From the hatchway that led below came confused cries.
“Oh, Captain! Tell the Captain there’s not a spark aboard her! Galley fire’s been put out and the ashes raked over! Not a flint! Not a tinderbox! How’s to have a burning without fire?”
Tom felt his pulses quicken. It was as if there were shooting sparks of triumph in his blood. His guess had been right, then. He lifted his head. Baldwin had turned away, having greater troubles now.
“There must be flints somewhere,” he exclaimed crustily. “Have you searched the officers’ quarters? The mess cabin? The hold?”
“Aye, sir. Everywhere.”
Tom got to his feet and looked around him. The men were standing idle now, about the heap of mattresses. They looked bewildered and—well, not afraid—uneasy, maybe. Turning his head a little, he saw the green shores of Hog Island with Noddle’s Island just beyond it, and far beyond that, the roofs of Boston touched with the morning sun. In the foreground hovered the British sloop. Her guns were silent now, but her sails were spread and she seemed to be drawing close. Perhaps this was the time for him to speak.
“Give me that pipe!” Isaac Baldwin’s command had a different tone to it this time. Before he had been angry and somewhat scornful. Now his voice was full of eagerness, quick and keen.
Tom took the pipe from his mouth. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I thought we might need it, sir. That’s why I brought it along. I—I’m not much of a smoking man.”
“Good boy,” said Isaac Baldwin.
He walked quickly across the deck, knelt down, and ripped a bit of tow from a mattress, testing the dryness of it with his fingers. Then he placed it lightly across the bowl of the pipe.