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Back The Nest Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright page
  3. Introduction by Will Errickson
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. TREMORS
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. SUSPICIONS
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. DREAD
  19. 1
  20. 2
  21. 3
  22. 4
  23. 5
  24. 6
  25. WITNESS
  26. 1
  27. 2
  28. 3
  29. ALERT
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. ENCOUNTER
  36. 1
  37. 2
  38. 3
  39. 4
  40. 5
  41. 6
  42. HAVOC
  43. 1
  44. 2
  45. 3
  46. 4
  47. 5
  48. 6
  49. SEARCH
  50. 1
  51. 2
  52. 3
  53. 4
  54. 5
  55. CLASH
  56. 1
  57. 2
  58. 3
  59. 4
  60. 5
  61. 6
  62. 7
  63. COUNTERATTACK
  64. 1
  65. 2
  66. 3
  67. 4
  68. 5
  69. 6
  70. 7
  71. VICTORY
  72. 1
  73. 2
  74. 3
  75. 4
  76. 5
  77. 6
  78. 7
  79. 8
  80. 9
  81. EPILOGUE
  82. About the Author

It was too bad, Hubbard thought, that Reed Brockshaw and Craig Soaras especially could not be with their Yarkie fellows to witness the victory they had now finally achieved. The Task Force had won in the end. The price had been high, the way perilous and troubled. It was more than right for eyes to be shining with achievement through their fatigue and tension.

Hubbard saw that even Bonnie’s tears had ended. Her back was straight and her head was high as she watched the flames dying down. There was some consolation for her and for all the Yarkie victims in this fiery retaliation.

They could turn now to leave. The threat was past and gone, the suffering was over at last. Yarkie Island was finally free again.

VICTORY

VICTORY

1

ONE

Jubilance was tempered with sadness, sadness was brightened by hopefulness at the celebration that night in Elias Johnson’s house. The captain prepared his special drink, a “switchel,” to toast the Task Force that could now be disbanded. The generously filled mugs contained a mixture of rum, molasses and ginger-­flavored water. It was a potion that sailors usually foreswore as being for landlubbers and sissies—but not when made with the extra dollops of rum Johnson poured in with a generous hand.

The captain toasted the group, ladies first: Elizabeth and Bonnie. Then Peter Hubbard and Amos Tarbell, Ben Dorset, Russell Homer, and Stephen Scott for supplying the special equipment they had needed. “Well, we got the scurvy lot!” were his words. “And the more credit to all of us for it!”

They drank heartily, and took more. By common consent, they put off the mourning they still had to do for what they and Yarkie had lost. Now was the hour to refill the cup of their triumph and supremacy. The old man did not hesitate to brim up Elizabeth’s cup when she held it out again and again. Or Bonnie’s, or Hubbard’s, or the others’.

They exchanged yarns that had the men slapping their thighs and calling out, “Whacking good!” In one story, Amos Tarbell used the word “mooncussin’” and had to explain it to Hubbard and Bonnie Taylor. Nowadays, it referred to nighttime scavenging on the beaches, people picking over the tide’s flotsam and jetsam; but its origin was out of a time when people swung lanterns on dark nights to mislead ships. The wrecks could then be plundered. The trick couldn’t work when the moon was out, so those nights the folks “cussed the light”—and now walking the beach with a lantern had become “mooncussin’.”

Laughing now, Bonnie Taylor told how Elizabeth had fooled her into picking up a scallop, without warning her she’d get squirted. She knew about squirting clams, but not scallops.