Shipwright and Swordsman

Garp stood at the workshop entrance and knocked twice on the door.

The sound of sawing stopped.

The sudden silence left Garp feeling a little unaccustomed to it.

He lowered his hand and stepped back half a pace. The workshop door opened a crack, then was pulled all the way open.

Marcus stood inside, still holding a plane. A curl of freshly shaved wood hung from its blade, and the clean scent of white wax wood flowed out from the workshop.

"Boss, do you take Navy business?"

Marcus fell silent for a moment. His gaze moved from Garp to Bogart, then back to Garp. He turned the plane in his hand.

"I do."

He turned around, set the plane on a wooden bench, took a canvas tool bag from the wall, stuffed several items into it, then slung it over his shoulder. He walked out of the workshop and pulled the door shut behind him.

"Let's go."

The three of them headed down the dirt road toward the dock.

Inside the house.

Mila stood by the window and pushed it open a crack.

The sea breeze squeezed in, lifting the loose strands over her forehead. She watched the three figures on the dirt road. Marcus walked in front with his tool bag over his shoulder; Garp and Bogart followed behind him.

Their backs grew smaller and smaller. They rounded the edge of White Wax Forest and were swallowed by the shadows of the trees.

Beside the dock.

Damian sat atop a pile of sacks.

The sacks held dried coconut meat, the most common cargo in the dock warehouses. He had just finished unloading a ship. Sweat ran from his temples to his chin and dripped onto his knees. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and looked up.

Barlow sat beside him with an account book spread across his lap. His fingers moved slowly over the entries. Tiny edges of the pages had curled up, gleaming faintly silver in the sunlight.

Damian had no idea what he was looking at. Ever since he sat down, Barlow had kept staring at the ledger, occasionally turning a page, occasionally not.

Sometimes, Damian felt that Barlow was not doing accounts at all. He was talking to those numbers.

Then he saw that familiar figure.

At the end of the dirt road, three people were heading toward the dock. Marcus was in front, his tool bag over his shoulder.

Damian leaned forward slightly. The muscles in his thighs tightened, and his heels lifted off the ground.

A hand pressed down on his knee.

It was Barlow's hand. The pressure was light, but it landed precisely above Damian's kneecap, keeping him from standing.

"It's just someone with a damaged ship looking for a shipwright." Barlow did not look up. One finger remained pressed against a page in the ledger. "Why are you panicking?"

Damian glanced back at him. Barlow turned a page, and the paper rustled in the wind.

"Shouldn't you be happy to make money off the Navy?" He finally raised his eyes, swept a glance toward the dock, then looked away. "Get back to work."

Damian stared at Barlow's face. There was nothing on it. The hand on his knee had already withdrawn and returned to the ledger pages.

Damian got to his feet, brushed the sack fibers from his pants, and bent down to carry the next sack of dried coconut meat.

At the dock.

The gray-blue hull of the warship filled his view. Up close, it was even larger than it had looked from the sea yesterday. The hull number on the bow had been eroded by seawater and looked mottled. The gunports were shut, and the Marines on deck were furling the sails.

An officer stood beneath the gangway. He was the officer who had questioned them yesterday, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched the men on deck work.

Garp walked over to him and jerked his chin toward Marcus.

"Major Hermann, I found the man to repair the ship."

Hermann turned around. His face was narrower than Garp's, with high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and lips pressed into a straight line. His gaze swept from Marcus's face to the tool bag, then from the tool bag back to Marcus's face.

"Weren't you out on patrol?" he asked Garp.

Garp did not answer. Bogart stepped up from behind and set a burlap sack at Hermann's feet.

The sack was not large, made of coarse linen with its mouth tied shut by hemp rope.

Bogart crouched down, untied the knot, and pulled the sack open.

One-Eyed Dragon's head.

Hermann looked down at it.

"Just one?"

"Only this one charged us," Garp said. "The rest probably fed the fish."

Hermann looked at the head in silence for a moment, then moved his gaze away from the sack.

"Pack it up. It's enough to report in."

Bogart tied the sack shut again, picked it up, and stepped aside.

Hermann turned to face Marcus. His gaze lingered on the shipwright longer than it had on the head.

"The bow joint is loose, and one section of the bottom planking needs replacing." He did not waste words. "When can you finish?"

Marcus took the tool bag off his shoulder. "Let me see first."

He carried the tool bag toward the gangway. He did not stop as he passed Garp, nor did he stop as he passed Hermann.

His pace was unhurried. The tool bag swayed lightly at his side as he climbed the gangway step by step. He crouched at the bow and spread out his tools.

"By today."

Hermann looked at him. "The price?"

Marcus rolled up his tool bag. "We'll talk after it's fixed."

He crouched down again and began working.

The sunlight moved from overhead toward the west, stretching the warship's shadow across the dock's stone pavement.

Marcus knelt on the deck for the entire afternoon. The joint was more rotten than he had expected. On the surface, it looked like only a narrow crack had loosened, but after sawing it open, he found that a palm-sized section of wood inside had already decayed from seawater seeping in.

He chiseled out the entire rotten section, pulled out a square block of white wax wood from his tool bag, and shaped it bit by bit to fit the opening.

White wax wood had a fine grain and was harder to carve than ordinary pine, but once shaped, it locked tightly with the original keel without the slightest gap.

He fitted the wood into place, soaked hemp cord in tung oil, and wound it tightly around the seam several times.

The tung oil came from a small clay jar at the very bottom of his tool bag. It was dark brown and smelled pungent.

Once the hemp cord had soaked through with tung oil, it turned sticky. Wrapped around the seam, it would shrink tight after drying under the sun, stronger than iron nails.

The break in the bottom planking was on the port side near the waterline, about the size of a palm. It was an old cannon wound, patched once before and then broken open again by a reef. He chiseled out the rotten wood around it, replaced it with a new plank, and drove wedges in from the inside.

The sound of sawing continued from afternoon until dusk.

When Bogart came over across the deck, Marcus was putting away his tools.

He wiped the wood chips off his chisel and returned it to the tool bag, followed by the saw blade, then the whetstone. Little tung oil remained in the clay jar, so he tightened its lid and tucked it back into the bottom of the bag.

When he stood, his knees were covered in wood shavings. He brushed them off with his hands, and the sea breeze scattered them away.

Bogart stood two steps behind him.

"You're skilled, sir."

Bogart handed Marcus a stack of Beli, all in 1,000-denomination notes. The stack was probably close to ten thousand.

Marcus tightened the straps on his tool bag and accepted the Beli. "It's how I make my living."

"How long have you been doing it?"

"Most of my life."

Bogart rested a hand on his sword hilt. "You only repair fishing boats?"

Marcus slung the tool bag over his shoulder. "Fishing boats, merchant ships. If it's a ship, I repair it."

He headed toward the gangway.

He did not stop as he passed Bogart. His pace was neither fast nor slow, the same as when he had arrived.

Bogart turned sideways to let him pass. Marcus walked down the gangway and headed along the dock toward the dirt road. The setting sun stretched his shadow long across the stone pavement.

Garp stood by the warship's rail, his elbows resting on it as he watched that back recede farther and farther down the dirt road.

Bogart walked over to his side.

"His habits don't look like those of a swordsman. There are no calluses from gripping a sword either, only the kind earned through work."

Garp pulled his arms off the railing and let out a long breath.

"I thought we'd run into some reclusive swordmaster."

Bogart leaned against the railing. "Turns out they're just an ordinary family of shipwrights."

"Anyway, with the head, Hermann can report back to the colonel. That's that. We probably won't ever come back to this island."

Bogart continued.

Garp looked toward White Wax Forest. The last trace of sunset fell upon the treetops, dyeing the silvery leaves pale gold.

"Maybe."

Garp spoke lightly, though it was impossible to tell which of Bogart's remarks he was answering.