by Joan Druett
you,” he warned. If Captain Wilkes delayed the sealer until after dark the seven men were desperate enough to steal a boat to get to the Betsey.
Captain Noyes grimaced, and Wiki added thoughtfully, “I notice you haven’t brought your logbook — and Captain Wilkes is coming this way. He’s bound to ask questions about your course and the conditions you encountered, you know.”
Wiki Coffin was right about Wilkes, because a boat from the Vincennes was on the verge of boarding, so close that Noyes could see the gold braid in the stern sheets. He shifted from boot to boot, wondering if the tale of the corpse on the berg was going to distract Wilkes as successfully as it had diverted Rochester, and concluded gloomily that it was very unlikely, if Wiki Coffin didn’t keep his mouth shut.
“Why do you have to be there when I report finding that corpse?” he muttered.
Wiki blinked. “You found it?”
“In the middle of the bloody ocean.”
“Not on board of your schooner?”
“Nope. And what’s it to you, I wonder?”
“Because I’ll be put in charge of the investigation, if there is one.”
“You?”
“Me,” confirmed Wiki. “Before we left Norfolk, the sheriff of Portsmouth, Virginia, deputized me as the agent of law and order on this expedition. Do you want to see my letter of authority?”
“But why the hell would he do something like that?”
“A killer was with the fleet, and the sheriff wanted me to catch him.”
“And did you catch him?”
“Aye,” said Wiki, adding, “in a manner of speaking.”
Captain Wilkes stepped up the gangway, his tall, lean figure tense with impatience. Warned by the whistling of the boatswain’s call and the stamp of boots, Captain Hudson hurried out of the afterhouse. As usual, he looked remarkably untidy, his thinning hair blowing about his round, amiable face. His expression, as always, was anxious to please — he was an affable and easygoing man, a necessary trait for someone who had to work closely with the mercurial Wilkes.
Rochester stepped up from his boat, introduced Noyes, and explained.
“Murder?” said Hudson.
“So it seems,” said George.
Captain Wilkes snapped, “So why the hell didn’t you come straight to the Vincennes?”
“I thought you’d want Wiki Coffin to hear the report, sir.”
Wilkes sniffed, but said, “Well, since we’re all here, Captain Noyes can make his report now. If you’d be so kind as to allow us the use of your cabin, Hudson?”
“Of course, of course,” said Hudson, and personally opened the door.
Captain Wilkes went in first, and Wiki brought up the rear, looking around curiously, having never visited the afterhouse before. They were in a day cabin, lit with a skylight, and comfortably furnished with a chart desk, table, settee and chairs. Beyond an open door in the sternward partition he could see Hudson’s stateroom, which housed two nine-pounder cannon as well as his berth.
Then George cleared his throat, and Wiki realized everyone else was seated. Hurriedly, he took a chair, and Captain Noyes’s recital commenced. The story rambled, as if the sealing master was deliberately drawing out the yarn, but at last Noyes ran out of words. Silence fell, punctuated by clicks as Captain Wilkes meditatively tapped a pencil.
Hudson said, “You’re sure he was murdered?”
“The blood on his head was as scarlet as the day he was bludgeoned.”
“Yet the corpse was standing?”
“If you lie down too long in those regions,” Noyes informed him, “your hair sticks to the ice. He was frozen to the cliff he was standing against.”
“By his hair?”
“By his sealskin suit.”
Captain Wilkes interrupted, “And the iceberg’s position, Captain Noyes?”
Noyes spread his hands. “I can give you an approximate, but I can’t be precise,” he said. “There was a snowstorm…”
“What about your logbook?”
“For God’s sake, the berg was drifting! My logbook won’t help you.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“I don’t have it with me.”
Captain Wilkes stared. Noyes went red under his weathered tan, but his expression was obstinate. A tense silence reigned.
Hudson looked around and said, “Tea, anyone? Coffee? Madeira?”
“Nothing, thank you,” Captain Wilkes snapped. “Mr. Coffin, Captain Noyes, oblige me by coming in my boat to the sealer. Mr. Rochester, bring your boat, too,” he added.
Wiki blinked. This was highhanded, even for Wilkes. Captain Noyes’s expression, as the two boats proceeded to the Betsey, was an eloquent mixture of disbelief, alarm, outrage, and stubbornness.
The stench of half-cured sealskins rose to meet them as they clambered onto the schooner’s deck. Even if Wiki hadn’t guessed from the heaviness of the Betsey that she was full of pelts, the stink would have given it away. Below decks, it was guaranteed to be even smellier, so it was no great surprise when Captain Wilkes ordered him to go down with pen and paper and make a copy of the relevant entries, while he and Mr. Rochester waited on the deck.
The air in the cramped cabin was as disgusting as expected, and Wiki breathed shallowly as he seated himself at the chart desk. He found the logbook without any trouble, as it was a huge affair, measuring two foot by three, bound in great sheets of canvas. The notations were equally large, but difficult to decipher, because they’d been scrawled with a leaky quill pen while the schooner had been jumping about in what had obviously been very rough seas.
Captain Noyes, who smelled almost as bad as his ship, hovered close to Wiki’s shoulder as he slowly turned the pages. It took a while to find the entry with the location of the island where the crew had harvested their cargo, and then Wiki paused, conscious that Noyes had gone very still.
He remembered conversations overheard years ago in the sealing village of Stonington, Connecticut — stories of rookeries devastated by rapacious rival gangs after the secret of their location got out. After a long moment he turned another page. Not a word had been said, and not a note had been taken.
Captain Noyes’s sigh of relief was gusty. He even became cooperative, pointing out the last position taken before they encountered the corpse-carrying iceberg. As he had said, the location of the berg was approximate, because of the conditions, but Wiki noted it down. Then Noyes watched without protest while Wiki also copied the log entries for the eight days that followed the sighting, which carried the record up to the present date.
As the neat script flowed from his pen, Wiki could hear voices echoing down the skylight from the deck. George was trying to persuade Captain Wilkes to reverse his decision about shifting Wiki from the Swallow to the Peacock, but without giving any reason, though his voice was tense with outrage. He was still arguing as Wiki finished, and only silenced when he arrived back on deck.
Night had fallen, and the three expedition ships were indistinct shapes in the gathering dark. Wiki gave the copied log entries to Captain Wilkes, who merely glanced at the pages before ordering Rochester to leave Mr. Coffin at the Peacock on the way back to the Swallow. Then Wilkes dropped into his boat, and with a single snapped command was on his way to the Vincennes.
Noyes could hardly wait for them to go. Wiki had hardly joined Rochester in his boat before orders were barked to get underway. The rattle of ropes and canvas followed, and by the time the boat arrived at the Peacock the Betsey was under full sail and bearing away.
Wiki stood up and put his foot on the gunwale, ready to climb up the side, but George stopped him by gripping his arm.
“Wilkes wouldn’t listen, damn him!” he said in a low, shaking voice. “I should have told him exactly how they’re treating you on the Peacock.”
“No,” said Wiki. George didn’t know the half of it — there was a great deal more than bigotry that was wrong on board the Peacock.
“I feel responsibl
e. You only joined the expedition because I talked you into it.”
That was true, but Wiki said, “You can’t blame yourself.”
“But damn it, Wiki, I do!”
Wiki bit back a sigh. Above, on the decks of the Peacock, it was very dark and quiet. Lanterns hadn’t yet been hoisted in the rigging. To end the pointless discussion he climbed the gangway, and stood watching as George’s boat pulled away. Then he turned and strode aft.
The decks seemed strangely deserted, he thought with a frown. Then he glimpsed a bulky shape — barging out at him from the deep shadows of the stacked exploring boats amidships.
Wiki dodged away, to find that more attackers were coming from behind. Ducking, he darted sideways — just in time, because the belaying pin aimed at his head landed numbingly on his shoulder. He almost fell, but caught his balance. Then he backed against the mainmast and sank into a defensive crouch, while seven brutal men moved in for the kill.
ROBBER CRABS
Copyright
AN OLD SALT PRESS BOOK, published by Old Salt Press, a Limited Liability Company registered in New Jersey, U.S.A..
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First published in 2015
© 2015 Joan Druett
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