Of course, one cannot be always brooding on mysterious fairy godmothers. And Jones was growing rather big to be so pre-occupied. There were more exciting things to think about; imaginary countries to conquer with Ned, play-fights, pretend battles and (it has to be admitted) rather frequent arguments. Jonesy had as much tact as a proverbial bull in a china shop, and the worst of it was, even if he'd given the offence, he often beat the outraged boy in question. It was the way he fought. No one likes to argue with someone whose preferred method of fighting is with teeth, fists, feet, and, if very unlucky, Jonesy's head. Ned didn't argue much, though. Having your head repeatedly smashed into the deck can do that to you – and Jones as a friend was far better than Jones as an enemy.

The only people Jonesy couldn't argue with were Wyvern and Squint-Eyed Joshy.

We must take a few moments to sketch out Squint-Eyed Joshy first, as Jonesy's childhood nemesis and sworn enemy. Any villain he and Ned played always imitated Joshy's swooping sarcasm, his cold, clipped, Eton-educated English that sat smugly on his sentences and made a simple command sound like a drawling sneer.

Joshua Clement St-John was his full name. At sixteen he was already hopefully jockeying for a position in the Navy proper; as a lieutenant, perhaps, once he bout a commission from home. He had relatives in the Admiralty office, it was rumoured. That was why he had such a comfortable post as midshipman; he hadn't had to study, or work for it. He'd just had to ask. He had cold, pale blue eyes that glinted like a blonde crocodile's below his cockaded hat – watching, waiting. And he was the bane of the powder monkey's lives, because he was bored, and making people's lives a misery was, for now, what he did.

Jonesy was already disposed to cordially loathe him for being as viciously upper class English as he could manage. Even had Joshua been the most amiable creature in the world, the resentment curdled by that unknown destruction of his past had soured Davy irrevocably where English gentlemen were concerned. But as it was…

'By God, a peat-bog cur! What is it, Bonny Prince Charlie? A clamouring Jacobite dog, is it? Get back to your herrings! And – I'm talking to you, Jock-'

This was normally coupled by a bone-splintering push of one hand, forcing Jonesy to his knees, so all he could see were the eyes staring boredly out from Joshy's narrow, pale weasel-face. 'Let me so much as see you look at me like that again, and I'll damn well make you eat my boots as well as polish them. Do we understand each other?'

Jonesy had nodded, reluctantly, at the time. What else was there to do? But later, in the safety of the messroom with only Wyvern and Ned for company, he had exploded.

'You can't do nothing, y'know,' Wyvern had said tiredly. 'He's midshipman, Jonesy. An officer. That's why I wanted yer ter get a bit o' education. Once you move up to being above 'im, you'll be away from bastards like that. You could make loblolly boy, if you're smart. Maybe lieutenant in a merchant way…'

'I dinnae WANT tae be lieutenant!' Jonesy howled. 'I'm goin' tae be Captain, one day, and then we'll see whae's kneeling then…'

'Oh yeah? When the moon turns to green cheese, an' all.' Wyvern said calmly, utterly unmoved by Jonesy's hysteria. 'Look, Jonesy, yer're as likely ter make Captain as I am, as you are. Even if you became… oh, I dunno – the most brilliant of the best, without a bit of education and a smidgeon of Latin you're nothing to the Navy. Only way you get anythin' else is outside the law, an'…'

Jonesy scrubbed his dirty sleeve furiously over his face. 'An' then whae?'

'Hangin', generally. Dancing the Tyburn Morris.'

'Bet Joshy goes that way,' Ned said sulkily. 'He elbowed me in the face 'cause I wouldn't try and nab some of the quartermaster's baccy for him. Well, said I wouldn't. Don't pay to be brave with him. On your own, that is.'

Wyvern looked at them both severely. 'Don't you go gettin' any ideas now! Jonesy – are you listenin' to me?'

Davy was staring fixedly at the wall, mustering something unintelligible under his breath. 'We'll see who he calls Davy dumplin' when I get tae be –'

'Jonesy!' Wyvern cuffed his protégé's head roughly to get his attention. 'You listen to me when I'm talking to you! Now – both of you, if I hear any nonsense about you tryin' to tackle him together, I'll raise my hand to both of you, and that's a promise! You've got enough to do hidin' that bloody thing in the bilges without getting Joshy's back up. He'll be moving on soon. Once he's gone you can crow all you like.'

'Nae the same.' Jonesy looked up, with an accusing glance at Wyvern. 'Ye knae it's nae the same, Wyvern. Ye saw whae he did tae Mealy because he stuttered-'

'You saw what happened to Mealy when he talked back smart, Jonesy. You want to have your skin flayed, no business of mine.' Wyvern said coldly. 'But I won't hear a word more of it, you understand? Little better 'n mutiny, and we could all be dancing the Tyburn Morris for that one. Understand? Let it lie. Wait.'

'But-'

'He's too big a fish, Jonesy.' Ned said dully, catching Wyvern's meaning in the anxious, wrinkled face. 'That's what he's saying. We're sprats, is all.'

'No we're bluidy well not!'

'Watch your language!' Wyvern said sharply. 'Boys that swear go to a bad place!'

'Ye can't frighten me wi' that any muir,' Jonesy said recklessly. 'I'm nae a sprat – I'm goin' tae be a Captain when I grow up! The Pretty Lady told me!'

'Oh yes. Your Christmas Fairy.' Wyvern said wearily. 'For God's sake, when did you last see your Pretty Lady, Jonesy? Three years ago? Doesn't that make you think she might not have ever been there at all? Why, she doesn't even have a name!'

'Yes she DOES!!!'

Ned winced. 'Don't.' he begged. 'Wyvern, don't. Jonesy gets awful mad when you mention that. Please, Wyvern…'

'She has a name! She has, she has, she has! Ye're as bad as Joshy! Ye think I'm a liar!'

'She got a name then?' Wyvern folded his arms, an odd gleam in his eye. 'There are odd things in these waters, Jonesy. You'll tell me – what's her name? What's your pretty lady's name?'

Jonesy went quiet. Frighteningly so for Ned, who was nervously testing a discarded belaying-pin in case he had to break up a fight. But Wyvern knew the boy; another moment and-

The small shoulders slumped inwards. Jonesy had given in.

'It's… somethin' beginnin' with a C,' h said, blankly. 'Dinnae really… it sounded sorta… pretty. Foreign. I dinnae knae…'

'Try an' remember.' Wyvern said coolly. 'Now.'

Jones' face curdled into an agony of indecision. 'I cannae really say. Whae if she doesnae come because I've told ye whae her name is?' he said worriedly. 'C-Ca…'

'Catherine? Catrin?' Wyvern suggested. 'Carrie? Cassandra?'

'Cal…Calee…' The words came reluctantly from Jonesy.

'Callie?' Ned said, puzzled. 'That's pretty, but...'

'Nae! There's more, there's more!' Jonesy said urgently, trying to remember. 'There is! Callieee…' he dragged it out, trying to remember the last part. 'Calisto or somethin'… '

A small gasp from Wyvern. Both Jonesy and Ned turned curiously towards him; but they must have been mistaken. Wyvern seemed to be staring fixedly at the galley fire, his face averted as though he was hardly paying attention to either of them.

'Not… Calypso, was it?' he enquired, his voice casual. It very nearly completely disguised the tremble in it. 'That wasn't the name, was it Davy boy?'

Jones' face broke into a scarcely believing, awed look. 'Ye knae her?!'

'Of her. Know of her.' Wyvern said levelly. 'Oh yes, I've heard of Calypso, alright. And she's your pretty lady, is she?'

'Oh, yes!' The thunderclouds fled from 'Davy boy's' spoon-shaped face as if by magic. 'She's the bestest, bestest pretty lady ever! An' she's goin' tae come wi' me and Ned when we're grown up and be our mammy! Isnae she, Ned?'

Ned shuffled his boots, suddenly aware of Wyvern's gaze boring into his skull. 'Something like that…' he mumbled, embarrassedly. 'When we're grown up.'

Perhaps all lonely boy-children dream of kindly mother-figures, but only a very few dream of mothers quite like Calypso. A very, very few. Wyvern hardly knew whether the boy was cracked, blessed, or eternally damned, but as he opened his mouth to cry out a tirade of old superstitions, the real rumours about her to Jonesy – he saw the sad, almost pleading look in the electric, bright-blue eye. And closed his mouth again. The 'pretty lady' was his dream, wasn't she?

But God, being chosen by the sea like that… Wyvern thought of Jenny, who was now swimming around a small rum cask, having outgrown her jar, and shuddered. What had he done? How had Jonesy, poor mite, ended up exposed to this? Was there any way to save him? Wyvern hardly knew what from; his thoughts swung wildly from one point to the next. But it explained the unnatural nature of the beast, and Jonesy… and Jonesy's strangeness. It was only to be expected, Wyvern supposed. Dabbling in the affairs of goddesses. But then again, if Jonesy was in danger…

There was only one way to tell. And the worst of it was, Wyvern was terrified of taking the only course that might help to protect Jonesy from the danger…

'No!'

'For God's sake, this is important!'

Wyvern knew only one man aboard the Dunfermline who had had dealings with… with Them. Jenks was supposedly straight, for all the P, with its tight, pale-pink skin where the brand had left its mark on his forehead. Jenks, however, was twitchy as a rodent, and his eyes rolled back in his head when Wyvern hissed out a few tentative questions.

'Never on this earth, Wyvern! I ain't goin' back there!' he breathed, shaking his head. 'I'm straight, I tell yer! I'm straight! I risked hangin' once before and I ain't of a mind to do it again! ' He peered suspiciously at Wyvern. 'Why'd you want to know, anyway? What've you got to do with Them for?' He grinned. 'Thinking of turnin' pirate, Wyvern?'

'Don't be a bloody fool!' Wyvern hissed low and venomous. 'I'm askin', man, because one o' the little lads thinks he saw Her, and of the two of 'em I'd take Them any day! You understand? The whole ship could be in danger!'

Jenk's face went white. 'We're comin' into Kingston now, though…' he said, through pinched lips. 'We're near land, ain't we? She can't get at us…'

'We'll have to go out again sometime, won't we? And she'll get at the poor little mite.' Wyvern said grimly. 'Seen Her three times already.'

Jenks looked up. 'Ah, I get it. It's that Jonah of a Jacobite boy ain't it? Jonesy. The little runt. There's an easy way to deal with that, Wyvern. What always happens to Jonahs…'

'We ain't killin' him!' Wyvern said sharply. 'You give me the sign, Jenks. Come on, I know you have it.'

'You ain't pirate. You know what They do to swabs who find Shipwreck Cove? Who ain't part of the Court?'

'I don't care. They'll listen ter me if I tell 'em about Her. And what She's given the boy…'

The conversation might have lasted hours; Jenks was a weasel who only served himself. But anything else Wyvern might have said was drowned in a horrible, high-pitched scream from below…

It shattered Jenk's nerve. 'Here!' he hissed, terrified. 'I'll give it yer, I'll give it yer! She's started already!'

He thrust into Wyvern's hand a scrap of pasteboard. At first glance it looked like a playing card, bent and mildewed by age. But it was no card that you'd ever see in anything other than the Devil's pack – a picture of a leering skeleton holding a pitchfork danced on a blood-red background. On the other side was a few scrawled co-ordinates.

Wyvern smiled, grimly. It was what he'd been bargaining for. But the screams had mounted in pitch, and amongst them was a small, shrill little voice from the Hebrides…

'Kill him! Kill him!'

'Jonesy! Let him go!'

'Nae way on this earth! He deserves it!'

'Get the – the thing off him!'

'Jenny's doing whae she does best! Go on! Kill him! Poke his eyes out! Drain the bluid frae him!'

'It's murder!'

'I dinnae care!'

A little explanation is needed here. Jonesy had not been idle whilst Wyvern was away. Or rather, he had not been nearly idle enough to notice Joshy's stealthy approach. He and Ned had been seriously kneeling next to Jenny's rum cask, playing at dropping in pieces of steak. It was pilfered steak, intended for the captain's delicate stomach, but Ned had swiped a bit, and Jenny ate anything you put into the cask. She was grown quite fat now; although she was not a bit complacent. Her beady brown eyes stared out at the world with every bit as much cephalopodan malevolence as she had had when she was a mewling tadpole of a thing. Jonesy liked the noises she made. They were vaguely kitten-like; if kittens were rubbery and made organically unpleasant noises like a pit full of bubbling slime when content.

Joshy disliked Davy on principle for being small and Scottish. That was the basis of his tormenting. And finding out about 'Jenny' was a delight for any opportunistic bully.

'Oh dear. Dearie, dearie me.' He drawled. 'What have you done?'

Ned went chalk-white. 'Jonesy…'

Davy didn't move. He sat stonily by his cask, staring fixedly at Jenny swimming peaceably around, and clamped his mouth shut.

'Talking to you, Davy Dumpling!' Joshy kicked him, casually, in the stomach, and then nudged him sideways with a prod of his boot. 'What is that? No – I don't need to ask, do I? A disgusting slimy thing for a little slug of a Jacobite. Like it, do you? Fattening it up for Christmas? I expect you people eat whatever you can dig up from under rocks. Davy, Davy dumpling, boil him in a pot!'

Jonesy's mouth thinned into a thin pink slit. He still said nothing. And perhaps Joshy might have simply kicked over the rum-cask and had done with it. But by bad luck, the words of the mocking song suggested something evil that made the corners of his arrogant English mouth turn up in anticipation.

'It's fat enough now, isn't it?' he said, almost pleasantly – then viciously seized the rum cask from the floor, throwing it about so the water slopped out. 'What a good idea! Aren't you a little bit… hungry, eh Jock? Why don't we… boil your little slug-pet in a pot?'

That brought life into Jones' electric blue eyes. 'Nae!' he squealed, horrified, jumping up from his knees. 'Joshy-'

'Ah, you agree! Sugar it and butter it and eat it while it's hot!' Joshy was already strolling casually towards the galley, tipping the cask towards the cook's pot. 'We can soon build up the fire, Dumpling. Think it'll scream as it cooks?'

'Joshy, that's not fair!' Ned wailed, running forward with clenched fists. 'That's not fair!'

'So? Who said anything was fair? I'm stuck here on this bog-hole of a ship, with muck-rakers like you. Life isn't fair. You're going to watch it burn, Jonesy. And that'll teach you to go howling to the men. Won't it? And then you're going to eat your little pet-'

Too far. Ned had seen a muscle twitch beneath Jonesy's eye a fraction of a second before he leapt like a tiger, all fists and feet, towards Joshy. Jenny must have already felt the heat from the cooking pot a few inches from her cask; she was squealing unhappily at the change in temperature.

Perhaps Joshy didn't think a penny-sized thing like Jonesy could hurt him; or perhaps it was just the shock of Jonesy doing something so stupid; but whatever it was, he froze as Jonesy jumped towards him and fell through the air screaming…

The collision was awful. Ned felt the dull thud of them hit the deck as Jones and Joshy sprawled backwards, Joshy's fine coat landing in the muck of the ash-heap from the fire. He rose covered in ashes, cracking his knuckles with the air of a contemplative Lucifer.

'You're going to pay for that-'

'Agh!' Jonesy had punched him squarely in the jaw, with a shriek of effort, and Joshy stumbled- but with enough time to seize a fistful of Davy's hair and haul on it viciously, so they collapsed together into an outright brawl.

Ned was horrified. On one hand, Davy was grimly holding his own, despite being half Joshy's size. But Joshy was quickly gaining the upper hand, smashing Jones against the deck as though trying to leave nothing but a smear to show where he's been…

Ned was frightened of Joshy. But when it came to it…

'Let him go, you bastard!' Ned flung himself in, only to be knocked aside by a well-placed elbow. 'Leave him alone! You… watch out!'

Jenny had not been idle, either. Her rum cask had been knocked to the floor, the water was all running out, and Jenny, whilst still damp, was hot, irate, and bewildered. And a bewildered Kraken quickly becomes an angry one. Kraken's don't have ears, you see, although they are something like the bats of the ocean. They sense things by vibration. Jenny could tell where her Master was; and by the agitated movements of the air, the Master was in trouble…

Jenny reacted in the only way she knew how.

'Kill him! Kill him!'

'Jonesy! Let him go!'

'Nae way on this earth! He deserves it!'

'Get the – the thing off him!'

'Jenny's doing whae she does best! Go on! Kill him! Poke his eyes out! Drain the bluid frae him!'

'It's murder!'

'I dinnae care!'

Jenny had slithered onto Joshy's face and stayed there.

When Wyvern got there, Joshy was twitching in what looked horribly like final death throes, and Jonesy, oblivious to any of the awful tell-tale signs (or perhaps, which was worse, unrepentantly glad Joshy looked to be dying) was nudging him with the toe of his shoe. Ned had turned faintly green.

'We didn't mean to-' he said, in the voice of a sleepwalker. 'We didn't mean to-'

'Mean to!'

Wyvern lashed out at the thing, sitting so smugly there, swollen purple and pulsing with an air of sly triumph. Davy let out a shrill cry of reproach; it was almost a form of betrayal, Wyvern trying to kick Jenny…

Jenny recoiled, hissing, and slithered reluctantly from the boy's head. Very reluctantly.

Ned saw the mess that was left first. The green colour paled, going chalk-white; trembling, he made a dash for the latrine bucket.

He almost made it. That added a fresh element of nightmare to the scene - that awful sound of retching.

Jonesy's face also went slightly green, around the edges. But that, and a slight trembling of his fingers, was the only sign that what had once been Joshua Clement St John's face affected him at all. Jenny was squirming round his feet, keening; the short, sharp squeaks of a small animal wanting to be coddled. He picked her up without a word and stared at Wyvern.

'He deid?'

Wyvern edged closer, stomach churning. Joshy's face was black. Completely black, all over, as though someone had exchanged his head for a black pudding. Mercifully, he still had his eyes; Wyvern had at first feared that the creature had eaten them. One blue eye squinted from a face so shiny and tight it seemed the very blackened skin might explode beneath the pressure if he tried to speak. There were livid purple ring marks, quickly turning black, on his neck. But the face seemed wrong, awful in another way…

'What have you done, Davy boy?' Wyvern moaned, clutching his grizzled head between his hands. 'Murder! Look at him! Look at him!!!'

Joshy had no nose. Jenny's circle of needle sharp teeth had closed on that. All that was left was a torn lump of flesh, shorn cleanly as though with a blade, so all there was were two awful violet holes in the centre of something that had, once, perhaps been human.

Jonesy didn't want to look. He squeezed his eyes shut, rocking Jenny, and turned his face away. 'He tried tae kill Jenny, Wyvern.' He said, in a voice the size of a mouse. 'He tried tae kill Jenny…'

'Well, Jenny did a better job when she tried to kill him, didn't she?' There was a circle of appalled bearded faces appearing now. Only a matter of time before the captain came down huffing and blowing like an irritated walrus. Wyvern spoke grimly. 'You could be hung for this. If he dies… let alone if he don't.' Joshy's pupils dilated. Choking back a cry that seemed to split the corners of his mouth, he tried to rise from the floor. 'God's bones, the boy's alive!'

Jenks' face was an awful picture. 'That's a Kraken!!!' he said, in a shaky whisper. 'The sea-devil's own sign! Her creature! That's her, Wyvern! That's her!'

A ripple of superstitious mutters went through the silent crowd. Wyvern abstractedly tried to raise Joshy, wincing under the boy's lolling weight. 'There, boy, there…For Christ's sake, someone help, can't you?' he snarled.

A burly swab shame-facedly helped Wyvern away, and out of the circle. It was just Jonesy and Ned now, in the middle of a deadly silence. The ring of faces was as blank as a sheet of steel; nothing escaped it.

Jonesy looked pathetically small in the middle of it, frantically rocking his small pet. He was murmuring something shrilly under his breath that sounded very much like 'Sir Patrick Spens'.

'We didn't mean tae,' he said forlornly. 'Jenny didnae mean tae. It was my fault, nae hers…'

'Mhmm…? What is the… mhmm… meaning of this?'

Ned crawled over from the latrine bucket, pulling off his cap with weak fingers. The mumbling meant only one thing; the arrival of 'Ninny' Nicholson.

Now, Captain Nicholson was not a bad man. Not spectacularly good, especially when it came to dodging certain regulations that the Excise-men set regarding brandy and the like, and its taxes. But on the whole a mild-mannered, reasonable man, with a weakness for cheap gin and expensively dressed mutton, and a developing podgy stomach. Not, on the whole, very well equipped to deal with the matter in hand.

Jonesy looked upwards into a face pouched with fat and slightly bleary from drink, and curled inwards, almost, defensively. Like a little snail into his shell. 'Ninny' Nicholson was 'small'. Not 'skeely' at all, with his ghost of an apothecary who followed him like an emaciated fanatic, forever measuring out powders and physics and potions. Captains didn't get sick, or tired. They didn't in a perfect world.

Ned heroically tried to explain before his 'captain' said something incriminating. Loyalty to Davy came first before all things.

'Itwasn'tJones'faultsir –itwasmineandMisterClementStJohnstartedtroublefirst –' Ned sucked in a great breath to carry on-

'Mr … Maccus! Mhmm… that will do… sir!' Nicholson frowned at the pale freckled face. 'Did not….mhmm, mhmm… ask you, boy. Impertinence…mhmm… will not be… mhmm….' A vague look crossed the captain's face.' What's that word again, Carker?'

'Possibly… tolerated, sir?' the physician returned respectfully, although eying Ned with some faint concern. 'I think, sir, with the deepest respect… young Mr Maccus needs some poppy syrup. And Mr Clement St John requires my urgent attention…'

'Oh, to the devil with… mhmm…him!' Nicholson retorted petulantly. 'You're my physician, aren't you? Advise me, man, advise me! Now…where was I, eh what?'

Something in the seven-year old Jones' soul ground its teeth and stamped on the floor. Skeely skippers and adventurers did not lose the thread of conversations and look vacantly around like that. That was the sign of a small captain. A weak captain. A poor, mean-minded little captain.

'It wasnae Maccus.' Davy said bluntly, staring upwards with an air of stoic defiance. 'It was me. I did it. Are ye goin' tae hang me now?'

Nicholson's eyes popped. 'Are you …mhmm…addressing me…. Boy?! I could mhmm…mhmf…have you hanged for just speaking to me with such studied insolence. Eh, Carker?'

'I… what, sir?' Carker's eyes had snagged on the thing in Jones' arms. He stared at it greedily. 'My… God! Where did you get that, boy?'

Davy looked down, clutching Jenny a little more defensively. 'Whae, Jenny?'

' It's… it's… do you know what that is?' Mr Carker was a pale, tale man, with colourless eyes that looked eerily dead in his thin slash of a face. He appeared to be strangling himself with his own cravat through sheer excitement. 'Genus Architeuthis! An immature specimen, clearly, but… Good grief!'

'Whae? Jenny's nae a genie architect-y thing,' Jonesy said uneasily. Affairs were taking an unexpected turn. 'She's my pet-'

'She's a monster!'

There was a ragged chorus of agreement from the crew.

'It's a simple defence mechanism,' Carker retorted, unexpectedly. 'The unfortunate boy clearly threatened the creature's environment, simple as that. The venom is not lethal, and although his wounds are …unfortunate, this is a scientific phenomenon…'

'Creature's got to…mhmmm… go, Carker.' Nicholson wheezed. 'Dangerous, clearly…'

'NO!!!'

'No, sir!' Carker looked almost as devastated as Jones. 'In the interests of the naturalist, sir, I really must protest-!'

'Protest all you…mhmmm…like. Can have it in a…mhmm…pickle jar…if you like.' Nicholson flapped one pudgy hand. 'For your naturalist's society, what-do-you-call-em thing. I…mhmmmf… not interested in the thing…'

'Pickle her!' Davy repeated, shrilly. 'Ye're goin' tae pickle Jenny!'

'You…mhmmf… Mister Jones, are… in deep…waters as it is.' Nicholson coughed irritably into his handkerchief. 'Now, you have two choices; you can let …mhmmf... Mr Carker here pickle your creature, where it will sit in a jar on his desk, or you can kill the thing yourself, mhmmmf. Up to you, boy.'

Carker vanished from the crowd, averting his eyes. Nicholson was a petulant bully. This was more because the attention was not solely focused on himself, for once, and his dratted ailments. The boy was almost weeping, poor soul. A naturalist like myself, then, he thought charitably. Poor Highland imp, trapped in his little cycle of poverty…

'I'll do it.' Jonesy said dully. 'I knae her.'

'Please yourself…mhmmmf….' Nicholson coughed theatrically again, and looked about. 'What are you gawking… mhmmf…at, men? We're nearing Kingston soon… Back to work!'

Ned, forgotten in his corner, wobbled weakly over to Jones as the men grumbled away back to their stations, leaving his friend sat blankly on the boards clutching his pet. Jonesy seemed to have sagged sideways as they'd left. No collapse – just a sort of limp melting onto his knees.

'Jonesy?'

Davy was staring at the wall with glassy eyes.

'Jonesy?'

Ned sniffled. 'How you goin' to do it?' he asked, matter-of-factly. 'Cap'n.' Ned retreated into fantasy when the real world became too intrusive. Besides, Jonesy had more than enough childish command to seem like a real Captain.

'He was goin' tae pickle her like an onion…'

'Yeah? But we saved her.' Ned said hopefully. 'Saved Jenny from the apothecary-man and from Jo-' he stopped, abruptly. 'Can't we save her again? Just drop her into the sea and let her go?'

'No!' Jonesy snapped. 'I'm supposed tae look after her! The Pretty Lady said I was tae- Oh…'

'Oh?'

A steely look had crossed Jonesy's small round pudding-face, making it suddenly grow hard; all the angles of a seven-year-old head going sharper, more emphasised...

'I got an idea, Ned…'

'Boat loose!'

Wyvern emerged heavy-eyed from the infirmary, rubbing his tired lids. Joshy had been in an awful mess. Carker had managed to take some of the awful blackened swelling out of his face by making a cut, but the sight of the violet venomous pus spurting out would haunt Wyvern for a long time to come. Poor Jonesy, though. He would be devastated. But, in the long run… Calypso would now lose interest in him…

'Boat loose?' he echoed, a horrible feeling stabbing into his stomach.

'Jollyboat gone – ropes must have perished, or…' Jenks looked at Wyvern pityingly. 'There's a couple of lads gone. One of them your daft Scotch one.'

'No!'

'Yes – and you know what'll happen if they're caught. Deserting. This will be a hanging matter now…'