Tom looked where the other lad pointed. Sure enough, there in the gray light, not very far from shore, rode a two-masted schooner, listing badly to one side. Her foresail hung in long streamers that stirred as the morning wind blew through them. Her colors had been shot away, and the lower side of her deck was all awash with sea.
“All right, boys!” Ike Baldwin straightened them to attention with his command. “Here’s Cal and ’Lisha with the pitch. Now we can go.”
Two young men, dark-haired and muscular, came panting up with a heavy keg between them, swung in a cradle of stout rope. Baldwin went on, speaking rapidly.
“Cal and ’Lisha will tow the pitch out to the schooner. Got that now?”
General murmurs of assent passed among the little group.
“Aye,” murmured Johnny brightly, like a smart lad repeating catechism.
Tom inclined his head and chewed nervously at a bit of grass he had picked up somewhere. It had a rank salty taste. He wished he knew exactly what he was supposed to do.
“The rest of you ain’t going along for the swim, remember,” the relentless orders went on. “You’re there to help get the pitch aboard and spread it around on whatever parts of her is driest and most likely to burn. Don’t want her to go back into British service again. Don’t want the British to think they can come shooting amongst us any time they choose without having to pay.”
He stood still for a moment, in a defiant attitude, waiting for his words to take effect.
“How we going to kindle the pitch, Ike?” asked a voice at the rear of the group. “Flints and tinderboxes’ll be wetter’n a drowned cat ’fore we get there.”