Assassin's Honor (9781561648207) Read Online Free Page B

Enemy
    U.S.S. Bennington
    Key West Naval Station
    Saturday afternoon
    10 December 1892
    A knock sounded twice at my door. The nervous voice said he was the messenger from the officer of the deck. With my permission, a young sailor entered. Taking in everything at a glance, his face was a study in competing emotions: envy at the relative luxury of my quarters, and terror at being inside them. He knuckled his brow and began his recital.
    â€œAh . . . Seaman Bundle, Captain, sir, with a message from the officer of the deck. Mr. Manning presents his respects and reports the naval station just signaled
Chicago
and
Bennington
—a German warship entered the channel ten minutes ago. She’s the . . . Genays . . . ayn . . . now . . . or something like that. Sorry, sir, but I just can’t pronounce them foreign names.”
    The morning was turning out to be rather interesting. It had been quite a while since a German warship visited Key West.
    â€œI believe she will be the
Gneisenau
, Bundle. She’s a well-armed corvette-cruiser and Germany’s West Indies station ship. Pass along my compliments to Mr. Manning and tell him I want my gig ready in ten minutes.”
    As Bundle departed, Rork arrived. Bosun Sean Rork is a curious study, worthy of a closer glance.
    Born and raised County Wexford, Ireland, in 1831 he left that blighted isle at age twelve and grew up fast at sea on a coaster working ports on both sides of the Irish Sea. His sad childhood back in Wexford was something he never really explained to me, other than to deflect my inquiries into humorous anecdotes about girls, the church, and the despised English. By the late 1850s, Rork was a grizzled bosun working the Atlantic trade between Liverpool and Boston.
    In January of 1863, after his desperation could be held in check no more, he had a life-altering decision to make. Either kill the maniacal new mate in the ship, or jump ashore and see what life in America would bring. Wisely, he chose the latter option, but after five months’ search there was no work for a foreign seaman; all the maritime jobs went to locals, for to be without a seaman’s exemption meant you were subject to be conscripted into the army. And that meant going south to live in the mud in disease-ridden camps, all the while being subjected to mindless army discipline, when not getting shot at by the Confederates.
    But there was another opportunity at hand—go to sea for Uncle Sam. Rork joined the quickly expanding U.S. Navy, made bosun’s mate immediately, and never looked back. We met in the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in the summer of 1863 and served against the Confederates in Florida and the West Indies for the rest of the war. That experience formed a friendship that has strengthened over decades of shared danger and despair on assignments around the world. Rork is a good man to have beside you in bad situations.
    Such a friendship was not only rare between officer andpetty officer—ours was the sole example I’ve seen—it was severely frowned upon by the notoriously hidebound naval establishment. That didn’t bother me a bit, for I was a persona non grata with those fools myself, not having attended the naval academy and thereby become a proper “gentleman.” One attribute Rork and I did have, however, was that we always accomplished the mission, albeit occasionally with innovation which deviated from regulations.
    Rork’s only major faults are a fondness for women and rum, necessitating a keen watch over him lest either lead him, and sometimes me too, into ruination. Unlike me, he was never married, has no legitimate children and, as he says, is a truly free man.
    Admiral Walker was one of the few in the upper naval strata who appreciated what Rork and I had done for the country, and the admiral never harassed me about my old friend. Actually, I always thought him a bit