The Bermuda Whalers: Chapter XXVI

Ben Hansen

"Not really," Ben said, "It's rotten. And besides, now we can get food from the ship, the death of these beautiful creatures is a travesty carried out by such monsters as Grace and the Japanese."
"Hippy," Hugh muttered under his breath. And then they were on the ship.
"Ah, dangit," Grace's voice came from ahead. "Our friends survived."
And indeed they had. From the next corner came the two policemen from the last time they were on the ship, dangling Grace a good foot above the ground between them.
"Well well, looky here," one said.
"Your friends decided to come too, did they?" added the other.
"We knew if we kept the ship from sinking and the survivors from being rescued long enough we'd stumble onto you eventually," the first continued.
After a brief search for something to add, the second said "fuckwits."
"But we have nothing to do with her!" Hugh appealed.
"But you were with her for some time, under her employ, and you didn't do anything to stop her," said the second policeman.
"That's aiding and abetting, that is," the first agreed.
"But we weren't aiding her in her whaling exploits at all," Ben said.
"Are you telling us that you had no idea she whaled?" the first man asked.
"Not until just before you arrested us," Hugh said.
"That's long enough," one of the policemen said, though Ben and Hugh had lost track of the conversation's beginning and couldn't recall if he was the first or second. "We'll see you in court."
"Look, I'll tell you what," Ben said. "I'm getting really sick of this whole thing, so how's this? We all fly back home, you put Grace up for whaling, we testify that we've witnessed Grace try to whale, and you let us go with a small fee for our time?"
"Hmmmmmmmm..." The policemen considered it.
"You can even drop the small fee," Hugh added, oblivious to Ben's latest icy glare.
"But have you actually seen her whale?" one of the police asked.
"She was doing it all the time we were on that raft," Hugh said.
"Do you have any proof?"
"We have this harpoon with her fingerprints on it," Ben said, holding the harpoon with a bit of cloth.
"You backstabbing bastards!" Grace screamed, but nobody was paying attention to her.
"So do we have a deal?" Hugh asked.
"We do," an unspecified policeman agreed. And it was so.