“You taught me to jump in obeying orders, sir. You’ll have to split the blame if so be it that I hit you extra hard.”
Captain Coombs’ mouth twisted dryly. “I must ’a’ tooken extra pains teaching you.”
“You did, sir. Very extra the pains were. I carry marks of them. But I’m calling the score squared. Let’s see! I’m forty. Well, sir, for twenty-five years I have been lugging the hankering to hit you. Hereafter, I’ll never wake up in the night and worry about that hankering. My mind will be easy from now on. Thank you, sir, for coming aboard and giving me my chance.”
Bent straightened and walked back to his chair.
Captain Coombs rolled to his knees and stiffly arose. “I’m glad to find a small favor so much appreciated. What may I call your name?”
“Rawson Bent, sir.”
“I don’t ricolleck no sech name. But I’ve jettisoned out of my mind a lot o’ sculch, including names of apprentices. So you’ve paid me back, hey? Well, I’ll pass you a receipt by saying I won’t never again forget Captain Rawson Bent.”
The cutter commander crossed his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “However, Captain Coombs, I haven’t settled in full with you, sir. I haven’t paid for the training that made a sailor of me, a mariner with true notions of what the sea means. Also, I haven’t squared with you for saving my life one time when I disobeyed orders and went swimming in shark waters. I’m reminding you of how you jumped in, kicked away the sharks, got me aboard and used up on me the rest of your stock of kicks, racing me up and down the main deck.”
Captain Coombs rolled up his eyes, and scratched his ear, tipping the sou’wester. “I’m beginning to get a little glimmer of rickollection about you.”
“You may remember, sir, when your nursing saved me from dying of scurvy that time we were dismasted by a typhoon and worked ship with jury rig all the weeks till we made one of the Tonga group and grabbed some God-given green stuff.”