Still no wind. This inability to progress tries our patience badly. Nat thinks with a steady wind we may make Port Royale in six weeks but not at this pace. Clever with the astrolabe, he has pinpointed our exact position. Land lies portside no more than five days distance with a good wind. Our stores are dangerously low and I know Ogilvie worries about the lack of citrus. He reports that there is already evidence of scurvy among the men. We hoard what little fruit we have left but it's not enough. My own gums feel spongy. We need to make landfall as soon as possible to restock on fresh water and foodstuffs.

A scuffle broke out amongst the men last night below deck just before 6 bells. Edwards, the second mate, and another officer attended the scene and were quick to put a stop to it. The men know the rules about gambling for money but they persist in doing so. It's forbidden as it causes endless dissention among the men. The four were thrown summarily into the brig and this morning, under the full crew's gaze and the hot sun, the culprits were stripped to the skin, each receiving thirty lashes. Culver and Partridge had to be revived with a bucket of water to allow Edwards to finish the flogging. They will be sore for many a day to come. Let's hope it serves as an example to the others. Trying to maintain discipline on board is a delicate balancing act.

The captain was too busy drinking himself into a stupor to attend so I stood in his place. The men are well used to my presence now. Already well-tanked with rum, Bonny was in an ugly mood when I returned to the cabin with Ogilvie in attendance. In front of me, he beat the cabin boy unmercifully for slopping water as he swabbed the cabin floor. I had to put a stop to it and received blows myself for my interference, his heavy ring scoring my cheek badly. My eye will be blackened tomorrow. The flesh has already swollen to twice its size. He forced me then to play cards with him in the mess in the interval before lunch as if nothing had happened and refused Ogilvie an opportunity to treat my bleeding cheek. The sick bastard plays games with me all the time…when he's sober enough. Unable to beat me in a battle of wits, he resorts to less noble approaches, relishing my physical weakness and exploiting situations to give him an edge. I know he resents my unacknowledged management of the ship. But we do not talk of this. It's an unspoken burr that continually abrades him. He is a weak man and a bully and I despise him for it. But I am not unchampioned.

But I am so fed up with this simmering violence. There are times the atmosphere is so thick with it that you feel you could cut it with a knife. Lunch was a silent occasion under Bonny's baleful glare with the officers doing their best to avoid my swollen eye. His brooding presence affects morale badly. And fights, bad ones, are happening more and more often now below deck. We have all been locked up too long on this wretched ship.

On the pretext of pouring the captain wine after lunch, I doubled the dose of poppy I usually give him, shaking the grains directly into the ship's carafe, more than enough to fell an ox. Anything to shut him up for a day or two. Ogilvie treated me once Bonny had fallen asleep, slumped in his chair. For a ship's surgeon, he has a gentle touch. As he did so, Nat and Edwards, propping up their stupified captain between them, dragged him to the first mate's cabin, his heels scuffing the timbers as they went. He was insensible. They locked him in, Nat passing me the key on their return without comment.

We settled in for a game of cribbage then which, upon the return of some of the officers at the end of their watch, was changed to bassett, an Italian card game relatively new to England but already very popular. And so we whiled away the time to dinner, a meal decidely unremarkable for its food but one which saw a rare relaxed mood amongst the diners tonight. It wouldn't last which makes it all the more precious. It was a pleasant end to an otherwise difficult day.

It's been a long voyage. We are four months out of Plymouth and have had but one stop in all that time. When I turned my back on England, I did so with pleasure. While I was somewhat regretful about severing the last tie to Ireland, the country of my birth, I had no such qualms about leaving its neighbour. What I didn't anticipate were the privations of the voyage and the mind-numbing boredom, an affliction notable amongst those with no real role to occupy them on a ship. It was in an attempt to escape from this that prompted me to take advantage of Bonny's increasing inability to captain the ship effectively. It wasn't easy at first, far from it but I am no fool and I have some experience in the handling of men...and I can be very persuasive.

A strange dynamic exists among us all now. We seem to be treading water and it's only a matter of time before something gives. The sullen weather only exacerbates the situation. The captain exists in limbo now as far as his effective command of the vessel is concerned. While the crew may not be the wiser as to the truth of the matter the officers are very close to discovering the full extent of the situation. I cannot foresee how this will end.

His face creased with tiredness, Nat lies asleep now in a tangle of linen on the bed we shared tonight, his chest gently rising and falling as he breathes. My quill scratching on the parchment, I write long into the night using words to beat my anxieties into manageable proportion. I wonder sometimes if I will win. If I lose the fight with myself, I've lost it altogether.