Pine laughed a half-pitying, half-angry laugh.
“A convict, of course. Who else should it be? They are reeking like bullocks at Smithfield down there. A hundred and eighty men penned into a place fifty feet long, with the air like an oven—what could you expect?”
Poor Blunt stamped his foot.
“It isn't my fault,” he cried. “The soldiers are berthed aft. If the Government will overload these ships, I can't help it.”
“The Government! Ah! The Government! The Government don't sleep, sixty men a-side, in a cabin only six feet high. The Government don't get typhus fever in the tropics, does it?”
“No—but—”
“But what does the Government care, then?”
Blunt wiped his hot forehead.
“Who was the first down?”
“No. 97 berth; ten on the lower tier. John Rex he calls himself.”