Free The Continental Risque by James Nelson Page A

sheriff said and then to the armed seamen added, ‘Get him in the boat.’
    Hackett slumped in the stern sheets of the boat as they drew nearer the town of Wilmington and its all too familiar jail. He had not intended to lead a mutiny, that was the thing of it. He had just been amusing himself, just letting the rage pay out.
    It was the first time he had sailed with Barry. Indeed, it was the first time with most masters with whom he sailed, as it was rare that any captain would ship him twice. Had Barry not been desperate for able-bodied men, the stock of seamen being much depleted by the privateers, Hackett doubted that he would have found that berth. His reputation was spreading. He should really have left Wilmington as he had planned. But he had not.
    He had been aboard Barry’s ship only two days when he first saw the rift. The cook was an old-timer, adept at wielding the kind of authority that cooks can have, if they play the game well, and that one did. Half of the crew liked the man, or at least pretended to. The other half did not, but they kept that opinion enough to themselves that it caused no real friction. Until Hackett came aboard.
    The first move had been the most enjoyable, and surprisingly effective. He had caught a rat, deep in the hold, and with his sheath knife had deprived the animal of its tail and four feet. It had been amusing enough to watch the filthy thing squirming around in the light of the lantern, trying to flee on bloody stumps. But that was nothing compared to the reaction of the men – none of them friends of the cook – who found the rat’s body parts in their food.
    That alone had started a near riot. First accusations, then plates, then fists, had flown around the forecastle. Blood might have been shed if Hackett had not stepped in as peacemaker, pleading with both sides to be reasonable.
    The captain had thanked him for that, the stupid bastard. They were only three days out at that point. It had promised to be one of the most enjoyable voyages yet.
    The boat thumped against the wooden dock and Hackett was lifted, none too gently, from the stern sheets while the sheriff, preserving as much dignity as he could, clambered out after him. ‘Come on, then, Hackett, off to the jail. You know the way, been going there since you were weaned. Recall how you used to visit your father, even before the first time you was thrown in there?’
    They started up the narrow street, sloping uphill away from the river. The sheriff would not let up. ‘Most decent families, you know, Hackett, have their own pew in church. Yours got its own cell in the prison. Hey? Your own cell in the prison? The Hackett cell?’
    People were stopping to watch the procession go by. Hackett could see the heads shaking, the children’s eyes averted by their parents. The better sort. He loathed them. All his life they had looked at him like that, shaking their heads. He envisioned doing to their children what he had done to that rat.
    After the initial riot things had gone well. In his role of peacemaker and new man in the forecastle, he had no former loyalties, and thus the ears of both factions, which made it that much easier to stoke everyone’s suspicions and anger. He had never seen a crew so divided, so angry and unhappy. Oh, it was great fun, for a time.
    They came at last to the jail. ‘In you go, Hackett. Into the Hackett cell.’ The sheriff found this concept throughly amusing and would not stop. Hackett remained silent, staring at the stone floor. Raising any objection would only make the idiot sheriff go on at greater length. He knew the sheriff. They had known each other for many years now.
    What was so utterly maddening to Hackett was that the whole thing, the whole wonderful frolic, had fallen apart through his own stupidity. He was not content to just enjoy what he had wrought. He never was, and he was ashamed of that weakness. In such instances he felt the need