Into Uncharted Seas

by E. C. Williams

  The skipper of the leading dhow couldn't be faulted for slow reaction time: he must have given the order the instant after the shore batteries opened fire, because she swung smoothly around in a jibe – an easier and safer maneuver for a dhow, with her loose-footed courses – and reached away toward the southwestward. But it was obvious that she couldn't possibly outrun the speedy Reunionnais gunboats.

  “Come up hard on the wind! Sheet in!” Sam ordered.

  The trailing dhow had also instantly altered course, and Sam intended to catch her and sink her, if at all possible, now that the odds were more nearly even. He could leave the lead dhow to the deadly little gunboats. Indeed, the Albatros had not been long on her new course before a glance astern showed the first dhow dead in the water, a flaming wreck, while a gunboat hung off each quarter, pouring explosive shells into her. Sam turned his attention to the second dhow.

  She was on a beam reach, two miles distant. Sam reckoned he could catch her, but only if he did everything right. He rather wished the gunboats had left the lead dhow with a volley in passing, and pursued the trailing one, since they were so much faster than the Albatros.

  “Fall off a couple of points,” he ordered. This put the Albatros on a beam reach, paralleling the course of the dhow.

  “What about it, Mister Mooney?” he asked the Navigator. “Will we go faster by flying the drifter, or by towing and motor-sailing? Obviously we can't do both.”

  “Towing, Commodore,” Mooney responded instantly. “Drifter pulls hardest with the wind abaft the beam – she won't help much on this heading.” Sam had reached the same conclusion by the time Mooney had finished speaking. “XO: rig for towing,” he said to his phone talker, who relayed the order.

  The sloop, towline still rigged and engine ticking over to keep warm, instantly cast off stern line and sea painter and surged forward, quickly taking a strain. The effect could be seen in the sails before it could be sensed, as the relative wind drew forward and the schooner went from a beam reach to a close reach without changing course.

  “Sheet in, there! Look alive!” Mooney shouted, and the sails were trimmed to the new angle of attack.

  Motor-sailing sometimes gave the Albatros just the tiny edge in speed necessary to out-sail a dhow if the wind was light. It all depended, Sam estimated, on how clean the bottoms of both vessels were, and how skillfully handled. The Albatros's bottom was fairly clean, her copper having been scrubbed by local divers while she was in Nosy Be harbor. But divers, however diligent, couldn't do as thorough a job as yard workers, with the vessel in drydock and her bottom fully visible and accessible.

  Sam wondered how long the dhow had been at sea, and when her bottom was last scraped. He hoped she wasn't copper-sheathed. In his experience, some war-dhows were and some were not. It was passing strange that any vessel, especially a warship, would sail tropical waters with an unprotected bottom, where the teredo, or shipworm, was endemic and could reduce the portion of a wooden hull below the waterline to a spongy, porous mass in a matter of a few years – or months, if the infestation was particularly bad – if not regularly scraped. Sam supposed that the Caliphate had a shortage of copper suitable for hull sheathing, or perhaps that some war dhows were hastily built, with corners cut.

  In any event, the Albatros had only to gain a few hundred yards on the dhow to bring her 37 mm rifle within its effective range.

  But, after several hours, Sam had to accept the fact that this wasn't going to happen. The dhow was slowly but surely opening the range. Too, the engineer reported that the motor sloop was running on fumes, and would have to be refueled very soon, an evolution that would allow the dhow to gain still more distance.

  A quick sounding of the schooner's fuel tanks showed that the sloop couldn't be re-fueled more than one more time. The vessel would then be out of fuel entirely, and thus dependent on batteries recharged, feebly, by the wind generators, for electrical power.

  The final determinant in Sam's decision to abandon the chase was the state of his crew. Everyone was completely exhausted, having been at battle stations for the best part of forty-eight hours, with only brief cat-naps. He himself felt as if he were wading in molasses as he paced the quarterdeck, and his mind often wandered off into a haze of fatigue, requiring an effort of will to concentrate on what needed to be done..

  “'Vast towing, Mister Mooney. Recover the motor sloop, and shape a course back to Le Port. XO: stand down from action stations, and you may splice the mainbrace once the sloop is stowed. Then knock off ship's work and let the watch below get some rest.” Sam's phone talker wearily relayed that message, said a moment later, “XO acknowledges, sir”, and then, as the pipe “secure from battle stations” was made, began to coil up his “tail” of telephone wire.

  The rest of the crew stood down, as well. Sam noticed that a substantial number of men in the watch below went straight down to their hammocks rather than joining the line already forming for the extra liquor ration. He reflected that a seaman had to be damned tired to forgo his rum.

  The battle-stations navigation watch was relieved, and Mooney reported this fact to Sam. Not before time, he thought, looking at the Navigator's gray, drawn face. He had been relieved by Lieutenant Munro, who was of course very tired himself. But he was younger than Mooney – young enough to be his son, in fact – and presumably more resilient. As Mooney turned automatically toward the chart room, Sam said, “Leave it, Pilot. Go below and hit the rack, and that's an order. Mister Munro can find our way back to Le Port.” The older man responded with a tired smile, and said “Aye aye, sir.”

  The XO came aft and approached Sam. “Too bad, sir,” he said with genuine commiseration. He knew his Commodore well enough to realize how bitterly disappointing the loss of their prey must have been.

  “Well, we'll get her another time,” Sam said, his philosophical tone surprising both Kendall and himself. He supposed he was just too tired to get very worked up about it.

  “I guess that dhow had a clean bottom after all.”

  “Yes, and she was well handled too – a good skipper and crew.”

  “How long do you suppose we'll stay in Le Port, sir? Long enough to take on fuel, at least, I hope...?”

  “Yes, we'll fill our tanks if the Reunionnais can oblige us. And top up our water and stores, as well.”

  “How about liberty for the crew? They've earned it, don't you think, Commodore?”

  “Oh, without a doubt, Al. We'll stay two or three days, to allow each watch an overnight. All except for those two dozy lookouts – no liberty for them.” Kendall said nothing to that. He knew the two men to be good, reliable hands normally, and their lapse was at least somewhat understandable. Being dried out for ten days and forfeiting liberty when the next opportunity to get ashore might be weeks or months away was pretty harsh. But the attention to duty of lookouts was essential to the safety of the vessel at all times, and never more so than when the schooner was in action. He agreed that this needed to be driven home forcefully to the entire deck crew, and making an example of these two men would do that.

  “Go grab a nap, Al. You look half-dead.”

  “With respect, sir, so do you.”

  “Well, I'm going to turn in for an hour or so shortly.”

  “I'll get a message off to Le Port's harbormaster before I turn in, with your permission, Commodore.”

  “Of course, Al.”

  Kendall departed, knowing that it would be an hour or more before he could take a nap. He had to confer with the engineer and the purser to get precise estimates of the amount of fuel, fresh water, and stores they needed, so he could give the port authorities a heads-up, and then draft a lengthy message including that information, requesting permission to enter the port, and asking for a berth. But such was the lot of the Executive Officer.

  Sam stood for a while facing aft, watching the pirate dhow gradually disappear below the horizon to the south-westward. Then he went below to his cabin.

  Just over ninet
y minutes later, he reappeared. During his years at sea, he had trained himself to sleep in short naps when necessary, waking automatically after a period he decided on just before falling asleep. He supposed some part of his mind, even while he was sleeping, kept track of the bells, clearly audible in his cabin. While he was still tired, the nap had cleared the fog from his brain. And Ritchie's fragrant coffee, a mug of which he carried with him topside, had miraculous powers of rejuvenation.

  The sun was low and bright orange over Madagascar, invisible to the west, and it looked like being another dramatic tropical sunset. He recalled a bit of ancient maritime weather lore: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight". In Sam's experience, this wasn't invariably true, but it was reassuring. And in any event the Albatros would be snug in harbor by dark with no need to worry about the weather for the next few days.

  The duty radioman approached Sam with a message. It was from Le Port's harbormaster, acknowledging the XO's request and offering a berth for as long as it may please the Albatros to remain. He also stated that the fresh water and stores would not be a problem.

  But he regretted his inability to meet more than half of the schooner's fuel requirements immediately, although he expected the port's supply of palm oil distillate to be replenished within two weeks.

  Sam initialed the “CO” block on the message form, and the “XO” block as well. “No need to wake Commander Kendall,” he told the radioman as he returned the message board.

  Sam began his habitual pacing as he pondered this news. He hated the thought of lying idle in port for two weeks while a Caliphate cruiser was loose in the Mascarene approaches. But he also didn't want to go hunting for her with half-empty fuel tanks. The motor sloop was the Albatros's edge in a fight with a pirate dhow, offsetting the fact that the Arab vessels, for a given waterline length, were faster than his beamy schooner. However, this edge was small enough that long chases were usually necessary, chases that required multiple re-fuelings of the sloop.

  He swore to himself: there was no way around the dilemma. Prudence demanded that he not go pirate-hunting without topped-up fuel tanks.

  On the positive side, a port visit would give him a chance for a closer look at the speedy gunboats that had so promptly caught and sunk the lead dhow. He was particularly intrigued by their odd guns, so much larger than one would think could be mounted on such small vessels.

  Reunion Island gradually came into view again, silhouetted against the darkening eastern horizon. Sam decided to wait until the last possible moment to set the special sea and anchor detail and launch the motor sloop, to allow the watch below a few extra minutes in their hammocks. Just as he was about to order the pipe for all hands, he noticed a harbor tug churning out between the breakwaters. She then headed his way, flying the “Hotel” signal flag, signifying that she carried a pilot. For Albatros, presumably, since there was no other vessel in sight.

  Immediately after “all hands” was piped, the XO appeared on the quarterdeck, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry I slept so long, Skipper.”

  “No problem, Al. I just got up myself,” Sam replied, shading the truth slightly.

  The watch below came running up on deck and took stations for arrival. The scuttlebutt about the schooner's enforced stay in Le Port had then flown around the vessel with its usual miraculous speed, and everyone was greatly cheered by the prospect of days, maybe weeks, of liberty every other evening. Apocryphal rumors about the prettiness of the Reunionnais girls and the excellence and cheapness of the island rum spread next. Some of the younger hands even skylarked and rough-housed in sheer exuberance of spirits until brought up with a round turn by the bosun's mates. Sam and Al, somewhat refreshed by their naps but not yet fully recovered, looked on in rueful envy of the resilience of youth.

  The tug came alongside to starboard, where the pilot ladder had been rigged, and a swarthy man in a suit of pristine white swung up and over the bulwark. The tug then took a tow line from Albatros and headed back toward the breakwaters, taking a strain as the schooner's hands took in sail and began the work of securing the vessel for a port stay.

  A midshipman met the pilot at the ladder and escorted him aft to the quarterdeck – an ancient courtesy that was hardly necessary anymore, since the pilot could easily see the wheel house from any point on deck.

  The mid introduced the pilot to Sam as a Captain Rao. “Welcome aboard, Captain. We didn't ask for a pilot, but we appreciate the courtesy.”

  Rao acknowledged this with a brilliant smile, teeth gleaming against his brown face. “Oh, but foreign vessels must take a tow and a pilot, Captain – otherwise you would be having difficulty negotiating the basins of our new port.”

  Sam could follow the pilot's speech only with careful concentration. Like the Kerguelenian patios,it was based mostly on French, but unlike Kerg it had no English or Afrikaans borrowings, and retained more French grammar and syntax. Having studied classical French in school, like all educated Kerguelenians, Sam could follow it, but it took a conscious effort.

  “But do not worry yourself about the cost, Captain! No, No!” the pilot continued. “Towing, pilotage, and berthing for the Albatros are all to be the contribution of the Republic to the war effort!”

  “Then we're all the more grateful for your services, Captain. May we offer you a cup of coffee?”

  Another flashing smile. “So kind, Captain, Yes, please.”

  “With a shot of rum in it, perhaps?”

  At this, Rao became grave. “No, no, Captain! My religion forbids the use of alcohol.”

  Conscious of having made a social blunder, Sam apologized, and passed the word down to Ritchie for coffee for three on the quarterdeck.

  “No, it is perhaps I who must apologize, Commodore,” Rao responded after a brief silence. “I have made the faux pas; I hear your officers address you as 'commodore' yet I have been calling you 'captain'.”

  “'Captain' is perfectly appropriate, sir. 'Commodore' is merely a courtesy form of address that we in the navy use for a captain who commands more than one vessel. Strictly speaking, in the absence of my squadron, 'captain' is more nearly correct.”

  “Ah. I see. Yet I must not be less courteous than your own officers, Commodore! So I will continue that form of address, si je puis me permettre.”

  Sam didn't quite get that last phrase, but it's general meaning was plain enough. “Certainly, Captain Rao. Thank you.”

  There was another pause while Ritchie arrived with his usual promptness and served coffee to Sam, the pilot, and the XO.

  “Excuse me, Commodore, I should have said earlier: we will be berthing starboard side to. The tug will drop the towline short of the moles, and make up on your port side for alongside towing using her own lines. Please alert your crew.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Make it so, Al.” Sam's last words were superfluous, as the XO was already headed forward, shouting for the Boatswain.

  Sam's curiosity at the pilot's refusal of a drink got the better of him. “If you don't mind me asking, Captain, what is your religion?”

  “It is the oldest religion in the world, Commodore: I am a Hindu.” Sam had only the vaguest notion of what Hinduism involved, half-memories of a lesson from his school-days, but he had the distinct impression that asking Captain Rao about it would result in being told more than he wanted to know. So he contented himself with asking, “Are all Reunionnais Hindus, Captain?”

  “But no, Commodore. The majority are Christians. Some are Muslims.”

  “Muslims? Like the pirates?” Sam felt some alarm at this. Did Reunion harbor a fifth column?

  “No, no, not at all like the pirates, Commodore. The Muslims of Reunion are very peaceful and tolerant, and believe in living in harmony with their neighbors regardless of their faith. My Muslim friends tell me that the pirates are obviously of some heretical sect that has strayed far from the laws of the Prophet and the Koran.”

  Idle conversation ended there for the moment, while the crew was busy making up the tug to t
he port side as the two vessels neared the breakwaters. Captain Rao was focused on negotiating the slight cross-current that set across the mouth of the inner channel, and shouting orders over the side to the tug skipper. As usual when the Albatros entered a port after a stretch at sea, all of the idlers not actually required by their duties to be below were crowding the rail, talking excitedly about the prospect of liberty. And this harbor had the added charm of being entirely new to nearly every one of them, unlike Hell-ville, which from long use had practically become Albatros's home port. Sam could see the sick-bay hands, including the doctor, less one intern and one SBA who were presumably looking after their patients; the entire galley crew; the engineer and his mates; and the Purser, Mr. Weeks, along with his clerk, Mrs. Weeks (not his wife but his widowed sister-in-law – a bit of nepotism Sam overlooked). As usual, all these extra people on deck found themselves in the way, and barked at impatiently by the bosun's mates, no matter where they stood. Mr. Terreblanche solved the problem by herding them all for the moment into a tight gaggle on the starboard side aft, just below the quarterdeck.

  The sun set in a blaze of bright tropical color, and a golden twilight suffused everything with a soft glow. The odors of vegetation and burning charcoal and the tantalizing aroma of someone's supper cooking wafted over the schooner, the mix of homely and exotic smells bringing with them the usual sense of slight and inexplicable tristesse mixed with anticipation that a seaman felt when arriving at a foreign port.

  Then darkness fell with the suddenness usual in these latitudes, the running lights of both the tug and the schooner were suddenly revealed, and shore lights flickered on here and there.

  “I recommend dropping your port anchor off the dock, Commodore. At this berth, a stiff northwesterly can tend to keep you pinned alongside so firmly that the tug will have difficulty pulling you away,” Captain Rao said, and Sam passed this word to the XO. The Albatros arrived at her berth, let go her port anchor to the end of the chain cable, and the tug nudged her toward the dock, Heaving lines soared aloft toward the waiting line-handlers, who used them to pull Albatros's mooring lines – headlines, stern lines, fore and after springs – ashore and their eyes dropped onto sturdy new bollards.