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I began to see the nature of the employment which the Turk was offering me.

At this point, I believe I could have turned and run. Instead I asked, 'Where is she bound?'

'Nobody knows. Do you come willingly?'

I had my dagger as well as my pike, and knew I could outrun this heavy man. But run to where? Back to a stinking basement in Southwark? Into a noose? I did not doubt that the Turk would cry 'Murderer!' to collect whatever reward might be going. My imagination saw my head perched on a pole, flies buzzing in every orifice. In any case, I had come to find my way in the world, not become a fugitive or a beggar. And there was a strange allure about this magnificent ship, the sharp commands of the officers reaching us from the deck, the smells and the bustle, and the mystery of the lands that it might visit and which I would never otherwise see outside of Dominie Dinwoodie's pictures. And I thought that, whatever happened, I would have something to eat, and a better place to sleep than a flea-infested basement or a condemned cell in Newgate. 'How long will the voyage last?'

The Turk shrugged. 'I do not know.'

My companions waited. I looked at them, and then again at the ship, and then continued towards it. Michael and the Turk joined me on either side, grinning from ear to ear. I suspected that they might share some small reward for enticing me on board.

'Let them know that I boarded of my own free will as a freeman and was not pressed.'

The Turk nodded happily. Whether he did would depend, I suspected, on the size of his reward.

We joined a short queue of men. A red-faced man was sitting at a barrel on which paper, pen and ink were laid out. Recognition passed between him and the Turk. 'Joining us again, Ferhat?'

'Aye, Mister Twiss.'

'Not even the tavern scum are volunteering. Your experience will be useful. And perhaps we will have better hunting this time.' Mr Twiss looked at me. 'And what minnow is this you have brought along, Ferhat? Your name, boy?'

'James Ogilvie, sir.'

'And what is that?' He eyed my pike curiously.

'I use it for catching fish, sir.'

I could sense the Turk catching his breath.

'This lad's impertinence will see him well flogged before the journey is over,' Mr Twiss said, half-jokingly.

'This is the ship's quartermaster, Scotch. You cannot speak to him that way.'

'He'll learn soon enough,' said Mr Twiss. 'I dare say you are in trouble of some sort.'

I stayed silent, although my heart began to thump in my chest.

'Serious trouble, perhaps?'

Not knowing what to say, I still said nothing. He was looking closely at me.

Then he shrugged. 'No matter here. Do you have sailing experience?'

'No sir.'

'Can you do anything?'

'I can read and write.'

'I meant anything useful.' I believe he was using irony in the Socratic style. 'What is your employment?'

'My father was a farmer.'

'Aha! Why did you not say so? We will have livestock on board presently. You can look after it.'

He wrote my name on a sheet of paper. 'You are now on the Queen's list for the duration of the voyage. The penalty for desertion is death. Find a berth and then help with the loading. Do not idle. We have a morning tide to catch.'

I felt a tremendous surge of excitement and relief.

On deck, a chain of men was coming in and out of an open hatch. I followed the Turk, clambering awkwardly down steep wooden steps. Then there were more steps and a long, gloomy corridor.

'The ship will become crowded,' the Turk predicted. 'Let the others sleep between the cannon, as cannon there will surely be.' The corridor opened into a large, low room. I had to duck my head to avoid hitting it on the beams. Long, narrow nets were strung between these beams. 'Choose a hammock and put your things on it.' I dropped satchel, pike and jacket on one of the nets and rejoined the circulating procession of men on the deck.

I spent the morning with the other mariners, rough-looking men, all of them, rolling huge barrels of water and beer into a net suspended from a wooden crane. A team of men heaved this great weight into the air and swung it round so that the heavy barrels could be lowered down through a hatch into the dark depths of the ship. I helped with the storage of these great barrels in the gloom of the hold.

By mid-day my muscles were aching and my back was sore. Presently, smoke began to drift up from the depths of the ship, mingling with the smells of tar and sweat which were everywhere, and at the instructions of Mr Twiss we stopped and climbed down broad ladders to a large room with benches and tables. Here the smell of wood-smoke was strong, and came from an adjoining open kitchen. We queued and I was given biscuits and a huge jug of beer. The biscuits turned out to be as hard as rocks. The air was filled with bangs as they were tapped against corners and edges of benches.

'Hunger!' cried the Turk, next to me, waving at a sailor. A small, muscular man, carrying a bowlful of biscuits, grinned and sat down opposite us. 'Still avoiding the pox, then? And keen for more punishment, it seems?'

'Aye,' said the man called Hunger. 'Where do you think we are bound? I surely don't know.' He leaned forward. 'But this is a very small crew for such a large ship.'

The Turk nodded. 'I thought so too. And supplies are meagre. They say Sir Walter Raleigh lies behind this expedition.'

'Tavern rumour,' replied Hunger contemptuously.

'Will you not venture a guess?' The Turk, amazingly, broke a biscuit with his teeth and began to crunch noisily. I drank my beer greedily: the work had been hard and my throat was dry.

Hunger said, 'We'll be in search of Caribbean gold. You'll have seen the gunports - ten of them, enough to put the fear of God into any Spanish captain.'

'Aye, empty gunports. Where are the cannon to fill them? And the gunners to work them? We have scarce enough men on board to unfurl the sails.'

'Which we shall do shortly, I'll wager.' This from another man who had joined us. The smoke was beginning to sting my eyes but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to it. I coughed and drank more beer. I was not used to it and it was beginning to have an effect on me, not an unpleasant one.

'Caribbean gold. I do not doubt it, Mr Chandler,' the Turk agreed. I began to wonder if everyone knew everyone else on this voyage.

'And the
auto-da-fe,
unless the ship is better manned than this.'

^'
Auto-da-fe?'
I asked.

The man looked at me in surprise. 'You do not know of the
auto-da-fe?'

I shook my head, bewildered.

The man threw back his head and laughed. 'And the Turk, no doubt, enticed you on board?'

'I had my reasons for wishing to join the ship and had no need of the Turk to persuade me.'

'Be careful not to offend young Scotch,' the Turk said in a half-joking voice.

Michael joined in with enthusiasm. 'He has a short temper and is capable of extreme violence. I have seen him, with my own eyes, leave three men howling on the ground, trying to push their bowels back in place.'

I chose not to dispute these assertions, thinking that such a reputation might afford some protection amongst my new companions in the days ahead.

'The light loading is a ruse, I'll wager,' said the man called Hunger. 'Intended to confuse Mendoza's spies. I believe we will sail round Portsmouth and take on more men and supplies. Then we'll see.'

Full of curiosity, I asked, 'Mendoza?'

The man called Chandler looked at me. 'What backward people the Scots are. Do you know anything?'

'I know how to cut a throat,' I said.

Chandler looked at me through narrowed eyes. No doubt he was trying to assess how much of my speech was bravado and how much was meant. But he had no time to say more. A squat, burly man was walking amongst the sailors, a short cudgel in his hand. He held it strangely and it was a second before I noticed that he had two fingers missing. His face was so covered with black beard and whiskers that he looked like a furry animal. Now he was standing at our bench. Small, pig-like eyes, hard as rocks, stared at me. 'Finish up and get on with the loading.'

'Aye, Mr Salter.' The tone of humility in the Turk's voice surprised me greatly. Somehow I did not think that my reputation as a fifteen-year-old cutthroat would make much impression on this man.

I cannot describe the magic of the next few days. In response to the harsh commands of Mr Salter, we climbed the rigging and unfurled the sails. From the high masts I could see much of London and even the countryside beyond. Then, as the wind caught the sails, we began to slip along the Thames. The Turk pointed out Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs as we passed, and the river slowly broadened until, by the end of the first day, we seemed to be a mile from the nearest shore. Then a great lantern was lit at the rear of the ship and we sailed on through the dark. It was not long before a sense of nausea overcame me, and to the laughter of the others I had to hurry along a corridor, climb stairs in the dark and find my way to the edge of the ship, where I emptied my stomach into the sea.

On the third day, following shouted instructions from Mr Salter, the ship began to turn towards a large town with an enormous harbour. Rows of pretty white houses and shops stretched away on all sides, and its streets were bustling with people. It happened I was furling a sail, whose name was mysterious to me but which was high enough for the act to cause me some fear, with Hunger and the Turk. 'What town is this?'

'Plymouth, Scotch!'

We were slipping alongside a long quay, heaped with sacks, barrels and other supplies. A few children waved. We drifted past a sailing ship not much smaller than our own. 'The Lyon,' said Hunger in a tone of admiration.

'And the Roebuck,' said the Turk. 'But what ships are these?'

The Turk, I believe, could not read. Hunger said, 'The Dorothy and the Elizabeth.'

But there was little time to admire the sight. Having docked, there was loading to be done. There were scores of soldiers. I was surprised to see that many of them carried pikes like my own. And there was such a supply of provisions as I had never seen: chests, casks, crates, sacks, hogsheads and creels full of dried fish and prunes. And enough barrels of cider, wine and beer to keep the whole assembly drunk for months.

There was a harsh shout on the dockside: 'Make way!' A large group of men in naval uniform, carrying short cudgels, were bundling several dozen men of all ages, haggard and grey-faced, between them. Several of these men seemed drunk.

'Who are they?' I asked the Turk. We were rolling barrels on to a net for the crane men to lift.

'Prisoners, by the looks of them,' said the Turk. 'And tavern scum.' He seemed to have forgotten that he was in a tavern when I first saw him.

'Press-ganged,' Hunger informed me. 'Men are afraid to serve. And little wonder, after Sir Humphrey's expedition.'

Another sailor, whose name I later learned was the Hog, stopped to stretch and wipe his brow. He said, 'They say that, before the disaster, there was strange voices heard at the helm of the ship and strange sea-creatures were caught with their harpoon. And before the storm which sank them, Mr Cox saw white cliffs which vanished as they approached.'

'Nonsense,' Mr Chandler told me. 'It's the astrologers who keep men from this voyage. The planetary conjunctions are not good. Jupiter and Saturn came together in eighty-three, starting the age of the Fiery Trigon. We are entering a period of great catastrophe. Thomas Porter predicts much violence against travellers, and Euan Lloyd tells us there will be tempests, fogs, mists, storms and shipwrecks.'

'Tales fit only for women,' Hunger informed me. 'It is true that many sailors are prone to such nonsense. But no, Scotch, what is truly keeping men from this voyage is something of this world, not the spirit one or the celestial one. It is the fear of
auto-da-fe.'

That phrase again, always spoken with fear:
auto-da-fe.
Not even the lure of Caribbean gold, it seemed, was able to overcome that fear.

It took three days of backbreaking work to stuff the hold of the Tiger. Ten massive cannon were dragged on board in pieces and assembled. I had the impression that these great guns were reassuring to the Turk and his friends. After that, the mariners and soldiers climbed aboard, and the ship suddenly became cramped, with hardly space to move. And then, at last, there came the gentlemen. It was late afternoon when the Turk beckoned me urgently towards the side of the ship. We leaned over the rail and looked down on a small group of men. 'That is Walter Raleigh,' he said with something like awe. 'He is the Queen's favourite, newly knighted. And the man next to him is Thomas Harriot.'

'Christ! Philip Amadas,' said Hunger, dismay in his voice as a tiny man emerged from a carriage.

'And who are these?' I asked. For two men of very strange appearance had emerged from a second carriage, accompanied by more gentlemen.

'All London knows of them,' said the Turk. 'These are Manteo and Wanchese. Savages from America.'

'And now it's clear enough,' said Hunger. 'We are heading for America.'

'By way of the West Indies, I do not doubt,' said the Turk. 'And a little plunder.'

'Thank Christ for the gunners,' said Hunger.

I was kept busy for the rest of the day: chickens, pigs and goats had come aboard. There was little room for them in the narrow square of deck assigned to me by Mr Salter, but I believe that I organised it well, and I felt some pride that I had found a place, however modest, in this great enterprise. At last, the gentlemen came aboard, most of them joining the Tiger. Raleigh remained on the dock, then left in a carriage. When, at dawn the next morning, on the ninth of April 1585, the ships slipped quietly out of Plymouth harbour, I felt a strange mixture of excitement and apprehension.

But it was a full thirteen days before I summoned up the courage to ask the Turk about the
auto-da-fe.