Agatha ignored him. ‘For God’s sake, Drake, get back or don’t come crying to me next time you’re shot.’
Drake and the others shuffled aside, and then looked relieved once she’d gone. Kite nodded for them to sit down again.
Joe waited to see if any explanation was forthcoming, but none was.
‘What does the Kingdom have to do with anything? Why does it matter?’
‘Why are you even asking me?’ Kite said wearily. ‘You heard me, before. If it turns out you’re able to remember anything, we can’t let you go home. You could remember the gate, you could sell that information. You should be very eager to remain ignorant.’
‘Because I need to know! I work for the engine company because of the Eilean Mòr light.’ Joe pulled out the postcard and shoved it across the table. ‘This. This was sent to me not long after I turned up at a train station with no memory. I went looking for someone who might know about this place. I found the de Méritens workshop. When we heard there was a problem with this lighthouse, I volunteered to come, to see if I could find out what had happened to me. Or who this person is, who wrote this card. I knew someone called Madeline, I think she was my wife, or my sister, or – I don’t know, but M, Madeline, she could still be here! This is my whole life. I have a right to know.’
Kite looked down at the card. ‘If you talk about it again to me or to anyone else, I’ll chain you to the mast. I hope you won’t, though, because I’ve got a job for you.’
‘Is it horrifying?’ Joe snapped.
‘Depends,’ Kite said greyly. He wasn’t too proud to show that he was tired. Joe wished that he would be. If he would just do the little show that men always did for each other, pretending to be tough in the face of someone they didn’t like, he would have been more manageable. That he didn’t care was becoming so disturbing that Joe wasn’t sure how to respond any more.
16
Kite took him back to the stateroom. It was busy now, full of officers looking at charts and papers, or making themselves coffee in metal mugs. Another man, the bent Scot who’d come with them onto the ice, settled in the corner with some stitching, his crutch hooked up next to Kite’s coat. Just as they arrived, a boy of about fourteen hurried in too and saluted.
‘Mr Hathaway,’ said Kite. ‘You’ve a new tutor.’
‘What?’ said Joe.
‘You’re an engineer; that must involve a good deal of calculation,’ Kite explained. ‘This is Fred Hathaway, he’s going for his lieutenant’s exam next month. Annoyingly early,’ he added to Fred, who beamed and then remembered to arrange his face in a more officerly way. But Kite smiled a bit too. ‘His capabilities are rather ahead of the other midshipmen. Mr Hathaway, you’ll look after Mr Tournier for the duration of his stay with us. You keep him on your watch, and you make sure he’s in the right place at the right time. The watch schedule is on the door now.’
Joe felt indignant. Kite was the one who’d taken him, Kite was the one refusing to help him remember, and Kite was the one who should have to put up with him. Taking him, ignoring him, and then dumping him on someone else was very much having his cake and eating it.
Joe didn’t say anything. Drake, the marine, was in the far corner, watching.
‘Mr Tournier, Mr Hathaway. I’m sure you’ll enjoy each other,’ Kite concluded.
‘Oh, excellent,’ Fred exclaimed. He seemed not to think that being given a kidnapped man was unusual.
He was a rangy, beachy boy, handsome in a way that would fade fast, but it wouldn’t matter; he was one of those people who looked like they might break out into dance at any moment. When he walked, he sprang. Apart from that, he was the image of Lieutenant Wellesley, and Joe wondered just how many brothers and sisters were on the same ship, and whether the navy was too stupid to see what it would do to their families if Agamemnon sank, or whether nobody cared any more. ‘Let’s have a look at the watch rota, shall we?’
Kite stood back against his own desk, absolutely still. He gave Joe a brief wry look, one that said his years of excess energy were so far behind him he probably couldn’t have found them on a map now. Joe stared at him hard. There was a special place in hell for people who pretended to be your friend while they were holding a whip over you. To his surprise, Kite looked down like he was ashamed.
While they’d been talking, other children had arrived, boys and girls, all in the same uniform as Fred, and at the mention of the watch rota, they’d all clustered round a chart on the door, but Fred was tall enough to look over their heads.
The chart was a checkerboard of red and green, and full of names. Down the side was a long list of times: all six-hour slots except one in the middle that split into three hours on either side. Joe couldn’t work out what it was supposed to be describing. A few groans went round, and a few happy cries.
‘Hah,’ said Fred, pleased. ‘We’re on at nine tonight and nine tomorrow morning.’
‘Sorry, how are you reading …?’ said Joe.
‘We’re on a two-set watch. You’re in starboard, with me,’ Fred explained, or he seemed to think he was explaining. He tapped a green square. ‘Red for port, green for starboard. Watches are six hours long. You have one on, one off, at both ends of the day.’ He drew his fingertip down the timetable. ‘So tomorrow will be good for us, we’re not up until nine, but it will be six the next morning. See?’
‘A watch is like a work shift?’
‘Oh. Yes,’ said Fred, looking worried to find that Joe hadn’t known even that. ‘Does that … make sense?’
Joe nodded. It did, sort of. He liked timetables, although he could see he was not going to like sailing jargon.
‘When you come on watch, someone from the last watch will wake you up quarter of an hour before. Then you get up and go to the mainmast.’ Fred smiled. ‘Once you get there, the watch officer will tell everyone what to do. Simple!’
Joe decided not to ruin it and ask what a starboard was.
‘Sorry, I’m probably not quite – but if you’re on for six hours and off for six hours and then on again, surely you never get a full night’s sleep?’
Fred seemed puzzled. ‘Sleep a bit, work a bit, sleep a bit again; you’ll get used to it.’
No wonder Kite looked so exhausted.
The other children were taking seats at the table. None of them were older than about seventeen. Joe felt lost, and then realised with a slow dismay that this was the start of some kind of lesson. Kite was moving chairs; he was putting the ones from his desk at the table. Room for himself, and room for Joe. School; hours after he’d been dragged out of a lighthouse. When Kite said he would be Fred’s tutor, he had meant right now.
Fred tugged Joe’s sleeve to get him to sit down. Joe sat. It was surreal. In passing, Kite gave them a textbook, and then leaned over Joe’s shoulder. He smelled of fresh ironing.
‘So it’s this section,’ he said. ‘The astronomy stuff there, zeniths and meridians and all that, but it’s all basic mathematics. You’ll work it out.’
‘This is …’ Joe was at a total, tumbled loss. ‘I’m teaching children now? Why aren’t you locking me up?’