The French Prize by James L. Nelson

Bolingbroke’s jaw so fast that Bolingbroke did not even have time to replace his cocksure look with one of surprise.
    Jonah stumbled back, his hands to his face, and Jack tried to ignore the pain that exploded in his knuckles. A knot of their shipmates caught Bolingbroke before he hit the deck and set him on his feet. His hands came down and balled into fists. There was blood in the wake of Jack’s punch, a split lip it looked like. “You son of a whore, Biddlecomb, I’ll do you for that!” Bolingbroke said, more of a growl than an articulate sentence, and with that he bounded across the deck, straight at Jack.
    His right hand swung around in an arc, making for the side of Jack’s head. Jack lifted his arm to block the punch and realized his mistake even as he saw Jonah’s powerful left come up from below and connect with his stomach, blowing the wind out of him and doubling him up. But Jack knew by instinct that the knee was coming next, so he twisted to the side and when Bolingbroke made his move, his knee found only air. That threw his balance off and Jack straightened enough that he could give Bolingbroke a left to the stomach and a right to the side of the head that sent him sprawling back but did no worse, since Jack, understanding that his fist would explode in pain with the blow, had pulled the punch.
    Bolingbroke was more mad than hurt, and he was very, very mad. His hand went around behind him and when it returned it was clutching his sheath knife, the blade glowing dull and menacing in the gloom. Jack reached around and pulled his knife as well, and then strong arms grabbed him and held him immobile and he saw others grab Bolingbroke. “None of that, none of that,” Ferguson said, and the knives were wrenched from the combatants’ hands and they were shoved toward one another again, encouraged by their mates to beat each other half to death, but not to finish the job with blades.
    Jonah swung, an ugly roundhouse, and Jack leaned back, felt the air of the blow on his face like the concussion of a cannon blast. He stepped in and landed a quick jab with the right, another with the left. Bolingbroke stumbled back again and then there was a loud knock on the hatch combing overhead and the voice of the first mate called down, “Holloa, the fo’c’sle!”
    With that hail Biddlecomb and Bolingbroke dropped their fists and melted back among the men milling about, and the rest took on attitudes of nonchalance that were ludicrously insincere. The mate’s shoes, stockings, breeches, and then the rest appeared as he came down the ladder. He stopped when his head was below the level of the deck, turned and looked around. He was no fool, and he had been to sea long enough to know that something was acting here, but in accordance with the hierarchy of the merchant trade he would let the forecastle sort out the forecastle’s problems, as long as it did not interfere with the efficient and, more to the point, profitable running of the ship.
    â€œHarwood, where the devil are you?” the mate snapped.
    â€œHere, sir,” Jack said, trying not to sound like a man in the middle of a fistfight.
    â€œGet your dunnage and get aft. We have to leave Noddle ashore, so the old man’s moved Dailey into his berth and he wants you to ship as third.” He took one last glaring look around, and having said what he had to say, he was up the ladder and gone.
    And that was an end to it. Because as pathetic a creature as a third mate might be, he was a mate nonetheless, and no one in the forecastle, particularly not as ill-considered a whore’s whelp as Jonah Bolingbroke, would voluntarily get athwart his hawse. He would not cross him even after Jack, his sea bag over his shoulder, heading up the ladder on his way aft, pointed to the half-filled shoes on deck and said, “Bolingbroke, that’s disgusting. Get that cleaned up and be quick about it.”
    So their