Page 13 of The Salamander

Martha smiled. Her love for the family and pride in what she could do for them was there in her eyes. She returned to the kitchen and brought back the Indian pudding. Eunice found the earthy smell of cornmeal mixed with molasses, cinnamon and ginger to be comforting. “That looks tasty,” she told Martha, who set the large dish on the table.

“It does, indeed,” said Jon, dishing out some for his daughter.

Hannah leaned forward eagerly. “Papa, tell us what you’re fixing on the Tyrannicide to sail again. Silas told me some but I want you to tell me.”

Jon set down his spoon and licked his lips. “A sprung plank near the bow, new spars and rigging aloft, and a topmast for the main. Beyond that, there’s a hole in the hull near the gunwale and the entire deck needs to be cleaned. We’ll be in port for several days.”

Eunice nodded, thinking of the list against the backdrop of the war. “Enough time for Hannah to learn another knot,” she said with amusement.

Jon smiled faintly. “One I will be happy to see,” he said to his daughter. “And more meals like this one before we’re off again.”

When the dishes were cleared, Eunice lingered a moment, candlelight glancing off the silver. Through the clatter from the kitchen and the sound of Hannah chattering to Martha, her thoughts returned to the look in Jon’s eyes, that quiet confidence she had not seen before. Whatever had happened at sea had tempered, not hardened him. She knew the shape of grief well enough to see when something stronger had taken root alongside it, and she found herself silently speaking her gratitude to God.

She asked him about the crew and was delighted to hear of the cabin boys. “So many!”

“Aye, yet they all seem to be well-occupied. There’s much to do with seventy-five crew and officers. I was able to help a lad, Johnny Deadman, the son of one of my wife’s distant relatives gain one of the cabin boy positions.”

Eunice could see he was pleased. “It must have felt good to help him,” she said.

“It surely did, and if he does well, he’ll have a life at sea if he wants one.”

When they moved back to the parlor after supper, Martha was already there with her knitting, spectacles perched low on her nose. Silas lounged in the corner chair, drinking coffee while stretching one leg gingerly before him. He had told Eunice the old injury made itself known when the weather changed.

“You missed a fine puddin’, Silas,” Martha said without looking up. “Not that you deserve any, sittin’ idle while others work, but I left some for you in the kitchen.”

Silas grinned at her over the top of his mug. “Idle? I’ve been hard at it all evenin’, keepin’ your seat warm for you. It’s not my fault you chose another chair.”

“Hmph. I’ll thank you not to flatten it.”

Hannah giggled, and even Mr. Haraden’s mouth twitched at the corner as he looked up from his well-thumbed copy of The Practical Navigator, a book Eunice had seen left on the small table near his chair.

“The pudding is quite good, Silas,” Eunice encouraged. “You might want to try it.”

“I just might.” Silas leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I hear you’ve a sprung plank, sir. Best let me watch the shipwrights, to make sure they’re not skimpin’ on the oakum.”

“Watch them?” Martha snorted. “More like get in their way and talk them half to death.”

“Aye,” Silas said, utterly unoffended, “but I’ll do it with style. Can’t have the Tyrannicide lookin’ shabby in port.”

“No,” said Mr. Haraden with a smile, “we can’t have that.”

Inwardly, Eunice smiled, too, noting the fondness under their bickering. In a house that had known too much loss, such scraps of humor felt to her like a kind of ballast, keeping them steady for whatever lay ahead.

THE NEXT MORNING Eunice rose early, the light from the summer sun spilling across the floorboards before the church bell struck six. By the time she and Hannah left for the harbor with Silas, Mr. Haraden had departed for the Tyrannicide, Martha was busy in the kitchen, and Polly was in the wet nurse’s care.

They arrived to find the tide high and the wharves alive with shouts, hammering, and the cry of gulls overhead.

The Tyrannicide still lay alongside Derby Wharf, her pine tree flag stirring in the light breeze, her sails furled. Men swarmed her deck and rigging, voices overlapping as they hauled lines and lowered spars. The topmast had already been removed. The smell of fresh-cut timber mixed with tar and the sharper scent of oakum filled the air.

As they drew closer, Eunice’s eyes fixed on a ragged hole above the waterline near the gunwale, the planking bent inward and splintered like broken stakes, as if something had punched through from the sea. Sunlight glinted off damp wood inside the gap. She felt an involuntary shiver, thinking of shot slamming into the ship while Captain Fisk and Lieutenant Haraden stood aboard.

“That’ll be patched today,” Silas said at her elbow, leaning on his cane. “A six-pounder did that, near took the gun crew with it I expect. Lucky shot for the king’s man, but not lucky enough. She’ll be sealed like a ship’s rum jar before the tide’s out.”

Hannah’s hand tightened in Eunice’s. “Was Papa there when it happened?”

“Aye, Miss Hannah,” Silas said, “but your papa’s quicker than splinters, and twice as hard to knock down. ’Sides, he was likely on the quarterdeck.”

From where Eunice stood, she could see Mr. Haraden near the bow, coat off, sleeves rolled, speaking with a shipwright whose face was browned like old leather. He gestured toward the forward planking, the movement decisive. The shipwright nodded once, then turned to bellow an order.