by David Weber
“Please take me now!” he added as one of those corkscrews ran through the ship’s timbers and his stomach heaved, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk laughed.
“I doubt he’d have you,” he said. As an ensign, he was neither fish nor wyvern in a lot of ways. Although he was senior to any of the ship’s midshipmen, he still wasn’t a commissioned officer, and wouldn’t be until his sixteenth birthday. As such, he continued to live in the midshipmen’s berth and served as the senior member of the midshipmen’s mess. Now he looked across the swaying mess table at Saylkyrk and grinned. “Archangels have standards, you know. He’d probably take one look at that pasty green complexion and pass.”
“Fine for you to say,” Saylkyrk said with a grimace. “There are times I don’t think you have a stomach, Hektor!”
“Nonsense! You’re just jealous, Trahvys,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk shot back with a still broader grin. Some midshipmen might have resented being required to take the orders of someone so much younger than he was, but Saylkyrk and Aplyn-Ahrmahk had been friends for years. Now the ensign elevated his nose, turned his head to display his profile, and sniffed dramatically. “Not that I don’t find your petty envy easy enough to understand. It must be difficult living in the shadow of such superhuman beauty as my own.”
“Beauty!” Saylkyrk snorted and dug a spoon glumly into the stew. “It’s not your ‘beauty’ I envy. Or that I would envy, if you had any! It’s the fact that I’ve never seen you puking into the bilges.”
“You would’ve if you’d been in my first ship with me,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk told him with a shudder. “Of course, that was a galley—only about two-thirds Destiny’s size.” He shook his head feelingly. “I was as sick as a … as a … as sick as Ahrlee over there,” he said, twitching his head at the still-miserable Zhones.
“Oh, no, you weren’t,” Zhones replied feebly. “You couldn’t’ve been; you’re still alive.”
The other midshipmen chuckled with the cheerful callousness of their youth, but one of them patted Zhones comfortingly on the back.
“Don’t worry, Ahrlee. They say once your tonsils come up it gets easier.”
“Bastard!” Zhones shot back with a somewhat strained grin.
“Don’t pay any attention to him, Ahrlee!” Aplyn-Ahrmahk commanded. “Besides, it’s not your tonsils; it’s your toenails. After you bring your toenails up it gets easier.”
Even Zhones laughed at that one, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk smiled as he pushed his own chocolate cup across the table to the younger midshipman.
Hot chocolate was even harder to come by aboard ship than it was ashore, and it was expensive. With his allowance from his adoptive father, Aplyn-Ahrmahk could have afforded to bring along his own private store and enjoy it with every meal. Fortunately, he also had enough common sense to do nothing of the sort. He’d been born to humble enough beginnings to realize how throwing his newfound wealth into his fellows’ faces would have been received, so instead he’d invested in a supply for the entire mess. By this point, they’d been away from port long enough it was running decidedly low, however, and the cook’s mate assigned as the midshipmen’s mess steward was rationing it out in miserly doses. But the Charisian naval tradition was that the ship’s company was kept well fed, with hot food whenever possible, especially after a day and a night like Destiny had just passed. Despite Saylkyrk’s obvious lack of enthusiasm for the stew in his bowl it was actually quite tasty (albeit a bit greasy), and their steward had made enough chocolate for everyone. For that matter, he’d even managed to come up with fresh bread. He’d expended the last of their flour in the process, but the result had been well worth it.
Unfortunately, poor Zhones clearly wasn’t going to be able to keep the stew down. He’d contented himself by devouring his share of the precious bread one slow, savoring mouthful at a time, washing it down with the sweet, strong chocolate. Now he looked up as Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s mug slid in front of him.
“I—” he began, but Aplyn-Ahrmahk shook his head.
“Consider it a trade,” he said cheerfully, snagging Zhones’ untouched stew bowl and pulling it closer. “Like Trahvys says, I’ve got an iron stomach. You don’t. Besides, the sugar’ll do you good.”
Zhones looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
“Thanks,” he said a bit softly.
Aplyn-Ahrmahk waved the gratitude away and scooped up another spoonful of the stew. It really was tasty, and—
“All hands!” The shout echoed down from the deck above. “All hands!”
By the time Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s spoon settled into the stew once more, he was already halfway up the ladder to the upper deck.
* * *
It took all the self-discipline Sir Dunkyn Yairley had learned in thirty-five years at sea to not swear out loud as his earlier thoughts about his improvised rudder ran back through his mind.
I suppose the good news is that we’re still two hundred yards offshore, he told himself. That gives us a little more room to play with … and if the spar’s just long enough to keep the tubs out from under her, they may still work, anyway. Of course, they may not, too.…
He watched Destiny’s company completing his highly unusual preparations with frenzied, disciplined speed, and he hoped there’d be time.
Of course there’ll be time, Dunkyn. You’ve got a remarkable talent for finding things to worry about, don’t you? He shook his head mentally, keeping himself physically motionless with his hands clasped behind him. Just keep your tunic on!
“Another six or seven minutes, Sir!” Rhobair Lathyk promised, and Yairley nodded, turning to watch the longboat fighting its way back towards the ship.
He’d hated sending Mahlyk and Aplyn-Ahrmahk back out, but they were clearly the best team for the job, as they’d just finished demonstrating. Two of the ensign’s seamen had gone over the side while they struggled to get the bitter end of the spring nipped onto the buoyed anchor cable. Unlike most Safeholdian sailors, Charisian seamen by and large swam quite well, but not even the best of swimmers was the equal of waters like these. Fortunately, Aplyn-Ahrmahk had insisted on lifelines for every member of the longboat’s crew, and the involuntary swimmers had been hauled back aboard by their fellows. From the looks of things, one of them had needed artificial respiration, but both of them were sitting up now, huddled in the half foot of water sloshing around the floorboards as the thirty-foot boat clawed its way back towards the galleon.
“Lines over the side, Master Lathyk,” Yairley said, looking back at the first lieutenant. “There’s not going to be time to recover the boat. Bring them up on lines and then cast it adrift.” He bared his teeth. “Assuming any of us get out of this alive, we can always find ourselves another longboat, can’t we?”
“Assuming, Sir,” Lathyk agreed, but he also grinned hugely. It was the same way he grinned when the ship cleared for action, Yairley noted.
“Cheerful bugger, aren’t you?” he observed mildly, and Lathyk laughed.
“Can’t say I’m looking forward to it, Sir, but there’s no point fretting, now is there? And at least it ought to be damned interesting! Besides, with all due respect, you’ve never gotten us into a fix yet that you couldn’t get us back out of.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence. On the other hand, this is the sort of thing you usually only get one opportunity to do wrong,” Yairley pointed out in a dry tone.
“True enough, Sir,” Lathyk agreed cheerfully. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see about losing that longboat for you.”
He touched his chest in salute and moved off across the pitching, rearing deck, and Yairley shook his head. Lathyk was one of those officers who grew increasingly informal and damnably cheerful as the situation grew more desperate. That wasn’t Sir Dunkyn Yairley’s style, yet he had to admit Lathyk’s optimism (which might even be genuine) made him feel a little better.
He turned back to the matter at hand, trying not to worry about the possibility that one or more of the longboat’s crew could still be crushed
against Destiny’s side or fall into the water to be sucked under the turn of the bilge and drowned. It helped that he had plenty of other things to worry about.
The never-to-be-sufficiently-damned wind had decided to back still further, and it had done so with appalling speed after holding almost steady for over four hours. It was almost as if it had deliberately set out to lull him into a sense of confidence just to make the final ambush more disconcerting. For four hours, Destiny had lain to her anchors, bucking and rolling but holding her ground despite his sailing notes’ warnings about the nature of Scrabble Sound’s bottom. But then, in less than twenty minutes, the wind had backed another five full points—almost sixty degrees—from southeast-by-south to due east, and the galleon had weathervaned, turning to keep her bow pointed into it, which meant her stern was now pointed directly at Ahna’s Point. The speed with which the wind had shifted also meant that the seas continued to roll in from the southeast, not the east, pounding her starboard bow, which had radically shifted the forces and stresses affecting her … and her anchors. Now the wind was driving her towards Ahna’s Point; the seas were driving her towards Scrabble Shoal; and her larboard anchor cable had parted completely.
Must be even rockier than I was afraid of over there, Yairley thought now, looking at the bobbing buoy marking the lost anchor’s position. That was an almost new cable, and it was wormed, parceled, and served, to boot!
“Worming” was the practice of working oakum into the contlines, the surface depressions between the strands of the cable. “Parceling” wrapped the entire cable in multi-ply strips of canvas, and the boatswain had served the entire “shot” of cable by covering the parceling, in turn, in tightly wrapped coils of one-inch rope. All of that was designed to protect the cable against fraying and chafing … and the rough-edged bottom had obviously chewed its way through all precautions anyway.
Fortunately, the cables to the starboard bower anchor and the sheet anchor Aplyn-Ahrmahk and Mahlyk had laid out hadn’t snapped—yet, at least—but both of them were finally beginning to drag the way he’d been more than half afraid they would from the outset. It was a slow process, but it was also one which was gathering speed. At the present rate, Destiny would go ashore within the next two hours at the outside.
At least the tide’s nearly full, he reminded himself. It’d be better if we had the ebb to work with, but at least the current’s slowed and we’ve got as much water under the keel as we’re ever likely to have.
He watched the longboat’s crew struggling one-by-one up and through the bulwark entry port. Aplyn-Ahrmahk, of course, came last, and Yairley felt at least one of his worries ease as the young ensign scrambled aboard.
“Master Lathyk’s compliments, Sir,” Midshipman Zhones said, sliding to a stop in front of him and saluting, “and the boat crew’s been recovered. And all preparations for getting underway are completed.”
“Thank you, Master Zhones,” Yairley said gravely. “In that case, I suppose we should make sail, don’t you?”
“Uh, yes, Sir. I mean, aye, aye, Sir!”
“Very good, Master Zhones.” Yairley smiled. “Go to your station, then.”
“Aye, aye, Sir!”
The midshipman saluted again and dashed away, and Yairley glanced one more time around his command, mentally double-checking every detail.
The topgallant masts and topmasts were housed, but the topsail yards had been gotten back up to work on the topmast caps, and the topsails and foresails’ gaskets had been stripped off and replaced with lengths of spun yarn so that they could be set instantly. The fore- and mainyards had been braced up for the larboard tack, and the spring Aplyn-Ahrmahk and Mahlyk had managed to make fast to the larboard anchor cable had been led in through an after gunport and made fast. Every eye was on the quarterdeck, and Yairley stepped slowly and calmly to his place by the wheel.
He looked back at his watching men. They could all very easily die in the next few minutes. If the ship took the ground in something as rocky as Scrabble Sound in this kind of sea, she was almost certain to break up, and the chances of making it to shore would be poor, at best. Yet as he surveyed all of those watching faces, he saw no doubt. Anxiety, yes. Even fear, here and there, but not doubt. They trusted him, and he drew a deep breath.
“Stand by the cables!”
Tymythy Kwayle, with a gleaming, broad-headed ax in hand, stood by the riding bitts where the sheet anchor cable crossed them. Boatswain Symmyns himself stood by the larboard cable with an identical ax, both of them waiting for the order to cut the hawsers. If everything went according to plan, the moment the anchor cables were cut, the spring attached to the larboard cable would become her new anchor cable, pulling her stern, rather than her bow, around into the wind. With her yards already braced, the instant the wind came two points forward of the beam she could cut the spring, as well, and make sail close-hauled on the larboard tack, which would put her roughly on a course of south-southeast. She ought to be able to hold that heading clean back out of Scrabble Sound the way she’d come, if only the wind held steady. Or, for that matter, if it chose to back still further east towards the north. Of course, if it decided to veer to the west, instead.…
Stop that, he told himself absently. The wind isn’t really trying to kill you, Dunkyn, and you know it.
“Stand by to make sail! Lay aloft, topmen!”
The topmen hurried aloft, and he let them get settled into place. Then—
“Man halliards and sheets! Man braces!”
Everything was ready, and he squared his shoulders.
“Cut the cables!”
The axes flashed. It took more than one blow to sever a cable six inches in diameter, but Kwayle and Symmyns were both powerfully muscled and only too well aware of the stakes this day. They managed it in no more than two or three blows each, and the freed hawsers went whipping out of the hawseholes like angry serpents at virtually the same moment.
Destiny fell off the wind almost instantly, leaning over to starboard as her stern came round to larboard. It was working, and—
Then the spring parted.
Yairley felt the twanging shock as the line snapped, simply overpowered by the force of the sea striking the ship. She hadn’t turned remotely far enough yet, and the sea took her, driving her towards the rocky beach waiting to devour her. For a moment, just an instant, Yairley’s brain froze. He felt his ship rolling madly, starting to drive stern-first towards destruction, and knew there was nothing he could do about it.
Yet even as that realization hammered through him, he heard someone else snapping orders in a preposterously level voice which sounded remarkably like his own.
“Let fall fore topsail and course! Up fore topmast staysail!”
The crewmen who’d realized just as well as their captain that their ship was about to die didn’t even hesitate as the bone-deep discipline of the Imperial Charisian Navy’s ruthless drills and training took them by the throat, instead. They simply obeyed, and the fore topsail and course fell, and the topmast staysail rose, flapping and thundering on the wind.
“Sheet home! Weather braces haul! Back topsail and course!”
That was the critical moment, Yairley realized later. His entire ship’s company had been anticipating the order to haul taut the lee braces, trimming the yards around to take the wind as the ship turned. That was what they’d been focused on, but now he was backing the sails; trimming them to take the wind from directly ahead, instead. Any hesitation, any confusion in the wake of the unexpected change in orders, would have been fatal, but Destiny’s crew never faltered.
The yards shifted, the sails pressed back against the mast, and Destiny began moving through the water—not forward, but astern—while the sudden pressure drove her head still further round to starboard.
Destiny backed around on her heel—slowly, clumsily canvas volleying and thundering, spray everywhere, the deck lurching underfoot. She wallowed drunkenly from side to side, but she was moving astern even as s
he drifted rapidly towards the beach. Sir Dunkyn Yairley had imposed his will upon his ship, and he stared up at the masthead weathervane, waiting, praying his improvised anchor hadn’t been fouled, judging his moment.
And then—
“Let fall the mizzen topsail!” he shouted the moment the wind came abaft the starboard beam at last. “Starboard your helm! Off forward braces! Off fore topmast staysail sheets! Lee braces haul! Brace up! Shift the fore topmast staysail! Let fall main topsail and main course! Sheet home! Main topsail and course braces haul!”
The orders came with metronome precision, as if he’d practiced this exact maneuver a hundred times before, drilled his crew in it daily. The mizzen topsail filled immediately, arresting the ship’s sternward movement, and the forward square sails and fore topmast staysail were trimmed round. Then the main topsail and main course blossomed, as well, and suddenly Destiny was moving steadily, confidently, surging through the confused seas on the larboard tack with torrents of spray bursting above her bow. As she gathered way, the floating tubs of her improvised rudder settled back into their designed positions, and she answered the helm with steadily increasing obedience.
“Done it, lads!” someone shouted. “Three cheers for the Captain!”
HMS Destiny was a warship of the Imperial Charisian Navy, and the ICN had standards of discipline and professionalism other navies could only envy. Discipline and professionalism which, for just an instant, vanished into wild, braying cheers and whistles as their ship forged towards safety.
Sir Dunkyn Yairley rounded on his ship’s company, his expression thunderous, but he found himself face-to-face with a broadly grinning first lieutenant and an ensign who was capering on deck and snapping the fingers of both hands.