.
    Alexis eased herself out of the tunnel and cleared a space amongst the crinkly wrappers. She rested her own back against the vat, knees drawn up so as not to encroach too much on Artley’s space, and was silent for a time.
    “Mister Artley,” she prompted finally.
    Artley simply hugged his legs to him more firmly and buried his face in his knees.
    Alexis frowned. She was sorry for the boy, but this was still the Navy and such behavior wasn’t tolerated. Artley faced a hard decision, and harder work if he chose to stay aboard and not resign his place.
    “In another ship, with another officer, Mister Artley, such dumb insolence would find you sent to seek out Mister Huben and put to kissing the gunner’s daughter.”
    The ship’s gunner was tasked with discipline of the younger midshipmen. In addition to mastheading, being sent to the very top of the ship’s mast and left there for an entire watch, if the offense were grievous enough, they’d find themselves bent over one of the ship’s guns and thrashed. Nothing like the floggings the crew faced, but threat enough for a young midshipman.
    Artley raised his face and Alexis saw the tears. “I’m sorry, sir.”
    “No. No, I’m the one who’s to apologize, Artley.” She sighed. “Not for the meaning of what I said, mind you, but the way it was uttered and that you heard it the way you did.” She met his eyes and saw fresh tears, but went on. “I should have spoken to you long before this.”
    Part of her wanted to blame Eades and his damnable lessons, but the fact was that Artley had become her responsibility when he’d joined her division and she’d failed to pay as much attention to the boy as she should. Eades might cause her to have less time, but it was up to her to still perform her duties — one of which was to see to the midshipmen who reported to her. She’d just been lucky with Walborn and Blackmer, that they were experienced and required little in the way of her time.
    “What prompted you to join the Navy, Mister Artley? What did you hope to find here?”
    “I don’t know, sir.”
    “I’d expect such an answer from a new hand, half drunk and the other half addled by the Press’ cosh, Mister Artley, but young gentlemen do not arrive aboard in that condition. I may reasonably expect that you were both conscious and sober when you came aboard Shrewsbury and can make some account of the circumstances. Please do.”
    “I truly don’t know why I’m here, sir,” Artley said, looking, if possible, even more miserable. “I never thought to join the Navy … I always thought that I’d work in my Da’s shop. That’s what he always said to me.”
    Artley was silent for a time and Alexis prompted, “The circumstances of coming aboard Shrewsbury , Mister Artley?”
    He nodded. “I woke one morning and my Da … not my real Da, he died a year or more ago, but the man my mum took up with, you understand? He said I should call him Da, too, though I didn’t want to.” He paused again and Alexis nodded for him to continue. “Well, he woke me and said I was off to someplace that would make a man of me. Mum was all crying and carrying on, and I thought I was being sent away to school. Da … the man Mum married … well, he took me off with not a thing packed and then he sent me aboard a shuttle with a Navy captain. First I heard of being in the Navy was when we reached his ship and he showed me a chest and bag he said were my things. He had me put on a midshipman’s uniform and next I knew I was back in a boat and on my way to Shrewsbury … and barely an hour aboard here before we were making way for the transition point and Lieutenant Slawson was shoving me out the hatch onto the hull and demanding I name for him all these parts of a ship I’d never seen