A Warrior's Redemption

by Guy S. Stanton III

  Chapter Twenty One

  Wave of Creation

  Captain Jansa stood at the prow of his first command, the Fair Damson. It was likely to be his last command. Salt spray kicked up and splattered his tunic, but he took no notice of the cold seawater that was drenching him as he thought back to the night before at the captain’s meeting on the fleet’s flagship.

  The night before, Tranquil Islander Fleet at anchor for the night.

  The Admiral had spoken first to start the meeting, “Captains, as you know, despite our best efforts we were unable to outrun the enemy fleet after we broke through their blockade. They got to the western shore first and now we are blocked from landing our troops to aid our only allies in this war. I know what I think is best for us in this moment, but I want to hear from you captains as to what our course of action should be now that we have been blocked from our objective. I ask this because I think it is a decision that should not be made by just one man. I give the floor to you captains, what do you have to say? I will preface the discussion by placing two options before you. Either we attack the enemy fleet and try to break through to the beach, or we turn our ships around and return to our islands to await the fight that will eventually come to our own ground.”

  Captain Jansa, the most junior captain present, stood up from the far end of the table where he was seated and addressed the admiral, “Neither option sir!”

  “What do you mean by such a statement, Captain Jansa?” the admiral asked, as he speculatively eyed the young captain.

  “I mean to say that, with all due respect Sir, neither option presented before us can accomplish anything meaningful in the outcome of this war. Attacking the enemy fleet guarding the western shore is sheer suicide, Sir. Not one of our ships will reach the beach, except perhaps later as a piece of idly floating driftwood. Sacrificing ourselves in such an attempt will serve little purpose other than to help us preserve our honor with a noble death. As for the other option; Sir, as you yourself said, this war will come to be fought on our own shores some day not too distant from now, if the battle taking place is lost by our allies. If we leave this fight we return home without our honor, only to face the inevitable outcome of our own fate at a later date. The outcome will be the same, only we will die without honor after having run from this battle that our allies are proudly facing head on. It is neither the way nor the means that I and our people want to fade into the pages of history!”

  The captains were silently contemplative in the aftermath of Captain Jansa’s words, with even a few of them nodding in apparent agreement with his expressed sentiments.

  The Admiral broke the silence, “True words, Captain Jansa, but tell me, as honorable men, what other option is left to us but to attack the enemy fleet in the morning?”

  Captain Jansa met the old eyes of the Admiral squarely, “I propose that we sail north around the rocky headland of Remembrance Bay and make our way through the rocks to beach our ships in the sands before the Shrine. Some of our ships will be lost on the rocks, perhaps all of them, but this way there is a greater chance of us landing a fighting force to help our friends than in attacking the enemy navy outright. I am persuaded to believe that at least some of us will make the beach, as our ancestors did somehow so long ago. It is an honorable death at the very least.”

  There was silence around the table as every captain present had at some time seen the rocks guarding the small bay and each was now imagining what it would be like to attempt to sail through such an obstacle.

  The Admiral studied the young captain thoughtfully for a moment, “An intriguing option and one that I had not considered. What do you think of the captain’s third option Captain Nargo?”

  The grey headed captain to the Admiral’s right responded slowly and thoughtfully as he stared at the table top in front of him, as if seeing something there no one else could discern, “The Captain’s logic is sound, I believe. I find it only regrettable that no better strategy than this lies open to us, but rarely have I found war to offer an agreeable path to victory either. It has my vote and my congratulations to the young Captain for coming forward with such a daring plan. Who knows, it might work! Stranger things have happened before.”

  The Admiral looked around the table and saw a quiet acknowledgement echoed on the faces of the other captains.

  “It’s settled then, gentlemen! Tonight we will weigh anchor and sail around the headland through the night and make our attempt to pass the rocks in the morning’s first light. May it be that the Creator will have mercy on us and allow us to fight by our friend’s side after all. Return to your ships and make ready, for we sail within the hour. Captain Jansa, if you would stay behind a moment.”

  The captains got up and started to leave. The last captain to leave the room, who captained the Admiral’s flagship turned back to the Admiral, “Sir?” he asked.

  “Yes, what is it Captain?”

  The captain looked hesitant to speak, “Sir, as you well know the Tasa’Anna is larger than any other ship in the fleet. We cannot possibly even hope to fit between the narrow confines of the rocks guarding the bay!”

  “Be that as it may, Captain, the Tasa’Anna sails with the fleet tomorrow. I never ask more from my sailors than I am personally willing to do myself.”

  “Yes Sir!” the Captain said quickly, opening the door to leave.

  “And Captain, I want her to look her finest tomorrow, understood?”

  “It will be done Sir!”

  The door closed softly and the old Admiral rose stiffly and walked over to Captain Jansa.

  His arms came up and he hugged Captain Jansa to him tightly, “I could never have asked the Creator for a finer son than you! Never was there a prouder father than I!”

  Captain Jansa returned his father’s embrace, but asked with emotion in his voice, “How can you say that father, when I have surely killed you and all those aboard the Tasa’Anna on the morrow?”

  The Admiral leaned back from his son, still holding onto his son’s shoulders, “Who can tell what will happen tomorrow? You must have faith my son!”

  Captain Jansa was startled out of his memories of the night before as a sailor addressed him, “What is it?”

  “The Admiral has signaled the fleet, Captain!”

  “And the message?”

  “Godspeed Sir!”

  Captain Jansa nodded and thanked the sailor as he turned back to the prow railing. They would need plenty of divine intervention if they were to make it through the roiling juggernaut that lay just ahead of them. He started to pray as he had all night long since the captain’s meeting, when the same sailor tugged on his sleeve again. He turned to see what else the man wanted.

  The sailor stood with his sea cap in his hands, his stance respectful, “Beggin' your pardon Captain, but the men and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind praying out loud.”

  Captain Jansa looked beyond the sailor to see that sailors and soldiers alike were intently staring at him. Stepping past the sailor to make his way to the main mast of the ship, he knelt down on one knee and placed one hand on the mast beam while he held his hat in his other and bowed his head.

  “Lord, your servants have need of Your grace in this hour. Give us the courage that our circumstances demand and open up the sea lanes ahead of us and grant the wooden beams of our ships the strength of iron so that we can reach the far shore and help our friends claim the victory that I pray that You would give us this day. Thy will be done in all things, Amen.”

  Captain Jansa rose back up to his feet, as did many of those on board. He started back towards the prow when the ship shuddered violently.

  Had they already run into the rocks? He ran to the starboard side of the ship and was in time to see a monstrous head crown out of the seawater.

  A whale!

  The blast from its spout sheeted cold sea water down onto the shuddering deck of the ship. Another splash of water onto the deck had him wheeling around to s
ee another great head rise out of the sea on the other side of the ship.

  Two whales!

  Suddenly the ship went up into the air and then back down again and then up again and so on.

  Men were thrown to the deck and some were almost thrown over the side by the force of the up and down motion. It was like riding a giant bucking horse.

  The whales were carrying the ship!

  “Cut the sails and let the rudder go! Quick, at it men, these sea beasts are taking us for a ride!”

  Awestruck sailors stumbled to accomplish the tasks given to them. Captain Jansa looked out at the other ships along the line only to see the same unbelievable phenomenon happening.

  The rocks loomed close, but the big beasts that bore the ship charged toward them, heedless of their danger. The helm's wheel began to turn freely as the two great whales turned to the right slightly, swimming in unison with each other. The hull of the ship was balanced between them.

  The Fair Damson raced into the jagged rocks carried along by its two shepherds. The whales turned first one way and then the other, as they steered the ship through the rocky obstructions in its path. Their great bodies slammed into the rocks, and the sea foamed red from their injuries, but the ship never touched a rock.

  Sailors and soldiers alike clung to each other and the ship for dear life, as the ship rose and fell violently. Salt spray cascaded onto the decks drenching everyone.

  Captain Jansa clutched the side of the ship’s railing near the prow and looked across at the great eye of the whale, which was so close to him that if he had leaned out he could have touched it. Ships everywhere were being ferried through the perilous rocks by the great beasts of the sea.

  They were through the rocks suddenly and the beasts bearing them headed straight for the beach, picking up speed with every moment that went by. What of the flagship?

  The Tasa’Anna, being bigger and slower, had been at the back of the fleet. Captain Jansa strained to see what had become of her and his father. The Tasa’Anna was under full sail headed along the cliffside wall of the leeward rocky headland. It was the only place where the channel was wide enough to accommodate it, but it was also the most dangerous route to have taken.

  The seawater, in a backlash of current, smashed up against the cliffside wall with a force that would ground anything it caught to pieces. The Tasa’Anna sailed ferociously down the narrow channel at full speed. What was keeping the ship from being pushed sideways against the cliff and destroyed?

  Captain Jansa’s jaw fell open as he saw a bluish whale’s head, far larger than the ones carrying their ship, rise out of the sea on the cliffside of the ship. It was acting as a buffer for the Tasa’Anna, to keep it away from the cliff rocks, at its own expense!

  In horror, Captain Jansa looked at what lay ahead of the Tasa’Anna. The narrow channel took a sharp turn that no ship under full sail could ever have made. To make matters worse, the cliff overhung the channel at that point. The overhanging cliff would rip every main mast clear off the ship!

  The fleet watched in horrified fascination as the flagship neared the sharp curve and the low overhang. Water began to boil up near an up thrust of one of the bay’s rocky teeth. A great rubbery bulk rose out of the sea and hauled itself up the rocky breaker opposite of the sharp curve. It was a giant squid!

  It was easily over half the size of the flagship itself. Some of its tentacles encircled the rocky pier it clung to. As the Tasa’Anna entered the beginning of the curve the remaining tentacles and whips of the great sea monster shot out, fastened to the upper masts of the ship and began to pull the Tasa’Anna over onto its side.

  The ship, under the strain of the pulling tentacles, tacked over until the side railing of the ship almost dipped under the foamy waves of the sea. The heeled over masts cleared the cliff overhang even as the Tasa’Anna swung around the sharp curve pivoted by the straining squid that doggedly held onto it. The Tasa’Anna shot out into the clear waters of the bay, righting itself as the squid let go, even as a second great blue whale rose to bolster the ship’s speed toward the beach.

  Sailors and soldiers alike jumped up and down in amazed excitement.

  “Onward men!” cried Captain Jansa at the top of his lungs, as he drew his saber and gestured toward the fast approaching sands of the beach.

  “Of a truth, our God is the Master of the universe and all creation! Onward, for He is with us this day!”

  The giant bulk of the squid slid off its rocky pier back into the sea to soon disappear beneath the stirred up waters of the channel. The whales bore their cargoes steadfastly toward the beach, only letting them go at the last moment before they nearly beached themselves on the sandy shore.

  The Tranquil Islander boats skipped through the shallows to then thud thunderously into the sands of the beach. Soldiers and sailors alike boiled over the sides of the ships and ran up the beach, past the Shrine, to the earthwork fortifications beyond, over thirty thousand strong in number.

  The tattered line of warriors gathered on the mound top watched them come upwards toward them, looking to each other repeatedly to make sure they weren’t alone in what they had just seen transpire on the ocean blue. This was a day of days and all they could think, as they stood weary and bloody, but resolute of will, was how blessed they were to be a part of something so grand.