“I should like very much to have my friend Tom Stevens and the sailor named Dimchurch; they are both good hands in their way, and were very friendly with me before I got promoted.”
“All right! there will no difficulty about that; we shall want a boy to act as our servant, and one able seaman is as good as another. I have noticed Dimchurch; he is a fine active hand, and I will appoint him boatswain.”
Great was the pride of Will as the prize crew rowed from [pg 83]the Furious to the Moorish galley of which he was to be second in command, but he could not help bursting out laughing as he went down with Forster into the cabin.
“What are you laughing at?” Forster asked.
“I was having a bit of a laugh at the thought of the change that has come over my position. Not that I am conceited about it, but it all seems so strange that I should be here and second in command.”
“No doubt it does,” laughed Forster, “but you will soon get accustomed to it. It is almost as strange for me, for it is the first time that I have been in command. I have brought a chart on board with me. Our course is north-north-east, and the distance is between two and three hundred miles. In any decent part of the world we should do it in a couple of days, but with these baffling winds we may take a week or more. Well, I don’t much care how long we are; it will be a luxury to be one’s own master for a bit.”
The first step was to divide the crew into two watches.
“I am entitled not to keep a watch,” Forster said, “but I shall certainly waive the privilege. We will take a watch each.”
Tom Stevens was appointed cabin servant, and one of the men was made cook; nine of the others were told off to each watch.
“I wish she hadn’t all those prisoners on board,” Forster said. “They will be a constant source of anxiety. There are over fifty of them, and as hang-dog scoundrels as one would wish to see. We shall have to keep a sharp look-out on them, to make sure that they don’t get a ghost of a chance of coming up on deck, for if they did they would not think twice about cutting our throats.”