The Hold part 2

 

Captain Bowen decided that he had punished the Union agent who was imprisoned in the hold of his ship quite enough.
He had been imprisoned down there for forty eight hours, which was a long time to be trapped in a wooden box – the hold, in the heat of the Virginia summer.
It was a just punishment for his rude outburst about the British supporting the Confederacy, Bowen felt.
However, the agent was not entirely to blame for his outburst.
His master, Mister Lincoln was to blame for it.
If anyone should be imprisoned in the hold, it was Mister Lincoln.
He had ordered the Union blockade, and he should be punished for it.
It was Mister Lincoln who should be trapped down there, sweltering in the heat and suffering from the early stages of scurvy.
He gripped the weather rail of the ship tightly and clenched his jaw.
By God, it would be wonderful to see his sanctimonious face alter in appearance, it would be even less attractive when his hair began to thin and his teeth began to fall out.
He looked at the ships out in the Chesapeake bay; their masters were free to sail wherever they wished, while he was trapped in port.
He had changed course – he had changed his mind,
He would confine the Union agent in the hold for a further twenty four hours.

Continued from The Hold part 1 and continued in The Hold part 3

Author: Paul Gresham

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