* * *
Captain Armstrong paced the windward rail of the Charleston as the sun dropped below the horizon. The night was clear, the wind quartering aft. With the sails set and trimmed, he had allowed the crew to go below to chow. Peterson, whom the captain hoped to groom as a second mate, stood a turn at the wheel.
Armstrong relaxed against the taffrail, watching the man, at the helm adjust a couple of points as the wind shifted. He dug a clay pipe out of his coat and packed it with tobacco. Protecting it with his cupped hand, he struck a lucifer and drew until the tobacco took. Glancing forward, he noticed Skinner, one of his newly acquired crewmen off the shipwreck, step out of the fo’c’sle and wondered why the man was not at supper with the rest of the crew.
As Skinner made his way aft, Armstrong studied the man’s ambling gait and furrowed his brows. He did not like having to displace his first mate to make room in his quarters for Captain Sharpentier, but rank was rank. He knew that Skinner hated bunking in the fo’c’sle as much as his own first mate did, but such was life at sea.
Armstrong did not like Skinner. He found him a man who ruled by the back of his hand and the muscle in his arm rather than by example. And though he would never admit it in front of his men, he thought little of Sharpentier. He had not been surprised when the Savannah had gone aground.
He had been surprised when they laid the blame on Clint Ryan. He had known Ryan since his own cod days on the East Coast and found him to be competent and willing. More than likely, the blame belonged with Sharpentier.
Armstrong glanced up as Skinner mounted the quarterdeck. He nodded at Peterson and stepped farther aft to stand beside the captain.
“A good night for a quiet smoke,” Skinner said.
“Aye,” Armstrong answered, not anxious to strike up a conversation. The sky was darkening fast, and soon it would be the blackest part of the night, for the moon was not yet up.
“I heard a grinding noise from the rudder gear this afternoon,” Skinner said, moving farther aft and cocking his head to listen, Armstrong followed.
“I hear nothing.”
“Sounded as if the rudder hinge points are dry of grease... a bad place to neglect, Cap’n.”
“There’s a gearbox on my rudder points, man, and they are packed solid with greased hemp.”
“There, don’t ye hear that?” Skinner leaned far out over the stern. He backed away and pointed to the spot. Armstrong took the bait and stepped forward. Grasping a tarred mizzenmast stay, he leaned out
He caught the flash of the belaying pin just in time to strengthen his grasp on the stay. The pin slammed against his head, smashed his ear, and dimmed his vision. He swung his other hand back and grabbed the stay with both hands. The pin cracked across his mouth, shattering teeth, but still he hung on, fighting to keep from losing consciousness.
“Ye bastard!” he spat, sending blood and teeth flying, desperately grasping the stay, desperately trying to keep from going overboard.
At the helm, Peterson glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Skinner slam the heavy pin against Armstrong’s knuckles, breaking his fingers and knocking his left hand free. Then he struck at the right. By the time he had cracked it the second time, breaking a finger but still not knocking it loose, Peterson was on him. But the smaller man was no match for Skinner, who with a heave tossed the helmsman over his shoulder. Peterson crashed into the tenuously clinging Armstrong, and both men cartwheeled into the sea.
Their cries echoed across the water as they bobbed to the surface in the luminescence of the wake, but Skinner knew they would not be heard by the men in the galley below.
“Damn stubborn,” Skinner mumbled, stepping over to realign the wheel and tie it fast with the tail of the mizzenmast halyard. As soon as he was satisfied that it was sound, he glanced into the darkness aft of the ship, gave a slight farewell wave, and made his way back to the fo’c’sle. He wanted to be asleep in his bunk when the rest of the crew came on board from supper and found the captain and helmsman missing.
Lying on his cramped bunk for the last time, he thought smugly that with the sunrise he would be in the first mate’s cabin and Sharpentier in the captain’s—where they rightly belonged.