The smaller sailor, whose name was Bell, said, “Chicken cooked in wine.”
“Indeed,” said Red. “I’ll dine with the Navy tonight.” He smiled at Devil. “You boys are privileged characters. How does it happen Senn lets two Navy men work in the cookshack at once?”
Devil screwed his face into a grin. “It’s because we’re such capital fellows and they trust us,” he said. “Nobody can trust an Army man.”
Tim laughed softly. “And you cook for Senn sometimes.”
Devil leaned forward and fixed Tim with a roguish stare. “I plan to poison him,” he whispered.
There was a pounding at the gate before their time was up, and the prisoners were ordered into the building again. Tim was on kitchen duty tonight. He stood with Devil and Bell and watched as the guards opened the gate and the wagon came through. The colored boy, Tom Jackson, whom Tim had first seen in the vacant lot months before, was holding the reins. His mother, whom the prisoners called “Aunty,” sat beside him. As the wagon pulled up to the cookshack the woman’s thin face wrinkled into a smile.
Devil said, “You’re late today.”
The woman slapped her knee and laughed. “Sorry indeed.”
Tom shouted, “Evening, Lieutenant. Evening, sailor men.”
Aunty waited while her son and the white men unloaded the wagon and stored the food on the shelves in the kitchens. When they had nearly finished she beckoned to Tim. “Under the canvas just behind the seat you’ll find a barrel of salt pork. Share it all around.”