Chapter 12
Nick decided to let Miss Chase play at captain until they could no longer see any of the Polly Ann’s mast. Confident Jonesy and Bos’n had everything in hand while he waited below deck for the ships to pass, Nick took the opportunity to eat a meal sitting down in the fo’c’sle, his back against the bulkhead, his legs stretched out on the bench. He stared at Chang and Winston in their hammocks, catching a nap while they couldn’t be on deck, and practiced walking a coin across the back of his left hand.
It wasn’t long, though, before Nick had to poke his head up through the hatch to scratch his itch to be in the middle of things. Miss Chase went through all the tasks he would have done—throwing out the log line to check their speed, using his sextant to take a fix on their positio
