Into Uncharted Seas

by E. C. Williams

  The XO asked, “What's your strategy for searching for the remaining pirate dhow, if I may ask, Skipper?”

  “Not many choices, really. I've asked the Pilot” – the universal nickname on board for Mr. Mooney, the navigator – “to lay off a track reaching back and forth between the longitudes of Mauritius and Cap Est, near Antalaha.” The latter was a long-vanished town on Madagascar's east coast, still shown on Kerg charts, which were faithful reproductions of ancient ones. Kerguelenian merchant vessels bound to or from either of the Mascarene islands or Nosy Be would normally follow tracks between these longitudes. While a course up Madagascar's west coast would have represented the shortest distance between Kerguelen and Nosy Be, the prevailing winds made this route impractical for sail craft. Too, most traffic to and from Nosy Be also called at either or both of the Mascarenes.

  “That's the logical stretch of water for a corsair to patrol, searching for Kerg merchantmen."

  The Carpenter came aft to formally report the completion of the target – something Sam and Al could quite plainly see from the quarterdeck – and Sam ordered it launched over the side while the XO hurried forward to make sure the litter marring his usually-immaculate deck was cleared up instantly and completely.

  Sam ordered “battle stations”, and as the pipe was made and seamen hurried to their posts, he had the schooner brought up into the wind and hove-to. The target, its painter cast off and its canvas bull's-eye acting as a sail, drifted quickly away to leeward. The motor sloop was launched, and took up a position off the Albatros's port quarter, looking strange and ungainly with the big recoilless rifle sticking up from its stern.

  In order to make full use of the opportunity for marksmanship practice, all arms were fired, beginning with the landing force, when the range had opened to about one hundred yards. They fired their 6.35 mm carbines by the numbers, their petty officer calling hits and misses as he fixed a telescope on the target. When the float had drifted beyond their effective range, the sharpshooters were exercised with their long 7.62 mm seal rifles. Then it was the turn of the one-inchers, which then opened fire, their experienced gunners putting neat round holes in the canvas target with nearly every round.

  Finally, when the target was estimated to be approximately 1500 yards away, it was the turn of the big guns. To avoid expending the actual target too soon, the 37 mm gun and 75 mm recoilless rifle crews were given an imaginary target offset 100 yards from it. Hits and misses were “eyeballed” by the Gunner, staring through his optical range-finder. It was easy to distinguish between the two, since they were using HE rounds, and the 75 mm burst naturally made a much bigger splash than the 37 mm.

  The 75 mm aimer was naturally woefully inaccurate at first, unfamiliar as he was with the weapon and somewhat unnerved by the back-blast just a foot or so behind him. The pitching and rolling of the motor sloop didn't help, either. But he got better quickly, and soon became nearly as accurate as the 37 mm gunner.

  When nearly all the ammo allocated for the shoot was expended, the Gunner decreed a contest to see who could sink the target, each gun using its remaining few rounds. This was semaphored to the motor sloop, and both guns ceased fire, awaiting the signal from Mr. Du Lesseps. He held a semaphore flag aloft, counted off ten seconds to himself, then waved it vigorously. Both weapons fired almost simultaneously. Both shots were near-misses, causing the target to rock wildly in the splashes.

  Finally, the 37 mm blew the target apart with its last allotted round. The final round from the 75 mm rifle, already on the way, fell an instant later, further fragmenting the wreckage. The Gunner diplomatically decreed the contest a tie, and Sam ordered the sloop recalled and the word passed to secure from action stations. The sloop was recovered, and the schooner fell off onto a beam reach to the westward.

  The entire crew, gunners, seamen, and idlers alike (who were all on deck watching the fun) was in tearing high spirits as always after a shoot. The noise, the smoke, and the excitement of finally seeing a target blown to splinters always acted like a tonic. Sam added to the collective happiness by giving that most welcome of shipboard orders: “splice the mainbrace”, allowing the crew a rare and festive second drink of the day.

  The keg of rum and the mixing tub appeared on deck, the XO and the Boatswain stood by to supervise the serving. The seamen ran to fetch their mugs and fall into line, joking, laughing, and shoving one another playfully. After the hands had received their drink, it was the turn of the warrant officers, and then the commissioned officers, who as usual in good weather formed a sociable group just forward of the quarterdeck to drink and chat. Ritchie fetched Sam's drink to him on the quarterdeck. It was in a silver mug, but it was the same rum-and-water everyone else drank.

  Marie Girard was as usual at the center of a circle of admiring young officers, her working rig of white coat over the usual officers' at-sea attire of linen slops unable to disguise her slim figure. He heard her laugh delightedly at something one of the other officers said, and felt a sharp twinge of jealousy. It was a totally irrational feeling, since he himself had terminated their relationship after that single night in French Port, but it stung nonetheless. He found that he no longer had any desire for a drink, and tossed the contents of his mug out over the lee rail, provoking a horrified gasp from the lee helmsman, the nearest hand, who was obviously appalled at this waste of perfectly good booze.

  Sam heard her laugh again, and again felt a pang. He was glad when the short break ended and the officers dispersed to resume their duties.

  He saw the Gunner and PO Carnoy, who was the senior gunnery rating on the motor sloop when she was crewed for action, conferring next to the sloop's cradle on the foredeck. To distract himself from his disturbed state of mind, he walked forward to listen in.

  He arrived to hear Carnoy saying, “ … right about the need to keep them vents clean. That half-wit Dee” – apparently referring to his loader – “forgot to clear 'em for three rounds straight, and I could feel more recoil – 'twasn't much, but enough to feel. Twelve or fifteen rounds without cleaning, and she'll be bucking like a zebu bull calf.” Carnoy had been recruited from a farm on Nosy Be, and was still prone to the use of agricultural similes.

  “Well, Dee's the man I could spare, and it's your job as his PO to train him. So get him squared away”

  “Aye aye, Guns,” Carnoy replied. “I'll get Dee's attention, right enough.”

  “Carnoy, other than that, what did you think of the recoilless rifle?”

  The petty officer, who hadn't noticed Sam approach, gave a start, but quickly recovered.

  “Oh, she's a joy to shoot, Skipper! I mean 'Commodore'. Once I got used to that back-blast – made me jumpy at first, that roar right behind me when I fired. Very accurate when I got the hang of it, and a bigger bang than the 37 mm. She'll make them pirates crap in their nightgowns, begging your pardon, sir.”

  Sam laughed. “Well, that's good to hear, PO. I'll do my best to give you the opportunity to find out for sure.” Sam dismissed Carnoy, and turned to the Gunner.

  “Guns, what did you think of the exercise?”

  “Oh, I was right pleased, really, at how quick Carnoy and Dee came to get used to the reckless rifle. 'Course, we did a bunch of dry-firing drills first, so it was almost routine when it came to firing her for real. It just creates one problem for me, Commodore, but not a serious one.”

  “What's the problem?”

  “Well, we now got five different calibers and a total of thirteen different kinds of rounds to keep track of. 'Course we can cope with that, and we will. But it does reduce the amount of each type of ammo we can safely stow. And them 75 millimeter rounds take up more room than any of the other calibers. I've been meaning to ask you, sir – do you suppose we could enlarge the magazine? I know that would be a major project – we'd have to send all the ammo ashore, and it would mean encroaching on the hold.

  “But in every action we've fought, and with every addition of a new weapon, we've fired off more roun
ds. I have a horror of running out of ammo for one or more of our weapons in the middle of a battle.”

  Sam reflected that this was a problem he hadn't anticipated. It would indeed be inconvenient to find the Albatros being shot at and having nothing to shoot back.

  “If you need a bigger magazine, Guns, then you'll have one as soon as I can manage it. But it can't happen until we can get a long stay in Hell-ville. And we can't do that until Joan is ready to relieve us on patrol – or at least one of the 'little sisters'”. The latter phrase referred to the Roland and the Scorpion “I don't want to leave our shipping totally unprotected again, like we had to do when we returned to French Port the last time.”

  “Yessir. Maybe at the same time we can change the layout of the motor sloop, sir? Carnoy told me that every time she had to come right, Dee had to scramble forward to get clear of the tiller. Which meant the rifle had to hold fire until she was steadied up on the new course and the tiller was midships.”

  “We'll do that too, Guns, as soon as possible. But in the meantime, we'll just have to make do. I'll talk to Mister Low about the need to coordinate the movements of the sloop to facilitate the most rapid rate of fire.”

  When this conversation ended, and Sam had strolled back to the quarterdeck, taking the opportunity to exchange a few words with every seaman he met, he decided that, since they could now encounter the pirate dhow at any time, he may as well go ahead and have that conversation with Tom Low. Accordingly he said to the watch officer, “Pass the word for Mister Low.” Munro, then on watch, passed this order on to the PO of the watch, who leaned into the wheelhouse – there was no actual room in the tiny space for him to enter it, since the wheel and the helmsman fully occupied it – keyed on the schooner's PA system, and intoned, “Lieutenant Low, your presence is requested on the quarterdeck.”

  Low, a tall, handsome young man with sandy hair and blue eyes, his only genetic inheritance from the Taiwanese fisherman from whom he got his surname his cheekbones and eye shape, appeared almost immediately.

  “Good afternoon, Commodore.”

  “Afternoon, Mark. How did the shoot go, from your perspective?”

  “Very well, sir, once we all got used to the much louder report – louder than the one-incher, I mean. And we learned the hard way not to fire directly forward – even though we all ducked in time, we still got singed from the muzzle blast. Not to mention deafened. After that, I made sure there was an angle on the bow before a round was fired. No one was really hurt, but I thought it would be best to provide the sloop's crew with some protective gear – earplugs and some sort of helmet, at a minimum.”

  “Better see to that right away, then, Tom. We never know when we'll come across the dhow we're chasing.”

  “Already have, Commodore. Sails and I got together and came up with a close-fitting helmet made of multiple layers of sailcloth. It covers the ears, too, so it'll help protect the crew's hearing, too, and hold their earplugs firmly in place. I cleared it with the XO, and the Sailmaker's mates are whipping 'em up now. Leather would be even better, but we'll have to wait until we're next in port and can get some from shoreside.”

  “Well done, Tom. Good thinking. What about the problem of the crowding in the sternsheets of the motor sloop, with the gun, gunner, and loader getting in the way of the helmsman?”

  Low chuckled. “'Doin' the tiller dance' we called it, Commodore. The loader got his shins barked every time the boat turned right, and the gunner had to balance himself way out to port in order to train the gun. After he almost went overboard, he lashed himself to the gun mount with a piece of nine-thread. Enough cussin' was expended to last the average bosun's mate all day. But I finally realized the solution was simple: I gave the gunner the conn during the rest of the shoot. After that, he maneuvered the sloop to avoid interference between steering and loading the gun, and we had no more problems. It's still awful tight back there in the sternsheets, though. Me and the Gunnery Officer thought of changing the sloop to wheel steering, and putting the steering station forward...”

  “Yes, Guns and I talked about that, and I approved it. But it'll have to wait – we can't do that at sea. Sounds like you've found a practical way to cope in the meantime. Good work, Tom.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Low replied, obviously pleased at the compliment.

  “Well, carry on, Lieutenant.”

  “Sir.”

  When he had departed, Sam resumed his usual pacing along the windward rail, and thought about the day's events. He was mightily pleased with the performance of the recoilless rifle, and reckoned that it's acquisition nearly doubled his effective firepower in a ship-to-ship action. He also decided that he had been taking Tom Low entirely too much for granted – he was clearly an officer of great promise. A future commander, in fact.

  The afternoon wore on without further incident. Double lookouts were posted, and the schooner cruised along at about four knots on the port tack, on a broad reach, headed toward Madagascar.

  The dog watches passed, the crew ate supper, and the sun dropped toward the western horizon. It set with a lurid color display, and Sam as usual watched for the green flash, said to be briefly visible during a tropical sunset. As usual, he failed to see it.

  During the brief twilight, the word was passed to “darken ship”, and the only light showing was the dim red glow of the binnacle. The running lights were not lit, which meant that the watches during the night would have to be vigilant not just for the enemy dhow, but for innocent traffic that might blunder across the bow of the nearly-invisible Albatros.

  Sam knew that the pirate dhow would be darkened, too. Since it was a moonless night, the two vessels might pass within five hundred yards all unaware, neither sighting the other. It was a clear evening, however, with the usual bright display of stars, so, with vigilance, the lookouts might hope to catch the dhow's sails silhouetted against the sky.

  Sam ordered the motor sloop kept in readiness to launch, uncovered, with the lashings cast off and the steelyards up on deck ready to rig. He considered and rejected the possibility of rigging for launching the sloop in advance of need. The extra windage of the steelyards and bull chains would slow the schooner down, and the crew had grown so proficient at rigging this gear that it could be done very quickly at need.

  He also debated with himself the wisdom of setting Condition Alfa through the night, with half of the entire crew at action stations, including idlers, but finally decided that the chances of bringing the dhow to action during the night weren't high enough to justify the extra fatigue this would impose on his crew. He wanted to reserve their strength for what might be a long chase, given the pirates' apparent new strategy of avoiding action with the Albatros in order to focus on shipping.

  Therefore, after supper, with the watch below and all of the idlers knocked off and in their hammocks or relaxing below, he saw no point in tiring himself out by remaining on deck all night, and turned in, leaving orders to call him at the sight of any strange sail, and in any event with the morning watch.

  He turned in “all standing”, fully dressed except for his shoes, so that if called all he had to do was step into them to be ready to go on deck. He lay there for a long while before succumbing to sleep, staring at the overhead and the “tattle-tale” compass, wondering how and under what circumstances the enemy might be sighted, and going through various tactical scenarios. Then his mind wandered, skipping over incidents from his past, until a brief, erotic image crossed his mind, of making love to Mattie Dupree and then discovering that she had changed into Marie Girard. Then he was asleep.

  - 9 -

  Sam was called at 0345 with the morning watch, and realized that the night must have passed without any other vessel being sighted. He banged on Ritchie's door, shouting to him to make coffee. Then he went on deck. The sky was clear, and blazed with stars in the pre-dawn darkness. A sliver of new moon had just risen.

  Lieutenant Munro, the watch officer, approached and said, “Good morning, Co
mmodore. The midwatch reported no traffic at all, and said the evening watch had none either. Course due west on the port tack, wind south-easterly force 2 to 3. All sail set except the drifter.” All of this Sam could see for himself, except for the traffic information, but the full report was part of the routine whenever the master appeared on deck, and routine at sea was important.

  “Very well, Bobby,” Sam replied. He had taken some time to get used to Munro's juvenile nick-name, but had to admit it matched his boyish looks.

  At that moment, Ritchie appeared with a mug of coffee for Sam, who reflected that not nearly enough time had elapsed from his demand for it for it to have been brewed. Ritchie must have had himself called a few minutes before Sam, and started a pot in anticipation.

  “Care for coffee, Bobby?” Sam asked.

  “Yes sir – thank you sir.” Many of the officers greatly preferred Ritchie's coffee to the strong black galley brew, sweetened with cane sugar to the consistency of syrup, the way the crew liked it. An offer to join the Commodore for a cup was prized.

  “A mug for Mister Munro, Ritchie.”

  “Aye aye sir.”

  Sam sipped his coffee, savoring both it and the peace and quiet. The schooner was rolling slightly in the low swell, and the only sounds were the creak of the tackle and the whisper of the sea against the hull. The beginning of the morning watch, in fair weather, had always been one of his favorite times of day at sea. Everyone but the watch was still asleep, and most of them, those not doing their tricks on lookout or at the helm, were curled up in corners here and there grabbing a nap, as they were allowed to do when they were not required. He enjoyed it the more for knowing that it wouldn't last much longer. Soon, Mr. Mooney would be up, preparing to shoot and plot morning stars with Munro and the midshipman of the watch. Then all hands would be called at 0600, and the decks would be awash and crowded as the seamen scrubbed them down fore and aft, then swabbed them dry. Soon after that, the smells of breakfast cooking would waft up from the galley, usually rice porridge and a piece of fresh fruit in these waters, and so soon after leaving port. And coffee, of course. It was a routine that, allowing for slight differences between merchant marine and naval practice, had been a part of Sam's daily life since he was a teen-aged cadet.