“I don’t think so. Blackbeard’s crew was tried at Williamsburg – ever been there? – the old courthouse in the tourist part of the place. I remember hearing that they were actually hung where one of the Holiday Inns is. And Captain Kidd was taken home to England for hanging, wasn’t he? Yeah, they had a place called Execution Dock or something like that. So – no, I don’t think they really did it aboard ship, even in the old days. Damn sure we didn’t do it. Christ, what a story.”
“So it never happened,” Murray said, not in the form of a question.
“No, sir, it did not,” Wegener replied. The XO nodded to support his captain.
“And you’re willing to say that under oath.”
“Sure. Why not?”
“If it’s all right with you, I also need to speak to one of your chiefs. It’s the one who ‘assaulted’ the -”
“Is Riley aboard?” Wegener asked the XO.
“Yeah. Him and Portagee were working on something or other down in the goat locker.”
“Okay, let’s go see ’em.” Wegener rose and waved for his visitors to follow.
“You need me, sir? I have some work to do.”
“Sure thing, XO. Thanks.”
“Aye aye. See you gentlemen later,” the lieutenant said, and disappeared around a corner.
The walk took longer than Murray expected. They had to detour around two work parties who were repainting bulkheads. The chiefs’ quarters – called the goat locker for reasons ancient and obscure – was located aft. Riley and Oreza, the two most senior chiefs aboard, shared the cabin nearest the small compartment where they and their peers ate in relative privacy. Wegener got to the open door and found a cloud of smoke. The bosun had a cigar clamped in his teeth while his oversized hands were trying to manipulate a ridiculously small screwdriver. Both men came to their feet when the captain appeared.
“Relax. What the hell you got there?”
“Portagee found it.” Riley handed it over. “It’s a real old one and we’ve been trying to fix it.”
“How does 1778 grab you, sir?” Oreza asked. “A sextant made by Henry Edgworth. Found it in an old junk shop. It might be worth a few bucks if we can get it cleaned up.”
Wegener gave it a close look. “1778, you said?”
“Yes, sir. That makes it one of the oldest-model sextants. The glass is all broke, but that’s easy to fix. I know a museum that pays top dollar for these – but then I might just keep it myself, of course.”
“We got some company,” Wegener said, getting back to business. “They want to talk about the two people we picked up.”
Murray and Bright held up their ID cards. Dan noticed a phone in the compartment. The XO, he realized, might have called to warn them what was coming. Riley’s cigar hadn’t dropped an ash yet.
“No problem,” Oreza said. “What are you guys going to do with the bastards?”
“That’s up to the U.S. Attorney,” Bright said. “We’re supposed to help put the case together, and that means we have to establish what you people did when you apprehended them.”
“Well, you want to talk to Mr. Wilcox, sir. He was in command of the boarding party,” Riley said. “We just did what he told us.”
“Lieutenant Wilcox is on leave,” the captain pointed out.
“What about after you brought them aboard?” Bright asked.
“Oh, that,” Riley admitted. “Okay, I was wrong, but that little cocksucker – I mean, he spit on the captain, sir, and you just don’t do that kinda shit, y’know? So I roughed him up some. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but maybe that little prick oughta have manners, too.”
“That’s not what we’re here about,” Murray said after a moment. “He says you hanged him.”
“Hung him? What from?” Oreza asked.
“I think you call it the yardarm.”
“You mean – hang, like in, well, hang? Around the neck, I mean?” Riley asked.
“That’s right.”
The bosun’s laugh rumbled like an earthquake. “Sir, if I ever hung somebody, he wouldn’t go around bitchin’ about it the next day.”
Murray repeated the story as he’d heard it, almost word for word. Riley shook his head.
“That’s not the way it’s done, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“You say that the little one said that the last thing he saw was his friend swinging back and forth, right? That ain’t the way it’s done.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“When you hang somebody aboard ship, you tie his feet together and run a downhaul line – you tie that off to the rail or a stanchion so he don’t swing around. You gotta do that, sir. You have something that weight – well, over a hundred pounds-swinging around like that, it’ll break things. So what you do is, you two-block him – that means you run him right up to the block – that’s the pulley, okay? – and you got the downhaul to keep him in place real snug like. Otherwise it just ain’t shipshape. Hell, everybody knows that.”
“How do you know that?” Bright asked, trying to hide his exasperation.
“Sir, you lower boats into the water, or you rig stuff on this ship, and that’s my job. We call it seamanship. I mean, say you had some piece of gear that weighs as much as a man, okay? You want it swinging around loose like a friggin’ chandelier on a long chain? Christ, it’d eventually hit the radar, tear it right off the mast. We had a storm that night, too. Nah, the way they did it in the old days was just like a signal hoist-line on top of the hoist and a line on the bottom, tie it off nice and tight so it don’t go noplace. Hey, somebody in the deck division leaves stuff flapping around like that, I tear him a new asshole. Gear is expensive. We don’t go around breaking it for kicks, sir. What do you think, Portagee?”
“He’s right. That was a pretty good blow we had that night – didn’t the captain tell you? – the only reason we still had the punks aboard was that we waved off the helo pickup ’cause of the weather. We didn’t have any work parties out on deck that night, did we?”
“No chance,” Riley said. “We buttoned up tight that night. What I mean, sir, is we can go out and work even in a damned hurricane if we have to, but unless you gotta, you don’t go screwin’ around on the weather decks during a gale. It’s dangerous. You lose people that way.”
“How bad was it that night?” Murray asked.
“Some of the new kids spent the night with their heads in the thunderjugs. The cook decided to serve chops that night, too.” Oreza laughed. “That’s how we learned, ain’t it, Bob?”
“Only way,” Riley agreed.
“So there wasn’t a court-martial that night either?”
“Huh?” Riley appeared genuinely puzzled for a moment, then his face brightened. “Oh, you mean we gave ’em a fair trial, then hung ’em, like in the old beer commercial?”
“Just one of them,” Murray said helpfully.
“Why not both? They’re both fuckin’ murderers, ain’t they? Hey, sir, I was aboard that yacht, all right? I seen what they did – have you? It’s a real mess. You see something like that all the time, maybe. I never have, and – well, I don’t mind tellin’ you, sir, it shook me up some. You want ’em hung, yeah, I’ll do it and they won’t bitch about it the next day, either. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t ‘a snapped the one over the rail – lost my cool, and I shouldn’t have – okay, I’m sorry about that. But those two little fucks took out a whole family, probably did some rapin’, too. I got a family, too, y’know? I got daughters. So does Portagee. You want us to shed tears over those two fuckers, you come to the wrong place, sir. You sit ’em in the electric chair and I’ll throw the switch for you.”
“So you didn’t hang him?” Murray asked.
“Sir, I wish I’d’a thought of it,” Riley announced. It was, after all, Oreza who’d thought of it.
Murray looked at Bright, whose face was slightly pink by this time. It had gone even more smoothly than he’d expected. Well, he’d been told that the captain was a clever sort. You didn’t give command of a ship to a jerk – at least you weren’t supposed to.
“Okay, gentlemen, I guess that answers all the questions we have for the moment. Thank you for your cooperation.” A moment later, Wegener was leading them away.
The three men stopped at the gangway for a moment. Murray motioned for Bright to head for the car, then turned to the captain.
“You actually operate helicopters off that deck up there?”
“All the time. I just wish we had one of our own.”