by David Weber
He was unaware of the white-faced, nauseated twelve-year-old midshipman who stood watching his closed eyes and thoughtful expression with something very like awe. And he was only distantly aware of the seamen crouching ready at the staysails’ tacks and sheets in the lee of the bulwarks and hammock nettings, taking what shelter they could while they kept their eyes fixed on their officers. What he needed to accomplish was a straightforward maneuver, but under these conditions of wind and weather even a small error could lead to disaster.
The waves rolled in, and he felt their rhythm settling into his own flesh and sinew. The moment would come, he thought. It would come and “Starboard your helm!” he heard himself bark. His own order came almost as a surprise, the product of instinct and subliminal timing at least as much as of conscious thought. “Lay her on the larboard tack-as close to south-by-west as you can!”
“Aye, aye, Sir!”
Destiny ’s double wheel turned to the left as all four helmsmen heaved their weight on the spokes. The tiller ropes wrapped around the wheel’s barrel turned the tiller to the right in response, which kicked the rudder to the left, and the galleon began turning to larboard. The turn brought her broadside on to the seas still pounding in from the south-southwest, but Yairley’s seaman’s sense had served him well. Even as she began her turn, one of the crashing seas rolled up under her larboard quarter at almost the perfect moment, lifting her stern and helping to force her around before the next wave could strike.
“Off sheets and tacks!” It was Lathyk’s voice from forward.
Yairley opened his eyes once more, watching as his ship fought around through the maelstrom of warring wind and wave in a thunder of canvas and water and a groan of timbers. The next mighty sea came surging in, taking her hard on the larboard beam, bursting over the hammock nettings in green and white fury, and the galleon rolled wildly, tobogganing down into the wave’s trough while her mastheads spiraled in dizzying circles against the storm-sick heavens. Yairley felt the lifeline hammering at his chest, heard the sound of young Zhones’ retching even through all that mad tumult, but she was coming round, settling on her new heading.
“Meet her!” he shouted.
“Sheet home!” Lathyk bellowed through his speaking trumpet.
Destiny ’s bow buried itself in the next wave. White water exploded over the forecastle and came sluicing aft in a gray-green wall. Two or three seamen went down, kicking and spluttering as they lost their footing and were washed into the scuppers before their lifelines came up taut, but the sheets were hardened in as the ship came fully round on her new heading. Her bowsprit climbed against the sky, rising higher and higher as her bows came clear of the smother of foam and gray-green water, and Yairley breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the top of the wave and then went driving down its back with an almost exuberant violence.
Showing only her fore-and-aft staysails, she could actually come a full two points closer to the wind than she could have under square sails, and Yairley watched the swaying compass card as the helmsmen eased the wheel. It gimbaled back and forth as the men on the wheel picked their way through the tumult of wind and wave, balancing the thrust and set of her canvas against the force of the seas.
“South-sou’west’s as near as she’ll come, Sir!” the senior man told him after a minute or two, and he nodded.
“Keep her so!” he shouted back.
“Aye, aye, Sir!”
The ship’s plunging motion was more violent than it had been running before the wind. He heard the explosive impact as her bow met each succeeding wave, and the shocks were harder and more jarring, but the corkscrew roll had been greatly reduced as she headed more nearly into the seas. Spray and green water fountained up over her bow again and again, yet she seemed to be taking it well, and Yairley nodded again in satisfaction then turned to look out over the tumbling waste of water once more.
Now to see how accurate his position estimate had been.
***
The day which had turned into night dragged on towards day once more, and the wind continued to howl. Its force had lessened considerably, but it was still blowing at gale force, with wind speeds above forty miles per hour. The seas showed less moderation, although with the falling wind that had to come eventually, and Yairley peered about as the midnight murk turned slowly, slowly into a hard pewter dawn under purple-black clouds. The rain had all but ceased, and he allowed himself a cautious, unobtrusive breath of optimism as visibility ever so gradually increased. He considered making more sail-with the current wind he could probably get double- or triple-reefed topsails and courses on her-but he’d already added the main topgallant staysail, the main topmast staysail, and the mizzen staysail. The fore-and-aft sails provided less driving power than the square sails would have, but they let him stay enough closer to the wind to make good a heading of roughly south-southwest. The further south-and west, of course, but especially south- he could get, the better, and “Breakers!” The shout came down from above, thin and lost through the wail of wind. “Breakers on the starboard quarter!”
Yairley wheeled in the indicated direction, staring intently, but the breakers were not yet visible from deck level. He looked around and raised his voice.
“Main topmast, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk! Take a glass. Smartly, now!”
“Aye, Sir!”
The youthful ensign leapt into the weather shrouds and went scampering up the ratlines to the topmast crosstrees with the spyglass slung across his back. He reached his destination swiftly, and Yairley looked up, watching with deliberate calm as Aplyn-Ahrmahk raised the glass and peered to the north. He stayed that way for several seconds, then reslung the glass, reached for a back stay, wrapped his legs around it, and slid down it to the deck, braking his velocity with his hands. He hit the deck with a thump and came trotting aft to the captain.
“I believe Master Lathyk will have something to say to you about the proper manner of descending to the deck, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk!” Yairley observed tartly.
“Yes, Sir.” Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s tone was properly apologetic, but a devilish glint lurked in his brown eyes, Yairley thought. Then the young man’s expression sobered. “I thought I’d best get down here quickly, Sir.” He raised his arm and pointed over the starboard quarter. “There’s a line of breakers out there, about five miles on the quarter, Captain. A long one-they reach as far as I could see to the northeast. And they’re wide, too.” He met Yairley’s gaze levelly. “I think it’s the Garfish Bank, Sir.”
So the ensign had been thinking the same thing he had, Yairley reflected. And if he was right-which, unfortunately, he almost certainly was-they were substantially further north than the captain had believed they’d been driven. Not that there’d been anything he could have done to prevent it even if he’d known. In fact, if he hadn’t changed heading when he had, they’d have driven onto the bank hours earlier, but still…
“Thank you, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk. Be good enough to ask Lieutenant Lathyk to join me on deck, if you would.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
The ensign disappeared, and Sir Dunkyn Yairley bent over the compass, picturing charts again in his mind, and worried.
***
“You wanted me, Sir?” Rhobair Lathyk said respectfully. He was still chewing on a piece of biscuit, Yairley noted.
“I apologize for interrupting your breakfast, Master Lathyk,” the captain said. “Unfortunately, according to Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk we’re no more than five miles clear-at best-of the Garfish Bank.”
“I see, Sir.” Lathyk swallowed the biscuit, then bent to examine the compass exactly as Yairley had.
“Assuming Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s eye is as accurate as usual,” Yairley continued, “we’re a good forty miles north of my estimated position and Sand Shoal lies about forty miles off the starboard bow. Which means Scrabble Sound lies broad on the starboard beam.”
“Aye, Sir.” Lathyk nodded soberly. The good news was that Scrabble Sound ran almost a hundred and twenty miles south to
north, which gave them that much sea room before they ran into the eastern face of Ahna’s Point or into Scrabble Shoal, itself. The bad news was that from their current position they couldn’t possibly clear Sand Shoal at the western edge of Scrabble Pass, the mouth of the sound… and even if they had, it would only have been to allow the wind to drive them into Silkiah Bay instead of Scrabble Sound.
“Go about, Sir?” he asked. “On the starboard tack we might just be able to hold a course across the sound for Fishhook Strait.”
Fishhook Strait, roughly a hundred miles north of their current position, was the passage between Scrabble Sound and the northern reaches of the Gulf of Mathyas.
“I’m thinking the same thing,” Yairley confirmed, “but not until we’re past the southern end of the bank. And even then”-he met Lathyk’s eyes levelly-“with this wind, the odds are we’ll have to anchor, instead.”
“Aye, Sir.” Lathyk nodded. “I’ll see to the anchors now, should I?”
“I think that would be an excellent idea, Master Lathyk,” Yairley replied with a wintry smile.
***
“I don’t like this one bit, Zhaksyn,” Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk admitted quietly several hours later. Or as quietly as he could and still make himself heard at the main topmast crosstrees, at any rate. He was peering ahead through his spyglass as he spoke, and the line of angry white water reaching out from the barely visible gray mass of the mainland stretched squarely across Destiny ’s bowsprit. He had to hold on to his perch rather more firmly than usual. Although the wind had eased still further, Scrabble Sound was a shallow, treacherous body of water. Its wave action could be severe-especially with a southeasterly blowing straight into it-and the masts’ motion was enough to make even Aplyn-Ahrmahk dizzy.
“Not much about it to like, if you’ll pardon my saying so, Sir,” the lookout perched at the crosstrees with him replied.
“No. No, there isn’t.” Aplyn-Ahrmahk lowered the glass with a sigh, then slung it over his shoulder once more. He started to reach for the back stay again, then stopped himself and looked at the lookout. “Best not, I suppose.”
“Better safe nor sorry, Sir,” Zhaksyn agreed with a grin. “Specially seeing as how the First Lieutenant’s on deck.”
“Exactly what I was thinking myself.” Aplyn-Ahrmahk patted the seaman on the shoulder and started down the more sedate path of the shrouds.
“Well, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk?” Captain Yairley asked calmly when he reached the quarterdeck. The captain’s valet stood at his side, improbably neatly groomed even under these circumstances, and Yairley held a huge mug of tea between his hands. The steam from the hot liquid whipped away on the wind before anyone had a chance to see it, but its warmth felt comforting against his palms, and he raised it to inhale its spicy scent while he waited for Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s report. The steep-sided crest of Ahna’s Point was visible from deck level, however, which meant he already had an unfortunately good notion of what the ensign was about to say.
“White water clear across the bow, Sir,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk confirmed with a salute. “All the way from the coast”-his left arm gestured in a northwesterly direction-“to a good five points off the starboard bow.” His arm swung in an arc from northwest to east-northeast, and Yairley nodded.
“Thank you, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk,” he said in that same calm tone, and took a reflective sip of tea. Then he turned to Lieutenant Lathyk.
“The depth?”
“The lead shows twenty-four fathoms, Sir. And shoaling.”
Yairley nodded. Twenty-four fathoms-a hundred and forty-four feet-accorded relatively well with the sparse (and unreliable) depths recorded on his less-than-complete charts. But Destiny drew just over twenty feet at normal load, and the leadsman was undoubtedly right about the decreasing depth. By all accounts Scrabble Sound shoaled rapidly, and that meant those hundred and forty-four feet could disappear quickly.
“I think we’ll anchor, Master Lathyk.”
“Aye, Sir.”
“Then call the hands.”
“Aye, Sir! Master Symmyns! Hands to anchor!”
“Hands to anchor, aye, aye, Sir!”
Bosun’s pipes shrilled as the hands raced to their stations. Both of the bower anchors had been made ready hours ago in anticipation of exactly this situation. The canvas hawse-plugs which normally kept water from entering through the hawseholes during violent weather had been removed. The anchor cables, each just over six inches in diameter and nineteen inches in circumference, had been gotten up through the forward hatch, led through the open hawseholes, and bent to the anchors. A turn of each cable had been taken around the riding bitts, the heavy upright timbers just abaft the foremast, before fifty fathoms of cable were flaked down, and the upper end of the turn led down through the hatch to the cable tier where the remainder of the cable was stored. The anchors themselves had been gotten off of the fore-channels and hung from the catheads, and a buoy had been made fast to the ring of each anchor.
Under the current circumstances, there was nothing “routine” about anchoring, and Yairley handed the empty mug to Sylvyst Raigly, then stood with his hands clasped behind him, lips pursed in a merely thoughtful expression while he contemplated the state of the bottom.
His charts for Scrabble Sound were scarcely anything he would have called reliable. The sound wasn’t particularly deep (which helped to account for how violent the seas remained even though the wind had continued to drop), but the chart showed only scattered lines of soundings. He could only guess at the depths between them, and according to his sailing notes, the sound contained quite a few completely uncharted pinnacles of rock. Those same notes indicated a rocky bottom, with unreliable holding qualities, which wasn’t something he wanted to hear about at this particular moment. Almost as bad, a rocky bottom posed a significant threat that his anchor cables would chafe and fray as they dragged on the bottom.
Beggars can’t be choosers, Dunkyn, he reminded himself, glancing as casually as possible at the angry white confusion of surf where the heavy seas pounded the rocky, steeply rising beach below Ahna’s Point or surged angrily above Scrabble Shoal. There was no way Destiny could possibly weather the shoal under these wind conditions. She was firmly embayed, trapped on a lee shore with no option but to anchor until wind and weather moderated enough for her to work her way back out.
Well, at least you managed to stay out of Silkiah Bay, he reminded himself, and snorted in amusement.
“All hands, bring ship to anchor!” Lathyk bellowed the preparatory order as the last of the hands fell in at his station, and Yairley drew a deep breath.
“Hands aloft to shorten sail!” he ordered, and watched the topmen swarm aloft.
“Stand by to take in topsails and courses! Man clewlines and buntlines!”
Clewlines and buntlines were slipped off their belaying pins as the assigned hands tailed onto them.
“Haul taut! In topsails! Up foresail and mainsail!”
The canvas disappeared, drawing up like great curtains for the waiting topmen to fist it in and gasket it to the yards. Yairley felt Destiny ’s motion change as she lost the driving force of the huge square sails and continued ahead under jib and spanker alone. She became heavier, less responsive under the weight of the pounding seas as she lost speed through the water.
“Stand clear of the starboard cable! Cock-bill the starboard anchor!”
The shank painter, which had secured the crown of the anchor to the ship’s side, was cast off, letting the anchor hang vertically from the starboard cathead, its broad flukes dragging the water and threatening to swing back against the hull as the broken waves surged against the ship.
“Let go the starboard anchor!”
A senior petty officer cast off the ring stopper, the line passed through the ring of the anchor to suspend it from the cathead, and threw himself instantly flat on the deck as the anchor plunged and the free end of the stopper came flying back across the bulwark with a fearsome crack. The cable flaked on d
eck went thundering through the hawsehole, seasoned wood smoking with friction heat despite the all-pervasive spray as the braided hemp ran violently out while Destiny continued ahead, “sailing out” her cable.
“Stream the starboard buoy!”
The anchor buoy-a sealed float attached to the starboard anchor by a hundred-and-fifty-foot line-was released. It plunged into the water, following the anchor. If the cable parted, the buoy would still mark the anchor’s location, and its line was heavy enough that the anchor could be recovered by it.
“Stand clear of the larboard cable! Cock-bill the anchor!”
Yairley watched men with buckets of seawater douse the smoking starboard cable. Another moment or two and Destiny staggered. The galleon lurched, the men at the wheel were hurled violently to the deck, and Yairley’s head came up as a dull, crunching shock ran through the deck underfoot. For a moment, she seemed to hang in place, then there was a second crunch and she staggered onward, across whatever she’d struck.
“Away carpenter’s party!” Lieutenant Lathyk shouted, and the carpenter and his mates bolted for the main hatchway, racing below to check for hull damage, but Yairley had other things on his mind. Whatever else had happened, it was obvious he’d just lost his rudder. He hoped it was only temporary, but in the meantime…
“Down jib! Haul out the spanker!”
The jib disappeared, settling down to be gathered in by the hands on the bowsprit. Without the thrust of the rudder, Yairley couldn’t maintain the heading he’d originally intended. He’d planned to sail parallel to the shore while he dropped both anchors for the widest purchase possible on the treacherous bottom, but the drag of the cable still thundering out of her starboard hawsehole was already forcing Destiny ’s head up to the wind. The pounding seas continued to thrust her bodily sideways to larboard, though, and he wanted to get as far away from whatever they’d struck-probably one of those Shan-wei-damned uncharted rocks-as possible before he released the second anchor.