by Scott Cook
It was a steady and moderate breeze, coming out of the southeast at about fifteen knots or so. As we raced along the coast, running no more than two miles off the beach, we were hard pressed to bare up and to make as little leeway toward the shore as possible. Our opponent was forced to do the same, and the outcome was still fairly uncertain.
“That’s clapped a stopper over his capers!” The captain said with a hearty belly laugh. “What’d’ya’ think now, Scotty? Think he’ll still weather on us?”
I stepped up onto the top of the coach and braced myself against the main mast once again. We were easily making over eight knots, and as close hauled as we were, had to be heeled over twenty-five degrees or more. With this heel, I was just able to see our adversary, no more than two boat lengths behind.
“I think she’s as high as she’ll point, Pops,” I shouted back. “And she might just be fore-reaching on us still… but it’ll be a long run for her to catch us… and as soon as she falls under our lee… she’s dished certain sure! Ha-HA!”
“Hear that, ladies?” My grandfather, John Jarvis whooped, shaking his fist in the air and quickly swiping a lock of his silver hair from his spray-dampened face. “The Commander says we’ve got the legs of her, or will! Ha, ha, HAAA!”
Lisa Gonzalez, my girlfriend and assistant / partner… we weren’t quite sure yet… giggled at my Pops’ exuberance. The fourth member of our crew, my grandmother, laughed along with him.
My grandparents were both in their early seventies. Like my parents, they’d started young, having their first and only child, my dad, when they were barely into their twenties. They were both still quite robust. My grandfather was tall, broad in the shoulders and although his paunch was a bit more prominent than either he or my grandmother liked, his body was still hard with ropey muscle. My grandmother was tall and lithe, still possessing a great deal of her youthful swimsuit model… literally… beauty and zest for living.
“Commander Jarvis!” My grandmother said, adjusting her white visor over her mane of blonde curls. “Haven’t had a Commander in the family in quite a few years!”
“Sorry you had to settle for an Admiral, Rachel!” Pops jeered good-naturedly. “Then again, you know what they say about Navy men, huh Lisa?”
Lisa grinned and shook her head.
“That we’re vigorous!” Pops boomed in his boisterous quarterdeck roar. “Range alongside and board em’ in the smoke, eh! Ha-ha-ha-HAA!”
“Jesus, Jack, don’t scare the poor girl,” Nana said with a laugh.
“Nonsense,” Pops replied. “The apple don’t fall far from the Jarvis tree, ain’t that right, son!?”
I felt heat rise into my face and Lisa guffawed. My grandmother reached over and playfully punched her husband on his arm, “Stop that, Jack! These young people don’t want to hear an old fart like you talking about sex!”
Lisa was laughing heartily now.
“The hell you say, love!” Pops boomed. “Don’t listen to her, Lisa, honey… what do you think keeps her looking so young? A good romp is the best wrinkle remover I know!”
“That’s old Jarvey for you, eh! Ah, ha ha ha!” I couldn’t help it and broke up myself. Lisa’s face was now red as well, but she seemed to be loving the banter.
“Old Jarvey?” Lisa asked.
“Old nickname,” Nana explained. “During the Napoleonic wars, Sir John Jervis, the Earl Saint Vincent, was pretty famous. Battle of Saint Vincent and all that. They used to call him Old Jarvey.”
“Some people think we’re related,” Pops put in. “But his name was spelled Jervis with an E. But his first name was John, so I got stuck with Old Jarvey when I was still an innocent and wide-eyed ensign.”
My grandfather’s forty-five foot ketch, Rachel’s Recompense … they both thought that was hilarious… was custom built for him by Charlie Morgan himself. One of the last projects the famous boat builder had done after retiring. He and Pops had met and become friends while Pops was still on active duty in the nineties.
The boat was a great mix of speed, weatherliness and innovation. Even at over twenty-five years old, she still looked damned close to showroom perfection and she sailed like a dream.
A good thing too, because our opponent, or the nearest one to us, was a slightly smaller but newer Tartan forty-three cutter and was making a damned good show of it. The other boats in the annual Stuart to Fort Lauderdale relay regatta were well behind we two leaders. The race, put on and sponsored by the Stuart Corinthian yacht club was known affectionately by its participants as the Life Alert cup. Many of the members being retired and incorrigibly facetious, Pops being chief among these.
The race started just outside the St. Lucie inlet and would end at Port Everglades. After that, the racers would make their way to the Bahia Mar resort and marina for the night. The next day would be the second leg of the race back to Stuart and a banquet at the yacht club.
Because the course was about eighty miles, the boats had gathered outside the inlet at dawn. We’d watched a beautiful sunrise and then the race had officially begun at six bells in the morning watch, or seven a.m. The forecast was for a steady fifteen knot breeze all day, so the estimated run time was nine to eleven hours, getting us to the destination inlet right about sundown.
“Figure it’s about time to splice the main brace, what do you say, Commander?” Pops asked me as I took a seat in the large center cockpit.
I glanced down at my Luminox dive watch, “Well, it is two bells in the afternoon, skipper. Think its okay to pipe ‘up spirits?’”
“Sun’s under some yardarm someplace, lad,” he replied with a grin.
I cast a quick glance at Nana who smiled back. Lisa leaned over and kissed me, “I’m game.”
“What would everybody like?” I asked.
“You know what I want,” Lisa said.
“No, I meant drinks.”
She giggled and slapped me on the arm. That got a laugh from Pops and a groan from Nana, but she was smiling.
“Boatswain’s grog?” Pops asked. “Or did you bring something.”
I made my way down the companion ladder and pulled a plastic bottle out of the fridge in the galley. Because my grandparents were all fancy pants and stuff… Nana said that just because they were on a sailboat didn’t mean you couldn’t use glass… I pulled four highball glasses from the locker and set them into a very handy countertop silicon cup holder thingy they’d set up.
With a fifteen knot breeze, sometimes gusting to nearly twenty, out of the southeast, there was a good three foot sea running. So it made standing glasses on the counter a bit of a challenge. Plus everything down in the cabin was all tilted for some reason. With the cup holder mat, though, I was able to fill the glasses with ice and margarita without spilling any or breaking anything. I handed them up two at a time and made my way back up into the cockpit.
“If this breeze holds,” Pops said, touching a strip of teak that ran along the top edge of the cockpit fairing. “We should make the finish line by a little after five.”
“Don’t jinx us, Jack!” Lisa teased.
Pops reached out and touched the wood again, “never, sweetheart, never. That’s why I said if and should.”
“Not that he’s superstitious or anything,” Nana poked.
“Of course not, darlin’… God forbid and the saints preserve us!” Pops replied, touching the teak for the third time. We all laughed.
“Looks like that Tartan isn’t coming up anymore,” I stated after we’d clinked and took long pulls from our drinks. “What’s our speed, Pops?”
“Eight point four knots,” He said. “Not bad at all. Don’t worry about him, laddie. He’s just a guest competitor. Not a bad sailor, but nowhere near as good as your old Pops.”
“Friends of yours?” Lisa asked. We hadn’t really had time to meet anybody before the race started, having driven down the previous afternoon.
Pops got an odd look in his eye, “Yeah, an old acquaintance of mine from the Navy day
s. Captain Henry Lambert.”
I almost did a spit take. I felt the blood drain from my face and an eerie chill creep through my entire body. Lisa’s brows rose and she reached out and took my hand.
“Jesus, Scott… you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said softly.
Pops’ green eyes met mine, “It’s his son, Scott. Henry Lambert, Jr.”
“Jesus Christ…” I breathed and then let out a strained little laugh. “You know Hank Lambert’s son?”
“And we know about Hank senior, too,” Nana said. “From reading your book about him.”
“You… read Sins of the Fatherland?” I asked softly.
The blood that had left my face now came back in force. I could feel the heat rising up from my collar and tingling across my cheeks now. Lisa looked at me strangely and chuckled.
“What? You’re embarrassed?” Lisa asked in confusion. “What’s the big deal… oh… ohhh…”
Pops roared with laughter and my grandmother came over to my side of the cockpit and put an arm around me, “don’t be embarrassed, Scotty. Nothing new under the sun. We read all your books, you know that.”
“Just finished the one about Costa Rica,” Pops said and looked at Lisa with a wry grin on his face. “Good stuff.”
Now it was Lisa’s turn to flush crimson. In both of those books, and in the one I was currently writing about a madman named Shade who’d caused quite a hullabaloo a few months back, there were a few sex scenes. Not pornographically explicit, but definitely explained using moderate detail. In book seven, A Fortune in Blood, I described one between Lisa and myself aboard a steamboat.
“Ahem…” I cleared my throat and took in a steadying breath, “Well… uhm…”
“It could be worse, son,” Pops said, raising his glass. “You coulda filmed it.”
“Jesus…” I muttered. “So anyways… how do you know Hank’s kid?”
“He crossed my hawse some years back,” Pops explained. “Never met Hank, though. Too bad, from what I read in your book, I think I’d have liked him.”
I sighed, “Yeah… in spite of everything, he was a good man.”
“Well, his son wants to talk to you,” Pops added.
I groaned, “Oh great… probably wants to know about his dad and his daughter…”
“What a small world…” Lisa said almost to herself.
“Has he read my book?” I asked. “That’ll explain everything as good as I can.”
“Not sure,” Nana said. “But he’s a friendly sort. He and his wife live in St. Augustine and come down by car or boat a few times a year to visit the club.”
“Boy… I bet between the two of you Navy men there are quite a few stories,” Lisa commented, trying to lighten the mood a little.
Nana laughed, “Oh, God yeah! Some not fit for mixed company, too.”
Pops grinned, “Those are your grandmother’s favorites, by the way. Yessir… I’ve got a few tales I haven’t told you yet, son. Maybe we need to sit down and go through some. Bet you could turn some of my doins’ into a book. I’ve always wanted to write one or two, but never got around to it.”
“I’m surprised, Pops,” I said. “You’re a great storyteller.”
He shrugged, “Not much of a writer, though… but maybe we put our heads together, we can do a good submarine story. I really liked the one about Hank’s old man when he was a kid.”
“That could be cool,” Lisa encouraged. “I’d love to hear about some of your adventures under the sea, Jack.”
“Argh!” Pops growled and then laughed.
Nana’s sky-blue eyes, eyes that always seemed so young to me, met mine, “Come to think of it… maybe it’s time we let him in on the family secret, Jack. Let our scribbler here make a story of it.”
Pops took on a thoughtful expression and nodded, “Maybe you’re right, Rachel… I think he’d get a kick out of it at any rate.”
“Family secret?” I asked. “What am I adopted or something?”
Lisa guffawed, “Scott, I’ve met your dad and having spent time with Jack here over the past almost two years… there’s no way that you’re not a Jarvis!”
Pops roared with laughter again and so did Nana. She wiped tears from her eyes and said: “Oh, never a truer word, honey! But he’s definitely got some Spinelli in him too. Angela’s eyes for sure, and that dark hair and cleft in his chin. And a great cook, too.”
Pops beamed, “yeah… great cook… sounds like somebody needs to start lunch.”
“Oh, what am I the freakin cabin Steward on this barqee?” I grumped.
“That’s right, Killick!” Lisa roared out in her best Jack Aubrey. “Jump below and light along something hot and none of your Goddamned capers, ya’ hear me there!”
That got a big laugh. I went below and despite the heel and the moderate roll, was able to get lunch going.
I’d pre-made what are commonly known as campfire bundles. They look a bit like giant Hershey’s kisses, but in fact the foil contains a jumble of items that, when roasted over a fire, on a grill or in the case of that day, an oven, they blend their flavors into an easy to make but delicious aromatic meal.
Mine contained quartered red potatoes, half ears of corn, sliced red onion and orange bell pepper, about a teaspoon of crushed garlic, a variety of seasonings and spices, half a dozen shrimp, two hot Italian sausages and half a zucchini sliced. All this topped with a couple of tablespoons of butter and with half a beer poured in.
Even after only a few minutes in the oven, the three bundles were already producing mouthwatering fumes that rose into the cockpit.
I mounted the companion and in my best Preserved Killick… peevish, shrill and pinched tone in other words… announced: “Wictuals will be up this directly minute.”
“I’m so lucky to have such a great cook to serve me,” Lisa commented with a smile.
“Hmmm...” Nana said. “In fact, though, Jack… he is a Cook, isn’t he? Just like you.”
I scoffed, “come on, Nana. You know Pops can barely boil water. I mean… how can toast have bones, for Christ’s sake!?”
Pops laughed, “Each man to his trade, son. But what your grandmother means… is that you’re a Cook, with a capital C. You’re descended from Captain James Cook.”
I felt confused, “Huh? We are? I didn’t know any Cooks ever married any Jarvises… not that I’m an expert on our lineage or anything, but still…”
“Officially they didn’t,” Nana said. “However… at the time, people weren’t really that concerned about recording bastards, to use a crude term.”
“So what… Cook had an illegitimate kid?” I asked.
“Not Cook himself,” Pops said, “but his son, James. He died in 1794 while commanding his sloop, Spitfire. However, during the revolutionary war, he did have a daughter named Catherine. Quite a story about her… well, lots of them, in truth. James apparently raised her as a sailor and she became the first female ship’s captain. At least officially.”
“Really?” Lisa asked. “Way back then? Women were hardly allowed to even listen to accounts of naval actions, let alone fight in them.”
“You’d be surprised,” Nana said.
“That’s true…” I pondered. “Even in O’Brian’s stories and C.S. Forrester’s books there are some what you might call modern liberated ladies. Diana Villars… Pol Skeeping… Lady Barbara Wellesley to name a few.”
“Katie Cook wasn’t one of those sheltered ladies of the time, though,” Pops said. “She ended up marrying an Irishman in Boston near the end of the Napoleonic war named Jarvis.”
“Well I’ll be dipped,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s a story I think I’d like to hear.”
“Good, because I’ve got her logs and journals,” Pops said. “And since we’ve got plenty of time to sit around and chew the fat, maybe one of the two ladies here will read some to us.”
“You’ve got them on board?” Nana asked in surprise.
Pops shrugged, “Been thinkin
g about giving them to Scott for a while now. And when he told us about being drafted into the Navy… well… it might be the right time, all things considered.”
A few months back, I’d had a somewhat enigmatic meeting with a Marine Colonel named Grayson. He was apparently the head of some new international crime prevention and intelligence gathering organization and wanted to recruit me. I’d told him I’d think about it before going to Costa Rica. I didn’t really want to join him. Admittedly the group did good work… but they were still a government agency complete with all sorts of rules and regulations. I liked being a private eye and working for myself.
However, back in August when Shade had started his reign of terror, Grayson had come to me again and helped me to catch him before Shade could get out of the country with Lisa and another woman as hostages. As a result, I was pressured to agree to join his agency.
It wasn’t a job, really. It was more that I was a consultant and would get access to special training as well as help Grayson on missions now and then. As a result of my agreeing to join ICE – International Counter-crime Enforcement – I was made a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy with all rights and privileges of that rank, including pay.
Over the past three months, or nearly, I’d gone to Patrick Airforce base. Located off A1A between Cocoa Beach and Melbourne, the base was the home, or at least an operation’s point for ICE. They carried out special training there involving every conceivable type of operation. Counter insurgency, small vessel boarding, urban and jungle warfare training and flight training as well. I was actually most of the way to getting my pilot’s license through their training, prompted by a rather harrowing event.
My newest book, which I was calling That Way Lies Madness, was about my very personal battle with a man calling himself Shade. At one point, Lisa and I had to land a seaplane, which I can tell you was a sphincter-tightening adventure for sure. So if the government was going to offer me free flight training, among other things, then I was damned sure going to take it.