Seventeen
“Hold your fire!”
The Tressen cutter captain’s jaw dropped. He lowered his field glasses and turned, chest out, to the tall man in civilian clothes who stood beside him on the cutter’s bridge. “What, sir?”
Polian lowered his own glasses, which had been focused on the tiny sailboat in the distance. But he kept his eyes on it. “Hold your fire, Captain!”
The captain frowned but barked over his shoulder, “Hold fire!”
“Hold fire, aye!”
The captain’s command was relayed as the gun crew ahead of and beneath the bridge slammed a shell into the four-inch deck gun’s breech, locked it in place, then scurried aside and stood at attention on the plank deck.
The captain’s eyes bugged beneath gray brows at Polian. “Sir, it is bad enough that I have, at your insistence, wasted fuel oil and ammunition pursuing some lober boat. I have found it for you. Now you intend to let it get away?”
Polian kept his eyes on the tiny boat as it inchwormed from wave crest to trough, toward the cliffs. “I do not.”
“Then may I ask—?”
“No.”