Paxton's War by Kerry Newcomb

throat— No! No! It can’t be! —the British flag flew over the customs house.
    The boatswain’s pipe shrieked, a command rang through the air, and the anchor chain rumbled through the hawsehole. Aloft, the crew was busy reefing sails; below, a profusion of lighters nudged the Shropshire . Behind him, unheeded as he stared at the shore and waited for a ladder to be rigged, a fife and drum accompanied the measured tread of soldiers lining up in ranks preparatory to disembarkation.
    â€œJason Paxton! Down here, damn your eyes!”
    Jason searched through the clot of small boats and spotted a barrel-chested man with one leg waving his hat at him. “Elton!” he called back. “How long does it take a fellow to get ashore around here? I’ve been on this tub for eight weeks. Must I wait eight more?”
    Forward, a ladder snaked down through the air. Elton caught it, made it fast to his lighter. A minute later, after hurried instructions to send his trunks ashore at the earliest possible moment, Jason was scrambling down the ladder and into the embrace of the man who had taught him more about ships and the sea than his own father had.
    â€œDamn me, but you’re looking good, lad,” Elton said moments later as the lighter made its way toward shore. “Filled out. Put on a little weight,” he added, poking Jason in the midriff.
    â€œWhich will be shed soon enough, I warrant,” Jason said with a grin. “A week or two under father’s tutelage, and I’ll be fit as a fiddle again.” He gazed fondly at the older man facing him, remembered the hours they’d spent together as he’d learned how to tie knots and handle a small boat. “You haven’t changed by so much as a wrinkle. Still the scourge of Brandborough?”
    Elton winked. “The lassies like to think so. It’s by God still as hard as my peg when I wake up in the morning.”
    â€œGood for you. But where is everybody?” he asked, searching the dock for familiar faces.
    â€œWhere else on a beautiful Saturday in May? At the fair, lad. A fine day you’ve picked to come home.”
    Moments later, Jason stepped onto the dock and, as Elton returned to the Shropshire , stood alone, his mind churning with a thousand thoughts. His ear was alive with sounds, old and familiar, new and wonderful—wavelets slapping rhythmically against pilings; a blind piper tooting a jocular ditty as he sat on a keg of rum; the deep, rich voices of slaves singing melodiously as they hauled and carried great weights of cargo. The sounds of the music of his home, long lost but never forgotten—birds singing merrily, mothers calling after children in decidedly American accents—swelled his heart and filled his head with wonder. And questions, he realized, sobering quickly. The British flag flying in Brandborough! What did that portend? And how, after the bitter letters he’d received, would his father greet him? And what of the strange, haunting song? What of Colleen? How had she changed in the four years he’d been gone? Would she …
    Her eyes told him that it was she. Amber and piercing, those remarkably radiant eyes glowed with warmth and life. She stood only yards away, poised and regal, more beautiful than he could have possibly imagined. She had filled out and matured: she had blossomed into a desirable woman. And suddenly, he realized that all his other reasons for coming home—noble, well-intentioned reasons—paled in comparison to the sweetness of her face.
    Massively sculpted in dark-hewn woods, its masts, booms, and rigging jutting high above the water, the Shropshire had been a distraction, and its imposing presence gave proof to the power of the mighty British empire. And yet, once she saw him and moved toward him, all the world’s weapons of war seemed weak beside the wave of passion that washed over her. Her breath catching in her throat, she stopped,