Into Uncharted Seas

by E. C. Williams

  The XO and the Boatswain came aft to report on damage from the squall. Miraculously, the only major hurt the schooner had sustained was the blown-out fore-topsail. The motor sloop had been knocked about some in the process of recovery, but the damage was largely minor and cosmetic. When the Boatswain had been excused,, Sam asked Al, “Any damage below?”

  “Nothing major. Some smashed crockery and dented pots in the galley. Sick bay reports some bruises and sprains, and one broken arm.”

  “Whose is the busted arm?”

  “A Réunionnais lompkinder named Babin. But the Doc said it wasn't too serious – she called it a 'green stick' fracture, and said that he should be back on light duty by tomorrow.”

  “Thank God we didn't get hit by lightening.”

  “Amen, Skipper.”

  They paced together in silence for a few minutes. Then Al said, “So we're going to look for the Chaton?”

  “Yes. Her mizzen gaff was shot away, which couldn't have helped her cope with the squall – you know how short-handed merchantmen always are. And that second round from the dhow may have holed her. She could be in trouble.” Or already sunk or capsized Sam thought, but didn't say aloud.

  “Well, after we see to the Chaton, we could still catch up to the dhow. After all, she could have been damaged in the squall herself – lost a sail, or even been dis-masted.”

  “Let's hope you're right, Al. But I won't count on it – the pirates have proved themselves to be good seamen before now. Her skipper would have had more warning of the squall than we did, too, since it came up from the south and he was bound to be looking astern.”

  Al had no answer for that, since both statements were manifestly true.

  The sun set while they paced together in silence, and when the brief tropical twilight ended the sky became ablaze with stars. As often happened after a squall, the atmosphere was crystal clear. Mr. Mooney, who with the midshipmen had taken evening star sights, approached Sam and reported their position. The hands were piped to a belated supper – the galley had taken some time to reorganize itself after the chaos created by the storm.

  “Al, join me for a drink and a bite of supper?” Sam asked.

  “Delighted, Commodore.”

  Al sent for his steward, and when he appeared, said, “Ritchie, the XO will be joining me for supper. And while it's cooking, bring us a drink on deck, will you? The good stuff the Governor gave me.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Their drinks came, and they sipped their aged rum and chatted about inconsequential things while enjoying the evening. Then Al said, “I take it you decided against summoning the Scorpion, sir?”

  “Yes. She's too slow and too lightly armed. I'm afraid she'd just be easy meat for the dhow, and we'd sacrifice her merely to confirm what we already know – that the dhow is somewhere to the north of us.

  “Now, if the Roland were in Hell-ville, the two of them would make more of an even match for the pirate – they'd at least have a fighting chance. I'd send them to cruise in company off Cape Bobaomby if I knew they were both in port and ready for sea. But we still haven't heard that she's arrived.”

  “I hope she and the Dame are okay,” Al said.

  “I think we'd have heard if they weren't. The Dame is even more of a slug than the average trading schooner, and it may be that they've had contrary winds, too, or an adverse current. The Mozambique Channel is notorious for them. They're not really overdue yet, anyway.”

  Ritchie called them to supper then, and they went below to sit down to a laden table. Ritchie loved to show off his skills whenever the Commodore had guests for a meal.

  “Shop” was forbidden at table, but Sam was in a mood for conversation, and it struck him that, as close as he and Al had become, he didn't really know much about his background.

  “Are you from French Port, Al?” Sam asked.

  Al chuckled. “Oh, no, Commodore – I'm no city boy! No, I'm from Baie des Cascades.” This was a small outport in the northwest.

  “Your people are fishermen, I suppose?”

  “Yes. My dad has a thirty-foot sloop he fishes offshore. He also does some coastal tradin. I started crewing for him almost as soon as I could walk – I can hardly remember a time when I wasn't going out on the dear old Antoinette.”

  “Named for your mother?”

  “No, my grandmother – my father's mother. Pops inherited her from grand-dad.”

  “What made you go deep-sea?”

  “I have an older brother who will certainly inherit the sloop, so unless I wanted to be content crewing for him on shares, I had to find something else to do. I love my brother, but I couldn't work for him – we were always butting heads from when we was little lads. Too, whenever we fished off Cap Digby I'd watch the schooners heading north for the Mascarenes, or returning, and wonder what it would be like to sail tropical waters. So I talked Pops into stumping for navigation school in French Port, and I've been sailing these waters ever since.”

  “Never made a round-the-world trip?”

  “No, never. I've often thought I'd like to do one, just for the experience, but I guess I never will now. As long as there's a navy I'll be in it, and I don't suppose we'll ever have occasion to make that run.”

  “Well, you never know. If we can ever spare the men, I'd like to make a combination recruiting and 'show-the-flag' trip round the Kerg states in the Southern Ocean. But we'll probably charter a junk-cat for that purpose, and commission her into the Navy temporarily.”

  “Good idea, Skipper. A schooner's hardly the rig for sailing down-wind in the Southern Ocean.” There was a pause, then Al added, “Any chance I'd be the officer to command that expedition?”

  “Maybe, Al. I'd want a fairly senior officer in charge, since it would be a diplomatic mission. But it'll be a while before we can make that voyage.”

  Conversation then turned to other topics, and soon the XO bade Sam a good evening, and departed for his bunk. Sam turned in as well, after first ordering the lookouts doubled, and leaving word to be called with the morning watch. And, in the ancient night-orders formula: “Any time you are in doubt.”

  - 10 -

  Dave Schofield looked over the side of the gondola and gulped. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach – indeed, all the way down to his testicles – and feared he might throw up. He had never been afraid of heights before. But then he had never before been this high.

  The balloon was at its new maximum altitude of 400 meters, an additional 100 meters of wire rope having recently arrived from the manufacturer and been immediately spliced into the tether. Dave had closely overseen the splicing himself, unwilling to believe that mere soldiers were capable of turning in a wire rope long-splice that would hold.

  The past week had raced by in a blur of intense activity. Dave had survived the tower jumps and the zip-line descents without spraining an ankle or breaking a leg. Following that had been sessions on the simulator – a panel made up to resemble the pilot's control station on a balloon, with dummies of the altimeter, dynamometer, anemometer, tether-meter, thermometer, barometer, and burner control – the readouts of each actually controlled by an operator behind a screen. By observing changes in these parameters, he was required to diagnose and properly respond to such emergencies as the tether parting, the approach of a squall, changes in wind velocity, loss of contact with the ground station, or burner failure. Except for the latter – which required him to demonstrate the ability to disassemble the burner assembly and repair common faults with lightening speed – the appropriate responses to each “emergency” all had to do with communications by sound-powered phone to the “ground station” (the simulator operator) or adjustments to the burn rate, to cause the (simulated) balloon to gain or lose altitude.

  Having passed these tests successfully, he was taking his final exam, his maiden flight, crowded into the tiny gondola with the pilot and the observer. And the part of it he dreaded was now upon him: having satisfied the pilot of his abi
lity to control the balloon, he was now going to jump out of the gondola.

  If he could bring himself to do it.

  The observer was bawling last-minute reminders into his ear. “Remember, this is a static-line jump, so count two seconds, then if the main chute doesn't open, pull the rip cord on the reserve chute. The reserve chute is smaller than the main chute, mind, and you'll be falling faster when you reach the ground, so be sure to flex your knees, else you'll break a leg. There's an offshore breeze, so you might be blown out to sea. If that happens, don't forget to disengage your chute harness as soon as you hit the water, and then kick off your shoes and inflate your life belt immediately. The crash boat is standing by to fish you out if you come down in the water, but since there are sharks out there, it's better to stay over the land if possible. Got all that?”

  Dave had heard all this before, dozens of times, but as long as the observer was talking he wasn't jumping, so he nodded as eagerly as if it were all new information.

  “Then jump!”

  Praying more fervently than he had since boyhood, Dave awkwardly climbed up onto the gondola's bulwarks, clumsy in main chute, reserve chute, inflatable life belt (currently deflated, to be blown up when and if needed through a tube clipped to his collar), flight suit, close-fitting canvas helmet, goggles, and jump boots. He got first one leg, then the other, over the side, holding on desperately as his legs dangled over 400 meters of empty space, while the pilot made sure that the static line was securely fastened both to Mike and the gondola and free to run out. Then, while Dave was steeling himself to let go, the observer suddenly shouted, “Time to fly, junior birdman!” and gave him a hard shove in the back.

  Then Dave was falling free, arms flailing wildly, in a panic that made him forget to count. The sight of the ground below rushing up at him made him reach for the reserve chute rip cord, but just before he could pull it, a giant hand reached down and snatched him abruptly out of the air: his main chute had opened after all.

  Now he was floating, apparently suspended in mid-air. His panic subsided, and he took a moment to force himself to calm down and enjoy the sensation of flight, the only sound that of the wind.

  The wind: a gentle offshore breeze that was slowly but surely taking him toward open water to the north. He tried to remember his lesson on steering the parachute, and pulled tentatively at one of the risers. The wrong one, as it turned out, since he fell faster, and with a definite slant toward the sea. He gave a stronger tug on the other one, and fell faster yet, but this time with a satisfactory drift back in the inland direction.

  Trouble was, every time he tugged on a riser, he abruptly fell faster, losing a significant amount of altitude and causing that feeling of panic to rise up once more from somewhere below his belt. So he desisted for a while, but the breeze, as gentle as it was, was inexorable. He glanced straight down and found himself looking at breaking surf. He gave a strong, sustained pull on his inshore riser, and surf was replaced by a broad, sandy beach, now alarmingly close. He remembered just in time to flex his knees, fall, and roll, filling his flight suit with fine beach sand. He got up quickly and doused his chute before it could blow out into the surf, gathering it up into an untidy bundle in his arms.

  Now that he was on the ground, Dave's fear was replaced by a soaring exhilaration. His spirits were elevated as if after a double shot of ice-cold vodka on an empty stomach. He could feel his face fixed in a broad idiotic grin.

  He heard a shout, and looked up to see several militiamen running down the beach toward him. By a great effort of will, he composed his features into what he hoped was an expression of calm impassivity.

  When the nearest soldier was within hearing, he said, as calmly as he could, “That was fun. Can I do it again?” The militiaman, a sergeant, was not fooled at all, and laughed loudly.

  “Congratulations on surviving your first jump, Lieutenant,” he said. “Now, let's get you back to base.”

  The militiaman helped Dave doff his flight suit – he was already sweating profusely from the great difference in temperature between an altitude of 400 meters and sea level– and led him to the battered truck that served as the base utility vehicle. It was parked at the end of a rough track leading through the bush to the strand.

  Back at the base, Captain Villiers presided over a brief, impromptu initiation ceremony. As all the officers and sergeants who were qualified airmen gathered round, Villiers pinned a shiny new winged balloon to Dave's breast, intoning with great solemnity, “I now declare you to be a fully-fledged Sky Warrior, entitled to all the rights, privileges and emoluments appertaining thereto. Which consist mainly of risking life and limb in return for ten francs a month specialist pay.”

  Dave added. “And I won't even get the specialist pay – there's no such thing in the navy!” Everyone laughed, and all adjourned to the NCO mess for a celebratory drink. There, after toasting Dave's new wings, the sergeants dispersed to return to work, and Dave and Villiers adjourned to the latter's office for a second drink.

  There, once they had settled, Villiers said, “Well, Dave, now you're the Navy's first airman. What next?”

  Mike considered the question, and then replied slowly, “I'm more convinced than ever that aviation is the edge the Navy needs to defeat the pirates – or at least convince them that we can't be beaten, and that they have to come to some sort of accommodation with us. Our only edge over them is technology. The Caliphate is so much richer and more populous than the Kergosphere” – a neologism that meant the Kerguelen all the states that had been Kerguelenian colonies – “that we can never beat them without exploiting that edge to the fullest.

  “If we can develop and produce aircraft we can use effectively not just for reconnaissance, but also attack, we could develop such a command of the sea in the southern Indian Ocean that they'll leave us alone.”

  “You don't think we can ever defeat them completely – win the war outright?”

  Dave shrugged. “It seems highly unlikely. We've learned from recent intelligence that the Caliphate spans the shores of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, northern India, and the African coast down to Zanzibar and Mafia Island. We couldn't possibly conquer all that territory. And that same intelligence suggests that they have yet to muster more than a tiny fraction of their military potential – and look what they've done to us with that fraction! They've disrupted our Indian Ocean trade and raided our islands, and they seem to be able to build and man two or three new vessels for every one of theirs we sink, without breaking a sweat. Kerguelen, on the other hand, had to bust the Republic's budget to put a tiny navy to sea and keep it operating, and you and Reunion and Mauritius have every able-bodied man under arms, which is harming your economies.

  “No. Unless we can fully develop our trump cards, like military and naval aviation and vessels propelled by machinery, the Caliphate can sweep us from the Indian Ocean any time it chooses.”

  “If the southern states would come to our aid, we wouldn't be so badly out-numbered.”

  “Yes, and French Port is working on them – has sent emissaries to every Kerg island around the world. But even if they can be persuaded that helping us is in their interests, it'll take 'em a while to gear up for war. “

  “I said 'if they'd come to our aid', but on second thought I don't really know how they can help. What contribution do you see, say, the Falklands Free State making? In the short run, I mean – I assume it'll take them some time to build a navy, especially since they'd have to import all the materials for shipbuilding.”

  “Men! You have no idea how we long for seamen. We could double the size of the Navy without any problem if only we had sailors to man the vessels. And money, of course.”

  “Of course. The 'sinews of war', as I read once.”

  “Kerguelen, with its shipyards long experienced in building ocean-going vessels, could probably provide all the ships we'd need. Money to pay for them, and men to man them – that's the issue.”

  They sipped their rum in
thoughtful silence for a few moments, then Villiers said, returning to an earlier topic “Actually, Dave, although I appreciate your enthusiasm for aviation, and I share it, I don't see how it can make much of a contribution any time soon, aside from distant early warning by land-based aerostats. On Reunion, heavier-than-air craft development has only progressed as far as unmanned scale models, and we haven't even gotten that far. You talk about 'naval aviation', but that strikes me – sorry – as a contradiction in terms. I'm no sailor, but I just don't see how an aerostat could be deployed from a ship.”

  “I've thought about that a lot, Pete,” Mike replied slowly. “And you're right – or mostly right. The only possible way I can think of to launch a balloon from a sailing vessel under way would be from the bow while the craft is headed dead down wind. On any other point of sailing, the aircraft would pull the vessel off course, and there would be a serious danger of the tether entangling itself in the rigging.

  “And even in launching from the bow, we'd encounter serious difficulties in inflating the bag and launching it without it getting mixed up in the foremast rigging. We'd probably have to douse the headsails and loosen or detach the head-stays. But it could be done, and it would greatly expand the ship's range of view – give us warning of the approach of an enemy vessel long before it could spot us. Naturally, unless the base course was dead down-wind anyway, you couldn't leave the aerostat up for long.”