HARBOR POINT

Early morning mist … birdcalls … howler monkeys like wind in the trees. Fifty armed partisans are moving north over Panama jungle trails. Unshaven faces at once alert and drawn with fatigue, and a rapid gait that is almost a jog indicate a long forced march without sleep. The rising sun picks out their faces.

Noah Blake: twenty, a tall red-haired youth with brown eyes, his face dusted with freckles. Bert Hansen: a Swede with light blue eyes. Clinch Todd: a powerful youth with long arms and something sleepy and quiescent in his brown eyes flecked with points of light. Paco: a Portuguese with Indian and Negro blood. Sean Brady: black Irish with curly black hair and a quick wide smile.

*   *   *

Young Noah Blake is screwing the pan onto a flintlock pistol, testing the spring, oiling the barrel and stock. He holds the pistol up to his father, who examines it critically. Finally he nods.…

“Aye, son, that can go out with the Blake mark on it.…”

“Old Lady Norton stuck her head in the shop and said I shouldn’t be working on the Lord’s Day.”

“And she shouldn’t be sniffing her long snot-dripping nose into my shop on the Lord’s Day or any other. The Nortons have never bought so much as a ha’penny measure of nails off me.” His father looks around the shop, his fingers hooked in his wide belt. Lean and red-haired, he has the face of a mechanic: detached, factual, a face that minds its own business and expects others to do the same. “We’ll be moving to the city, son, where nobody cares if you go to church or not.…”

“Chicago, Father?”

“No, son, Boston. On the sea. We have relations there.”

Father and son put on coats and gloves. They lock the shop and step out into the muted streets of the little snowbound village on Lake Michigan. As they walk through the snow, villagers pass. Some of the greetings are quick and cold with averted faces.

“Is it all right if my friends come to dinner, Father? They’ll be bringing fish and bread.…”

“All right with me, son. But they aren’t well seen here.… There’s talk in the village, son. Bad talk about all of you. If it wasn’t for Bert Hansen’s father being a shipowner and one of the richest men in town there’d be more than talk.… Quicker we move the better.”

“Could the others come too?”

“Well, son, I could use some more hands in the shop. No limit to how many guns we can sell in a seaport like Boston … and I’m thinking maybe Mr. Hansen would pay to get his son out of here.…”

*   *   *

Spring morning, doves call from the woods. Noah Blake and his father, Bert Hansen, Clinch Todd, Paco, and Sean Brady board a boat with their luggage stacked on deck. The villagers watch from the pier.

Mrs. Norton sniffs and says in her penetrating voice, “Good riddance to the lot of them.” She glances sideways at her husband.

“I share the same views,” he says hastily.

Boston: two years later. Mr. Blake has prospered. He works now on contracts from shipowners, and his guns are standard issue. He has remarried. His wife is a quiet refined girl from New York. Her family are well-to-do importers and merchants with political connections. Mr. Blake plans to open a New York branch, and there is talk of army and navy contracts. Noah Blake is studying navigation. He wants to be a ship’s captain, and all five of the boys want to ship out.

“Wait till you find the right ship,” Mr. Blake tells them.

*   *   *

One winter day, Noah is walking on the waterfront with Bert, Clinch, Sean and Paco. They notice a ship called The Great White. Rather small but very clean and trim. A man leans over the rail. He has a beefy red smiling face and cold blue eyes.

“You boys looking for a ship?”

“Maybe,” says Noah cautiously.

“Well, come aboard.”

He meets them at the gangplank. “I’m Mr. Thomas, First Mate.” He extends a hand like callused beef and shakes hands with each boy in turn. He leads the way to the master’s cabin. “This is Captain Jones—master of The Great White. These boys are looking for a ship … maybe…”

The boys nod politely. Captain Jones looks at them in silence. He is a man of indeterminate age with a gray-green pallor. He speaks at length, in a flat voice, his lips barely moving.

“Well, I could use five deckhands.… You boys had any experience?”

“Yes. On the Great Lakes.” Noah indicates Bert Hansen. “His father owned fishing boats.”

“Aye,” says Captain Jones, “freshwater sailing. The sea’s another kettle of fish.”

“I’ve studied navigation,” Noah puts in.

“Have you now? And what would be your name, lad?”

“Noah Blake.”

An almost imperceptible glance passes between the Captain and the first mate.

“And your trade, lad?”

“Gunsmith.”

“Well, now, you wouldn’t be Noah Blake’s son would you?”

“Yes, sir, I would.”

Once again the glance flickers between the two men. Then Captain Jones leans back in his chair and looks at the boys with his dead, fishy eyes.

“We’ll be sailing in three days’ time … New York, Charleston, Jamaica, Vera Cruz. Two months down, more or less, and two months back.… I pay ten pounds a month for deckhands.”

Noah Blake tries to look unimpressed. This is twice as much as any other captain has offered.

“Well, sir, I’ll have to discuss it with my father.”

“To be sure, lad. You can sign the Articles tomorrow if you’re so minded … all five of you.”

*   *   *

Noah can hardly wait to tell his father. “I mean that’s good, isn’t it?”

“Aye, son. Perhaps a little too good. Captain Jones’s name is not so white as his ship. He’s known as Opium Jones in the trade. He’ll be carrying opium, guns, powder, shot, and tools. And he’s not too particular who he trades with.…”

“Anything wrong with that, Father?”

“No. He’s no better and no worse than most of the others. Only thing I can’t figure is why he’s paying double wages for his deckhands.”

“Maybe he’d rather have five good hands than ten waterfront drunks.”

“Maybe.… Well, go if you like. But keep your eyes open.”