It’s been like after rounding the cape two weeks ago, the gigantic wooden ship sits atop a deathly flat sea. Unbearable heat every day. There’s air con in the officers cabin but not in the hull where the hundreds and hundreds of press-ganged crew work the oars all day long. Taking my shifts down there, making sure the drum-beater keeps constant, is getting difficult.
There’s still a fair amount of them who believe we actually have a destination, and are moving toward it, but the more worldly of them, with their waistcoats hanging slack and open, their powdered wigs much the worse for wear, realise the pointlessness and have begun to let show a look in their eyes of mutiny and murderousness.