“I agree, Commodore,” Bill said. “In fact I've been thinking that maybe we should create a new warrant billet, and give it to Landry.”
“One thing's for sure – I think we've moved beyond giving command of landing parties to general line officers. Combat operations ashore require special skills. I learned that at Pirate Creek. I had to lean heavily on Landry to avoid a disaster there,” interjected Kendall.
Ennis: “Landry's capable of leading a raid ashore, certainly, but I think we still need a commissioned officer in overall charge of landing ops.”
“Well, the consensus is that Landry ought to be promoted to warrant. We'll leave the question of whether there ought to be a dedicated landing-force billet for a commissioned officer until the corps of seamen-gunners gets bigger than it is now,” Sam said with a finality that indicated that the conference was ended.
The two vessels heaved up and got under way immediately after breakfast, and ran north-westward on a broad reach, impelled by a gentle east-south-easterly breeze, along Madagascar's east coast. Sam's general plan was to cruise the Comoros looking for pirate bases, and, of course, to engage any pirate vessels encountered there or on the way. (Although the most direct route to the Comoros from Madagascar's southern tip was up the west coast of the island, the usual sea routes of Kerg merchantman, and thus the most likely cruising grounds for pirates, were off the east coast.)
By the time that was accomplished, the squadron would almost certainly need to re-provision at Hell-ville. After that, further operations would depend on intelligence gained to that point. Although he of the opinion that the Seychelles, because their geographic location, were unlikely to be useful to the pirates as bases, he would of course follow up any intelligence to the contrary. Ultimately, Sam planned to reconnoiter northward toward Zanzibar. He was becoming more and more convinced that this island was the logical site for a semi-permanent pirate base at the least, if not a settlement or colony of the Caliphate.
As he paced the windward side of the quarterdeck, enjoying the bright tropical morning, he mused that, even though it was plain that Kerguelen was not the victim of pirates motivated by simple greed, but was instead at war with another maritime civilization whose aggressive, expansionist policy was a driven by a totalitarian ideology, everyone still referred to Caliphate vessels and their sailors as “pirates”. He supposed part of that was the knowledge, which had become general, that the prisoners, under interrogation, had strongly objected to being characterized as pirates – they insisted that they were, instead, God's warriors. So with typical Kerg perversity, the term “pirate” was even further reinforced. This, in spite of the fact that Kerguelenian courts had declared the prisoners to be enemy combatants rather than ordinary criminals; in effect, prisoners of war, to be held until the end of hostilities, however that end was to be accomplished.
This was not a popular decision with a large portion of the Kerguelenian public, especially the surviving families of Kerg seamen missing and presumed dead or enslaved at the hands of the pirates. A little historical research, widely publicized by the press, had turned up the fact that the legal penalty for piracy throughout most of antiquity had been death. This was the outcome desired by the most extreme faction, in spite of the fact that France, from which Kerguelen had inherited its criminal code, had abolished the death penalty a full century before the Troubles. No execution had ever taken place on Kerguelen, and most of the public wanted that record preserved. Sam generally sympathized with the majority; it was clear to him that Kerguelen was the target of an undeclared guerre de course, not ordinary crime. But whenever he thought of his best friend and Maddie's late husband, Johnny Dupree, who had died in his arms after being mortally wounded in an early battle with pirates, he could fully understand the minority who wanted the prisoners tried and then hung, preferably in the public square.
The little squadron proceeded in a north-north-easterly direction along the Madagascar coast without incident for day and a half, long enough for all hands to settle into the comfortable at-sea routine.
This brief idyll was broken when Robert, the Radio Officer, burst out of the after hatchway and ran toward the quarterdeck, waving a message form.
“An SOS, Commodore, from a Reunionnais ketch. It's very near, I think.”
Sam glanced at the message. After “SOS”, repeated three times, it stated only that the ketch Fillette was under attack just off the harbor of Manakara.
“It's right over the horizon to the north!” He darted into the chartroom to confirm his mental estimate of the ketch's distance from them. It was, indeed, less than an hour's sail away. Sam presumed that the ketch must have been on her way between Manakara, a ruined and uninhabited port town, and Reunion, on a scavenging expedition; although the ruins, so close to Reunion, must have been pretty well picked over by now.
Sam darted back out on deck and shouted to Robert, “Call him back – get his heading and the size of the enemy force!”
“Mister Low! Call all hands. Pipe 'battle stations'. Hang out every bit of canvas you can – including the chase square-sail!” This latter was developed from the big square sail they had jury rigged to catch another pirate, not so long ago. It was a very large, full-bodied sail set from a yard hoisted to the top of the lower foremast, just below the forestay, and reaching almost to the deck. The width of its foot, from tack to clew, was greater than the schooner's beam. It was very much a light-air sail – the bosun's mates called it the “drifter” – and the wind conditions were right on the edge of being too much for it.
Robert raced back on deck. “Ketch isn't responding, Commodore.” Sam wasn't surprised – the master was probably the only member of the Fillette's small crew who could operate the radio, and he was clearly otherwise engaged at the moment.
“Signal to Joan: 'Enemy in sight', and 'Conform to my movements''”, Sam said to the midshipman of the watch, one of whose duties was signals officer. The enemy was of course not yet in sight, but Sam didn't think they had a signal meaning 'Enemy just over the horizon', and he wasn't about to take the time to spell it out alphabetically.
The deck of the Albatros burst into a flurry of mad activity that would have looked chaotic to a landsman, but with an underlying order Sam could see: every man had a clearly defined duty and was rushing to do it.
The Joan of Arc was only a cable's length astern of the Albatros, and the same frenetic activity was visible on her weather deck as well, and Sam could hear her electric general alarm bells repeating the 'battle stations' pipe.
Under the impetus of the extra canvas – Joan set her drifter, as well – the two schooners surged ahead. First one sail, then another, then another nicked the horizon ahead, somewhat inshore of the squadron. Sam altered course to head directly for them. Sam studied the sails intensely through his telescope until he could see three vessels, hull up on the horizon. One was a ketch, almost certainly the Fillette, and the other two were dhows, clearly recognizable by their high poops, re-rigged as schooners – but simple “knockabout” Bermuda schooners, with no topmasts, topsails, or headsails. As the Albatros neared the three vessels – all close together, the ketch trying to flee eastward and the schooner-dhows hanging on each quarter – the faint rattle of small-arms fire could be heard, but no reports of heavier weapons. Either the pirates were not fitted with cannon, or they were determined to take the ketch undamaged.
The Fillette, every man of her crew apparently wielding some sort of firearm, was maintaining a ferocious defensive fire at the two dhows, which was returned in greater volume.
Sam raced forward to the 37 mm gun, which had been run out to the port gun-balcony and trained toward the little battle going on in the distance.
“Guns, are the pirates in range yet?” he demanded of Du Plessis, whose battle station since the Albatros was upgunned was with the 37mm rifle.
“Just, Commodore.”
“Can you fire at the enemy without much danger of hitting the ketch?”
“I
f we fire at the stern of the one furthest off, I think so, sir.”
“Then get a round off now, solid shot!”
The gun roared almost immediately, but the round went slightly wide, the shot splashing off the dhow's starboard quarter. But it accomplished Sam's immediate object, which to distract the pirates from the ketch, now on the verge of being overtaken and boarded over each side.
The pirate dhows, now aware that they were within range of the approaching schooners, immediately jibed and fell off to run before the wind. But not without a couple of Parthian shots at the ketch, these apparently from the bronze smooth-bores that had become their standard armament. Luckily, their aim was a bit high, and holes appeared in both the main and mizzen of the ketch. If the pirate gunners had aimed just a bit more carefully, they could have sunk the ketch at that range with just those two rounds.
The Albatros's 37 mm gun, and both her one-inchers opened a rapid fire on the nearest dhow to distract her from firing again on the ketch until the Fillette could run out of their range. The dhows, with the squadron still out of range of their smooth-bores, didn't bother to return fire, but they did not fire again on the Fillette either, which Sam thought was strange. He knew, and he knew the skippers of the dhows knew, that he could overhaul them in no time at all, and wondered that they didn't try to at least take the ketch to the bottom with them.
The answer became apparent within minutes: the crews of the dhows were too busy to man their guns. The Bermuda courses came down with a rush, and soaring up in their place arose the long, long spars of the lateen rig, the main spar of each dhow longer than the vessel herself, spreading an immense sail area to the quartering breeze.
Sam was impressed by the seamanlike ingenuity of this arrangement, and the tireless creativity with which Caliphate seamen had continually experimented with different rigs to gain some superiority in speed and maneuverability over Kerg vessels. The Bermuda schooner rig made the dhows maneuverable in action, but the pirate skippers had also so arranged their rigging that they could quickly convert back to the faster lateen rig, whenever speed was required. He realized, too, that the Bermuda rig gave the dhows an innocent appearance, from a distance; the settlers in the Indian Ocean used the Bermuda rig mainly for small vessels, coasters and fishermen, with small crews, and a dhow so rigged, on the horizon, could easily be mistaken for a friendly craft.
Other factors being roughly equal, such as waterline length, the graceful dhows were faster than a Kerg schooner on a broad reach. It was only in tacking that a schooner had the advantage. If the pirate vessels could maintain a distance of a couple of miles on the squadron until dark, they had a fair chance of escaping, even if Sam towed – “motor-sailed” – with the motor sloop. And if he did that, he would leave the Joan behind, losing the advantage of numbers. The Joan's motor-whaleboat had an engine of only about half the horsepower of the Albatros's motor sloop, and in this breeze, towing the Joan with it would probably result in little or no additional speed.
Their only hope of catching and capturing or destroying the enemy vessels lay in the new 37 mm rifle.
“Guns, we have to disable that nearer dhow. Use HE with contact fuses and try to cripple her steering or rig, whichever you think you're most likely to hit.”
“Aye aye, sir.” And the 37 mm gunners resumed fire.
The dhow was at or near the maximum practical range of the weapon, and hitting her required the best possible estimate of range, and careful adjustment of elevation, all from a moving deck. The first four rounds were clear misses, but progressively closer to the target. With the fifth round, a hit was scored directly on the high poop of the trailing dhow. The gun's crew cheered wildly until the Gunner shouted at them to shut up and keep shooting.
A 37 mm shell, although of course bigger than a one inch round, still could not hold a very big explosive charge. It could nevertheless do significant damage to a wooden-hulled vessel, especially by the cumulative impact of successive hits in the same general vicinity.
But the range was too great for the 37 mm gunner to put two successive rounds in the same spot; in fact, only one or two rounds out of four were hits on the hull. The gun scored no hits on the rudder, helm – which was somewhat protected by the high poop – or masts or spars. Hitting the vast expanse of sail was easy, but only resulted in punching neat round 37 mm holes; the contact fuses weren't being activated by the thin canvas.
On the quarterdeck, the midshipman of the watch was taking continuous vertical angles on the chase with his sextant. Their only copy of Mr. Daniel's ingenious optical range-finder was in use by the Gunner. The mid was no longer bothering to refer to Table 16, but simply noting whether the angle was increasing or diminishing. If the former, the Albatros was gaining on her prey; if the latter, the dhow was gaining.
Unfortunately, it was the latter. “The range is opening, Commodore – slowly but definitely,” the mid said reluctantly.
Sam swore in frustration, stamped the deck, and threw down his hat. Then he regained control of himself. Mustn't throw a temper tantrum in front of the crew. He started to go forward, back to the gun, then saw that the XO was there, conferring with the Gunner. This meant that by Sam's own rule, he had to stay where he was; he didn't want one enemy hit to take them both out at once, so in action he and Al stayed at opposite ends of the schooner, communicating if necessary by sound-powered phone.
They were now using, for first time in action, what Kendall referred to as one of their “new toys”: the sound-powered telephone system. They had used it extensively during their recent exercises in Morbihan Bay. It was a brilliantly simple device, electrical in nature but not dependent on any external source of electrical power. The invention, or rather re-invention, of Mr. Robert, it solved the problem of efficient communications between the quarterdeck and the bow of the schooner in the noise of battle. Megaphones were perfectly satisfactory under normal conditions, – the distance from bow to stern was less than half the length of a football pitch, after all – but often when in battle could not be heard over the reports of the schooner's weaponry. Messengers were slower, and an inefficient use of manpower besides.
References to sound-powered phones were common in the literature describing twentieth- and twenty-first century navies, but nowhere could they find a technical description. Mr. Robert, however, after much thought, worked out the principle on which they must have worked – or perhaps an alternative way of making them work – and designed and engineered the system for the Albatros. Two fixed transmission lines, port and starboard, cross-connected and covered with armored conduit, ran along the base of the bulwarks between plug-in connectors on bow and stern. A headset combining earphones and microphone could be plugged into either of these lines. The redundancy meant the system would continue to work if one fore-and-aft line was broken by accident or enemy fire.
The literature mentioned “phone talkers”; by deduction, these must have been sailors tasked with relaying orders over the sound-powered phone system. Sam and Al had at first seen no point in this redundancy. Five minutes of wearing the cumbersome headsets themselves, and enduring the distraction of communicating over them while at the same time directing operations, convinced them of its utility. Now, when Condition Alfa or battle stations were set, each of them was followed by a phone talker, who in turn was followed by a phone talker's mate, a seaman whose principle duty was simply to be available to take over immediately if the primary phone talker was killed or incapacitated. While he awaited that grim possibility, the phone talker's mate carried coils of the several fathoms of wire connecting the phone talker to the fixed system, keeping it from tangling, or tripping up others whose duty kept them on the quarterdeck. Sam and Al amused themselves at first by chatting back and forth via their phone talkers. But the novelty soon wore off, and they confined themselves to necessary communications.
The 37 mm ceased firing, and Sam shouted to his phone talker, demanding to know the problem. Before he could draw breath to shout, howeve
r, the gun barked again, and the gun's crew cheered. He looked again at the dhow, and saw that a shell had exploded on contact with her mainsail, and blown a large, tattered hole that was growing under the pressure of the wind. Plainly, the dhow's mainsail would soon be merely shreds of cloth blowing off impotently to windward. The 37 mm fired again, and missed, but the next round exploded against the foresail, with similar effects. The rate of fire of the gun had halved, but it didn't matter now, so far as the nearer dhow was concerned; her speed was visibly and rapidly slackening as her sails were gradually reduced to tatters.
Apparently, the Gunner had somehow contrived to increase the sensitivity of the contact fuses on the HE rounds – clearly a hazardous business in the haste and confusion of battle. Sam noted how gingerly the ammo handlers who brought up each round from the ammunition locker in the hold handled the shells. The ready box, next to the gun, held only five rounds, for safety, and normally the ammo runners replenished it before the fifth round was fired. But now, the gun was firing each round as it came up from below; apparently Du Plessis didn't trust the new, sensitive fuses to lie safely in the ready box.
The speed of the dhow slackened quickly, and brought the Albatros within range of her muzzle-loading cannon. A dull boom, a cloud of white smoke, and a splash close aboard to port that wet everyone on the foredeck got the Gunner's attention, and he quickly switched to counter-battery fire. A round of case shot blew the gun's crew away as if by a giant shotgun; a round of HE dismounted the enemy gun. Another round of case then downed the pirate seamen running to try to re-mount the gun.
“Sail right by her, Mister Low,” Sam said to the watch officer. “Keep chasing the other one.”
As the Albatros swept by the trailing pirate dhow, the 37 mm rifle kept up a steady fire at her hull, alternating solid shot and HE, while the one-inchers and the marksmen fired at anyone moving on deck. As usual the pirates made no move to surrender even when their situation was hopeless. Their flag, a green banner with a stylized sword rendered in white, and some words in their strange script, remained flying defiantly from atop the mainmast. They returned fire ineffectually but continually with small arms.
The Cruise of the Albatros: Book Two of the Westerly Gales Saga Page 26