Swash! by Brendan P. Myers

Author:Brendan P. Myers [Myers, Brendan P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humorous, Fiction, Sea Stories, Pirates
ISBN: 9781453707883
Publisher: Exigua Publishing
Published: 2010-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

Book III

“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”

– Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Chapter Ten

~

In the gray light of early morning, two uniformed men and one civilian stood on the sands of Nutmeg Hollow. The ranger had just finished reminding Cobb that they’d seen it before. Just down the Cape, off the coast of Wellfleet, lay the remains of a British warship called the Somerset. It was the same ship that Paul Revere eluded before making his famous midnight ride. The Somerset later sank in a storm, its crew taken captive and exchanged for American prisoners.

But every few years, when the tides were right, folks claimed they could see “the bones of the Somerset” rising up from the sea. Only last summer, after not being seen in thirty-seven years, the bones showed up on the beach. They remained there long enough for marine archeologists and the Park Service to document their condition and obtain GPS coordinates. Then, one day, they were gone. And as he stared into the small depression where only yesterday an ancient shipwreck lay, the ranger surmised the same thing had happened here. The ship had returned to the sea.

Remnants of the fence were strewn about here and there, battered and torn by an enemy it wasn’t built to withstand. Little was left of the mounds of sand excavated from the trench where the wreck lay, the tide no doubt giving back to the beach that which man had taken. And though he kept this to himself, the ranger couldn’t say he was sorry to see it end this way. The wreck might have been of some historical interest, but it had rested here a long time. It had never seemed appropriate to him that it be taken from its final resting place, to be poked and prodded and God knows what else. Because whatever the ship had been, it had no doubt performed honorably during its time in service and deserved far better than that. Therefore, as far as the ranger was concerned, that was the end of it.

~

From where he stood, Lucas was equally happy to be quit of the thing, sooner rather than later. He had known Cobb and the university planned to take the wreck within the next day or two, weather permitting. The professor had been courteous enough to introduce him to the foreman in charge of the operation, who had promised to keep disruptions to a minimum. Cobb had even asked Lucas himself to be on hand, for crowd control and police presence. Flattered as he was, Lucas said no, knowing it would be a sideshow, and the sooner the Rump returned to its sleepy ways, the happier he’d be. No, he wasn’t at all sorry to see it gone.

~

The third man on the beach felt different. He had remained curiously silent during the ranger’s explanation. In fact, he hadn’t said a word since he’d arrived.

Much like

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