“Sounds excellent, Rork! I’m suddenly quite hungry, and I have some important things to talk over with you while we eat. Life is about to get very interesting again, Bosun.”
Rork’s grin expanded to a laugh as his right eyebrow arched. “Oh Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, be with us now in our time o’ joy or need! I can tell by that look in your eye, Captain, that you’ve got some grand news to declare. Interestin’ you say? Now that’s the life for a navy man!”
Wake put his hand on Rork’s shoulder. “Rork, this’ll definitely be interesting. I can assure you of that. Now let’s eat that stew of Beech’s, and I’ll tell you what tomorrow brings us.”
They went below and as they ate Beech’s stew in Wake’s cabin, they discussed how they would fulfill the new mission given to them. The meal and conversation were finished by the time the sun had set—for both had a lot to do and little time to accomplish it. Writing the reports took more time than Wake anticipated, but it had to be done, and he forced himself to be thorough.
Much later that night Wake set himself to his last task by the dim light of his lamp. He wrote his wife the tremendous news of his next command in his usual straightforward manner, as if he was relating a naval action to the admiral. He also told her of his plans and hopes for their future, but this part of the letter was more animated and hopeful. The sound of the pen scratching its way across the paper suddenly struck Wake, and he imagined Linda trying her best to read the letter—she always joked about his handwriting being almost illegible, that it must be some sort of secret code. When he had written all he could think of, Wake put the folded paper in a navy issue envelope and sealed it with wax. Leaning over the chart table, he carefully extinguished the hanging brass lamp, and crawled utterly exhausted into his berth, knowing that he needed all the rest he could get.
In four hours the sun would rise again, and Lieutenant Peter Wake would be embarking upon the newest challenge of his young naval career—command of a steamer of war.
About the Author
Robert N. Macomber is a nationally recognized author who writes and lectures on maritime history. He has over thirty years of sea experience on both historic and modern vessels in various areas of the world. He is very familiar with the exotic locales in his books and maintains a global network of naval, merchant, and private sailors who assist him in his research.
Macomber lives on a small palm plantation on an island off the coast of lower Florida. Point of Honor is his second in a series of novels on the life of Peter Wake, U.S.N. For more information see his website at www.robertmacomber.com.
Robert N. Macomber’s Honor Series:
At the Edge of Honor. This nationally acclaimed naval Civil War novel, the first in the Honor series of naval fiction, takes the reader into the steamy world of Key West and the Caribbean in 1863 and introduces Peter Wake, the reluctant New England volunteer officer who finds himself battling the enemy on the coasts of Florida, sinister intrigue in Spanish Havana and the British Bahamas, and social taboos in Key West when he falls in love with the daughter of a Confederate zealot.
Point of Honor. Winner of the Florida Historical Society’s 2003 Patrick Smith Award for Best Florida Fiction. In this second book in the Honor series, it is 1864 and Lt. Peter Wake, United States Navy, assisted by his indomitable Irish bosun, Sean Rork, commands the naval schooner St. James. He searches for army deserters in the Dry Tortugas, finds an old nemesis during a standoff with the French Navy on the coast of Mexico, starts a drunken tavern riot in Key West, and confronts incompetent Federal army officers during an invasion of upper Florida.
Honorable Mention. This third book in the Honor series of naval fiction covers the tumultuous end of the Civil War in Florida and the Caribbean. Lt. Peter Wake is now in command of the steamer USS Hunt, and quickly plunges into action, chasing a strange vessel during a tropical storm off Cuba, confronting death to liberate an escaping slave ship, and coming face to face with the enemy’s most powerful ocean warship in Havana’s harbor. Finally, when he tracks down a colony of former Confederates in Puerto Rico, Wake becomes involved in a deadly twist of irony.
A Dishonorable Few. Fourth in the Honor series. It is 1869 and the United States is painfully recovering from the Civil War. Lt. Peter Wake heads to turbulent Central America to deal with a former American naval officer turned renegade mercenary. As the action unfolds in Colombia and Panama, Wake realizes that his most dangerous adversary may be a man on his own ship, forcing Wake to make a decision that will lead to his court-martial in Washington when the mission has finally ended.
An Affair of Honor. Fifth in the Honor series. It’s December 1873 and Lt. Peter Wake is the executive officer of the USS Omaha on patrol in the West Indies, eager to return home. Fate, however, has other plans. He runs afoul of the Royal Navy in Antigua and then is sent off to Europe, where he finds himself embroiled in a Spanish civil war. But his real test comes when he and Sean Rork are sent on a mission in northern Africa.
A Different Kind of Honor. In this sixth novel in the Honor series, it’s 1879 and Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake, U.S.N., is on assignment as the American naval observer to the War of
