When the sloop's cargo was unloaded and stowed away, and the vessel herself was recovered and secured in her cradle on deck, Sam bid the other two schooners good luck and fare well, and they separated, Murphy's little convoy on a northwestward course for the Mozambique Channel, the Albatros heading northeasterly for the southern approaches to Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands.
For the next few days, the Albatros reached northward through the southeast trades, which diminished gradually in force as the temperature increased until she had crossed the Capricorn line and was once again in tropical waters. The Gunner used the time to drill the newly-assigned one-inch guns' crew in the use of their weapons. For his part, Sam was greatly relieved to have a secondary battery again, but could not help but worry about the Dame and the most valuable part of her cargo: the 37 mm rifle intended for Joan of Arc.
He hoped, too, that shipwrights were even now swarming over the Joan, reinforcing her deck, laying the rails, and constructing the gun balconies that, once her new gun was hoisted aboard, would make her Albatros's twin in armament as well as rig. They should be: one of his first actions after parting company with the other two schooners was the transmission of a message to Joan of Arc ordering just this. He could now spare a thought for the fourth member of his little squadron. Was Scorpion still afloat? Had she carried out her orders? Enough time had passed for that, surely . In her case, no news was good news so long as she was underway, but once she had returned safely to Nosy Be, she was supposed to transmit a brief “mission accomplished” message. So far none had been received, and Sam had begun to worry.
He saw Dr. Girard come on deck forward, and walk aft. He immediately said to the watch officer, “The Doctor may come onto the quarterdeck if she wishes,” to forestall the solemn ritual of her request being passed to the Captain and his assent relayed back to the Medical Officer, when all involved were within feet of one another.
Their shared ordeal in breaking the news of his wife's death to Bill Ennis had brought them closer together once again, overcoming the awkwardness and sexual tension that had made their interactions so uncomfortable ever since that night in drydock in French Port; affection and shared sadness had trumped lust. Although they were still strongly attracted to one another physically, and Marie was in love with Sam, his feelings for her were complicated by his longer-standing and equally -complicated relationship with Maddie Dupree, widow of his best friend.
Sam and Maddie corresponded regularly, and his feelings for her were as strong as the time he and her late husband, both then young cadets still in navigation school, had flipped a coin to decide which of them would ask her to dance at a school party, years ago – they had both been instantly smitten by her – and Sam had lost the toss. Since she had been widowed Sam had been too conflicted to make an outright avowal to her, and anyway she was still in mourning. But the time was fast approaching when he could, with propriety, ask her to marry him. He was as much in love with her as when they were both teenagers, but his feelings for Marie Girard were equally intense, if of a different character, and got in the way of his ability to make a decision.
In spite of their history, and their still-powerful physical attraction, Sam and Marie had reached a point in their relationship at which they could relax and be merely friends and shipmates. Sam found in her a welcome confident, one in whom he could confide his own fears and doubts about naval matters and thus became closer to her, in a way, than even his XO. Marie was not among the vessel's executive officers, and as a doctor was accustomed as a matter of medical ethics to keep the confidences of her patients, among whom Sam was numbered, along with every other member of the crew of the Albatros. Indeed, in one sense every officer and seaman in the RKN was her patient, since she was the force's senior medical officer and chief of its medical branch. With her, Sam could express the doubts and fears that went with command, while with every other officer aboard, even Al Kendall, he had to appear fully confident and all-knowing. It was a relief, he thought, to whine a bit at times, and to have someone to complain to, and he was grateful to the doctor for being thus available.
They had fallen into the habit of chatting daily on the quarterdeck. She approached, asked permission of the watch officer, and was immediately allowed to join Sam at the windward rail. The quarterdeck watch drew off to the lee side to give the Commodore and the MO a modicum of privacy. They faced outboard, and, the Albatros then beating into the wind, their conversation was as inaudible to everyone else as if they had been below, their words carried away in the schooner's wake by the breeze.
“Good morning, Marie. How are your patients today?”
“Morning, Sam. I have no patients today, I'm happy to report. None except the usual hypochondriacs at sick call. We have nothing to do for the moment. Well I have nothing to do; I've set my interns to creating medical records for all the new hands.”
“What does that involve?”
“Just calling them down to sick bay to query them about their personal information – date and place of birth, parents' names, and so forth – and taking a medical history. Not that they ever have much of a history. It seems that, unless they drown or break a leg falling from the masthead, seamen are a disgustingly healthy lot. That is, until they join the Navy and you get them shot, burned, and mutilated.”
Sam chuckled. “Blame the pirates for that! I want 'em healthy. But why do you think seamen are? Healthy, I mean.”
Marie shrugged. “Fresh air, vigorous physical activity, a diet that's reasonably balanced but doesn't tempt them to over-eat. And self-selection. Frail, neurasthenic types rarely go to sea. And if they are so unwise as to try it once, they don't stay beyond their first voyage.”
“Maybe we can use that as a recruiting slogan: 'Join the Navy for your health!',” Both laughed loudly enough to attract curious glances from the watch. It was notorious on board that the Skipper and the Doc were thick as thieves, a matter that occasioned much breathless gossip, but no one had caught them At It. Yet.
They gazed out to sea in companionable silence for a few minutes, then Girard said abruptly, “Why are we doing this, Sam?”
Sam looked at her in surprise. “Doing what?”
“Standing alone into danger, and leaving Roland and Dame to make their own way up the west coast to Nosy Be. I'm no naval strategist, but I've listened to you long enough for it to seem obvious to me that the prudent course of action would have been to see Dame all the way to Hell-ville, and only then go hunting for pirates.” She paused, and then went on, “Not that my opinion matters, but I have every confidence in Captain Murphy. I saw just enough of Captain Riker to have no confidence whatever in him, an opinion I can't believe you don't share.”
“Yes, but Captain Murphy is perfectly capable of managing Riker and protecting the Dame, and I don't want to miss an opportunity to take out a pirate or two.”
“And that's my point. I've heard you talk about it enough to know that the big gun aboard Dame is crucial, more important to get safely to Hell-ville than the risk of losing a merchantman or even two in the meantime. I hope I'm not offending you, Sam, but I believe your hatred of the pirates sometimes affects your judgment as a naval commander – even causes you to make reckless decisions. Forgive me if I've stepped over a line.”
Sam stared at the horizon unseeing, consumed with rage at her words and biting his lip to hold back a furious reply. How dare she presume...?
But his anger gradually subsided as he reflected that, by confiding in her he had opened himself to such frank criticism, even asked for it – and had welcomed it in the past, on less sensitive topics. Too, he saw that his anger was in itself a sign that he knew she was right, or that there was at least some truth in what she said. He had been unwilling to risk the Dame, and equally unwilling to forgo a chance at the pirate dhows, so he had split the difference and divided his force, putting all three vessels in danger.
“You may be right, Marie, to some extent,” he finally said grudgingly. “It may be
that in my eagerness to fight at every opportunity I'm missing the big picture. You've given me food for thought, anyway.”
Girard heard in Sam's tone a definitive end to this topic of conversation. She dropped the subject, not wishing to utter words that couldn't be unsaid and risk the special relationship the two of them had created – not to mention endangering the job she loved, something she had already come close to doing through angering Sam to the point of threatening to discharge her because of her early casual disregard of naval discipline and courtesies. This was before they had finally succumbed to their strong physical attraction for one another, while the Albatros was in dry dock in French Port and they were the only officers aboard – the only people, other than a small ship-keeping detail, everyone else being on leave.
And beyond her love of the Navy, and of the most interesting and challenging form of medicine she had ever practiced, was her determination to remain close to Sam, even if there was no hope of carrying their relationship further.
They talked for a while longer about routine matters, and when “up spirits” was piped, Marie excused herself to join her brother officers for the morning ritual of “elevenses”, a pleasant interlude in the working day. The seamen lined up for their drink, the dispensing of which was sternly overseen by the Boatswain and the XO. When the commissioned officers got theirs – in matters of food and drink, officers came after the hands – they gathered as usual just forward of the break of the quarterdeck for jokes and gossip.
Ritchie brought Sam his tot in his own silver mug, and he drank it by himself on the quarterdeck: being alone was one of the penalties of command. Despite the fancy container, his drink was the same rum-and-water everyone else got.
While he sipped it, he turned over in his mind his conversation with Dr. Girard. He was forced to acknowledge the truth of her assertions; he was taking too many risks. Going after a pair of pirates with a single warship was all very well when all he had was a single warship. Now that he had a squadron, he was remiss in not making full tactical use of all his assets.
At eleven fifteen, the hands were piped back to work, and the helm and lookouts were relieved to have their own belated tot. Ritchie came to fetch Sam's empty mug.
Sam said to the officer of the watch, “Pass the word for the XO.” The Lieutenant sent the midshipman of the watch forward with the polite version of this: “Commander Kendall's presence is requested on the quarterdeck.”
When Al promptly appeared, Sam said, “Slight change of plan, Al. We'll proceed directly to Nosy Be by the most direct route. Tell Mister Mooney.”
The XO looked quizzically at his Commodore, but said only, “Aye aye, sir,” and departed.
Sam had originally planned a zig-zag course back to base, first scouring the south-eastern coast of Madagascar, then reaching over to Reunion and cruising the waters between there and Mauritius, thence back to the coast of the big island. This search pattern was intended to maximize their chances of encountering the war-dhows they were almost certain were hunting there. Now he had decided that his duty lay primarily in getting the Albatros safely back to Hell-ville, where he could muster all four vessels of his squadron for the next phase of the long-range plan to take the war to the enemy – a plan which, if successfully executed, should draw all corsairs out of Madagascar waters and ensure the safety of Kerg shipping there.
If he encountered one or more pirates en route he certainly wouldn't refuse battle. But he wouldn't go out of his way to seek it, either.
The schooner had until that point been running before the southeast trades with all sail set. Sam saw Al conferring with Mr. Mooney, the Navigator, then Mooney stepped into the chartroom for a moment. When he came out, he spoke a few words to the watch officer and the schooner was ordered to come up a point to a broad reach almost directly northward.
This eased the schooner's pitching somewhat, and some of the “idlers” – so-called because as non-watch-standers they worked a mere twelve-hour day and could sleep right through the night– came topside from their work stations below to glance around curiously, wondering at the change of course. One of these was Dr. Girard. She looked aft at Sam. His face was impassive, and discouraged any approach, any comment on his decision. She prudently returned below to her interns and medical records.
Sam paced the windward rail for an hour or so, mind furiously working. Judging from their behavior during their encounter on the passage south, the dhow captains had orders, or had decided on their own, to avoid engaging Kerg warships and concentrate on commerce raiding. He had decided that his duty required him to proceed directly to Nosy Be without seeking out pirates, a decision reached with the aid of Girard's uncomfortable logic, but that did not mean that he would try to avoid an encounter battle, if offered. However, if the Albatros happened – by chance, of course – to encounter a pirate on her passage back to Nosy Be, the enemy would very likely sheer off and run on first sight of the Old Bird's gun balconies.
But if the pirates were somehow fooled into thinking the Albatros an innocent trading vessel, and lulled into attacking her, it would be Sam's duty, of course, to defend her fiercely. Sam felt a moment of shame at the logic-chopping, lawyerly way he was rationalizing his behavior, but it didn't last long enough to deter him.
His conscience thus reconciled with his fierce longing, he continued to think along these lines. What if...?
- 5 -
The next day, the Albatros cruised along on a broad reach up the Madagascar coast, looking for all the world like a rather tubby merchantman. The stench of freshly-applied fish oil, a key component in the odoriferous fish-oil-and-carbon-black blend used to coat and preserve the schooner's plywood hull, was all-pervading.
Sam had ordered canvas panels to be stitched together for each side of the vessel, each as long as the schooner and as wide as the gun-balcony structures were deep. These strips were then stretched along the gunwales, outboard, from bow to stern, and painted black to match the hull. The idea was to blur the sharp projections of the gun balconies into a smooth line, at least from a distance, thus causing the Albatros to present as a typical, if unusually beamy, merchant schooner.
The Sailmaker, Mr. Lim, had protested bitterly against this use of every yard of spare sail canvas he had, plus many of the storm trysails reserved for Roaring Forties passages. Sam had tried to sooth him by pointing out that the stitching could be unpicked once the need had passed, and the canvas reused. But Sails had mourned that nothing, no amount of scrubbing, would ever render the fabric pliable again, or return it to its original pristine white, or rather greyish off-whiteness.
But Sam was the Commodore and the sailmaker was only a warrant officer, so the outcome of that argument was preordained.
Lim was not the only officer aboard who disapproved of this ploy. While the canvas was being stretched fore and aft and secured, Sam saw the Doctor appear on deck forward. She spoke to one of the seamen thus engaged, obviously asking what was going on, and on hearing his reply glared disapprovingly aft at Sam. He met her eye with a flat, expressionless stare, and she, apparently deciding that there was no point in protesting, looked away with a shrug and returned below.
Almost everyone else on board, however, thought it was a marvelous trick, a real brainstorm on the part of the Commodore, and turned to with a will to complete the disguise as soon as possible.
Kendall came aft, and chuckled as he complimented Sam on the fiendish cleverness of this trick. The two paced in step for awhile in companionable silence. Then the XO said reflectively, looking forward, “There's still the gun, though.”
“What do you mean, Al?”
“Well, it still looks like a gun, doesn't it? A gun covered in canvas. You can see its shape through the cloth, d'you see, sir?”
Sam looked, and saw what Al meant. Even from a distance, and shrouded in its canvas cover, the 37 millimeter rifle still looked unmistakeably gun-like.
“Well, yes, but I don't see what we can do about that.”
Kendall gazed at the gun, and spoke slowly, as if thinking aloud. “What if I asked Chips and his mates to knock together a rectangular framework around the gun? It needn't be very sturdy, just strong enough to hold the canvas, but flimsy enough for the gun's crew to kick it down in an instant. We could stretch the canvas tautly over the framework...”
“And it would look like a deckhouse! Al, you're a bloedige genius! Get Chips on it right away!”
“Aye aye sir,” Kendall said with a grin, and hastened forward.
Almost immediately, under the supervision of both the Carpenter, Mr. Foy, and the Gunner, the gun cover had been whipped away and the carpenter's mates were at work on a light framework of seasoned Nosy Be bamboo. This was the work of minutes. Then the canvas cover went back over the framework. Luckily, the Gunner had never quite found the time to follow through with Mr. Lim on his plan to have a smart, seamanlike, custom-tailored sheath made for his treasured 37 mm rifle, and the gun's cover was simply a rectangle of canvas, hemmed and grommeted. Once the canvas was stretched over the framework, with neatly-folded corners, and lashed down taut, the structure did indeed, if you squinted as if gazing from a distance, resemble nothing so much as a deckhouse, perhaps a galley. The tarpaulin now didn't quite reach to the deck, leaving a gap of more than a foot all round, but the schooner's bulwarks would conceal that.
All concerned stood back complacently, admiring their handiwork, until the warrant officers ordered their respective mates back to their regular duties.
“Nothing to do now but sail on for Nosy Be,” Sam said to Al.
And sail on they did, until they were in the fourth day after separating from the other two schooners and at about the latitude of Reunion. The coast of Madagascar was a low green line on the western horizon, the island's central massif a gray blur beyond that.
Into Uncharted Seas (Westerly Gales) Page 12
