Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [81]
Swede spoke up. "That doesn't sound reasonable, Langman. Why don't you go out? You're voting for yourself, aren't you?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet," Langman said.
Swede laughed, but without humor. "I've heard that be-
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fore! When anybody says that, it means he's made up his mind to vote for the wrong man."
"We're wasting time," Captain Dean said. "I'll go out, but my brother won't. Neither will Miles Whitworth. They're entitled to vote on who they'll obey. I'll stay out long enough to cut seaweed for us to eat with the cheese. Seaweed can't hurt us, and it'll make the cheese go further."
He backed out into the snow and the rain, leaving the canvas-wrapped balls of cheese in my hands.
"Now," Langman said, "we want to do this all fair and honest. I don't care who's made captain, but I know Cooky Sipper wants me to be. He said so just after we got the canvas up. So did Graystock and Saver. All three of 'em voted for me." His voice sounded painfully virtuous.
"Cooky hasn't said a word since the captain helped him into this hole," Swede said. "If you know what Cooky wants, you must have read his mind."
"I tell you I heard him," Langman cried. "Mellen heard him, too. Didn't you, Mellen?"
Mellen agreed promptly. "Yes, I certainly did. I heard him say, 'I want Mr. Langman.' "
"Well, I didn't," Chips Bullock said. "I didn't even see Langman talk to Cooky. When we were stretching the canvas, Langman said people as sick as Cooky and Graystock and Saver ought to have a separate hole in the rock, all to themselves. If I get sick, I don't want to be put off in a hole in a rock with somebody that can't talk to me. I vote for Captain Dean."
"You're an awful fool, Chips," Langman said. "You know as well as I do he's been trying to get us in trouble
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ever since we left the Nore. First it was privateers and then there was this insurance money he was bound to get."
"Well, Mr. Langman," Swede said, "you've seen the size of this island. We didn't pile up on it because of anything Captain Dean did. We had bad luck. If Captain Dean had been aiming for it, only a miracle would have brought us within a mile of it on a night like last night."
"Neal is youngest," I said. "He ought to have first say in this voting."
"I vote for Captain Dean," Neal answered quickly.
Langman sat up straight, bumped his head against one of the crosspieces that supported the canvas and fell back again between his fellow conspirators, Mellen and White. "Neal says that because he's the captain's favorite," he said in a shaking voice. "If a captain gets you into trouble, anybody ought to have sense enough to know he'll never get you out of it. Probably the captain threatened young Neal with punishment unless he voted for him. I say his vote ought to be disallowed."
"What's the matter with you, Langman?" Henry Dean asked. "Why are you so dead set on discrediting my brother? What do you hope to gain by it?"
"I don't expect to gain anything by it," Langman snapped. "I've got a great respect for the truth, that's all. If any British sea captain does the things your brother has done, he ought to be exposed so he can't make a nuisance of himself on the high seas."
"Langman," Swede said, "you're a hard man to argue with. Everything you say is wrong. You make a liar out of any person who tries to set you right. I vote for Captain Dean."
"I vote for Captain Dean," I said. "That's five. Why
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doesn't somebody try to get a word out of Saver, or Graystock, or Cooky?"
"I'm ranking officer of this ship's company until this vote is settled," Langman said. "I refuse to let men as sick as Cooky and Graystock and Saver be interfered with! I told you they've settled on me. I know Mellen and White are for me, and so I'll vote for myself, and that makes six."
"Well," I said, "that accounts for all but Christopher Gray and Harry Hallion. Gray's a gunner and he scaled the guns with Swede. He must know Swede wouldn't be for Captain Dean if