Limekiller!

Suddenly, no one was looking at him. Much interest was for some reason developed in looking at the large picture of the Oueen, whose Royal simper Jack had long found insufferable — until visits into republican waters and their ports, and exposure to the prominently display photographs of, instead, sundry scowling generals with fat chests covered by medals, had gradually made Her Majesty, simper and all, look very, very good and innocent in contrast. “Two good men? Usual wages, and all found?”

No takers. Many men closely examining the labels on the bottles behind the bar as though they had never seen them before. To be sure there was much of interest to label-fanciers, particularly rum bottle label fanciers: but. still.

Jack turned to the man at his right. “How about you?”

“Well sah. I like to oblige you. But I muss go to Walker Caye for fetch coconut.” The man to Jack’s left would equally have liked to oblige him, but had to honor a standing agreement to go dive for crayfish. A number of the bar’s patrons simply did not hear the question, and, in fact, a number of them simply left the bar. Peter Bennetson tugged at Jack’s sleeve. “Best we be getting on, noew, Jock.”

Jack, well aware of the smell of rotten apples, agreed, but he could not resist pausing to ask the tallest man present, as he passed him, “What about you?”

This time there was neither politeness nor excuse. The tall man glared at him, growled, “You teenk I om cra-zy?” And he turned his back, deliberately, with a toss of his head, and an ugly mutter.

Back in the truck, bumpetty-bump-bump along the shore road, Jack asked the trucker, “Now, what was all that about?”

‘“Deed, sah, I doesn’t know. I suspec’ ahl de men tired frahm lahng day work. Tomorrow you weel doubtless find some crew.”

Limekiller turned to the silent young man beside him in the cab of the truck. Mile 20 was still gamely earning his way. “Well, how about you, then?”

The lad’s voice was low, but it was in no way indistinct.

“No, sah!”

Skippy the Cat, the first mate of the Saccharissa, announced over the water between boat and dock that several Barbary corsairs had tried to take the sloop for a prize, but had been repelled with immense loss of life.

Limekiller, also tired from the long day’s work, slept later than usual. As always, before leaving from the day, he set out food and water for Skippy, a semi-domestic white short-hair, who had lost most of his tail in an encounter with forces unknown, before first meeting Jack. Who, on departing, cautioned him as always, “Keep the ship, now.” And the first mate answered, as always, that there was powder and shot a-plenty in the lockers.

This time there was no Royal Jeep waiting at the shore end of the pier, so Limekiller, re-assuming the most of his clothing which he had shucked for the splashing walk ashore, simply picked up his feet and walked. It was barely two miles to the center of Port Caroline Town, a point which he, somewhat arbitrarily, designated as the corner on which The Fisherman Wharf was located. The coconut walks (“walks,” here, meaning groves) ended rather abruptly where the shore road became a path across an immense field in which a long-ago cleric had pastured his horses: it was still called The Padre’s Paddock, but was now used for football, baseball, and cricket. Usually swarms of boys were engaged at play, but this morning: not one. The point where the shore road emerged again as a singularity was marked by a small obelisk topped by an even smaller bust of Queen Victoria.

“Mornin, Ma’am,” Jack said, tossing off a sketchy salute. “I am pleased every' time I see you, that no one has drawn a moustache on you.” And, indeed, no one had: but along the left flank of the obelisk someone had scrawled a pair of intwined hearts and the legend Dendry Love Betty. “We are very slightly amused,” said Oueen Victoria.

Would she have been amused to have seen the crowd in front of Government Buildings near the center of town? Probably only in the archiac meaning of the word, as “amazed.” Certainly, Jack was amazed. There may have been only a hundred, or a few more, men in the crowd, but for Port Caroline, and on a weekday which was not a holiday, it was an immense throng. Sure enough, the Land Rover of Governor Sir Joshua was there, and, as Jack, standing only slightly on his toes, peered over the heads of those in the street, he caught a glimpse of Sir Joshua. He was with Mr. Simeon Edwards, the soft-spoken Black man who was Superintendent of the Central Police District: both were talking to what was perhaps a delegation of the men outside.

“What’s up, friend,” Jack asked a man on the outskirts of the crowd.

“Mon, de Ahrawock di tekh ahp we feesh-eeng groend! Ahn we no gwevn stond fah eeet!”