Deadly Shoals Read Free Page A

secret as deep as the grave, every member of the expedition was perfectly aware that Captain Wilkes was determined to embark on a search for the fabled Antarctic continent as soon as the fleet had doubled Cape Horn—but if that was ever to be undertaken, it had to be accomplished before the end of the southern summer, and it was the third week of January already.
    â€œAnd the taxpayers are paying for this useless expedition?”
    â€œOver the past five months we’ve accomplished a great deal,” George Rochester returned with offended dignity. “Unknown tracts of the ocean have been charted—making the sea safer for people like you! Important gravitational measurements were carried out in Rio—mountains were surveyed, along with an immense lot of jungle. Great loads of specimens will be forwarded to the States. By the time the mission is over, the government will be well rewarded for their investment, I assure you!”
    â€œWell, I most surely do hope so,” said the whaling master, sotto voce, and then, with an abrupt change of topic, inquired, “Do you have any marines on board?”
    â€œMarines? No, we do not. Why do you ask?”
    â€œBecause I’m in dire need of a well-armed squad.”
    â€œWhat the devil for?”
    â€œYou said that part of the mission is to protect American whaling adventures, and that’s exactly what I need—protection!”
    George Rochester cast an all-comprehensive look about the innocently sparkling sea. “Protection from what, pray?”
    â€œI need help to apprehend a thief.”
    â€œA thief? You need a sheriff, Captain, not a squad of marines!”
    â€œWell, there ain’t no sheriff about here—and I don’t actually care how you do it, sir, just so long as I get my money back.”
    â€œYou’ve been robbed?”
    â€œOf a significant sum—by a man by the name of Adams, who’s American, which I reckon makes all the difference. He’s an American trader who has a store in the village of El Carmen, up the Río Negro,” Stackpole went on, jabbing a finger at the landward horizon. “I gave him a thousand dollars—and he absconded with it!”
    Wiki, at the helm, had trouble not shaking his head in disbelief at such credulous trust in an undoubted adventurer, and George, obviously, felt the same, demanding, “What in God’s name did you give him all that money for?”
    Stackpole shifted from one boot to another, giving the sails another look to conceal his embarrassed expression. “The whaling hasn’t been going well,” he muttered. “So I thought I’d invest in sealing.”
    â€œSealing?”
    â€œAnd why not?” queried the whaling master, back to delivering George an antagonistic stare. “The sealing trade ain’t finished, yet. There’s plenty of rookeries what ain’t been discovered, with hordes of seals just waiting to be taken.”
    Wiki and George exchanged a startled glance, having already heard this kind of claptrap from a bunch of old sealers they had picked up at Shark Island, off the coast of Brazil, a couple of months earlier in the voyage. There had been a time when men could make a fortune out of a sealing venture, when an eight-man gang could take twenty thousand skins in one four-month season, but since then the rookeries—the breeding beaches—had been devastated, the seal herds wiped out to the very last pup by the hunters’ cruel greed. Despite all the grim evidence, however, a certain type of sealing man still clung obstinately to the mad belief that there were some more lucrative beaches to be found, if only one kept up the hunt. An experienced whaling master, in Wiki’s silent estimation, should have had more sense.
    Rochester said, “But why Patagonia?”
    â€œThere’s plenty of seals about these parts, believe me. Patagonia has been considered too dangerous till