“Morning, Bobby. Thank you.”
Soon after, the watch was relieved in a brief bustle of activity, low voices reporting: “forrard lookout relieved”; “helm relieved”; “maintop lookout relieved”. Eight bells struck, and the members of the midwatch hurried below, anxious to grab a couple of hours in their hammocks before “all hands” was piped at 0600.
Mr. Mooney and the midshipman of the watch took morning stars, then disappeared into the chartroom to work out their sights and plot them on the chart.
Sam finished his coffee, then took up his usual pacing along the windward rail. It was becoming light when “all hands” was piped, and the crew shortly streamed up on deck to commence the morning wash-down of the schooner's decks. This chore had not been completed when the sun appeared on the eastern horizon with the suddenness usual in the tropics. Mr. Mooney re-appeared to take his usual morning amplitude of the rising sun with a hand bearing compass, to determine its error, and by comparison the error of the steering compass.
With the Chaton Doux now easily visible, Sam ordered the Albatros's way reduced to allow the merchantman to pull ahead until she was just in sight on the northern horizon. “Keep her at that distance, Mister Low,” he instructed the officer of the morning watch.
The crew completed the wash-down, and the schooner gleamed wetly in the morning sunlight. Breakfast was piped for the hands, and Sam went below himself to eat – by this time of the morning, he was always famished. Ritchie appeared promptly with a platter heaped with steaming rice and spicy smoked pork sausage, accompanied by a side of fresh fruit and more coffee.
When he had eaten, Sam returned on deck to a bright tropical morning, with a very gentle east-south-easterly breeze pushing the schooner slowly along on a broad reach. It was a perfect combination of wind and heading for flying the drifter, which, Sam noted approvingly, was rigged and ready for hoisting, complete with its spar, on the foredeck, an annoying obstacle to foot traffic fore and aft. But it wasn't presently needed to keep pace with the Chaton.
Sam ordered Condition Bravo, a state of heightened readiness for action that did not interfere unduly with the daily routine: the 37 mm was uncovered and loaded, the one-inchers brought up on deck and mounted, the fire pump rigged, the motor sloop launched and towed behind, the lookouts doubled, and the magazines and armory unlocked and made ready. But unlike under Condition Alfa, once these measures were accomplished, nearly all the crew could go about their normal duties. These were the usual never-ending round: mostly keeping, or trying to keep, the steel parts of the vessel rust-free. This meant constant wire-brushing of the lower masts and exposed steel scantlings below, and regular slushing down of the wire-rope standing rigging, a dirty job requiring a seaman to proceed up the shrouds and stays in a bosun's chair with rags and a can of grease, and that resulted in much re-scrubbing of the decks underneath. Gunner's mates cleaned already-pristine guns, and sailmaker's crew repaired sails. This work was occasionally interrupted by the usual drills – battle stations, abandon ship, fire below decks – meant to train lompkinders and keep the experienced hands in a high state of readiness.
At 1000, as had become something of a custom while at sea, Al came aft to join Sam for a mug of Ritchie's coffee while they discussed matters of discipline and other routine subjects. It was a point of pride with the XO that he never asked Sam for a Captain's Mast without having given him a heads-up in advance of the need, when a pattern of misbehavior by a seaman seemed to lead in that direction. Masts were anyway rare on the Albatros, because Al and the department heads tried to deal with minor crime by such informal punishments as “drying out” a bad boy, or imposing a forfeit of a day or two of liberty. This, the theory went, would nip in the bud trends likely to lead to major offenses.
When these matters were out of the way, Al said, “Commodore, what's the plan if we get all the way to Cape Bobaomby without sighting the pirate?”
“We'll see the Chaton safely round the corner, then head back south to resume our cruise until we catch him, or run low on stores, whichever comes first. We have to make an effort, even if it means delaying the Zanzibar operation. Once we hear that Roland has shepherded the Dame safely into Hell-ville, we can recall her to spread the net a bit wider.”
“What about the Scorpion?”
“What about her?”
“She's been back in Hell-ville long enough to have replenished her stores. She's slower than the Roland, but she could still help in the search.”
“She's no match for a gun-dhow, not one armed with two mobile three-inchers.”
“Of course not, sir. But neither is Roland. And Scorpion has the advantage of looking like a Caliphate vessel. She could take advantage of her innocent appearance long enough to evade the enemy cruiser, if she sighted it first, and report it.”
Sam considered this. “Not a bad idea, Al. Let me think about it.”
Al returned to his incessant prowling about the schooner, overseeing the many activities that kept her seaworthy and battle-ready, and Sam resumed his pacing along the windward rail.
At length, six bells were struck and the bosuns' mates piped “up spirits”. The XO and the Boatswain appeared aft of the foremast, along with two bosuns' mates bearing the tub in which the daily liquor ration was mixed with water, and the crew, laughing and skylarking as usual at this, their favorite time of day, downed tools and formed a line to receive their “elevenses”.
Ritchie appeared promptly with a mug of coffee strongly flavored with rum. Sam had come to prefer coffee to water as a mixer whenever the day wasn't too hot, and Ritchie, with his acute sensitivity to the Commodore's desires, seemed always to know without being told just when it wasn't “too hot.” As the seamen stood in line with their mugs, the officers appeared and came aft to gather abaft the mizzenmast. At the instant the last man in line was served with his ration, the stewards of the commissioned officers' and warrant officers' messes appeared bearing trays laden with mugs. The officers drank their rum and water from elegant pewter mugs, purchased collectively with their mess funds, rather than the tin mugs the seaman used, but the drink was the same.
Dr. Girard was, as usual, the center of a circle of admiring young officers, and Sam, as usual, felt a stab of totally irrational jealousy. When will I get over her? he asked himself.
The pleasant interlude ended, and everyone dispersed to resume their duties. Sam continued to pace until, bored with being confined to the quarterdeck, he started a tour of the schooner. The hands were used to his occasional perambulations about the vessel, and had strict orders not to interrupt whatever they were doing on the appearance of their commodore. He started forward and worked his way aft, exchanging a word or two with each individual or group he encountered, pausing occasionally to observe work in progress. As always, this tour took him through sick bay.
The hanging cots were all empty, neatly made up with white sheets; there were no patients, always a reassuring sight. The SBAs were busy scrubbing down the bulkheads, painted white in the single exception to the rule that no paint be used on the schooner, as it presented a fire hazard. The Medical Officer had insisted that painted woodwork and scantlings were easier to keep sanitary than bare wood and steel.
Doctor Girard was conferring with her two interns. They were now ranked as warrant officers, rather than petty officers; on Girard's promotion to commissioned rank, and appointment as the Navy's senior medical officer, she had asserted that interns who were fully qualified physicians merited officer's status, as well. When she saw Sam enter, she broke off the discussion and approached him. “Good morning, Commodore.”
“Good morning, Doctor. Don't let me interrupt your meeting.”
“Oh, it wasn't a meeting. We were just gossiping.”
Only Dr. Girard would dare make such an admission to the Commodore in the middle of the working day. Sam wondered if she was trying to provoke him, then mentally shrugged it off.
“Can I help you, Commodore?” she added.
“No, Doctor. Just 'management by wandering about', that's all. Please carry on with whatever you were doing.” Although they were out of earshot of the interns, they had persisted in using formal address, not first names. They stared at one another for a moment, the easy intimacy of their talk on the quarterdeck of just over a week before gone completely. Sam wondered if he had done something to offend her. Then she turned and went back to the interns. She exchanged a few words with them, and then the little group dispersed, the interns to different parts of sick bay and Girard to her tiny office, which also doubled as the dispensary. Sam left sick bay and returned topside, his feelings, as so often after an interview with the Doctor, in a turmoil. Damn the woman, he thought. One day easy and friendly, the next prickly and distant.
Marie Girard sat at her desk, wiping away tears. I thought I had come to terms with my feelings for him, she thought. But he only has to catch me off guard to destroy that illusion!
Sam, distracted, thought of cutting short his tour and returning to the quarterdeck, but soldiered on instead. He visited the galley, the mess decks, the sail loft, and the armory, exchanging a few words with each member of the crew he encountered. He returned topsides just in time for dinner to be piped, and the accompanying cheerful bustle as the hands downed tools, washed up, and headed below.
Sam took a grateful breath of fresh air – it was necessarily stuffy below, in spite of open portholes and wind-sails rigged to re-direct the breeze into the bowels of the schooner. He had resumed his pacing on the quarterdeck when Ritchie appeared to announce that his own dinner was ready. Sam had little appetite, but he went back below and ate a few bites, then returned to the quarterdeck.
As the afternoon wore on, the gentle breeze very gradually backed into the south-south-east until the sheets had been eased to the point where the booms were far out over the sea on the port hand. A backing breeze often portended a squall in these latitudes, but the sky remained clear, and the barometer dropped only a fraction. When the breeze had finally backed due south, at the same time weakening to a mere breath, the Albatros took in her fore-and-aft sails and sailed along with just the fore topsail and the drifter set. The Chaton had goose-winged her sails, and appeared to be barely making steerageway.
Ritchie had just brought Sam his afternoon coffee when the tropical torpor that had descended upon the schooner was shattered by the lookout's cry: “Sail ho! Sail broad on the starboard bow.” Sam dashed the contents of his mug over the side and dropped it, clattering, to the deck, as he sprang to fetch his telescope from its rack. Through the glass, he could see a two-masted dhow on a westerly heading sailing directly toward the Chaton, the dhow appearing by comparison to the schooner's sluggish motion to be fairly racing along.
“Battle stations!,” Sam shouted. “Action to starboard.” Bosuns' calls trilled, the pipe was repeated over the PA system, and the deck of the schooner became a hive of activity. Seamen and gunners darted below to the armory and returned with small arms, the 37 millimeter rifle was run out to starboard, and the fire engine was rigged. The motor sloop, which had been towing astern, was hauled alongside and manned, the engineer quickly starting the engine to warm it to operating temperature.
Sam stared incredulously through the scope at the Chaton, which wallowed along serenely on the same downwind course – a course which would allow the dhow to intercept her within minutes. Was no one awake on that verdomde tub? He could fire a gun to alert them, but that would of course call the dhow's attention to the trap she was sailing into. He watched her sail along heedlessly until he was ready to scream. Then he gave in and shouted, “Fire a round at the dhow!” They were then at the extreme range of the 37 mm, but the point was to alert the Chaton.
The merchantman's lookout must have finally spotted the dhow, for just at that moment, and well before the report of the gun could have reached her, the Chaton came up abruptly onto a port reach, jibing her mizzen-boom so violently it must have almost carried away, and set her single square topsail. She was clearly making a run for it to the westward, toward the coast of Madagascar. The dhow, now alerted to the Albatros's presence, fired two quick spiteful rounds in farewell to the Chaton, and fell off onto a run downwind to the north, goose-winging her big lateen sails. Her master was obviously conforming to what appeared to be the new Caliphate policy of not engaging Kerg warships.
A quick look at the Chaton showed her to have been hit by at least one of the dhow's parting shots; her main course sagged from a shattered gaff. It was impossible to tell if the second enemy round had also gone home.
This began a frustrating couple of hours for Sam. He ordered the motor sloop to take the Albatros in tow. With the wind dead astern, this meant that whatever speed advantage she gained from the motor sloop was nearly negated by the fact that it simply canceled out the impetus of the wind. The drifter and the fore topsail sagged loosely from their booms. Speed through the water, as estimated from the taffrail log, was barely two knots. Continuous sights through the optical range-finder showed the chase to be maintaining her lead, perhaps gaining very slightly.
Sam thought bitterly that the dhow's skipper had hit upon the tactic most likely to defeat the Albatros's advantage in having the motor sloop tow her. By sailing dead down wind, he forced the schooner onto her least favored course for either sailing or towing, and completely removed the option of motor-sailing. This could only have been deliberate, since a dhow's master's first instinct would be to run away to the east-south-east on a broad reach, his vessel's best point of sailing, and away from any possibility of being pinned against the Madagascar coast. This led to reflections on how much both sides had advanced in the art and science of naval warfare since his first encounter with the pirates, when he was master of the merchant schooner Kiasu.
This was a competition the Kerguelenians had to win, since the advantages in wealth, resources, and population were all on the side of the Caliphate.
Providentially, the wind then freshened, and the fore-topsail and drifter filled and began to draw. For a brief, exhilarating moment, Sam was filled with hope of catching the dhow. Then Mooney shouted in alarm. “Commodore! Look aft! Sam spun around and stared at the southern horizon in horror; it was black as night and dark clouds were boiling. A squall was blowing up rapidly to overtake them.
“Recover the motor sloop! Douse the drifter!” Sam shouted urgently. A glance aft was all it took to galvanize everyone into action. They were about to encounter one of the vicious little storms that appeared suddenly at times in these waters. If they weren't quick enough in lowering the drifter, the best outcome would be the loss of the sail; the worst the loss of the foremast, and perhaps the Albatros herself. And the motor sloop would almost certainly founder or capsize in the sudden chaotic seas whipped up by the storm.
The squall hit just after the drifter had touched the deck, and while the motor sloop was being swayed up and over the bulwarks into her cradle. It was as if a bright light had been switched off: it was instantly as dark as midnight. Everyone on deck was immediately soaked to the skin by horizontal sheets of rain, driven so forcefully by the wind that the water stung all exposed skin like thrown gravel. The deck crew struggled desperately to control the wild swinging of the motor sloop on her falls long enough to drop her into the cradle, and sail handlers flung themselves bodily on the billowing form of the drifter, to keep it from blowing over the side.
The fore-topsail caught the wind and accelerated the schooner like one of the fast Reunionnais gunboats, leaving a boiling and turbulent wake. Lightening flashed constantly, and Sam feared a strike; even the lightening rods atop each mast, connected in a continuous run of heavy-gauge copper wire directly to the iron keel, could be overwhelmed in such a storm. If so, every piece of electrical equipment on the sloop could be destroyed, and the compasses completely deranged, not to mention the resulting deaths and injuries to the crew.
The helmsman and lee helmsman were struggling with the wheel, trying to keep the schooner running before the wi
nd, as Mooney bawled helm orders directly into their ears, trying to be heard over the terrific noise of the storm.
There was a sudden sharp bang as if from a gun, and Sam looked up to see that the fore-topsail had, quite literally, exploded, leaving only shreds and ribbons of canvas blowing straight out forward from the boltropes. But the schooner didn't seem to notice; the force of the gale on her top-hamper kept her racing downwind, almost out of control.
And then, as suddenly as it had hit, the squall passed on ahead. Late afternoon sunlight replaced the midnight darkness, the rain stopped, and the schooner slowed until she was almost dead in the water. The confused chop raised by the squall gradually subsided, and the gale was replaced by light airs from the south.
Sam shouted for the drifter to be hoisted again, to get some way back on the vessel. The foredeck crew lowered the fore-topsail boom down onto the deck so the sailmaker and his mates could replace the blown-out sail. Mooney vanished into the chartroom to reappear immediately with his sextant. By grabbing a sun-line before the sun sank much lower, he could advance the noon latitude to create a running fix that would give them an idea of their position, their dead reckoning now, after the squall, totally unreliable.
This made Sam think of the taffrail log, which no one had thought to secure during the squall. To his amazement, it still seemed to be working properly, the wire with its rotor at the end streaming aft and the meter clicking over, tallying the distance run through the water. Of course, no reliance whatever could be put on the readings for the last hour – the turbulence would have thrown out the measurements completely. But it was still there. Sam resolved to write a letter to Baker et Cie in French Port, the manufacturers, and congratulate them on the sturdiness of their product.
Sam found his telescope still in its rack: another miracle. He wiped it dry with his handkerchief and scanned the northern and northwestern horizon. He saw not a sign of either the Chaton or the pirate dhow. He feared the merchantman, her main gaff already shattered, might have been dis-masted, even capsized, by the squall; he hoped the same for the dhow. He agonized about what his duty required him to do now: look for the Chaton, to come to her aid if she was in distress? Or continue chasing northward after the dhow? He came reluctantly to the conclusion that the Chaton must come first, and ordered a course change toward the north-west, where she had last been seen. This put the schooner onto a broad reach, and they were able to set courses, staysails, and gaff-topsails in addition to the drifter. Soon, too, a replacement fore-topsail soared up the mast to add its slight impetus.
Into Uncharted Seas (Westerly Gales) Page 23