Free Black Ship by Carola Dunn Page B

shore.
    Now there were low headlands on either side as
Barleycorn
entered a bay.
    A Klaxon horn blared, followed by a loud-hailer: “U.S. Coast Guard.
Barleycorn
, stand by to be boarded.”
    The skipper’s response was to shout to the man at the door, “Get Jed off the roof, and all of you lie flat!”
    “But skipper—”
    “Get your heads down!”
    The man disappeared.
    Another hail was followed by a warning shot screaming overhead. A fountain of water and mud arose where it landed in the shallows. The
Barleycorn
veered left, then right, then left again. Patrick assumed they were dodging further shots, until he realised the banks were closing in as they sped up a narrowing, winding inlet.
    And ahead loomed a low drawbridge—a
very
low bridge.
    “Skipper—”
    “Duck!”
    Patrick flung himself to the floor, arms covering his head. Above him, the roof splintered and disappeared, the smokestack crumpled, and windows shattered as they struck the bridge.
    The skipper bobbed up and resumed steering, his gaze fixed on the river ahead. His cap had been knocked off and shards of glass glittered in his hair and whiskers. He spared a quick glance back at Patrick, prone amid the wreckage, and a manic grin bared his teeth.
    “Too shallow for the cutters,” he explained, “and they can’t fire in case there’s people around.”
    “Geez, skipper!” came a choking protest from the deck to the rear.
    Half-hidden by smoke billowing from the truncated smokestack, three wobbly figures were picking themselves up from the backswept rubble of the roof.
Barleycorn
was now moving too slowly in the narrow channel to disperse the pungent fumes. Coughing, the men stumbled forward, one of them dabbing at a trickle of blood running down his cheek.
    “Geez, skipper, there ain’t much of that drawbridge left. The township’s not gonna be too happy.”
    “We’ll tell ’em a Coast Guard shell demolished it. They can try for compensation. Jed, get forward and watch for shoals. The rest of you, watch for the shore signal.”
    Patrick said hesitantly, “There’s a chap over there who seems to be trying to attract our attention.” He pointed at a couple of men on the wooded bank, one waving both arms, the other launching a dory.
    Throttling back, the skipper kept just enough way on the launch to hold her in place against the current in the middle of the stream. The dory pulled alongside and the oarsman hung on to a fender. On his face, a naturally dour expression seemed to be warring with inward amusement.
    “You’re to unload in town,” he said laconically.
    “In town?” Turning his head, the skipper stared at him.
    “Ayup.”
    “What’s going on?” Patrick asked uneasily in a low voice. “Has something gone wrong?”
    “Looks that way.”
    “Is it safe to go into the town? Won’t the police be waiting for us?”
    “We’ll find out.”
    “You trust the man who told us—?”
    “My brother.”
    Patrick didn’t like to point out that history was full of brothersbetraying brothers, starting with Cain and Abel. After all, he trusted his own brother, the old stick-in-the-mud!
    Meantime, the oarsman had briefly conferred with his passenger. He hoicked a thumb at Patrick and asked his brother, “That the fella you picked up out there?” The thumb hoicked seaward.
    “Ayup.”
    The thumb indicated his companion. “This fella’s come to pick him up.”
    In contrast to the overall-clad boatman, the other was wearing a yellowish brown suit, of a colour and cut that would have raised eyebrows in London—but Patrick had no way of knowing whether it was proper business dress in America. The passenger started to stand up, subsiding abruptly as the dory rocked but raising his brown fedora enough to show reddish hair and bright blue eyes in a pale face scattered with pale, blotchy freckles.
    An Irishman, if ever Patrick had seen one.
    “Now?” asked the skipper.
    “Ayup.”
    Patrick retrieved his kit bag from under a heap of