confidential comfortableness

There are affinities among the Terror-men – left to their own devices the Hartnell brothers cleave to one another, as do Genge and Honey, as do Diggle and Goddard, all the plump-cheeked Marines flocking together like so many red hens. In Gibson he has found a friend.

Two men can puff on the same pipe without remark – Gibson’s fingers graze his own as he packs the bowl and strikes the match, as if Billy isn’t certain he knows how to handle himself. He might not know how to tie a sheet bend or dowse a sail, but he’s not that green; he’s never given himself to senseless waste.

His mother smoked a pipe like this, white wood with a snubbed handle – puffing away with her needlework in front of her while someone else sweated out their keep in the next room, and waiting for her turn. Happy hours in the cradle. How many men remember their infancy?

Gibson’s lean leg bumps against his own under the table. The bitten stem is warm from his lip; the fire bites at Hickey’s tongue. A fat pinch of tobacco, a measure of lemon juice, and thee, Billy Gibson – what man would ask for more?