Excited

"Slow down young man." Mr. Michaels chided as he put up his hand. "How your grandfather did what?"

"Look at this!" Urged James shoving the scrap into Michaels hand. "It's a chemical formula for something." Mr. Michaels stared for a long time at the slip before handing it back to James.

"I think it is, lad, but all the chemistry I know uses the new symbols. I recognize H20 of course and the first one is either Sodium or Nitrogen something or other." He shook his head sadly, "Did your grandfather write this? Almost no one still uses the Landers' notation any more, it's too complicated."

"Its not that complicated." James responded "In fact I can never remember any of the new symbols at all." Mr. Michaels pointed at the slip.

"Wait" Michaels voice became quite a bit more eager. "You can make sense of that?" Now it was James turn to try and explain.

"Well I can read some of it." He laid the slip out on Mr. Michaels's work bench and pointed to the first group of letters. "The first part is a Nitrogen Acid - I think. I have no idea what that Hydro-carbon is, but I bet we can find it in my grandfather's library." Mr. Michaels was beaming.

"We should tell the captain to sail there immediately!" James was pretty sure that Captain Kilgore was not the type of officer to jump from one wild idea to the next.

"Maybe we can talk him into visiting the Church Library in Telnon instead." He suggested, "He can pick up a load of freight to ship back to the islands."

Before either of them could add anything else, a loud hail came from outside.

"A-hoy the ship!" The voice was gruff and confident as well as very loud. "We have cargo for you to sign for." James followed Michaels up through the hatch and saw two small wagons piled high with boxes. A thick necked bull of a man whose tunic stretched tight over his broad shoulders stood by the first wagon. Three other men cut from a similar cloth watched for any sign of trouble. James gave Mr. Michaels a nudge and the gun master straightened with a start.

"I'll sign for it." Mr. Michaels said hesitantly, and then in an attempt to sound more like he knew what he was doing added quickly "If the count is correct." The paper work matched the number of sealed boxes on the wagon and soon the entire contents of the two wagons was sitting on the wharf waiting to be loaded. While the four teamsters drove their empty wagons back to the busy harbor. Soon all four men were carting the boxes up the gangway and onto the ship's deck. Each crate then had to be passed down into the cargo hull below and stacked below decks between the guns. Once in the cargo hold, Sasha pitched in. James was surprised at how easily she was able to move the crates around, for all that her skin was as pale and smooth as the most fastidious aristocratic ladies that James knew, she worked just as hard as the men without even breaking a sweat.

None of the boxes were all that heavy, but there were well over one hundred of them, so the crew were only about halfway through when the Captain pulled up with more supplies to unload. James was pleased to see he had brought an extra hand as well as the supplies.

He was even more surprised when the Captain stripped off his vest and started hauling boxes along with the others. At first the rest of the crew worked uncomfortably in his presence, but as it became clear that he was a good worker and the pile began to disappear into the hold the crew started their banter again laughing at each other and starting a sea chantey.

It took a little over an hour for all the boxes to be secured in the cargo deck. The deck had become quite a bit more crowded with the new cargo, but there was still plenty of room to stow the water casks. James wondered how they were going to fill the six large barrels, and how long it would take before they were as foul smelling as the ones that were being replaced. The stench from the old leak casks increased as they were dragged away to make room for the new ones.

"Captain?" Called out Mr. Michaels as the old barrels were about to be lifted to the deck. "Can we keep these as targets for the guns?" James watched his new Captain as he considered the gun chief's request, he knew that many captains considered target practice as wasteful as shooting bags of silver crowns out to sea. How much money would Brenan be willing to spend to have his gun crews be able to aim with any effect?