How it opens
You came to Portsmouth in the spring of 1810 with a letter to the captain of His Majesty's frigate Cormorant, a sea chest, and the entire fortune of a youngest son, which is to say the chest.
Portsmouth Hard on a press-windy evening was all rope, tar, gin shops, and men with the king's debt in their eyes, and you were eighteen and alone in the middle of it.
The gentleman is bound for the Cormorant, friends, and she does not part with her volunteers to the tender. Good night to you both.
Choose
Take your new acquaintance's arm and follow him anywhere he leads.
Thank him coldly and make your own way to the point.
Ask him outright who he is before you follow a step.