Read Online Where The Flag Floats by D C Grant - Free Book Online

commander and the master, all sneering down at us as we made our way through the crowd.
    “What’s going on, Lieutenant?” the commodore asked as we came close.
    “The stowaway was in your cabin again, sir. I went to investigate a disturbance below and thought to check your cabin. I found him with this.” He took the watch out of his pocket and it swung from his finger as it had done from mine, catching the light. I almost reached out to grab it.
    “Master-at-arms,” the commodore called out. “Shackle the boy to the compass stand in front of the wheel where we can see him and I shall deal with him after we have crossed the bar. I’ll not have him disrupting the ship again at such a crucial time. The men need to keep their attention on the sea, not the deck!”
    The Master-at-Arms grabbed me and took a set of shackles out of his belt. I backed away but the lieutenant held me firm, holding out my arm so that the master could put the heavy metal ring around it. My small, bony hand slipped right through it and I thought I was saved, but instead the master ordered a marine to fetch him a length of rope. He wound one end of it around my right wrist, drew my hands together around the stanchion and wound the end around my left wrist. I was tied securely to the stanchion and unable to go anywhere. All I could do was slip my hands up and down the metal, so I slid down to the deck, drew my legs into my chest and lowered my head, unable to look up into the faces of the men, some of whom wished me ill and others who had betrayed me.
    “I hope the commodore hangs you,” said Private Gardner beside me. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since you came aboard. And we all know that stowaways are bad luck. We should have dropped you over the side when we found you.”
    “Thank you, Private Gardner, you may return to your post,” Lieutenant Amphlett said sternly as he returned the watch to his coat pocket and spun away.
    The men returned to their positions and I was ignored as they again prepared for the crossing. I shivered as I sat there, filled with dread and pain. The rough handling I had received had opened up some of the wounds on my back, and I could feel blood running down my spine. My breathing was laboured as I struggled to recover after the pursuit over the deck.
    I bowed my head so that the men could not see my tears. I had failed to fulfill my mother’s dying wishes, her grave would remain unmarked and I would be charged with mutiny and left hanging at the end of a rope. I was in despair, my heart filled with sorrow and my body trembling in fear.
    At that time, I truly wished I had died with my mother.
     

 
    1.00pm
    I lifted my head at the snap of raised voices above and behind me. The commodore, the commander and the master, Mr Strong, were talking animatedly over a chart that fluttered in the wind.
    “We need to follow Mr Veitch’s instructions,” Mr Strong was saying. His hand lay flat across the chart as he traced the route. “You see, it will take us half a point further to the north than that indicated by Mr Drury’s chart, but you can see that Mr Veitch’s instructions are dated 11 th October 1861. It post dates Mr Drury’s chart by nine years.”
    “But Drury’s chart is provided by the admiralty,” the commodore said.
    “There has been a history of the bank moving to the north,” Mr Strong said. “That is why the chart was amended.”
    The commodore stared forward to the stretch of water in front of them and glanced down at the chart as if confirming what he saw there.
    “It says here that that promontory there called ...” He looked down at the chart again. “… Nine Pin Rock should be in line with the southern end of the headland there.”
    “But look at the line I’ve drawn using Mr Veitch’s instructions, which say that Nine Pin Rock should have about twice its base open.”
    “But that will take us a quarter of a mile to the north of Drury’s line,” the commodore protested.