The Cruise of the Albatros

by E. C. Williams

  The XO glanced at his captain in some surprise: had Sam changed his mind about going home to select, refit, and man a consort for Albatros? But Sam's face gave nothing away.

  CHAPTER 9

  Captain and XO paced the windward side of the quarterdeck after dinner.

  “Bill, I deliberately misled Al and Dave. I still plan to return to Kerguelen. But I don't want that word to get out yet – I'd prefer that the tale I told about cruising the Seychelles and Comoros remain current aboard until after we sail for home. Then it won't matter.”

  “Why, Skipper – if you don't mind me asking?”

  “Maybe I'm paranoid, but there's a possibility – a long shot, I admit – that the pirates have spies on Reunion or Nosy Be, infiltrated among the population. We know now that they have radio, and a spy wouldn't have much trouble getting his hands on a transceiver. And even without radio, a pirate spy could go out in a fishing boat for a pre-arranged rendezvous with a dhow to pass on his information. If the enemy learns that we've headed back south, they'll know that the Indian Ocean settlements and shipping routes will be unprotected.”

  “With respect, that is pretty paranoid, Captain. A pirate would stand out like a sore thumb among Kerguelenians – not to mention the language problem!”

  “Not if the spies were Kerg renegades, Bill. And we assume there are some – that's the most likely explanation for the fact that the pirates now have radio.”

  The two men continued to pace in silence for awhile. Then Ennis said, “Well, of course I'll support the cover story, Captain. Anyway, there's no point in getting the hands excited about going home earlier than we need to.”

  Sam could tell that the XO thought his Captain was starting at shadows, but he didn't care. He knew that Ennis would do as he was told, and that was all that mattered.

  The call at St. Pierre, Reunion, was brief and uneventful. The Albatros had radioed their stores requirements ahead to the port authorities, and the efficient Reunionnais had most of the items on their shopping list already stacked on the wharf, ready for loading. They stayed just long enough to load stores and take on fresh water. The stores were paid for by drafts on the Republic's account (IOUs, in effect); the fresh water was a gift of the Reunionnais, as were pilotage and wharfage. Each watch was allowed a few hours ashore, during which they were very hospitably received by the islanders.

  On arrival, the Reunionnais, upon learning of the plight of the captives, generously offered to take in all who wished to stay, supporting them until they could get back on their feet. Most of them, however, when they learned that there was a substantial body of survivors of the pirate raid on Mauritius, opted to go home. The few who stayed behind on Reunion, Sam noticed, were all young or youngish widows with children, and no surviving family on Mauritius. He supposed they reckoned that they had a better chance of finding new husbands, and step-fathers for their children, on Reunion than on Mauritius, where surviving adult males were outnumbered by women and children many times over. He wished them luck.

  After a thirty-six hour stay at St. Pierre, the Albatros got under way for the short passage to Port Louis. On arrival, it was touching to see how moved the libérées were at their first sight of home; touching, too, were the reunions of families divided by the raid.

  The open-hearted Reunionnais had contributed nearly a ton of food and clothing for the relief of the Mauritian survivors, and while the passengers were disembarking, the crew began offloading these supplies. They came at a good time. The food the Albatros had left on her last visit was almost gone – the grateful survivors had shared it freely with their benefactors, the native islanders. Sam was glad to learn that the survivors had re-occupied their farms, and had begun to rebuild their settlement.

  Before the Albatros departed Port Louis for Nosy Be, Sam had a painful interview with Ainslie, the first survivor they had encountered on their previous visit to the island, who was now commander of the Mauritius militia, such as it was. He begged Sam for rifles to arm his handful of effectives, but of course the Albatros had no firearms to spare. Ainslie, frankly pleading, said that many of the women were terrified of a return of the pirates, and he was having difficulty keeping them from once more fleeing into the bush – a well-armed militia force, however small, would serve to reassure them.

  On questioning Ainslie, Sam learned that there were, among the survivors, an apprentice gunsmith and a few men experienced with machine tools. He suggested that they manufacture their own weapons. Ainslie was dubious about the ability of the survivors to do this, but Sam got a recuperating Mr. Du Plessis to produce rough sketches of a 13 mm smooth-bore, a scaled-up version of their 6.35 mm rifles. The Gunner also produced a 6.35 mm rifle he said they could spare – it had damaged rifling – for the settlers to use as a model for the action. Sam also offered more lead and powder, plus a supply of expended brass shell casings and an equal number of primers as an initial supply, and as examples, since they would ultimately have to learn to make their own.

  “Guess that'll have to do, Captain”, Ainslie said, then hastily added, “Sorry – that sounded ungrateful, didn't it? We do sincerely appreciate all your help, Captain Bowditch. Give us a while to get back on our feet, then bring the Albatros back to Mauritius, and we'll throw you and your crew a helluva party!”

  “We'll look forward to it, Mister Ainslie. I do sincerely wish that we could arm all your militiamen, but that would strip the Albatros of small arms.

  “You know,” he added, “Reloading ammo is a task women and girls can do very well – better than men, actually, women being more meticulous and detail-oriented, as a rule. The Reunionnais have put many of their women and girls to work producing weapons and ammo. Ask your females to help. They'll feel better knowing they're contributing toward the defense of the community. Women are as brave as men, really – it's just that the safety of their children is always their first priority.”

  “We'll do the best we can, Captain. Now I'll just wish you fair winds and following seas – and good hunting! I know you're anxious to get under way.”

  The Albatros was singled up to a headline and a sternline as Sam saw Mr. Ainslie ashore. Gunner's mates were finishing the task of stacking the stores promised by the ship on the dock. The motor sloop, already idling alongside, took the strain on her towline, the headline was cast off, and Albatros's bow was pulled through one hundred and eighty degrees to head out the channel. The stern line was then cast off, and the schooner was towed out to sea, following the makeshift buoys marking the centerline of the channel that the motor sloop had set on their first visit.

  Once in deep water, Albatros recovered the motor sloop and set all sail for a reach on the mild south-easterly breeze toward Cape Bobaomby. The breeze freshened as the day wore on, until the schooner was making an exhilarating eight or nine knots. Sam, at his usual at-sea station pacing the windward side of the quarterdeck, enjoyed the fine sailing, as always. But he looked forward to the day when the fuel problem was solved and warships would motor at a constant ten or even fifteen knots regardless of the wind's direction or speed. He felt that palm oil-based fuel was the solution, but not enough was currently produced. It was a chicken-and-egg problem: without being assured of a larger market, farmers in the Indian Ocean settlements would not invest in further clearing of land and planting of oil palms; without an assured supply of fuel, the Republic would balk at the tremendous cost of building naval vessels propelled by machinery. But he felt sure the problem was not insoluble – he had to just keep working away at it.

  To maintain the fiction he had spread about the Albatros's next mission, he ordered the Navigator to plan a cruise to look in at deep-draft harbors in the Comoros and Seychelles where pirate bases might possibly be located.

  However, he called a planning conference with an agenda of deciding how to approach the refit of the Albatros, improving her armament, and fitting out and arming at least one consort for her. The attendees included, in addition to the XO, Lieutenant Kendall; the En
gineer, Mr. Yeo; and the Gunnery Officer, Mr. De Lesseps, now recovered enough to hobble around, ignoring the doctor's insistence that he needed further bed rest.

  Sam explained his agenda by saying that, while their return to Kerguelen was a long way off, not to take place until after the next cruise at the earliest, much advance planning was necessary. He hoped those not clued in – everyone but the XO – believed this. But if they didn't, he was confident that they would have the good sense to keep their suspicions to themselves.

  Well, fairly confident, anyway.

  This working group met every day of the passage to Nosy Be, producing a lengthy document that needed to be communicated as soon as possible to Kerguelen: to the Council, who would have to approve the expenditure, and to the other actors involved, via Commander Foch. The problem Sam now faced was how to do this securely. If transmitted in the clear, the message would almost certainly be intercepted by the pirates, whose renegade Kergs could translate it for them, so obviously it would have to be encoded.

  The trouble was that, equally obviously, both transmitter and receiver of a coded message had to hold the decode. They thus had to invent a code that les bons could break fairly quickly, while baffling the pirates. Sam and Mr. Robert, the Communications Officer, struggled with this problem until they arrived at Nosy Be, without devising a solution they were confident would work. Sam was becoming distraught; if they couldn't radio their requirements to Kerguelen, weeks and months would be wasted, once they arrived, in preparations that could have been under way while they were en route.

  Midshipman Dallas, who was on the pier to welcome his shipmates back to Nosy Be, proved to have the answer.

  “A book code is the only practical solution, Captain,” he said immediately upon being consulted about the problem (which Sam defined without reference to his intention to return to the Rock earlier than anyone knew).

  “A book code?”

  “Yes. The plain-language version of a message is encoded by finding each needed word in a book, then encoding it with a number group consisting of the page number, line number on the page, and the position of the word in the line. The receiver then decodes it by referring to the book. Anyone who intercepts it would have to recognize it as a book code, know what book it's based on, and have a copy of the book, all in order to decipher the message.”

  “How will we let Foch know what book we're basing the code on?”

  “Well, sir, first of all it has to be a book we have, one Commander Foch will have or have access to, and the pirates are not likely to have. That last requirement rules out easy choices like the Bible or the American Practical Navigator, which the pirates will surely have acquired from captured Kerg vessels. Then, for an extra safety factor, we don't refer to the book by its full title and author, but by some oblique expression that Foch will be likely to decipher but that will – we hope – confuse the pirates.”

  Sam stared at Dallas with frank admiration. “Gadget, you're a bloody genius”, he said. “Any ideas about what book to use?”

  “Can you let me give that some thought, sir? I have a modest professional library I brought along, and of course there are lots of books in Hell-ville. May I have until tomorrow to consult what's available?”

  “Quick as you can, Gadget. I have a lengthy message I want to encode and get off to Kerguelen très vite.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Dallas then went ashore, and didn't return until early the next morning. He approached Sam, who as usual had been up since first light, with a book under his arm and red eyes suggesting a late evening. He presented the thick volume to Sam.

  “This should do it, sir. It was my first thought – I had it among my own books – but I wanted to look at as many alternatives as possible, to be sure of an optimum choice.” The book proved to be a modern reprint of a mid-twentieth-century work in English entitled Sea Power.

  “I've read this book – the original copy, in the Institute,” Sam said, gazing fondly at the volume. “Several times in fact, beginning when I was a kid.”

  “I thought you might be familiar with it, sir. It appears to have been intended as a textbook for student naval officers, so it has the advantage of containing all, or nearly all, of the terminology we need for communications – no awkward paraphrasing necessary.”

  “It has another great advantage, Gadget,” Sam said. “Commander Foch is familiar with it, too, or at least knows of its existence. When he volunteered to accept a reserve commission, to head up our intelligence effort and represent the Navy's interests back home while we're gone, he asked me to recommend one book he could read for background on navies. This is the book I recommended. He may or may not have actually read it – he's a pretty busy guy – but he will certainly recognize a reference to it, and know where to find it. Well done, Dallas.”

  “I didn't know that, sir – about Commander Foch, I mean,” replied Dallas modestly. “That part was just luck.”

  “Of course, Gadget, but luck is one of the attributes of a good officer.”

  Sam hesitated a moment, then said, “Mister Dallas, I want you to encode a message using this method. It's a very long message, so it'll have to be transmitted in sections, over several nights. Double-check it thoroughly, once you've finished a first draft. Then bring it to me. I'll draft an introductory paragraph which I will encode myself.”

  Sam intended this introduction to include only an updated ETA for the Albatros at French Port, and a sentence stressing the urgency of the preparatory work outlined in the message.

  “And Gadget, this message is to be absolutely confidential, you hear? You are not to share its contents with anyone, not with any other officer or rating, not with any civilians, not with your girlfriend. In fact, I'm going to have you sign a statement to that effect. Do you understand?”

  Dallas gulped, clearly impressed by the Captain's vehemence. “Yes, sir.”

  Sam took Dallas down to his day cabin, where he drafted a brief statement for the Mid's signature, using the most awe-inspiring and threatening language he could come up with, swearing the signer to absolute secrecy. The statement also served as a receipt for copy number two, of two copies of the message, both in the XO's handwriting. (Most ship's documents were typed up Mr. Weeks' clerk, but Sam and the other members of the working group had agreed, for security's sake, to minimize access to the message.)

  Midshipman Dallas departed – suitably overawed by all this rigamarole, Sam hoped – to fetch his gear and move back on board the Albatros.

  The Governor of Nosy Be had given Dallas an office in the hotel de ville, which doubled as the municipal government building for Hell-ville and the seat of government for the entire island. The Mid had therefore assumed that he would take the document there to work on it. Sam absolutely vetoed this – the message would not, repeat not, leave the Albatros. However, privacy was in short supply aboard the crowded schooner, so Sam wound up directing Dallas to do all the work at his dining table in the tiny captain's mess. This would be inconvenient for Sam but much the most secure arrangement.

  Sam told Dallas to review the message before he began to encode it, to see if he had any questions or comments.

  “Well, first of all, sir, I'll have to translate the message from the patois into standard English in order to encode it, but that's no problem.”

  “Okay. Do it. Anything else?”

  “Just one, Captain,” Dallas said, after a quick review. “In the header you simply have the phrase 'Potter and Nimitz'” – the authors of Sea Power – “to indicate where to go for the decode. With respect, sir, that makes it almost too obvious that it's a book code, and that those are the names of the authors of the book. Once the enemy knows it's a book code, and has a clue to the identity of the book, he's halfway there. We don't think they could have access to a copy – but what if they have libraries, too, like the Institute?”

  “Good point, Gadget. What do you suggest instead?”

  Dallas scratched his head and scribble
d on the back of a sheet. After a few moments, he said, “How about this, sir: 'Quoth the potter, and also sayeth the great admiral.' Commander Foch should have no trouble figuring that out.”

  “Why the archaic language?”

  “Just another attempt to mislead, Captain – maybe make 'em think it's a reference to some ancient religious text.”

  Sam pondered this, but couldn't think of anything better. Finally he said, “Okay, Gadget, we'll go with that. But obviously this code has a limited life. Whenever we get back home, we'll have to pick another book.”

  Sam then went on deck, leaving the midshipman to get down to work. While Dallas labored over the message, the XO, at Sam's instruction, harassed all hands in an effort to shorten their port stay as much as possible. Mr. Weeks was instructed to take on stores and water for a long voyage. Mr. De Lesseps, still limping from his wound – a limp that may prove to be permanent, said Doctor Girard, because the Gunner returned to duty too soon – oversaw the movement of the damaged one-inch rifle to the shop of Mr. Kwek, the Hell-ville gunsmith who had overseen the effort to arm the Nosy Be militia , the project that had produced the 6.35 mm rifle used by the Albatros’s landing force, in cooperation with the schooner's gunner's mates. The Gunner had been unable to repair the big rifle with the resources available on the Albatros, but hoped that Kwek's better-equipped shop would enable him to do the job.

  Each watch had an opportunity for a run ashore, but it was Cinderella liberty – only officers (excluding midshipmen) were allowed an overnight.

  When Dallas presented Sam with the encoded message the next day, his eyes red and watery – no wonder, since he had been hard at work on it when Sam had turned in the night before, and still (or again) at work when Sam was called, as usual, with the morning watch.

  “It's done, Captain, and I double-checked every group. But if I may make a suggestion...?”

  “What, Gadget?”

  “It would be very helpful if someone else now decoded it – that's the best way to check for errors.”