“Think Semmes will give us leave in Cuba if we land to take on coal?” Spencer picked up a rope.
Phin slanted a grin at his friend. “Well now, I’d say it’s probable. I know we’d all like the chance to post a few letters. Eat a decent meal.”
“Find some fairer company.” Spencer tied the rope round about the trunk and handed one end of it to Phin, an impish grin on his mouth. “At least those of us who don’t have letters to post to the prettiest girl in all of Georgia. Maybe I can find a pretty señorita to write to, sí?”
Phin snorted a laugh. “You know very well you’re going to end up married to Mabel. You might as well stop fighting it and declare yourself.”
Spencer made a face at the mention of the neighbor from home he alternately growled about and thought longingly of. Apparently today was a growl-about day. “And have to listen to her nagging for the rest of my life? No thank you. If I’m going to have a nagging woman, she might as well nag me in Spanish so I have an excuse for ignoring her.”
Shaking his head with another laugh, Phin took his end of the rope and they eased it over the side, lowering the trunk slowly into the rowboat and Gleason’s waiting arms. “We both know you’re not looking for a señorita to marry.”
Spencer chuckled. “No, I imagine I’ll marry one of the girls my mother listed as acceptable for me. But she never said I couldn’t enjoy an evening with anyone else.”
As if Mrs. Spencer—a fine Louisiana lady—would ever speak so crassly. Phin rolled his eyes. “Just be careful in what you say, will you? You know well Semmes expects gentlemanly behavior from the crew. Especially when in port.”
Though his expression was shrouded by the shadows of night, Spencer’s snort came through clear enough. “Seems to me he worries too much about how we entertain ourselves in port. With everything else he needs to consider, we should hardly warrant his attention, so long as we don’t get into trouble with the law and report back on time.”
The trunk settled on the floor of the boat with a thud. Phin loosed his rope and coiled it on top, then reached for another armload. “Semmes is an intelligent fellow. He’s more than capable of worrying about it all.”
At least the snort held a little laughter this time. “You’ll join me, won’t you? Gleason said he would. He’s been to every major Cuban port before, so he can lead the way.”
Phin had been, too, but Uncle Beau had never led him to the particular parts of town that Spencer had in mind, and he’d never sought them out on his own either. The Dunns had their flaws, sure enough, but Father had raised him to embrace the very moral creed that Semmes was insisting on from his men.
Women were to be treated with respect. Protected at all costs. Not taken advantage of. He’d grown up pretending he was a knight, ready to do battle for the fair damsel’s honor.
It was no wonder he’d always been charmed by Delia’s stories.
To Spence, he simply said, “No thanks. I’ll just stay on the commander’s good side and focus on finding a decent meal, if we get shore leave, and—”
“Everyone in unison now . . .” Everyone was Spencer and, from below them, Gleason, but the two singsonged the rest of Phin’s words, “ . . . post my letters to Delia.”
If they meant to irritate him, they’d have to try harder. Phineas laughed. “Well, we haven’t had the chance to post anything since we left New Orleans, which means I haven’t sent the one where I exaggerated our narrow escape from the Brooklyn.” He tossed his armload down to Gleason.
“The only one that wouldn’t have required much exaggerating.” Spencer waited for Gleason to extend his arms again, then tossed down a section of tied-up canvas. “I was beginning to think we’d never see open water and would be stuck in the Mississippi for the duration of the war.”
Phin picked up the last of the gear. “Better than sitting in the marshes outside Savannah with my cousins. The letter that reached me said the fevers were far more deadly than the Yankees offshore.”
Hudgins strode up, gaze landing on Phin. “Is that everything?”
“Aye, sir,” Phin said with a nod.
“Good. Spencer, join Gleason in the boat, if you will, and be ready to row the second our boots hit the floorboards. Dunn, you’re with me. Time to light this Rocket.” The midshipman spun away with a beckoning motion of his head.
Phin exchanged a glance with Spencer, just long enough to see a spark of jealousy on his friend’s face—quickly gone as Spence nodded his acknowledgment of the order. They’d been lucky to be chosen for the prize crew from the one hundred and forty sailors on the Sumter. Phin ought to take it as the highest of compliments to be chosen for this, too, the first real action of their maritime war.
Yet splashing the deck and rigging with the kerosene Hudgins handed him didn’t feel much like a battle. And holding high the torch that would set it ablaze sure lacked that sensation of victory.
The fumes from the fuel curled around him, burning his nose. He’d known the war would be different out here on open water. Wanted it to be. But it was going to take some getting used to.
Hudgins motioned him to the rail. Phin took up position to scurry over it even as he reached for the torches. After handing them over, Hudgins opened the lantern and held it out. Phin lit first one torch, then the second.
Their glances held. Just for a moment, little more than fleeting. But enough to know that the prize crew’s leader once again shared his thoughts. Felt, too, that bare tingle of excitement smothered by a reality not so adventurous, not so romantic.
Well, as much as it might disappoint Delia if he wrote the naked truth to her, war wasn’t a pretty story. It was just day after day, month after month of doing what had to be done.
At Hudgins’s nod, Phin hurled the first torch as far as he could toward the aft. A second later, the lantern hit on the fore end of the deck, shattering in a whoosh of expanding flame. Phin launched the remaining torch far starboard, away from them, and turned before he could see where it landed.
“Over we go!” Hudgins’s voice fought the wind and the quickly mounting thunder of rising flame but still made it to Phin’s receptive ears without trouble.
He was already halfway down the ladder and soon landed in the rowboat. Even as he took his position, Hudgins landed, too, and shouted, “Row!”
Spencer and Gleason sliced the water with the oars in a rhythm fast and smooth, propelling them toward the Sumter and away from the Golden Rocket. By the time they bumped against the familiar hull of their ship, the Yankee vessel had ignited into an inferno.
Phin followed Spencer up the ladder and helped pull up the rowboat so they could unload it. But his gaze, like the hundred others on the deck, held fast to the blaze across the water.
After all the crew’s talk about the blasted Yankees and how hard they hoped to hit them, after all the laughing dreams of glory and prize money, no revelry sparked the air. No cheers went up. A strange silence held the sailors immobile as the dancing, crackling glow beyond entranced them.
A few heads shook. A few deep inhales signaled unexpected emotion. A few shuffling feet seemed inclined to leave yet remained rooted to their spots. Until now, most of the crew had served on ships much like the Golden Rocket, with her once-billowing sails.