***
Torrance’s young boatswain fell to the deck with a dull thud of death. Smoke danced from the bullet hole in his chest. Roberts didn’t even look at the boy. He merely cocked back his pistol and prepared to fire at the grizzled quartermaster charging his way.
“Stop!”
The voice came out of nowhere. It was clear, confident and calmly poised for action.
Torrance’s sword was suddenly holding the quartermaster back. All of Torrance’s men had paused at their captain’s command. They were conflicted, but loyal to his words. Roberts’s own crew had also stopped, but out of sheer confusion. They all looked to Roberts, who was still looking at his prey.
“But…sir!” the old sea dog clamored. “This pirate has gone and killed poor Sully. We must have his blood for that!”
Torrance quietly replied, “And that we will.”
Captain Torrance walked past his men to face Roberts. “I have to admit, I had often heard tales of The Rotter’s Rose. Even as a young man in His Majesty’s Aero Force, I had heard warnings about how we do not engage The Rotter’s Rose. We do not fight Captain Hogarth and his Rotten Rogues. It would have been easy, in those days, you know, for the Aero Force to pick off the ship. Hogarth was not a great tactician, nor was he considered a great leader of men. But, of course, you know that, don’t you? You must have been there when Vicious Stiehl killed him. You must have been part of the mutiny. You probably even voted for it.”
Roberts’s face was as blank as a slate. Not one of the Rotten Rogues could tell if Torrance’s retelling of the Mutiny of ’54 was getting under their Captain’s skin. He made no sign that he was even aware that Torrance was speaking. He only stared straight ahead with his glacier blue eyes, blinking occasionally because of the smoke.
“Hogarth had his secrets…” Torrance teased.
Roberts responded, “I’m sure.”
“But all in all, he was a good man, as I understood it.”
Torrance had somehow corralled himself and Roberts into the center of a ring of men. Roberts felt uneasy, as though he had been signed up for a boxing match he hadn’t been able to train for. Never taking his pistol’s aim off of Torrance, he quickly glanced about the circle of men. The Rotten Rogues out numbered Torrance’s men at least two to one. He saw them all staring silently. Their faces were caked with blood, oil and sweat. Taylor, one of his best men, was standing closer to the enemy’s side—a mere step away from both the quartermaster and the captain. It could be over in a matter of one second. Roberts couldn’t understand why his men didn’t act, didn’t erupt, didn’t end this wicked fight. Yet somewhere in the pit of his stomach, he did know.
He knew that they were frozen in quiet anticipation for the same reason that he could not yet shoot Torrance. The captain possessed a rare dignity. His bearing and posture and words all came together to create something that was all too rare in these war weary days: quite simply, he was a great man. He was a man who demanded honor from his enemies. Roberts’s stomach twisted in dread as he realized what Torrance was about to ask him.
“Captain Roberts,” Torrance declared, “I have heard great stories of your fearsome deeds. I understand that you were a prodigy of pain and that you have grown into a master of murder. Still, I have heard more of you. I have heard that unlike Vicious Stiehl you are a captain who takes the safety of his crew very seriously. I believe we share this quality, and so I ask you, captain to captain, man to man, that we settle this battle ourselves.”
“You’re proposing that we fight a duel and that the winner claims victory over the battle?”
Torrance assented. “Precisely. You’re telling me that you wouldn’t relish the challenge, Roberts? Matching your blade with mine?”
Roberts exhaled and chose his words very carefully as he replied. “You speak as though we were equals, and we are not. You speak as though I were like you, a man who betrayed the good captain who sheltered me in my youth for my own taste of glory. You speak as though we could possibly share respect for one another. You speak as though I were a man of my word and that you were a man of your own. You speak as though you know everything about me, and yet you don’t even know my real name.”
Torrance touched the tip of his sword with his left index finger. He looked at the blood bubbling up from the tiny pinprick with disappointment. “Well, that is a shame…” he muttered. “Here I thought we might come to an understanding. I thought perhaps we could save ourselves a lot of trouble and save many lives.”
“Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.”
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