Into Uncharted Seas

by E. C. Williams

  Sam could see a pair of men in military uniform waiting on the dock. He recognized the spare form of General Chasseur, who had been Controller-General of the island's police, and was now commander of the Reunion Defense Force. He had an alert, slightly predatory air that was a helpful mnemonic if anyone had trouble remembering his surname. The second man was younger, apparently his aide.

  “Well, Commodore, welcome to Le Port and the Republic of Reunion,” Rao said at his elbow. “I'll say goodbye to you now, as my family is waiting supper for me.”

  “Goodbye, Captain, and thanks for your assistance.” Sam was grateful that Rao was rushing ashore, taking him off the horns of a social dilemma; the usual seagoing ritual after docking was to invite the pilot to his cabin for a drink, but obviously that was out of the question in this case.

  Rao didn't wait for the gangway to be rigged, instead opting for the pilot ladder. Sam accompanied him to the ladder and saw him off. Captain Rao obviously knew General Chasseur, for he exchanged greetings and a few words with him in passing.

  The soldiers, apparently in less of a hurry than the pilot, waited patiently for the gangway to be settled in place, then formally asked permission to come aboard.

  “Good evening, General. So nice to see you again,” Sam said.

  “Good evening, Commodore, and congratulations on your promotion. Captain Rao just told me.”

  “Thank you, but it's not really a promotion in the military sense – just a courtesy title.”

  “Nevertheless, it signifies more responsibilities, and is in that sense a promotion. By the way, the President asked me to convey his regrets at not being able to greet you on arrival – he is detained by official duties in the capital. But he invites you to dine with him tomorrow, in Saint-Denis. A car will be arranged for you, if you can make it.”

  “Tell the President I'll be honored.”

  “Wonderful. Shall we say one-thirty for two? The car will arrive for you at twelve forty five.”

  “I'll be waiting. Now, would you care to join me for a drink? And perhaps some supper? I'm dying to hear all about your shore batteries, and especially those speedy gunboats with the odd guns.”

  “Thank you, Commodore. But I've forgotten my manners – may I present my aide, Lieutenant Ng?”

  Sam and the young man shook hands. Sam called Al Kendall over, and introduced him to the two soldiers, and at the same time invited him to join them at supper. At a hint from Sam, the young lieutenant was invited to join the schooner's commissioned officers in their mess – “Our officers will be eager to hear all about the new defense arrangements of the FDR, too.” The General's aide diffidently mentioned their driver, who was waiting by their car: might something to eat be sent out to him?

  “Certainly, Mister Ng. But does he have to stay with the vehicle? He would be welcome in the petty officer's mess, I'm sure.”

  The supper arrangements finalized, Sam, General Chasseur, and Al adjourned to Sam's day cabin for a few drinks before supper. A lesser man than Ritchie might have been daunted at the prospect of preparing a meal for three officers on such short notice, but Sam knew that he thrived on such challenges.

  The challenge was heightened by the fact that the Albatros, having been at sea for weeks, was mostly out of fresh food. All he had to work with, in addition to the usual staples, was coconut meat and Nosy Be spices. Nevertheless, he quickly worked his magic and produced a light supper of which no restaurant in French Port would have been ashamed.

  After the meal, with after-dinner drinks in front of them – “grease-cutters”, in seamen's slang – Sam raised the questions that had been consuming him since he first heard of the existence of Le Port's batteries.

  “General, please tell me about your shore batteries. I had no idea that Reunion had the capability of producing such big guns.”

  “We didn't, until we had to develop it. And it was a costly proposition, I can tell you.”

  “What caliber are the guns?”

  “They are 120 millimeter rifles, breech-loading. They are very much bigger than any gun we have ever tried to manufacture. So much bigger, in fact, that we test-fired the prototype by remote control, from a distance of fifty meters. And from behind earthworks, at that! Our engineers thought there was an even chance that it would burst into a million fragments. When it didn't, we fired a few more test rounds, then immediately moved it to the end of the north mole and built the battery walls around it. We've been slowly manufacturing more of them, one at a time, with the ultimate goal of protecting the bigger towns around the coast.”

  “How many do you have now?”

  “Five. Two here at Le Port, and one for each of 'the Saints'.”

  “'The Saints'?”

  “The major towns on the coast – Saint Denis, our capital, on the north shore, and St. Philippe and St. Joseph, on the south. Those are our major population centers vulnerable to a coastal raid by the pirates.”

  “Are you making more of them?”

  “No. The first one cost the equivalent of an entire year's peacetime budget for the Republic. The cost per unit went down with experience, but we just can't afford any more for the moment, especially as we're still completing the arming of the Defense Force. We've offered to make and sell them to Mauritius and Nosy Be, at our cost. Mauritius, of course, is still recovering from the disastrous pirate raid she suffered last year, so she promptly told us she couldn't afford them. We rather expected that, of course. Nosy Be is still considering the offer.”

  Sam immediately decided to use all his influence with the Royal Governor of Nosy Be to persuade him to buy at least one of these guns, at a minimum,to defend Hell-ville; and more if possible. He didn't say this aloud, however.

  “I'd also like to hear about those wicked little gunboats that did for the flag dhow,” Sam continued.

  “They're gap-fillers, to cover the coasts between shore batteries. Very short-legged – all engine and fuel tanks, actually.”

  “What kind of strange gun was that on their sterns?”

  Chasseur chuckled. “Something called a 'recoilless rifle'. A design that was already old and mostly obsolete by the time of the Troubles, but awfully damned useful for us. And it's fairly cheap, simple, and easy to manufacture – at least compared to a conventional rifled gun of the same caliber.”

  “What caliber are they?”

  “Seventy-five millimeter.” Sam and Al exchanged amazed looks; Al whistled softly in surprise. Chasseur laughed again. “Wonderful, isn't it? Imagine trying to put a conventional 75 millimeter gun on a ten-meter boat. If she didn't sink at her moorings from the weight, the recoil from firing a few rounds would shake her to pieces.”

  “How does it work,” Sam and Al said, eagerly and almost in unison.

  “It's fairly simple in concept, but it's a bit harder to make it work in practice. The breech is open, and gasses from the propellent are vented out the back, this force counter-balancing the recoil. In theory, anyway – there is actually, in practice, a certain amount of recoil. One drawback to the weapon is that the back-blast is dangerous to anyone or anything within a cone extending back as much as thirty meters. That's why we had to mount them on the sterns of the gunboats, with the breech actually overhanging the stern rail. And it had to be mounted fairly high, to clear the forward part of the boat. For safety, it's never fired within forty-five degrees of the boat's heading.”

  Sam and Al exchanged glances again, this time with long faces. “I can't think of any way to safely mount one on the Albatros, can you, Al?”

  “Nossir. Not off-hand – the back-blast would likely set sails and rigging a-fire. Except when fired from a gun-balcony directly forward or astern – and even then, the shrouds would be endangered.”

  “Yes, we thought of mounting some on our COOPs, but couldn't overcome that problem,” Chasseur interjected.

  “'COOPs'?”

  “An acronym for 'craft of opportunity' – coasters and fishermen equipped with radios. And their entire
crews are trained reservists, members of the Maritime Battalion. As they go about their usual activities, they're to report any strange sail sighted. They're the closest thing to a navy we have. If we could arm them with something bigger than shotguns, they could at least delay the onset of a raid by sacrificing themselves. We still hope to give them some sort of gun, but it's clear that recoilless rifles aren't the answer, not for sailing craft.”

  Sam was a bit taken aback by the matter-of-fact way Chasseur had referred to these small vessels “sacrificing themselves”, but he knew that the Reunionnais had been traumatized by the raid which had devastated the neighboring island of Mauritius and fiercely determined not to let something similar happen to them.

  “Our Force Mobile has also found a use for this weapon – we've come up with a man-portable variant that is fired from a tripod,” Chasseur continued. “It's an anti-boat weapon, to be used in beach defense. It can also be employed to encourage enemy dhows to stay well off shore during a landing operation, increasing the window of vulnerability of their landing parties as they row in to the beach.”

  Sam could see Kendall perk up with that news. Before his promotion, he had commanded the landing force of the Albatros, composed of seamen-gunners trained and equipped for operations ashore. He still had the overall responsibility for their training and tactical doctrine. He was clearly pondering the possible utility of recoilless rifles to his “greenies”, as the seamen-gunners were called, from their jungle-green uniforms.

  Sam thought for a few more moments, his mind still on the boats rather than the guns, then said “If I may make a small criticism of the tactical employment of the gunboats without giving offense … ?”

  “Certainly, Commodore. We would welcome your input on their use.”

  “I think it would have been better if the gunboats had chased the second dhow and left the leader to us. They were so much faster they could easily have run her down. As it was, as you know, she outran us and got clean away.”

  Chasseur was shaking his head before Sam finished speaking. “They don't have the legs for any kind of chase, Commodore. At full speed, they run dry in thirty minutes, sometimes less – and all the space below that's not engine is fuel tanks, as I said – I wasn't exaggerating. There's no accommodation for the crew, or even protection from the weather, and little space for stores other than ammo for the gun and a little fresh water. As it is, they have to carry a get-home sail rig – a small lug sail and a pair of lee-boards. Since it has to be struck down on deck in order to fire the gun safely, the rig is necessarily small and light, so the boats are slugs under sail. All of these problems could probably be overcome in a bigger vessel, but we had neither the time nor the resources to try anything more ambitious.”

  “Of course, General. I should have realized that at full speed they must burn through a hell of a lot of fuel. They're twin-screw, I presume?”

  “Yes, and twin-engined. As I said, between engines and fuel tanks, there's not much room left in the hull for anything else. But our aerostat project, carried on jointly with the Nosy Be militia, should give us enough advance warning of the approach of a raiding force that the gunboats can be towed into position to attack, conserving their fuel until going into action ”

  “'Aerostat'?”

  “Sorry – that's just another word for 'balloon'. But the term our aviation people prefer is 'aerostat'.”

  “Oh, yes – I heard about that, but I've never gotten a close look at one.”

  Talk then turned to other subjects, and the party wound down. As Sam was seeing the General to the gangway, Chasseur said, “If there's anything I can do to make your stay here in Le Port pleasanter or more productive, Commodore, please don't hesitate to ask.”

  “As a matter of fact, General, there are a couple of things …”

  “Anything within my power.”

  “I'd like very much to visit one of the batteries, get a closer look at your 120 millimeter guns.”

  “No problem. Whenever you wish.”

  “... And also visit your balloon station, and get briefed on balloon operations – or I suppose I should say 'aerostat'. I only just learned about your joint aeronautical projects with Nosy Be a short time ago, and I'm fascinated by the military possibilities. And if I'm not trespassing too much on your time, I'd really, really like a closer look at the gunboats.”

  “We can easily arrange all of that, Commodore. Just phone my HQ and we'll set up all three visits at your convenience.”

  For the Reunionnais had generously provided that wonderful convenience for a vessel in port, a gangway telephone.

  After seeing his guests ashore, Sam said goodnight to Al and went straight below to his cabin and turned in. The rum before supper had made him sleepy, or perhaps he hadn't yet fully recovered from staying awake for nearly forty-eight hours straight. He wondered if this was a sign of approaching age.

  - 8 -

  A week later, on a fine, bright early afternoon, the Albatros was sailing south on a broad reach under the impetus of a mild south-easterly breeze. Her crew was in a cheerful mood, apart from a few lingering hangovers, as they went about the daily at-sea routine. Although they hadn't gotten the two weeks in port rumor had promised, there had been time for a couple of overnight liberties for each watch, and all but the most provident or abstemious were out of money now, anyway, at least until they had accumulated more pay on the books.

  A new liberty port never quite lived up to the lurid imaginings and fevered scuttlebutt that preceded it – no earthly place could – but Le Port had been quite satisfactory. The marine terminal was so new that the nearby quarter of bars and brothels usual in port towns had not yet had time to become established, so a tent city of temporary pubs and other places of entertainment had sprung up overnight just outside the port limits to serve the Albatrosses, complete with young ladies of negotiable affection brought in by the carload. The officers had chosen to club together to share cabs for the long ride to Saint-Denis, to sample the more sophisticated pleasures of the island's capital.

  Sam had been received with great hospitality. He was given a tour of the harbor batteries, complete with a practice shoot laid on for his benefit. The big five-inch breech-loading rifles were things of sinister beauty, and Sam lusted after them. But, helas, they were far too big and heavy for any schooner. He mused that one of the big double-hulled round-the-world freighters might have the stability to mount one, but their junk rigs were unsuited to the Indian Ocean, not nearly weatherly enough. But perhaps one could be re-rigged … ?

  He had then been taken to the aerostat station and given a full briefing on the progress of military aviation on Reunion. He was even offered an ascent in one of the aircraft. (He declined, with thanks; the maintop of a schooner was as high as he ever wanted to go.)

  He also witnessed a short demonstration flight by a scale model of an experimental heavier-than-air craft. Although its airscrew, or propeller, was driven by a battery-powered electric motor, the full-scale manned version would be powered by a lightweight Stirling cycle engine, also under development. The purpose of the electric model was to test and refine the lifting and control surfaces. Sam watched in boyish delight as the little machine floated up into the air, flew in a couple of wide circles around the aerostat station's perimeter, then, glided down to the earth when its battery was exhausted, all in near-silence.

  While he could see the great utility of lighter-than-air craft in military operations ashore, he was skeptical that they would ever be practical at sea. They could certainly extend the range of visibility by many miles, but in any kind of a wind the strain on the tether would render the base vessel almost unmaneuverable; in a fresh breeze the craft would have little option but to allow itself to simply be towed down-wind by the aircraft. There was also the tricky problem of keeping the tether from entangling itself in the rigging.

  Of course, these problems could be solved if a powered vessel was used to launch the balloon, one with sufficient horsepower
to pull the airship, rather than the other way round. But full-powered sea-going warships were, so far, just a long-range plan. The fuel problem would have to be solved first. The supply of fuel processed from palm oil was increasing slowly, with an accompanying gradual decline in price, but it was still far from the amount necessary to keep a squadron of powered warships at sea at a cost that wouldn't bankrupt the Republic.

  The notion of a powered flying machine on a ship didn't seem any more practical to Sam until one of the FDR officers mentioned in passing that a convenient way for such a craft to be launched and recovered might be from the water's surface, utilizing attached floats or perhaps a boat-shaped, water-tight hull. He added that this idea, like that of the flying machine itself, was not original but inspired by what was known of ancient technology. This sparked Sam's imagination. He could visualize such a machine, perhaps designed for quick assembly and dis-assembly, being stowed in the hold, brought on deck to be put together, and launched over the side like a boat. It could then ascend from the water, fly off on a mission, and return to alight alongside the vessel. All that would be required would be sufficient space to stow it.

  But the technical innovation that excited him the most was the gunboat he visited. (Her sister had already departed, under tow for the south coast). He was greeted at dockside by a very young aspirant named Laurent, who introduced himself as the officer in charge of PC-7, the gunboat so identified in large black letters on her grayish-blue hull. Laurent was dressed in the field uniform of the FDR, coveralls of dull greenish-brown, the only touch of color the single yellow stripe of his rank on shoulder-straps, and a yellow anchor embroidered on his left sleeve.

  “What does the 'PC' stand for? And are there really six more of these?” Sam asked, after the formalities of introduction had been gotten out of the way.