“Yes,” Commander Cutlott sighed. “Using a navy ship for their drunken parties—women aboard, no less!”
“Really, sir—” Joe began.
“Drunken, naked screaming women!” Commander Cutlott’s voice was rising. “Those god damned pirates have somehow managed to get the Alice asea with a full complement of whores. She’s been sighted dozens of times. And yet, whenever I get down to the dock there she lies with those two freebooters scraping and painting, looking for all the world like Captain Mahan might have, if he’d managed to be born without Original Sin!” The commander’s voice had risen a full octave and he was beginning to chant. “Catch those two filibusters and I’ll see that you get another stripe.”
Even in an atomic navy promotion is neither immediate nor easy. Joe had left the commander’s office with a foreboding of what he might get if he didn’t catch them.
The linoleum in the Alice’s cramped captain’s cabin had numbed his bare feet. Disgustedly, he thrust himself back in bed and tried to sleep. He had nearly succeeded when abruptly he sat up, cracking his head on the bottom of the locker above. The bow!
Holy Appropriation! The Alice had rammed another ship two days ago and still no one had crawled into the bow to see if any planking was sprung, He swung out of bed and grabbed a flashlight.
Galley and forecastle were dark. He picked his way through them without turning on lights, orienting himself by the gentle swish of water and not-so-gentle snores. The crawl hole between forecastle and chain locker was barely large enough to squeeze through. He stuffed the unlit flashlight into the waistband of his skivvy drawers and pushed himself through. After a moment’s squirming over the jumbled anchor rope his hand touched warm flesh. He flinched backward.
The sleeper lashed out blindly. Something sharp grazed Joe’s forehead. He cowered back, hands before his face to ward off another blow. There was a smack like a cleanly caught ball as a wrist slapped squarely into his palm. Joe caught it instinctively and jerked. He threw a right cross into the darkness. It missed and they wrestled in silent ferocity. He twisted the wrist until he sensed that the knife had fallen. He was scrabbling meanwhile with his free hand for a firmer grip. His forearm struck teeth which promptly bit him. He jabbed an elbow at them and eventually caught the other hand which still flailed.
Spreadeagled figures strained in a silent, horizontal waltz while he worked his knee between kicking legs and forced his weight onto the other. Though Joe had never regarded himself as an athlete, he was overpowering his assailant with surprising ease. The heels stopped kicking at his back, and he brought the spreadeagled arms cautiously together until he could rest his elbow on one and grip the other with the same hand. He felt about for the fallen flashlight and turned it on.
His attacker was Raquel.
He wondered momentarily why she chose to sleep in the nude, but even in mid-surprise his first impression was of the perfect round firmness of her breasts. She glared up at him and Joe became acutely aware that his skivvy drawers were not designed for modesty. Why did he have to be caught in these ungainly garments? Better to be honestly naked. He dropped the flash; its soft reflected light bathed her profile in a boudoir-like glow. She saw Joe’s face for the first time.
The glare left her eyes, fading slowly into another emotion. Her lips were beginning to pout where he had elbowed. There were teethmarks in his forearm and a trickle of blood soaked his eyebrow.
Raquel no longer struggled. Joe realized abruptly what was expected of him. The sight of her was playing hob with his glandular system, but while he hesitated he sensed that the moment had passed.
Neither of them moved. Over their heads a sheep stamped and baa’d irrelevantly. Joe took his gaze from her and saw the knife. Stretching across her to reach for it, he was conscious of flesh sliding over flesh, but then Raquel had wormed her way out from under him and was scrambling into one of the dresses she had used to floor the compartment.
He realized with sudden horror that someone could awake at any minute. Or the deck watch could come below. This situation was bound to contribute little toward his dignity as master of the Alice. Still, there would be something definitely chicken-hearted about retreat.
He put on his most severe face and pointed down at the rope and chain which floored the compartment, then up at the eye where it threaded through the deck. “If someone dropped anchor,” he said, “you’d come up through that hole one shred at a time.”
Raquel did not understand the Twentieth Century word.
“¿Ancla?” she asked.
“Ancôra,” Joe hissed. He hoped the Latin would get through to her. “It goes down; you go upl” He made slicing motions and pointed at the chain. Suddenly Raquel understood and her eyes grew larger.
Joe remembered why he’d crawled into this hole. He shined the light around, looking for sprung seams. Tomorrow he’d have the chain tailed out so he could check, the lower half of the locker. Meanwhile, he’d explored enough for honor’s sake. Any moment now someone would wake up and peer through the open crawl hole.
“Don’t let me catch you in here again,” he said severely, “or I’ll turn you into a pumpkin.” He tossed the knife into her lap and backed through the hole. He’d been in bed several minutes before he realized that he’d locked his door. He got up and unlocked with silent thanks that no one had come to wake him. Things like locked doors got men to shaking their heads whenever the Old Man’s back was turned. He went back to bed again and, naturally, couldn’t sleep.
He realized he’d been taking a lot about the girl for granted. With a knife and a disposition like that perhaps even the Vikings had respected her privacy. But if she was such a scrapper, what had been going on up in the bow last night?
III
LIGHT GLOWED down the crack of his door. Joe looked out and saw Freedy at the fathometer. “Sixty fathoms,” the radioman said. “Cut yourself?”
“Bumped a stanchion,” Joe said. He touched the scab on his forehead and went on deck. McGrath was at the wheel.
“Say, Mr. Rate,” he asked, “are you sure this’s only nine hundred and something?”
Joe shrugged and admitted to himself that he’d only half believed it up till now. Holy Neptune, what a thesis I could write on the Vikings! “I’m afraid it’s true,” he said.
McGrath muttered something about God. Joe looked at him. “I don’t believe He would let it happen,” McGrath said.
Joe didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.
After a minute or two McGrath said, “Funny—if it were true I’d be the only Christian in the world.”
“It’s only a thousand A.D.,” Joe protested. “Not B.C.”
“I know,” Howie sighed. “But Martin Luther wouldn’t be born yet.”
Joe turned to hide his grin from the faint glow of the binnacle lamp. The grin threatened to become a belly laugh so he went below.
The sun was an hour high when Gorson woke him. “Bottom’s shoaled out to eighteen fathoms,” the chief said. “Are we going to pile into Ireland?”
Joe stuffed an arm into his oilskins and rushed up the ladder. Bucking steep seas under shortened sail, the Alice was making as much lee as headway. Freedy stuck his head out of the after scuttle. “Ten fathoms,” he yelled.
A half hour passed, then suddenly a gray-green band was visible as they topped each swell. Joe studied the Alice’s wake and knew they’d never weather it. “Steady as she goes,” he said, and ducked below. As near as he could guess from the Alice’s meager charts, the land must be Erris Head. 10° W longitude ran straight through this northwest comer of Ireland, but if the wind held the Alice would have to run through it too.
They had hoped to make for uninhabited land but this weather was going to change their plans. Why, Joe wondered for the thousandth time, couldn’t the U.S. Government afford a full suit of sails? He would have to put the men to sewing in reef points at the first opportunity. Oh well, he philosophized, if it weren’t for some parsimonious cl
erk I might not be seeing Ireland. Funny, he thought, but we know more about Greece in 1500 B.C. than we do about Ireland even three thousand years later.
Gorson was studying the coastline. “Nothing,” he said, passing the glasses to Joe.
Joe took his own look. “There,” he said. “Not much of a harbor but at least they aren’t breaking. It’s the only hole downwind so we haven’t much choice.” He tried to remember what he knew about Ireland. The Norse controlled the east coast, he was sure, but western Ireland had managed to remain fairly free from Norse colonization, he thought.
Then he saw the ships.
There were four of them—Viking ships, rowing straight into the wind. Joe guessed they intended to round Erris Head under oars, then drive down the Galway coast on a raid. At least, that had been their original intention. Now, as they sighted the Alice driving straight toward them, the Norse rested their oars and waited.
Joe looked around for the engineman. Rose was on deck, along with everybody else. “Better light her off,” Joe said. Rose nodded and took a fresh bite on his cigar as he ducked down the scuttle.
The Vikings were less than three miles away. Men stood by the Alice, ready to take in sail the instant the engine started. “What in hell’s keeping Rose?” Joe asked.
Gorson came back a moment later. “That fertilizing stove!” he explained. “When he cut it off the other day he got the valves crossed up and cut off the engine too.”
“Great!” Joe moaned. “Better get out the rifle.” There was no hope of turning the Alice to tack out of the bay.
“He’s working,” Gorson consoled. “It’ll be ready any minute now.”
Minutes passed and still no engine. He could lower sail but if he did the Vikings would only start rowing again and the Alice would be dead in the water. Better keep canvas on and try to crowd through them.
The gap closed to half a mile. The Vikings waited, spread evenly before the route the Alice would have to take. Joe took the wheel and bore steadily for the gap between the two middle ships. They were less than a hundred yards apart and he would be exposed to spears and darts from both sides. “Everybody go below,” he said, “except Cook. I want you here with the rifle.”
Joe and Cookie crouched in the foot-deep cockpit, waiting for the first spear to fly. The Alice floundered along, much more slowly than Joe had thought possible. The two center ships were about seventy yards distant on either flank. They aren’t even closing in, Joe thought.
The Norse could see that, although his rig was a trifle strange—from somewhere in Arab country by the looks of those crazy three cornered sails—she was not rigged for rowing. Once around the headland she would have to moor or breech and they could finish her off at leisure.
The engine sputtered and caught. Joe waited a moment to see if it was going to keep running. The Vikings were a quarter mile behind them now and the Alice was nearing the turning point if she were going to moor in this bay. Heads peeped cautiously out of the fore and after scuttles.
“All clean,” Joe yelled. “Come up and take a sail.” And what were the Norse going to think when they saw the Alice running dead into the wind without oars or sails?
The channel was narrower here and the Norse were following them in. The Alice turned and there was a scurry to go below again as men remembered the rain of spears from their first Viking. She was making her full ten knots now and Joe hoped the lightly built dragonships would not be eager to ram. He lay face up in the cockpit, steering with a foot on the wheel. Cookie rested the rifle over the cockpit coaming. They’d have to rig some kind of shelter over the cockpit if this was going to keep up.
A bearded giant threw the first spear. It thunked into the Alice’s foredeck and stood thrilling. The rifle cracked and he crumpled. Joe glanced the other way and saw a longship racing in. They were going to ram after all!
Suddenly there was a keening wail. Raquel stood atop the after scuttle, making snakelike movements and shrilling something with a poetic rhythm. Abruptly, the Vikings sheered off, leaving the Alice to chug her placid way around Erris Head where she could set sail again. The girl disappeared below.
At least he had his longitude. It galled Joe to think that this information had cost an hour’s fuel. Red Schwartz relieved him at the wheel. “Mr. Rate,” he asked, “you know anything about doctoring?”
Something began to shrivel inside Joe’s stomach. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Well, Howie ain’t much for talking but he’s been acting funny all day.”
“Howie?” Then Joe remembered: McGrath. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, which he admitted to himself was practically nothing. He went below and drew a cup of coffee.
The Bible spouter was stitching a reef point into the mains’l, along with everybody else. His thin, ascetic face seemed no more drawn than usual. Joe wondered if Schwartz were imagining things. Still, they were buddies . . .
It rained that night and sheet lightning flashed about the horizon. Lightning had got them into this, Joe remembered; he wondered if another bolt could get them out. But the lightning came no nearer. He looked at the clock and decided it was time for another sight.
The deck watch was sitting in the galley. When Gorson saw him with the sextant he got up and followed Joe. They waited until a wave had passed over, then dashed up the scuttle. Gorson grabbed Joe about the waist as he wedged himself against the mizzen. At that moment the Alice essayed one of her more spectacular rolls and green water swirled over their heads. “You all right?” Gorson yelled as they breathed air again.
“Yeah,” Joe shouted. “Let’s go below.”
“Aren’t you gonna take a sight?”
“Can’t. I just lost the damn sextant.”
Dr. Krom looked up when they came below. “That was quick,” he said.
“Practice makes perfect,” Joe said absently. He shot a glance at Gorson and the chief followed him into the tiny cabin. Gorson’s broad brow was screwed into thoughtful wrinkles.
He squinted shrewdly at Joe and said, “You know, Skipper, I think I’ve finally figured the angle on this operation.”
“Oh?”
“It’s one of those drills, isn’t it? Like that thing the army’s always pulling with a bunch of dogfaces in screwy uniforms sneaking around. You know—they let the air out of the C.O.’s tires and slam everybody in the brig to prove the whole lashup’s not paying attention. It is just a drill, isn’t it?” He was grinning.
“Nobody told me,” Joe grunted. “If it is, I’d like to know how they doctored up the whole damn ocean.”
The glint went out of Gorson’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said glumly, “they wouldn’t kill that many guys unless it was for real.” There was a long pause. “So what do we do now without a sextant?” he finally asked.
Joe shrugged. “Sailors got by for four thousand years without them.” But I didn’t, he added to himself.
“Gonna tell them?” The chief gestured toward the galley.
“They have enough worries now.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Have you any ideas?”
The bos’n looked at Joe for a long half minute. “No sir,” he finally said. “You’re the captain.”
So I am, as long as they believe in me. And now if I believed . . .
They went back into the galley and Joe drew a cup of coffee. “Cookie, did you wash your socks in this?” he sputtered.
Cookie looked hurt. “Tain’t much as coffee goes but it ain’t bad for burnt rye.”
“Ah wish we had some chicory,” Guilbeau added.
Joe looked at him.
“We just about outa coffee,” the Cajun said.
Joe sighed and took another sip. He was still trying to drink it when Raquel came to sit beside him. “Forgive me,” she said. “I wouldn’t have used the knife if I’d known it was you.”
Joe thought this over for a moment and decided he didn’t have an answer. Instead, he asked, “What did you say to
those Vikings?”
“I told them you would—” The rest trailed off into something Joe couldn’t understand. She repeated it and he learned that he was a sorcerer who could call down lightning. Raquel was silent for a moment. “By the way,” she finally said, “who are you?”
Joe put his cup down. She was not, he realized, going to be fubbed off with any Great White Father routine. She nodded at Villegas who played poker with Schwartz and Freedy. “The dark one hailed in my language,” she explained. “I thought you were of my people.”
“How much has Villegas told you?”
She shrugged. “He is foolish and thinks only of love.”
“I haven’t observed him pestering you much.”
“I told him I belonged to you and that you would be angry.”
“Oh my god!” Joe moaned. He took another sip of bitter rye and thought of the inevitable Board of Inquiry he would someday face.
“He says women vote,” Raquel continued.
Joe waited.
“What does vote mean?”
Joe explained briefly about elections.
“So the women choose your prince and banish him if times do not prosper?”
“Wellll . . .” Joe began.
“Did women make you captain?”
“Not intentionally,” Joe said, remembering Ariadne Battlement. “Where did you come from?” he asked.
She said something and he caught Burgos. He nodded absently, his mind on the new noise which had suddenly added itself to the Alice’s creakings and groanings. It was a rhythmic clank-bang as if a piece of chain were sweeping across the wet deck. Wearily, he buttoned his oilskins and started up the ladder. Just as he opened the hatch it stopped. To hell with it, he thought, and came back down to the galley. Raquel still sat where he had left her. “But Burgos is over a hundred miles from the sea,” he said, suddenly remembering. “How did Vikings catch you?”
She nodded and started to explain. The noise started again. Joe put his fingers to his lips. The noise didn’t seem to be on deck after all. He crept forward with a hand to his ear. It stopped again. A weakened chain plate could dismast them. But it sounded too far forward for that. Maybe the anchor chain was rattling in its chock.
The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream Page 4