TWO DAYS OUT OF BERMUDA LITTLE EDDY STEPPED OUT FROM HIS hiding spot in Loire’s hold and climbed up the ladder into the sunshine. He’d finished all the food and water he had brought aboard and was hungry and thirsty. He was also quite pale from sea sickness, but otherwise seemed none the worse for his time below decks.
Aja and Caleb Visser were thunderstruck.
“Little Eddy!” Visser exclaimed. “What on earth? You’ve been hiding below this whole time? Come here then!” Little Eddy walked rather forlornly towards the binnacle, his head down, expecting a tongue lashing or worse. But rather than berate the boy, Visser stared at the bedraggled youth a few moments, and then hugged him.
After getting past the shock of finding a stowaway on board his ship, Aja could only shake his head and smile. Not so long ago he’d hidden aboard a ship just like Little Eddy had done. He knew the fear of being found, the lonely blackness of the hold and the nibbling of rats as you slept, although if he’d been found he would have been killed. Or worse.
“Little Eddy,” Aja said to the boy, who was still embraced by Visser, “how on earth did you get aboard?”
Little Eddy smiled brightly, for it certainly appeared he was not going to be punished, at least not immediately.
“I just swam out to the ship, sirs!” he said, relieved. And then he added, “My mum knows I’ve gone.”
This was certainly true, as far as it went, so Little Eddy felt he was not actually lying. And then he quickly added, “I’m old enough to be on my own!” before anyone had a chance to question him about his mother. A clever boy, Little Eddy.
“All well and good, young man,” said Visser, not unkindly. “But then why not simply ask to come along?”
“I was afraid you’d say no,” answered Little Eddy in a flash. “I want to be a sailor!” Answering the question of why he’d left home before it was even asked.
Aja and Visser looked at each other, then at Little Eddy, and then back to each other again. Aja shrugged first. Well, what was to be done? It appeared they had a new hand on board to English Harbor.
Little Eddy was fed by the ship’s cook and given a hammock to sling below decks. He already knew most of the men from time spent working on the ship, and they winked to one another when the boy came by, for many of them had gone to sea the same way. At the same age. For the same reasons.
“What do you think, Aja?” asked Visser as they walked around the ship together later that evening. “I assume you’ll take him back with you to Bermuda?”
Aja was wondering the same thing. And, once again as he did with every situation at sea, he asked himself: What would Fallon do? He had no real answer, but his instinct told him to take Little Eddy back home. He couldn’t very well leave him in English Harbor, alone. Meanwhile, the boy would be put to work.
Loire bounded along with a favorable slant of wind out of the northeast, day and night throwing up spray and making good her course to English Harbor. Aja felt he knew exactly where they were, for the noon sights were easy under a beautiful blue sky. Little Eddy worked into the ship’s routine as a ship’s boy, getting on easily with the crew and seeming to relish his adventure. If he was homesick, he didn’t show it.
At last, Loire entered English Harbor under reduced sail and a British pendant, creeping to her anchorage at the head of the harbor near a ship Aja recognized easily, HMS Avenger, 74, Admiral Harry Davies. The last time Aja had been in English Harbor, Beauty had been in the naval hospital there, horribly wounded by a large splinter in her chest, fighting for her life. He had been a recently promoted second mate aboard Rascal, and now he returned in command of a ship! A temporary command, to be sure, but he was standing quite proudly as he pointed out the harbor’s landmarks to Visser and the omnipresent Little Eddy.
He determined to get the anchor down as quickly as possible and then pay his respects to Admiral Davies. The admiral would want to know about Fallon and Beauty, of course, and Aja could make plans to introduce him to Caleb Visser, who would want to ask after a ship bound for Southern Europe.
He looked around at the little harbor, at the homes and shops and government buildings. It was all pleasingly familiar to him. He thought of Paloma Campos here, the beautiful Cuban loyalist whom Fallon had rescued from prison in Matanzas on the eve of her execution. Here, too, were Dr. and Señora Garón, without whose skill and prayers Beauty wouldn’t be alive. So many memories of this place, all happy.
His eyes came back aboard and fell on Caleb Visser standing in the bows of the ship, searching the harbor for foreign flagged ships that might be leaving soon. The first leg of his journey to find his father was complete. He would be understandably relieved and nervous at the same time, for the next leg would take him to the other side of the world. He watched Little Eddy come up from below to see the sights—Little Eddy, who no doubt already thought he was on the other side of the world just being in a strange harbor away from Bermuda. Aja watched him and thought of his own journey to this place, his own wonder at each new harbor.
He ordered the sails furled and the ship drifted to her anchorage not far from Avenger. In very little time the anchor was down and his second independent command was over.