Back aboard Double Eagle, Will displayed the mess of fish he’d caught that afternoon—the locals called them “grunts,” he said—and then had scaled, cleaned, and seasoned them, all ready to be fried and consumed with a heap of the grits purchased in Beaufort. His navigational skills unnecessary for the time being, Will had agreed to accept demotion to ship’s cook if the Braithwaites found work ashore. The least the loafer could do, thought Eliot, still seething at Will’s refusal to go job hunting with them. The snob said he was a Yale man and a yachtsman and would not stoop to menial labor unless faced with starvation—a remote threat, what with all the fish in these waters and most of the stores bought from Cudlip (that seemed a year ago) still in the lockers. He figured he could stretch his seven dollars another two weeks, by which time they would be homeward bound.

Actually, his account was down to six dollars and ninety-three cents; he’d gone ashore to buy cigarettes and the Key West Gazette, which he read aloud to the Braithwaites as they ate on deck, basking in the relative cool, while the sun fell toward the benediction of its setting. The Key West electric trolley service, inaugurated two years ago, was to be expanded.… A dispute between local spongers and a Greek crew down from Tarpon Springs had erupted into fisticuffs in a saloon.… And these items, telegraphed by the Associated Press: An Ohio preacher, speaking through a transmitter on his pulpit, had delivered a sermon to housebound members of his flock by telephone—“Long-distance salvation,” Eliot cracked, his fork clicking on his tin plate.… The Chicago White Stockings had defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, three bags to one, in the year-old American League.… And General Funston, the celebrated captor of Aguinaldo in the Philippines, was due to return to the United States in the fall to lecture on his exploits.… The Anti-Imperialist League, claiming that Aguinaldo was a hero of Philippine independence, was urging people to boycott the general’s speaking tour.…

“Those sissies. Sissies and traitors.” Nathaniel spit a fish bone overboard. “Funston marched a hundred miles through the jungle right into Aguinaldo’s camp and nabbed him, fair and square.”

“Seem to recall it wasn’t quite that way, Natters. He employed a ruse de guerre.”

“What’s that?”

“Funston tricked Aguinaldo.”

“So what? Didn’t the Greeks trick the Trojans?” Nathaniel’s gaze stretched toward the out islands, now showing as black dashes against a purple sky. “Y’know, instead of going to college after I get out of Andover, maybe I ought to join the army or the marines and volunteer for the Philippines.”

Eliot and Drew looked at him, and Eliot said, “This is the first time I’ve heard that one.”

“That’s because I thought of it only just now.”