Whither Thou Goest by Tinnean

Author:Tinnean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2020-05-01T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

I quickly learned the rudiments of cooking. After all, it was not much different from preparing potions. By the time the Wanderer was ready to shove off, I could produce an edible meal. And by the time she started the return leg of her journey, the crew was declaring me “the best damn cook the old tub’s ever had,’ although I did not know how much of their approbation was due to not having to do the cooking themselves.

The Wanderer had just sailed into Port-of-Spain, our last port before we began the journey home. She would take on a cargo of coffee, sugar and cocoa, as well as the coal that would fuel us back to Hoboken.

I looked up from the dishes I was washing in the scullery. Lunch was finished, and I would not need to make dinner this evening. “Good afternoon, Frank Johansen.” I reached over for an apple I had left out on the counter beside me and tossed it to him.

“Thanks, Charley. We’ve dropped anchor.” He took a bite from the apple and licked the juice from the thick, sandy mustache that now covered his upper lip. He had started growing it shortly before we had left Mrs. Hicks’s boarding house for the Wanderer, feeling it gave him a more dashing look.

I sighed, knowing that with Frank Johansen’s steadfast sense of honor, the likelihood of discovering what his mustache felt like caressing my skin would be nil.

“The skipper’s given us a few hours’ liberty. What do you say we hit the Dirty Dog for a drink?”

“I say that sounds fine.”

* * * *

We were standing at the bar when the man rolled in, roaring drunk.

“Where’s that bastard Johansen? I’m gonna chew him up and spit him out. Fucker cost me my ear!”

“Oh, hell.” Frank Johansen’s voice was tired. “Jennings. He’s first mate on the Sarah Jane—I thought I saw her docked at the end of the pier. He just doesn’t learn. We had a run in a couple, three years back.”

“What is this about his ear?” I studied the seaman carefully. He was scanning the saloon, and each time his head turned, his hair would whip to the side. The ear that should have been there was missing.

Frank Johansen shrugged. “He wanted to prove he could draw and throw his knife faster than I could. He was wrong.”

The drunken first mate spotted Frank Johansen and let out a bellow. A wicked knife appeared in his hand, and he leaped forward, a little madness in his eyes.

It was over in a matter of seconds.

I stepped forward, knocked the knife out of Jennings’s hand, and hit him on the back of the neck with a chopping motion of my hand. He dropped to the sawdust-covered floor, slamming his forehead against the foot rail of the bar.

We stood above the unconscious seaman. Frank Johansen stared at me in amazement. The last time I had performed such actions had been in Rio de Janeiro; he had been in the thick of the fray as well and had not been able to observe them as closely.

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