"It's finally over. Keen to get to sea, I hope? Ready for the smell of burning sail?"
"At your order, sir. One thing though, sir. I still haven't had any luck finding a reliable team of rangers. Something must be going on inland. I've tried through channels and I've tried out of channels, but all I can find are kids or old men," he said, more than half-telling the truth for once. "The Grog labor team is a combat squad on paper. I'd like to just keep them, sir."
"What about quartering them? We're crowded enough- the men won't share with Grogs."
"We can rig some kind of shelter in the well deck, sir. Tents would do."
Captain Saunders thought for a moment. "Very well, they can eat the leftovers. Stretch the stores. I understand Grogs aren't too particular. Put that foreman of theirs in charge of squaring them away. I'd like to depart at dawn, and you'll be welcome on the bridge at six a.m. We'll take her out right after breakfast."
Close to two hours of sleep! Valentine sagged in relief. "Thank you, sir."
"One thing, though, Captain Rowan. I'd like you and the exec to do a final weapons inventory. You'll do your marines and the small arms locker, and he'll cover the heavy weapons. Wouldn't want to reach Jamaica and find your men's rifles had been left dockside by accident. 'For the want of a nail,' am I right?"
"Yes, sir." Valentine said, the prospect of sleep evaporating like a desert mirage. "Speaking of small arms, I had to give over my revolver for barter for some parts the Chief needed. I'll need a new pistol from the ship's arms."
"Rowan, you have to learn to throw your weight a little more. Greasing palms with your sidearms ... Still, if it helped get us to sea, I'm grateful. Anyway, get that inventory done. That was item one, business. Item two is pleasure: I'd like your company at dinner tonight. A tradition of mine, to celebrate the beginning of what we all hope will be a successful cruise. Mr. Post is invited, too, of course. Number One uniforms, please. That will encourage your lieutenant to clean himself up."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Valentine said.
"That's all for now. See to your men, Rowan."
"Aye aye, sir." Valentine shut the cabin door softly behind him and began his day's work.
He hardly noticed the ship pulling away from the dock and moving downriver, so busy was he with final preparations. The executive officer, Lieutenant Worthington, started on the heavy weapons inventory then begged off as the engines were turned over to attend to duties on the bridge.
Valentine, who had little to do with the actual handling of the ship, was glad to be rid of him and offered to finish Wor-thington's part of the barely begun job. The exec, though two years older than he, had not seen much action and assumed Valentine to be a man of vast experience, to be a captain of marines in his mid-twenties. He had the annoying habit of wanting particulars of the various real-and faked-incidents in Valentine's "Captain Rowan" dossier. Valentine did not wish to discuss the faked events out of fear of slipping up on some detail, and the memories of the real incidents seen from the sidelines in the service of Kur troubled him too much to want to talk about them for the entertainment of a callow fellow officer.
Inventory and inspection done, he just had time to change into his best uniform before dinner.
Naturally, the dinner began with a toast over the cloth-covered folding table that had been set up for the meal. Worthington raised his glass of wine, an import brought all the way from Western Mexico. The captain and exec sat opposite each other, stiff in their crisp black uniforms, the captain's solid-gold buttons engraved with illuminati eye-and-anchor. Valentine and Post in their brass-buttoned navy blue filled the other places on the square table.
"The Thunderbolt, Queen of the Gulf," Worthington intoned as they raised their glasses. Saunders sipped with a connoisseur's thoughtful appreciation; Post drained his glass in a single motion; Worthington barely tasted his. Valentine took a welcome mouthful, grateful just to be off his feet.
The wine hit him hard, and he fought to keep from falling asleep in his soup. A winter salad followed. The captain and the exec did most of the talking, discussing the pilot's navigation of the treacherous, shifting sandbars at the mouth of the Mississippi and the balance of the stores on the ship. Valentine was content to eat his main course, a fresh filet of Texas beef smothered in onions and mushrooms, in exhausted silence. Post, who had been encouraged by Valentine to mend his best uniform and press it to celebrate the freedom of being at sea and away from the humid air of New Orleans, finished the bottle and started on another of less illustrious vintage.
"Captain Rowan?" Captain Saunders's voice broke in through the mists of Valentine's fatigue.
"Sir?" Valentine asked, looking to his left at the captain.
"Lieutenant Worthington asked you a question. About the Grogs?"
"My apologies, Lieutenant," Valentine said, bringing himself back to the dinner with an effort. "I'm not myself tonight. What was the question?"
"Seasickness, Captain Rowan?" Worthington asked, a smile that was half sneer creeping across his face. "We're still on the river."
"Probably."
"I just wanted your opinion on Uncle's Grogs," the exec continued. "We were really hoping for some rangers for the inshore scouting work." The men on the ship called Ahn-Kha "Uncle," and Ahn-Kha was too well mannered among their enemies to correct them. In the Ozark Free Territory, he would have flattened someone who could not be bothered to learn to pronounce his name correctly.
"Uncle says that they are combat trained. I'll vouch for his word."
"It's your responsibility, of course," Captain Saunders said.
By now Valentine knew that the phrase was Saunders-speak meaning that if the Grogs failed in some way, the blame would be passed to Valentine.
"I'm sure we can keep them busy on the ship," the exec said. "I've never had any experience with Grogs in combat. I've heard they leave something to be desired."
"Properly armed and with a decent leader, I'll put them up against anyone," Valentine said. "I've seen them in action, once they sink their teeth into a fight, the only way to stop them is to kill them." He did not add to the speech that his experience mostly came from fighting against the Gray Ones, rather than with them.