There is nothing so terrifying than knowing you are the soul arbiter of 213 lives. Their commander. The one who tells them when they can eat, when they sleep, punishes them for their disobedience against your tyrannical will.

I was that man. I held each of their lives in the curl of my hand. I could close my fist and crush them. And through that myself. Or I could open it and let them run free.

I never knew it so well till the night I woke to the second bell of the middle watch. The echo faded into night and I sat up.

My head was thick with fog, my throat tender, my mouth and gums sensitive to the heavy abrasions of my tongue. My body felt like fire. I thought I would give anything for a cool sea wind on my chest.

I pulled on my breeches and stumbled out of my cabin. I could not think of anything but something to cool my body, and even proper protocol slipped my mind. The rules of the sea life that had been pounded into my every pore since I was eight.

The deck was cold on my bare feet. A splinter scraped my toe. I stumbled across a coil of line and toward the companionway.

“Sir!”

I looked up to find my first lieutenant blocking my way. The gilt of his epaulette gleamed in the light of the yellow moon. I was a tall man but I still looked up at him. He watched me intently, about to speak.

“Sir, I believe – ”

His voice was fading, his face from a long way off. I reached out for something to hold me back and my hand caught his shoulder.

“Captain, I believe you are unwell.”

My throat burned, my mouth was raw. I wanted to answer him but it took me twice to speak.

“Yes. Unwell.” I noticed my clothes now, my breeches, the rest of my legs bare, my unbuttoned shirt exposing half my chest. My hair was unbound, I wore no boots.

“Perhaps you would like me to accompany you to your cabin. Before . . .”

His voice trailed away. The man was wary of speaking to me like this. He meant to say before the men saw me. I, in my disheveled, weak state, would be a cause of unrest. If the captain is unable to command, the time is ripe for mutiny.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Gannan. I will make my own way.”

I turned away from him and would have fallen to the deck on my face, if only he had not caught me around the shoulder.

We said nothing as he supported me back to my cabin, my arm slung around his neck. The effort seemed too much. By the time I collapsed on my bunk I was breathing heavily, and each gasp hurt.

Gannan turned to my table and picked up the brandy decanter. Glass clinked, loud against the background of wind and wave. He turned to me and held out the tumbler.

My reaching hand shook. Sitting up set fire to my ribs and lungs. I tossed back my head and the brandy poured down my throat, burning sensitive tissue.

“Thank you Gannan.”

“Sir. Anything more I can do for you?”

I shook my head. My eyes swam in a burning skull. “No. I must have caught something in port, on our last stop. I'll sleep it off.”

“Captain, if I may make so bold – sir, you are very unwell.”

“I'll be on deck come morning, Lieutenant. You are free to return to your watch.”

He wanted to contradict me. But after a moment he saluted and left my cabin. The glass rested heavy in my hand, cold against my skin. It was too far to the table. I set it on the planks and lay back. My arms felt dead and I could not muster the strength to remove my shirt, pull the bedding over me.

I lay on my back, sweating in the cool night.

Morning brought no recovery. Gray dawn found me still on my back. I should have been up then. Should have been out at dawn. Our course must be confirmed, a reminder to watch for enemy ships made. My men waited. Every sailor, every officer. My three restless passengers would require soothing after the night watches. The forenoon would bring out their complaints

I must rise. Must dress. Must eat. Must command my ship.

Every piece of skin hurt, worse where it touched cloth. Ached and stung – as if scorpions tormented me. My limbs heavy and useless.

I struggled to sit up, a rushing in my ears leaving me clutching the edge of my bunk, ready to topple onto the deck. My chest constricted with the movement and I gasped.

“Captain Eoinar?”

I could not look up. Silver buckled shoes stopped beside my own feet on the boards. My head was a ball of shot. Heavy, unweildy, dense and useless outside of a cannon.

“You are very unwell, sir. If you would allow me . . .”

I knew the voice. Doctor Haswell. A good doctor, practicing since he was seventeen, well learned in the capricious ways of the sea . . . I could always count on him for soothing a dying man, severing limbs with precision . . .

My mind wandered strange paths. Things I had tried to forget came back now, flashing behind my eyes, good Haswell among them – here covered head to foot in a man's blood, there exhausted after a battle and seeing to mangled sailors – I saw myself, too.

“Sir!”

Hands grabbed my shoulders and I could see again, my cabin spinning like a child's top or an unmanned ship's wheel. I felt the sheets under me again as I was laid back on my bunk.

“Don't move, Captain. I'll have you resting quietly in a moment.”

Haswell's ugly, thoughtful face came before me and then disappeared in a smudgy brush of sunlight as he moved away.

I heard his shoes on the deck planks, too loud, sharp as an ax cutting wood. I shouted for him to stop, just stop! But nothing came out of my mouth.

“Here. Just a few swallows.”

Haswell was back, a glass in his hand. Foul brown liquid swirled in the bottom, opaque as mud. He slipped an arm under my burning shoulders and lifted me up.

“No.” My voice was no more than a strangling grunt, but Haswell stopped. “Help . . . must stand.”

“Sir, with respect, you are not fit – ”

I struggled to sit. My flailing arm knocked the glass out of his hand and it shattered on the planks. In my ears it was a crash.

Sighing, Haswell helped me stand. I could not lean against him, I needed to stand on my own. What Captain would appear on deck leaning on the arm of his physician?

My thoughts plunged around this theme, my ship, my men. I had to dress, give orders, appear before them as strong and confident. I could not know if my men would ever follow me as a sickening, weak captain, unable to stand before them and support them in the fight to come.

I staggered, catching myself on the desk and sent an inkwell rolling. Pen quills fluttered to the ground.

“Captain – ”

“Clothes.” I could not say more. I could feel my throat swelling closed, I thought. I could not speak. I wanted water, but didn't think it would kill my thirst.

I closed my eyes, waiting as Haswell brought fresh clothes. My lids were heavy and scratched. The blinding sea light seared my eyes.

“Sir . . .”

I turned slowly and found Haswell waiting for me. I fumbled with my soiled shirt, stiff hot fingers scrabbling at the linen. I finally pulled it over my head and let it fall. My trousers were easier. But I could not dress myself again.

I felt like a helpless child as Haswell did it for me. A lucid part of me cringed at the indignity. The rest of myself did not care. I was both cold and hot and I longed only for oblivion.

My coat was the last thing put on. By then I was exhausted only with the standing. My hair hung loose to my shoulders and Haswell slipped a ribbon through his hands, ready to tie it for me.

“No . . . I'll . . .” My mouth would not finish the sentence. I reached for the ribbon and he gave it to me. I tied my own hair.

Before me loomed the open deck of my ship. My limbs felt disconnected from me, agents of their own will. I felt too weak to control them. The idea of leaving the comparative privacy of my Captain's cabin was unappealing . . .

I stood away from the desk where I leaned and started for the door. Haswell came beside me. I would not use him as a crutch. Could not.

The wind was hard from the east when I stepped on deck. My coat tails whipped behind me. I lost my balance. Haswell's hand righted me and I stood on my own again. My eyes stung from the harsh light. The noise of sailors, the creak of the ship's timbers, wind slashing through the rigging – all fought to send my bruised senses into chaos.

“Sir.”

I opened my eyes. Lieutenant Gannan stood before me, hat off, straightening from a half bow. I needed to speak to him. My tongue was cloying dust, though, my throat burning with it.

“Lieutenant.” The muscles of my neck burned when I nodded to him.

For a moment Gannan said nothing. His gray eyes watched my face. I was supposed to say something, needed to. I could not remember what.

“Orders, Captain?”

I swallowed the sour liquid collecting in my mouth. “Yes. Check our course, Lieutenant. Bring the sailors aft. And . . .” There was another thing, if I could remember it. It . . .

“Aye, sir. Pard on me, sir – Lord Abercrombie spoke after you this morning.”

It was that, yes. The passengers. But I could not remember what I was to tell them. What they would want to hear.

“I will have our course checked, sir,” Gannan said. His voice was too loud. Catching, like the rough lines in the rigging.

“Yes.” It was all I could manage. He saluted and passed to the quarterdeck. I heard the call for the sailors to assemble go out.

“Captain . . .” Haswell waited for something. I didn't know what. If my memory served, I should climb the companionway to the quarterdeck.

I started for there. I could do nothing but walk slowly. Every muscle and sinew ached. As if every inch of me had been stretched and pulled, pummeled and bruised. And then I had been stripped of my skin and dipped in boiling oil.

I knew Haswell was behind me, ready to catch me when I staggered. I was ashamed for that. I had to walk along the deck without him. Up the companionway, to the rail. I could not be seen as feeble before my men. I could not be weak. Under this endless sky, crashing through the waves of this empty ocean, I was the sole ruler of this ship, of my men.

I could be nothing less.

I reached the deck. Wind caught at my hair and forced my laboring breath back into my inflamed throat. Salt stung me. I turned to the rail for support. Below me the souls of the ship came to stand, waiting for a word from their captain. Their captain . . . me . . .

What words was I supposed to use, I don't know. Every day for dozens, for months, I had spoken to them. I said something different each time. But each time I exhorted them to discipline themselves, or be disciplined. Work, or be worked on. Hope, or die.

Hope was a useless thing, I thought, looking over them now. What was hope? No more than one out of a score of these men had ever wanted to be here. This ship they hated, and every symbol of the powers that kept them captive here. Myself and my officers.

I had seen some men waste away to death from bitterness. Hope could be powerful. If you hoped for another day, hoped for freedom . . . for happiness, someday. The bloody, cramped, stinking life of a sailor in His Majesty's Navy was its own kind of hell. Some came out of it, some didn't.

I knew Captains, good men some of them, most of them not, who gave up the lives of their sailors without thought. What were they there for, but to man the ships and load the guns? They were expendable, there were more where they came from.

I could not. I had been one of them. I ate, slept, bled with them. Screamed in terror when the side of our ship had been torn away by balls, splinters and gore spinning away. Starved while our half sunken labored through heaving seas.

I knew pain, grief, joy, the battle lust that comes upon sailors exhausted and still fighting. Mindless and blood soaked. I knew it.

I had done it.

I could not throw them away. Each move I made, each ship I engaged, each battle I instigated, I considered. In one hand I held my ship, my men. In the other, our enemies.

It was a rotton life. For most of them. For some of them. They could never make their own choices. Some didn't want to. Most did. I knew if given their chance, I would not hesitate to take the ship.

It would be easy . . .

I was their Captain. On the sea there was only one whom I answered to. And that was God himself. My men I could not free. But I could give them hope. I could not give them a new life. But I could make the ones they had better.

I was their captain.

I told them. Every word was an effort I thought I could never make. The words scratched my throat and throbbed in my head. My voice was jagged and loud to me.

I called to them to have heart. Courage. For now we were only a ship delivering precious passengers. At any moment we could be a warship. Sails could be seen on the horizon. Our passage into port could be blocked.

It was only moments and hours which decided fates, not days or weeks.

My fever sick mind must have been addled to imagine this was the day for these words. But I said them.

When I finished I stayed on the quarterdeck. Haswell was near. I didn't look for him. Lieutenant Gannan spoke to me directly when asking for orders. No other lieutenant came to me.

Soon my bones melted in me and only be desire could I stand. I had not been on deck for even three bells. I stayed because I had to. If somehow our course had strayed, our landing was delayed . . . or if an enemy ship appeared, I was lost. We were all lost.

I could hardly hold myself up. I could not command.

My hope was in land. There would be an Admiral, a Commander – I would be outranked. I would be only a Captain in the Navy.

My mind was wandering. When Lieutenant Gannan stood at my shoulder I didn't know it till he spoke.

“Sir – land has been sighted.”

I swallowed to bring moisture to my throat. It burned. “Is it . . .”

“Aye, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

I walked slowly to the main deck. Back to my cabin. We were in sight of land. I had avoided showing my weakness. Mutiny was evaded now that we were in sight of land. I was still captain of my ship . . .

I didn't remove my coat, or my shoes. I fell toward my bunk. By the Grace of God I fell on it instead of the floor.