The Guns of Tortuga by Brad Strickland, THOMAS E. FULLER Page B

used to tell us.”
    Was he making fun of me? I could not tell. Still, he had made no motion to hit me. “’Tis a letter I’m to deliver, to an Englishman, a naval officer he is. Needing help from his friends, so he is, and him a prisoner among these French and all. My master gave me a silver penny to put this letter from his friends into his own hands, but his name I’ve forgot, and the place I’ve forgot. The parchment doesn’t have the blessed address written on it, nor the name. I dare not open it, for ’tis sealed. So if it pleases your lordship, p’rhaps ye could help a poor Irish lad, so his English captain may not beat him cruelly?”
    Small, sleepy eyes regarded me out of that vast face. On the
Louisa
on the trip over from England, a great whale had surfaced near us and I had seen those same eyes. They had a deep-buried intelligence that told you to mind your manners or something would get stove in. I gulped and babbled to a stop.
    â€œWhere was the place of your birth, lad?” the tavern keeper asked me.
    â€œBrighton, in England,” I said, knowing somehow that it was not worth lying. “But my father and my mother were both from County Clare, him a Shea and my mother a Sullivan, and they grew up within a good day’s walk of the Ciffs of Moher.”
    â€œCounty Clare, is it?” he said. “Hm. I’m a Doolan, myself, and I do remember some Sheas and Sullivans.” He leaned across the bar. “A Royal Navy officer, say ye? And your master’s an Englishman, is he? Beat ye if ye fail in your errand?”
    â€œI fear so,” I said.
    He sighed again. “Well, I’m probably a
gran’ fou.
But if you’re a Shea from County Clare—well, ye heard it not here lad, but if I was lookin’ for an English prisoner hereabout, I’d go to the Commodore’s.”
    â€œThat was the place,” I said, letting relief flood into my face. “Now, where would I find it?”
    Something like a smile flashed across that wide face. “Oh, a clever lad like yourself will have little trouble finding it. Anyone can tell ye that.”
    I thanked him and bolted from that vile place,but I felt his deep, heavy eyes on me the whole way out—and halfway down the street, truth be told.
    The tavern keeper was right: It was easier to get directions than answers. In short order, I was standing outside of the Commodore’s. It was a grim, forbidding fortress of a house, dating from the brief English occupation of Tortuga. There were no windows on the ground floor, and the ones on top were more like gun slits than true windows. A wall made of the cement-and-shell mixture called tabby surrounded it, pierced by an arched gateway in which two swinging iron-barred gates were set. Two men in sailor garb lounged up against the rough tabby wall with the studied slouch of guards everywhere.
    I was trying to figure out what I should do next when a loud banging came from inside the house. One of the guards shrugged, produced an iron key on a chain, and laboriously unlocked first the gate, then the door. It was pushed open, and a scarecrow stumbled out.
    At least it looked like a scarecrow. The boy who stood between the two guards was short and almost painfully slim. He was dressed in midshipman’stogs about two sizes too large for him. His outfit was topped by a straw hat, like the ones the canecutters wove to keep the sun from their heads in the field. That covered most of his face. On his shoulders was a yoke from which dangled two wooden buckets.
    The guard who’d opened the door snorted with derision. His English was so bad, I could hardly understand what he said, but I caught the words “another bath,” and the whole sentence sounded like a question.
    â€œAye,” the boy answered in a high, rough voice. “The lieutenant said—”
    The other one shook his head and grumbled in French. Then he said,