less wounded sailors within earshot chuckled. “If thee lad lives he’ll ’ave trouble livin’ them words down.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Stewart, your mother is not here with us.” When the boy did not cease his flailing, Leander finally lost his patience. “Osmund, you’ll have to sit on him.”
“Right, then.” Rolling his thick tongue around his cracked lips, Osmund hopped up onto the operating table and plunked his full weight down onto the boy’s buttocks, gripping his skinny wrists with his enormous hands. The midshipman howled and cried out for mercy, but Osmund held him fast and firmly enough for Leander to do his work.
Emily pulled her attention away from the midshipman’s plight and snatched some clean rags from the chair at Leander’s back. She then refilled the water cup and went to kneel next to the boy with the mutilated face.
“I can’t see!” he cried. “I can’t see.”
Dipping a rag in the cold water, Emily wrung it out a bit and gently began dabbing his bleeding face. His hair was matted with blood, and on his head and left cheek were oozing gashes. In the shadowy light, with some of the blood washed away, she realized, with dismay, that his left eye had been shattered.
“Is that you, m’am?”
Emily paused to study the small, torn face in her hands. “Magpie?”
“One ’n’ the same, ma’am, but not bein’ very brave, I’m afraid.” He began to sob. Emily wrapped one arm around his thin shoulders, whispering, “Hush, now. I’ll stay with you.” She then searched the room for the teenaged lad, only to find that he was sitting nearby, watching her with interest.
“Could you manage to help me again?” she asked. “I know where there’s an empty hammock.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
With his strong arms, the lad scooped up Magpie and, limping, followed Emily to her private corner. As they weaved and bobbed through the huddled throng, she felt Leander’s eyes on her. Turning her head to him, she found that he had paused in his work to send a grateful smile her way.
6
Tuesday, June 8
2:00 a.m.
(Middle Watch, Four Bells)
GUS WALBY HURRIED UP THE LADDER to the poop deck. Captain Moreland stood in the dark and pouring rain, drinking cold coffee and watching the progress of his boarding party as they organized a group of about fifty presumed British deserters on the quarterdeck of the Liberty for transportation onto the Isabelle.
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