China Jewel by Thomas Hollyday

participate in life and its losses. You must foremost take care of your own, to be a soldier.”
    She had gone on speaking with her Spanish accent, “Someday you will realize this, run in the direction of the firefight as you always say, and then remain afterward for the real hard work cleaning up after the damage done by the guns. I think you would not have been able to care for the wounded. I don’t know about you, James. You’d say you have to go on ahead with the fight. Care of your own, though, is important. It takes a kind of love. Until you have that love, your son and I will not have, in you, a man who we can rely upon to look out for us.”
    She had hesitated then she had added, “You love success more than you love love.”
    Those words repeated over and over in his mind as he felt the big seaplane maneuver to take off. As the hull bumped over the wave tips, moving faster, he tried to settle back. He looked out the window once more as they headed for the Azores and home. The tiny square riggers below had their sails up and trimmed. The wind blew over their stern quarters in the way that allowed those old ship designs to perform at their best. He’d done all he could to win. Suddenly he thought of what Stringer had said about safety. Out here he could feel the smallness of the Peregrine. For the first time in the many years he had managed projects and profits for Bill, he worried. He didn’t know what to do about this new feeling.

Chapter 5
     
    June 7, 10 AM
    Baltimore, Maryland
     
    On the first morning back from the ocean flight, Cutter drove Jolly’s pickup to Baltimore to talk to Katy about John Reedy’s story. While driving, he telephoned Missus Williams. He did not mention the confusing ship woodwork found in the barn. He told her only his team needed to redraft the Peregrine’s history for the media.
    They began by discussing the Peregrine sendoff she had attended in River Sunday. “My husband would have been so proud,” she said in a cracking voice showing her years.
    Cutter continued, “I have to go over every step of the ship’s history to prepare a complete press release. I wondered if you had discovered any more of her records.”
    She thought for a moment, then replied, “After my husband died, all the research he had compiled on the old ship was stored. Then, when this race came along, Bill Johnson asked me to review the papers for anything about shipments of opium. I found nothing.”
    Cutter said, “I’d appreciate your going back through the files.”
    “Of course, I certainly will,” she assured him. “I’m not as quick a reader these days with my old eyes so I'll need time. I’ll have to get my gardener to help me move the cartons.”
    “I understand, Missus Williams. Anything will be helpful.”
    Navigating the city’s traffic-clogged avenues, he finally parked in front of the venerable Maryland Historical Society and Museum. It was a modernized brick building in a part of the city once famous for street meetings of Confederate sympathizers. Inside Cutter moved through the quiet lobby surrounded by dusty glass exhibits of colonial silver and artifacts. The yellow walls displayed faded oil portraits of Maryland ship captains and Revolutionary War patriots. Many other pictures illustrated more modern heroes of Maryland and America, with a few minority faces.
    Cutter rode a tiny elevator to the second floor and went down a familiar corridor. He stopped at the office of Chief Curator, Katy Marbury. Cutter opened the door to see, amidst shelves, tables and scattered teetering piles of books, a black-haired woman, pretty and seemingly too young for her obviously powerful job. Katy was behind a desk piled with papers, concentrating on a phone call. She looked up, smiled and quickly said goodbye to her caller.
    “You didn’t tell me you were coming,” she said as she took off reading glasses revealing a well-featured face. She adjusted her hair as he approached.
    Cutter did not