The Cruise of the Albatros

by E. C. Williams

  Sam switched his focus away from their victim, now almost dead in the water and visibly sinking. Joan could finish her off.

  The second dhow had taken advantage of the Albatros's concentration on the first to wring every last ounce of speed she could out of her rig, and had gained a bit of distance. She was now at the extreme range of the 37 mm, and only a very good or very lucky shot could reach her.

  Sam nevertheless pressed on, constantly fine-tuning the Albatros's rig as the wind shifted a point or two back and forth, trying to edge up on the fleeing dhow if only by a matter of yards. There were no more rabbits Sam could pull out of his hat, like the improvised bonnet to the square topsail that had helped them catch a schooner-rigged dhow. The Albatros was already flying every stitch of canvas she could possibly carry. The race was down to two factors: the seamanship of the opposing masters, and the skill of the 37 mm gunners, firing at the absolute limits of the weapon's effective range.

  The gun fired at long intervals now, the Gunner carefully adjusting the elevation after each round. At this range, the gun was at or near its maximum elevation, with the result that its shells fell around the fleeing dhow at a near-vertical angle. Round after deliberate round fell around the dhow, either wide or short – mostly the latter.

  Sam was on the verge of despair, almost resigned to the likelihood that the dhow would manage to stay ahead until nightfall, when she could slip away clear in the darkness. It was already late afternoon. He not only hated the thought of missing an opportunity to sink another pirate, he knew that his little squadron would lose any hope of surprise in its coming cruise to the north of Madagascar. The escaping dhow would spread the word that Albatros was back in the Indian Ocean, this time with an armed consort.

  Just as Sam had given up hope, a lucky round landed on the dhow's afterdeck and exploded, to the cheers of the gun's crew and everyone else on deck. It seemed to have little effect, however; no doubt some of her crew were killed or wounded, but the pirate vessel continued, speed unabated.

  Sam raised his telescope for a closer look, and saw what looked like tiny specks on the dhow's mainsail: powder stains? But as he watched, they seemed to grow bigger. It looked as if splinters from the explosion had pierced the sail in numerous places, and the jagged holes in the canvas were widening under the wind's pressure.

  The 37 mm gun's crew, heartened by this, resumed fire, but their rounds continued to fall short or wide. It was clear that, at this range, they could only hope for lucky hits.

  Through his telescope, Sam saw what appeared to be a tiny spider crawling up the face of the dhow's mainsail, to be soon joined by a second. He focused and re-focused, puzzled by this. He finally concluded that the pirates must have rigged bosun's chairs from the spar and sent seamen up to patch the splinter holes in the sail. Her master obviously didn't want to do the usual and safe thing and lower the sail to the deck for repair – this would have cost her significant speed. As Sam watched, a third spider inched up the face of the sail. He could imagine the sailors stitching away madly, urged on by the shouts of their master and boatswain.

  But there were at least a dozen splinter gashes in the sail, and they were growing faster than the men in the bosun's chairs could get to them. As Sam watched, one tear suddenly ripped from boom to foot, in one sudden movement, and the edges rapidly tattered, sending streamers of canvas off to leeward. Other holes then ripped until the mainsail was in tatters, and the dhow lost way with visible suddenness. As the Albatros closed quickly with the dhow, the 37 mm gun found the range and showered her with HE. As the distance closed, the one-inchers joined the chorus.

  The dhow's booms, both the main with its tatters of remaining canvas and the still-intact foresail, came down with a rush, the halyards having apparently been cast off or cut. The dhow came up into the wind, and hauled down her green banner, in apparent surrender.

  Sam didn't believe it for a moment: pirates never surrendered. Judging from the Albatros's experience in the battle off Andilana, he confidently expected that the dhow's crew was now busily heaping together in the vessel's hold every pound of explosive they had, to be set off when the Albatros came alongside to take possession, blowing up both dhow and schooner in one last suicidal attack.

  “Fall off and reduce sail!” Sam shouted at the watch officer. “Go no closer to the dhow – hang on her quarter just within 37 mm range.” The drifter was quickly struck down on deck, and the sheets eased; the Albatros quickly lost way. The 37 mm gun pounded away at the dhow, alternating HE and solid shot into her hull. The pirates essayed a few rounds but soon gave that up, since even double-charging the gun did not give it the range to hit the Albatros.

  The Joan of Arc came up with the Albatros, having apparently disposed of the first dhow. Sam ordered the signal: “engage the enemy at maximum range”. The Joan acknowledged the signal, and hung off the dhow's other quarter, closer than the Albatros but at the extreme range of her one-inch rifles, and opened a steady fire at the dhow's hull with solid shot.

  At that point, as Sam half-expected, the dhow blew up with a tremendous, ear-shattering crash, throwing up a great spout of water full of debris and body parts. Her master, despairing of luring his enemies any closer, had touched off his magazine anyway, sacrificing his ship, his life, and that of his crew, on the mere chance of doing some slight damage to the Kerguelenian vessels.

  But the schooners were just too far off to be affected by the explosion, other than by a rain of debris onto their decks– which included, horribly enough, a human head that landed on the Albatros's foredeck.

  His ears ringing, Sam shouted into Low's ear: “Launch the motor sloop – search for survivors.” His own voice sounded distant and faint.

  “Aye aye, sir,” Low shouted back. The deafened Albatrosses were to shout at one another for the rest of the day.

  Sam had little hope of finding survivors, but the effort had to be made. While the motor sloop was being readied for launch, he ordered the Joan to come alongside, within hailing distance. The two captains shouted at one another across the water through megaphones.

  “The other dhow?”

  “Sunk. She didn't need much finishing off – her decks were awash within minutes.” Sam supposed her magazine had flooded before her crew could rig the usual suicide bomb.

  “Any survivors?”

  “None. The few who managed to remain afloat refused to be rescued. Except for one – and he slashed one of my men with a knife as he was being hauled aboard the boat.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “My guys threw him back – left him to drown.”

  This was typical of the pirates. Those few prisoners they had managed to take had all been disabled by wounds. Sam thought a moment. Then:

  “Go detain the ketch, Bill – I'd like to talk to her master.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  But the ketch required no detaining. She had followed along in the wake of the running battle, at a prudent distance, and on being spoken by the Joan willingly came up to the Albatros, hove to while the motor sloop completed a pro forma search for survivors.

  Sam courteously sent one of his pulling boats for the ketch's master. As the afternoon had worn on, the wind, as usual, had gradually increased, and the sea would have made the transfer in the ketch's pea-pod of a dinghy wet and uncomfortable.

  Sam met the skipper of the ketch at the pilot ladder, and the man started volubly expressing his gratitude as soon as his head rose above the gunwale.

  “Hello, Captain. I'm Commodore Bowditch of the Kerguelen Navy.”

  “Commodore, I'm damned glad to meet you! My name is Wong. I'm owner and master of the Fillette. I can't thank you enough for answering my distress call. It was certain death for me and my crew of you hadn't come along!”

  “Glad to meet you, Captain Wong. Come down to my mess for a drink, and tell me about your battle.”

  “Sure, Commodore. But first – I got five wounded men on board the Fillette. We patched 'em up
as best we could, but do you have a medico aboard who can take a look at 'em?”

  “Of course, Captain. Pardon me for a moment.” Sam sent word to sick bay, and within minutes Doctor Girard, one of her mates, and an SBA burdened with medical equipment were in the whaleboat and on their way to the Fillette.

  In the captain's – now commodore's – mess, Ritchie produced a bottle of vodka and a platter of snacks.

  “Sorry we don't have any rum, Captain,” Sam said. “We've just come from the Rock, and all we have is Kerg vodka.”

  “So this is vodka, eh? Interesting taste,” Wong said politely, after a cautious sip. It seemed to grow on him, though, because he finished that glass and two more before the end of their interview.

  “About your encounter with the pirates, Captain...”

  “Oh, yes. Well, we were bound for Manakara on a scavenging trip. I had a dozen men aboard – my crew plus seven extra hands for labor.”

  “I would have thought that Manakara's pretty well mined out by now.”

  “The cream's been skimmed for sure, but there's still plenty of metal to be found, if you know where to look – aluminum and copper, especially. Manakara was a pretty big town. And the prices of metals on Reunion have gone up enough, what with the arming of the defense force and all, to make it worthwhile to scratch around a bit.

  “Anyway, as I approached the bar, I could see the masts of two vessels anchored inside. Do you know Manakara, Commodore? Well, there's an ancient breakwater that stretches almost due north to protect the harbor entrance, and sand bars have built up at its end, extending it, so that you have to approach along the coast from the north. I was still outside the breakwater, on a northerly heading up to the end of the sand bars to make the turn, when I saw them. I didn't like the look of them a-tall, Commodore – I knew they wasn't Reunionnais, and I doubted the Mauritians was up to mounting scavenging trips yet. So I turned tail and ran for home.

  “I had a nice quartering breeze and a clear run, I thought – they would have to up anchor and sail north a good ways to make the turn safely before they could chase in my wake. But they must have slipped their anchors, because they were under way damned quick, and were on my ass before I knew it. Being bigger than me, they was faster, even with their odd stumpy Bermuda rigs. That's when I got off the SOS you heard – and thank God you did!

  “We was all armed – all of us are reservists, o'course, and had our issue weapons with us – but I knew there weren't a chance of standing off two big vessels full of pirates. All we hoped to do was take a bunch of 'em with us. I took a vote, and we all agreed that we'd rather die than be slaves, so there was no talk of surrender.

  “As they got closer, I could see the sun glintin' off their big bronze cannons, one on each schooner, and I was thinkin', well, that's it for you, Pete Wong, say your prayers and kiss your ass goodbye 'cause they can just stand off out of range of our little shotguns and sink us with a few balls from those things.

  “But for some reason, they seemed to want my little ketch all in one piece, so they closed to small-arms range and we commenced to shoot it out. They meant to board us for sure, but we was gonna teach 'em they couldn't mess with Réunionnais, not without getting' their hair mussed, no.

  “Then you showed up.”

  “Well done, Captain! That was brave of you and your crew.” And Sam was indeed impressed. If Wong and his crew had done the “sensible” thing in an apparently hopeless situation and surrendered immediately, the pirate dhows and the Fillette, with her crew as slaves, would be long gone. Instead, the Fillettes fought back fiercely.

  “Those two dhows are as much to Fillette's credit as to ours. You fought 'em off just long enough for Albatros and Joan to come up and sink them.”

  “It was what any Reunionnais skipper would have done in my place. That's the façon de l'île – we don't give up easy.”

  Sam privately decided that in the future he would do as much recruiting on Reunion as the local authorities would allow. The Navy could use men like Wong.

  “Do you want an escort back to Reunion?”

  “No, Commodore – I'm going ahead with my scavenging trip to Manakara – and the first thing I'll salvage is them bastards' anchors! I know they buoyed 'em and slipped their cables – had to, to get under way so quick – so I'll get me a couple of valuable souvenirs of this little fight.”

  “What about your wounded?”

  “Aw, none of 'em was hurt real bad. They're tough boys, and anyway I'm sure your doc fixed 'em up good. They can take it easy on anchor watch while me and the rest hunt for metal ashore.”

  Sam didn't argue with him; he didn't really want to take the time to escort the ketch to Reunion.

  He escorted Captain Wong back on deck, and introduced him to Lieutenant Kendall. Wong was repeating the story of his brush with the pirates to an attentive Kendall when Sam noted the whaleboat returning from the ketch. He met her as she climbed over the gunwale via the pilot ladder.

  “How are your patients on the Fillette, Doctor?”

  “Four of them will be fine. Their wounds were minor, and we removed shot, stitched them up, and bandaged them. If they rest, and keep the wounds clean they should recover completely.”

  “And the fifth?”

  “He has a bullet lodged dangerously close to his spine, and needs surgery. He's in the whaleboat – we'll have to bring him aboard on a stretcher. And if he survives my knife, he'll have a long recuperation, so you've got a passenger, Captain.”

  “No problem. Anything for one of these gars braves. Come meet Captain Wong – he'll want to hear about his guys.”

  Sam introduced Doctor Girard to Wong, and she explained the men's medical condition to him. Wong was deeply concerned, and ashamed that he had been so offhand about his men's wounds, especially the one now being hoisted gingerly aboard. “This young man – his name is Teroux, Guy Teroux – he's family, eh? A cousin of my wife. Please take good care of him. I'll pay for his doctoring.”

  “There will be no charge, Captain,” Girard said, and Sam said almost at the same time, “No need to pay, Captain Wong. It's the least we can do.”

  “It may be a while before we can get him back home, though,” added Sam. “We'll bring him back ourselves, if our operations bring us back this way. Or put him on a St. Pierre-bound vessel, when he's fully recovered.”

  “Thanks, Commodore. And now I guess I'll get back to my cher Fillette. But first...”. He then walked over to the 37 mm gun, and patted it gently on the barrel. “Merci, Albatros, et votre petite canon,” he said, then went to the rail, waved, and climbed down the pilot ladder into the waiting whaleboat.

  Al Kendall stood at Sam's shoulder and they both waved goodbye to Captain Wong as the whaleboat pulled back across the intervening stretch of water toward the Fillette. “Those Reunionnais, eh?”, he said admiringly.

  “A tough breed,” agreed Sam.

  “We should recruit on the island.”

  “I've thought of that, too. In fact, I've thought of other ways the Reunnionais can be useful, if their government will agree.”

  Al looked puzzled at that, but Sam didn't choose to explain. Indeed, the idea was only as yet vague and unformed.

  “Let's get under way for the Comoros, now,” was all he said.

  CHAPTER 16

  The squadron continued its passage up the east coast of Madagascar. All hands in both vessels were elated about their recent victory – two pirate dhows sunk at a coast of just two casualties, neither fatal: the Joan of Arc AB who was slashed by the pirate he was trying to fish from the water – a wound that proved superficial – and a gunner on the Albatros who had tripped while hurrying down the ladder to fetch another 37 mm round and wrenched his knee. Sam overheard much boastful talk suggesting the invincibility of the squadron and the inevitable defeat of the pirates.

  This complacent triumphalism worried him; he feared that his men were becoming overconfident. “After all,” he said to the XO, “It was just an incredible
string of lucky breaks. It was luck that we were nearby when we got the SOS; luck that we had just gotten the 37mm; and luckiest of all, two amazing shots at the gun's extreme range that slowed each dhow just enough for us to catch 'em up. We just can't count on luck like that to continue.”

  “Well, of course you're right, Commodore,” Kendall replied. “But fortune favors the well-prepared. It was your considered decision to return to the Rock to up-gun the Albatros and acquire the Joan, and it was a well-drilled gun's crew that scored those 'lucky' hits.”

  “I know, I know – I shouldn't take anything away from the gunners. They were terrific. Still, we mustn't get too complacent – we can't think we've won the war already.”

  “Of course not, Commodore. I don't think anyone believes that. The hands are just happy about their victory.”

  “And they deserve to be. It's just that...”. Sam's voice trailed off, and he decided to keep his worries to himself. The squadron had indeed earned the right to a little self-congratulation. But some superstitious corner of his mind worried that every stroke of good luck they enjoyed added to the mounting load of ill-fortune due them; that someday the accounts would be balanced, and that gloating about good luck would only make the inevitable onset of ill fortune worse.

  Sam wondered at this illogical dread. He had the benefit of all the formal education available on Long Island – not much, admittedly, but more than the average Kerguelenian. In addition, he was a “reading man”, as a friend of his once described him. So he should have been above such vapors. Then why, he thought with self-disgust, did he entertain these fantasies? He supposed he had unwittingly contracted the notorious superstition of seamen. That, plus the fatalism inbred in a people who had spent centuries teetering on the edge of starvation, wresting a living from rocky soil and a hostile sea. With an effort of will, he put aside this train of thought.

  The triumphant mood aboard the two warships was tempered somewhat the next day by a series of sobering radio messages, two from French Port and one from Hell-ville. All three reported vessels thirty days overdue, with no contact, and therefore presumed lost at sea. The sea had its dangers other than piracy, and one or even two of these may have fallen victim to one of them – but three in such a short period? One, two, or all three had been almost certainly taken or sunk by pirates. It appeared that the Albatros's absence from the Madagascar station had not been without cost.