Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [89]
“Begging pardon, sir,” Picard pointed out, “but if the captain is dead, you’re now the captain. I’m now first officer, and Mr. Frost is second.”
Pennington eyed him sadly. He evidently knew all that, but had been unable to actually vocalize it.
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “It’s very hard for me … the captain and all. I’ve been his first lieutenant since …”
He lowered his eyes, pressed his lips tight, rubbed his sore arm, and worked to regain control. A few moments later he summoned the will to continue.
“In any case, Picard, we are the Royal Navy, and we must maintain discipline or we’re lost. If I should die, be sure you look after the men. They’ve done their duty, and they deserve to be treated accordingly.”
Picard paused for a moment of admiration for this wounded officer. The injury seemed minor for a man of the twenty-fourth century, but in 1777, not so. These people had no anesthetics, no antibiotics, and they didn’t know how wounds got infected, how fever came, or why people died. Families would have six, eight, ten children, some eighteen or twenty children, in hopes that three or four would survive to adulthood and care for each other and their aging parents.
And Mr. Pennington was displaying officer thinking, not worrying about himself, though he might yet face a slow, unpleasant death. He was concerned about how his crew would fare without him.
“You shouldn’t be out in the open,” Pennington advised.
“Go back to your sanctuary and make your plans. Whatever you do, keep control of Seaman Wollard and Gunner Bennett. You know how independent-minded sailing men can be.”
“Mmm … yes, I do. Take care of yourself, sir.”
“Thank you, Picard. Be extremely careful This circumstance is not good.”
“Agreed, sir. Come on, Alexander, quickly.”
“Thank God! Where’ve you been?”
Jeremiah Coverman rushed to them as the gaggle of Justina’s crew piled in his narrow front door.
“We wanted to see the ship,” Picard explained.
“It’s right there at the dock!” Alexander piped in. “It looks a lot bigger than it did from the deck!”
Picard dropped a quieting hand on the boy’s shoulder. Alexander glanced at him, and shut up.
“Please, all of you come back in immediately.” Jeremiah fanned them into the warm room, glanced out the door, then closed it.
Amy and Mercy were both here, and Mercy’s child was now asleep on a blanket near the fire, completely oblivious to the shufflings of the adults. The cabin possessed a bucolic peace that was entirely false.
“My heavens, I thought the worst,” Jeremiah gasped, actually out of breath with worry as he turned and reached for Sandy, then abruptly drew back at Sandy’s hard expression.
Empathy creased Picard’s brow, for Jeremiah was hurt by that hardness. Hurt, yet not ashamed. Somehow that came across in spite of everything.
Picard turned to Nightingale, Wollard and Bennett. “Sit down, gentlemen. Stay quiet.”
“Yes, sir,” Nightingale responded, and herded the seamen to the table.
Before Picard could even turn back to Jeremiah and Sandy, the door crashed open suddenly, knocking Sandy back a step. A red-haired colonist tumbled in and caught himself on the back of the lambing chair, gasping and clearly in pain. If he’d been standing straight, Picard would figure his height to be just between Sandy and Jeremiah, and he was a lean fellow in his thirties, though at the moment he seemed to feel a hundred years old.
“Patrick!” Jeremiah plunged in to support the newcomer before he fell over. “Amy, bring water! Good Lord, what happened?”
As Mercy rushed to close the door, Jeremiah and Picard helped the man to the bench beside Edward Nightingale, and Jeremiah stood beside the fellow in such a manner that allowed the exhausted, injured man to lean against him.
“Patrick, what happened to you?” Jeremiah asked again.
“My horse … shot out from under me … took a ghastly fall.”
The man bent forward briefly and shuddered for breath.
“Who is this person?” Sandy asked, somewhat snappishly, as if he had some right to demand anything in another man’s home.
Jeremiah shot him a reproving look.