Into Uncharted Seas (Westerly Gales)

by E. C. Williams

  They recovered two more survivors, one so grievously wounded that he died soon after being fished from the water – doubly tragic, since he had managed to cling to a floating spar for hours in spite of his injuries only to succumb after his rescue.

  When they had pulled eleven more dead bodies from the sea, Sam wondered if that accounted for the entire crew of the Chaton. That was about right – fourteen men would have been an average sized crew for a merchant schooner – but he didn't know for sure. And they couldn't stop searching until they were sure, or until all hope of finding a living survivor was lost.

  Sam went down to sick bay to ask Veldhuis. He found the young man in a hanging cot with tubes running into both arms, his sunburn covered with some sort of greasy salve, and an SBA supporting his head while offering him sips of tepid water. Sam hesitated, then sought out the Medical Officer. He found her checking on one of her surgical patients, a man who had lost an arm in the battle. Her customary long white coat, usually pristine, was now bloodstained all the down the front. She was wearing what Sam had come to think of as her “doctor face”: expressionless, unemotional concentration, a look that made him approach her with some trepidation.

  “Doctor Girard, I apologize for interrupting your work, but I'd like to speak with Mister Veldhuis, the mate of the Chaton. I don't know the size of her crew, and so don't know if we've recovered them all: I have to ask him.”

  “Which one is he?”

  “The younger one, with red hair.”

  “He'll be all right. We've stabilized him now – he was severely dehydrated, but we've gotten two liters of fluid into him. You can talk to him, but I don't know if he'll be able to answer you yet – his tongue is so swollen he can't speak intelligibly.”

  “I can find out what I need to know by asking him yes or no questions he can answer with a nod or shake of his head.”

  “Very well, then. But please don't tire him too much, Commodore.”

  “No worries, Doctor. I won't occupy him for more than two minutes.”

  Sam returned to Veldhuis' cot, and leaned over the young man.

  “Mister Veldhuis, I know you're having difficulty speaking. If you recognize me, just nod, please.”

  Veldhuis, his face so scarlet and swollen as to be almost unrecognizable, stared up at Sam for a moment, then nodded quite deliberately.

  “We don't know if we've recovered all of your shipmates, Mister Veldhuis. We've accounted for fourteen so far, including you: is that the total number of the Chaton's crew?”

  Veldhuis tried to speak in reply, but could only make unintelligible noises.

  “Don't try to speak, Mister Veldhuis. Just nod or shake your head: did the Chaton's crew number fourteen?”

  Veldhuis nodded, then tried again to speak. Sam could understand just enough to guess that he was asking which of his shipmates, if any, had survived. Sam, concerned about the effect of bad news on his recovery, pretended not to understand, and said, “I'll leave you to rest now, Mister Veldhuis. You're in very good hands.”

  He left the man's cot and again sought out the Doctor.

  “What about the other survivor, Marie?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Much the same as the one you spoke with. Just dehydration and sunburn. Both should recover completely.”

  Sam hesitated, then said, “If I may, Doctor, I'd like to ask you about another man, a fatality, the 75 mm gunner on the motor sloop. He appeared unwounded – what caused his death?” At the look on her face he hurriedly added, “Not mere morbid curiosity, I promise – this is important.”

  “Which one was he – what was his name?”

  “Travis – Leading Gunner.”

  “Yes. Well, he had severe contusions on his chest and all his ribs were broken; apparently the blow stopped his heart. If I had to guess, I'd say the poor man stopped a nearly spent ball.”

  “Thanks, Marie – just what I needed to know.”

  Sam could now form a mental image. The pirate ball had glanced off the barrel of the 75 mm and struck Travis square in the chest. Implicit in Marie's description of the round as a “nearly spent ball” was that if it had not been “nearly spent” it would have blown a hole right through the unfortunate gunner's upper body. But this didn't get young Munro off the hook, not in Sam's mind. Some of the force of the ball would have been absorbed in hitting the barrel of the 75 mm rifle, so the motor sloop could well have been within the effective range of the pirate's guns – in violation of Sam's clear and emphatic verbal order.

  Sam left sick bay, ascended to the weather deck, and strode aft to the wheel house.

  “You may set sea watches now, Mister Mooney – we've accounted for the entire crew of the Chaton. Then lay off a northerly course.”

  “Back to Nosy Be, Commodore?”

  “Well, in that direction, anyway. We'll cruise for pirates, and take under our wing any merchantman we come across.”

  There was the usual bustle as the crew stood down from Condition Alfa, and more hands became available to the warrant officers for the work of restoring Albatros as much as possible to her pre-battle pristine state. The schooner soon resounded with hammering, mostly from below, where the carpenter's crew were beefing up the temporary patches they had installed during the battle – the Albatros had been holed multiple times. That reminded Sam that he would, sooner rather than later, have to avail himself of Hell-ville's floating drydock. Holes in the sheathing could be patched, but there was nothing whatever they could do about the several bent steel frames, not at sea. And every bent frame, Sam knew from experience, represented a spot on the hull where a patch wouldn't hold in a seaway, a spot that would leak constantly, and always represent the threat of uncontrollable flooding.

  The XO came aft and approached Sam. “Another close call, eh, Skipper?”

  “Yes, Al, yet another close call. How many more of these can we escape? We're losing this verdomde war because the hoere on the Council are too cheap to give us what we need to win it! We're fighting under sail with jury-rigged converted merchantmen when we have the capability of building powered warships!”

  Kendall listened in silence while his boss vented. He knew that Sam's frustration boiled over sometimes, and had to have a release. And it was part of the XO's job to be the target of that release.

  He also knew that Sam knew that the budget of the Republic – and thus the direct and indirect tax burden on Kerguelenians – had nearly tripled since the beginning of the undeclared war with the pirates, with all of the increase spent on the Navy. Until the entire Kergosphere could be brought to see that this was their war as well, there just wasn't much else the Council could do.

  Sam gradually simmered down, and changed the subject. “Did you take a look at the 75 mm rifle on the motor sloop?”

  “Yes. It looks fixable to me.”

  “I talked to Guns about it. He's going to try to repair it, but he didn't seem too optimistic.”

  “Guns is never optimistic. But he'll fix it or die trying – you know him.”

  “Yes. He's stubborn. And the best gunsmith I know.”

  They paced for awhile in silence, then Sam, returning to the subject that had never recently been very far from his mind, a sore he had to keep worrying at, said, “What will I do with Munro? He ignored my express orders – in combat! I'm thinking of a Captain's – Commodore's, I guess I should say – mast for him.”

  “Nothing in regulations about masts for officers, Commodore. They don't have that right. Far as I can tell, you can do pretty much anything you please with an officer, short of corporal or capital punishment. Well, not anything – you can bust a warrant to petty officer or even seaman, but you can't take away an officer's commission, because that came from the Council. But you can fire him, so to speak. Relieve him of duty and put him ashore and not re-assign him.

  “But Commodore, please think about it, and consider the possibility that you're over-reacting. The range of the pirate guns varies a lot with the size of the powder char
ge used. And it's hard as hell to estimate range from a small boat tossing about in a seaway.” Kendall paused for a reply, but got only stubborn silence.

  “And with respect, Skipper, it's unreasonable to use the motor sloop as a gunboat whenever we're in action, and then expect it never to sustain a hit! It's wanting to have your ewe and eat your mutton too, so to speak.”

  Sam said stubbornlyy, “Maybe you're right, Al. But maybe you're wrong, and Munro deliberately flaunted my orders. I have to know for sure which it is.”

  “How about this, then, Commodore? Junior officer professional development is part of my job. Let me make an informal XO's inquiry into Munro's conduct as O-in-C of the motor sloop during this last action. I'll interview the sloop's crew, and Munro, and even the Doctor, about the gunner's wound. Then I'll get it all down on paper and make a recommendation.”

  “No offense, Al, but I'm not sure you're completely unbiased.”

  “No offense to you, Commodore, but I am completely unbiased. I don't want a dud officer on this vessel any more than you do. I have an open mind on the subject, and, with respect, sir, I think you're mistaking that for a prejudice in Munro's favor.”

  This blunt response, with the unspoken but clear implication that it was he, himself who was biased unjustly against Munro made Sam's temper flare up momentarily, but he quickly doused it. He relied too much on honest feedback from Kendall to risk inhibiting him from saying what he thought.

  “Okay, Al. Make it so. And no need for a rush – I know you're busy.”

  They talked of other matters for a few minutes, and then the XO took his leave to go below and re-check the patches.

  The Albatros sailed on to the northward without sighting another sail. The wind increased slightly and veered a bit more south-easterly, and the watch had to douse the drifter. But the square topsail could still just be carried, and she continued to make good time. Sam fell to pacing the windward rail as usual.

  An hour after their conversation about Munro, Al Kendall returned to the quarterdeck.

  “Skipper, just a heads up: three of the patches are holding up fine, but as we expected, the two in way of dented frames have worked in this swell and are leaking a good bit. I've asked Mister Foy to do a little more patching.”

  “Guess we knew that was coming. I suppose we'd best head straight for Hell-ville and the drydock.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Since they were headed north, there was no need for a course change to carry out this decision. Sam resumed his pacing, and Al went back to his restless prowling of the schooner in pursuit of the XO's ideal of being everywhere at once, and overseeing everything that went on.

  After a few minutes, a radioman appeared with the message board. Sam read the message, and said, “At last – some good news.” He initialed the message in the appropriate box, and said to the radioman, “Make sure the XO sees this right away.”

  The Roland reported that she and the Dame had arrived in Hell-ville. About time,Sam thought to himself. They could have sailed to Australia by now. Or damn near.

  But he was greatly relieved, so much so that it made him realize just how worried he had been about the two vessels. He supposed they had encountered adverse winds and currents in the Madagascar Channel, not unusual in those waters, and the reason Kerg vessels rarely sailed them. The important thing was that they had made it safely to Nosy Be.

  Sam resumed his pacing, and watched idly as the carpenter's mate of the watch made his hourly rounds of the vessel, sounding each section of the bilge through the pipes spaced around the gunwales for that purpose. He then reported to Lieutenant Low, the watch officer, as usual. But Low then approached Sam and said, “Chips reports near two feet of water in the bilge, sir. Permission to pump out?” Which wasn't at all usual, because Albatros was normally a very tight, dry vessel.

  “Certainly, Mark,” Sam replied. He knew that this wouldn't be the last round of pumping required, so he stepped into the chartroom and added a note to his standing orders to the effect that the watch officer should pump bilges as required.

  Soon two jets of water pulsed out to leeward as the fixed bilge pumping system came on. It sucked and sputtered after a few minutes and was shut down, having completely de-watered the bilges.

  But not before the sight of the streams of water going overboard brought to Sam's mind something he hadn't consciously recalled before. In the hurry caused by the appearance of the pirate dhows, they had left their damage control pump – the handy-billy – on board the Chaton.

  Which was now at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

  God se wil, they wouldn't need it anytime soon. It would be a difficult item to replace closer than French Port.

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully, except that the bilges were pumped twice more before Sam had his supper and then turned in early, as usual.

  Also as usual, he was called with the morning watch, and went on deck with a mug of coffee. He glanced at the log, and noted that the bilges had been pumped during each watch overnight, and the duration of pumping necessary to dry her had increased watch to watch from twenty minutes to a full hour and more, as the periodic soundings found more and more water.

  When all hands were called, Sam tracked down the XO and they went down into the hold together to examine the patches with hand-lights. The patches on the three holes that had not involved frames were fairly dry, only a little weeping that wasn't enough to be of concern

  But the two problem patches were now leaking continuously, with little spurts of seawater entering around them every time the schooner's slight roll took them deeper. Sam could tell at a glance that there was no point in ordering Mr. Foy to mend the patches: both had already been so repeatedly reinforced that they formed great bulges, like inflamed boils, on the interior skin of the vessel.

  “I recommend we jibe her onto the other tack, Skipper. That'll put her on an opposite heel and take some of the pressure off,” Al said.

  “Good idea.”

  Sam returned to the quarterdeck and ordered the schooner jibed. But it only took a glance at the chart to reveal that this new course would eventually take the Albatros so close to the east coast of Madagascar that she would sooner or later have to come about again to weather Cape Bobaomby. This wasn't a problem, except to the extent that the Albatros would have to sail significantly farther before reaching Nosy Be.

  Sailing on the port tack proved to reduce the rate of leakage somewhat, as the two damaged spots causing the trouble were raised by the heel of the schooner to the water's edge, reducing the pressure on the patches. They still dribbled continuously, but pumping for thirty minutes a watch or so now kept ahead of the flooding.

  But Sam knew that anything that increased the working of the vessel or the vibration of the hull – a squall, a rising swell, going in to action again – would quickly worsen the problem.

  After breakfast, the XO came aft with Mr. Foy, the Carpenter, and formally requested permission to approach the Commodore.

  “Sir, Mister Foy has an idea for renewing the two problem patches in a way that could greatly reduce the leaking. May he explain it to you?”

  “Of course. What's your plan, Chips?”

  The Carpenter was not a man who was very articulate under the best of conditions; standing on the holy quarterdeck and presuming to instruct his Commodore seemed to reduce him to total incoherence.

  Sam took pity on him, and interrupted, saying, “Why don't we step down to my day cabin, where we'll be more comfortable? And perhaps a sketch will make it clearer to me.”

  The three trooped below. Sam shouted for Ritchie to bring coffee, and roused out pencils and a scratch pad from his deck. They sat around Sam's mess table while Foy made a renewed attempt to explain. Finally, Al said tactfully, “Mister Foy, I think I understand, but let me restate it to be sure I've got it right.” Foy deferred to the XO in grateful relief.

  “We prepare a couple of plywood sheets, by centering a wad of canvas on them and tacking
a square of sailcloth over it to hold it in place. We put a man over the side in a bosun's chair to nail the plywood in place over the damaged spots, the canvas inboard and centered over the holes. Then he caulks around the edges. The idea is that the pressure of the water will draw the canvas wadding into the holes and partially stop them.

  “Then we rip off the patches from the inside in order to get at the dented part of the frame. We stuff the space between the dent and the temporary sheathing, then renew the patch. That ought to greatly reduce the inflow, if not stop it completely. Did I state that accurately, Chips?” Foy nodded vigorously. “Yessir. Bang on.”

  Sam thought about it. “It'll be a bit dangerous for the man over the side, but we could tie a lifeline to him.”

  “Yes sir, of course.”

  “If he drops the plywood, it'll be swept away aft in the wake before we can catch it.”

  “Mister Foy thought of that, Commodore. He'll drill several holes in the edges of the plywood sheet, with nine-thread lines to men on deck to hold it in place. Then once the man over the side has nailed it in place, he can cut away the lines and caulk the holes when he does the edges.”

  Sam could think of no more objections. “Okay. It's worth a try. Go ahead and do it – the sooner the better.”

  “Chips is ready now, Commodore – he's had his gang preparing on the chance you'd approve.”

  “Good. I'll come on deck with you. I want to see this.”

  In the interests of safety for the man over the side, Sam ordered all sail taken in except staysails and the mizzen course, to reduce speed. It would have been even safer to go dead in the water for the evolution, but Sam didn't want the two pirate dhows they had already encountered to show up for a rematch and catch the Albatros drifting helplessly, with long minutes of sail handling required before she could regain maneuverability.

  Sam then went forward to the waist, where Foy and his mates were busy with final preparations for the repair. They had prepared two sheets of half-inch marine plywood, cut large enough for a generous overlap, with the center of one side of each covered with a sheet of canvas tacked in place and holding a bulge of wadded cloth scraps.