Into Uncharted Seas (Westerly Gales)

by E. C. Williams

  “Then we're at war not with the entire Caliphate, which I gather includes most of the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and northern Indian Ocean coasts, but with just a few islands. That's encouraging,” Al said.

  “Well, sir, keep in mind that the Sultan, if hard-pressed could probably call on the Caliph for military assistance.”

  “So to end the war, we have to hurt the Sultan enough to make him cry 'uncle', but not enough to force him to ask his master for help,” Sam mused aloud. “How to calibrate military force that finely? Doesn't seem possible. Have you shared this latest intelligence with the High Commissioner, Hank?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I report to you. I would reveal intel to a third party only with your specific permission.”

  “Quite right, Hank. Go on.”

  “Another interesting fact is that the Caliphate has only recently penetrated into the southern Indian Ocean. In fact, the Sultanate of Zanzibar appears to have been established about the time of the first Kerguelenian settlement on Nosy Be. Mafia was taken into the Sultanate only about a generation ago. That accounts for why we've only come into contact with them fairly recently.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Only more data confirming what we already believed: that the Caliphate originated with a small group of survivors of the Troubles, somewhere between the mouths of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, who maintained some semblance of civilization, one that eventually grew all along both coasts of the Arabian Peninsula and into the Indian Ocean. A civilization richer and more populous than the entire Kergosphere, but not as technologically advanced.”

  “And thank God for that. Without our slight technical edge, we'd have been driven out of the IO long ago.”

  “Yes, sir. That's probably true.”

  Sam was silent for a few moments, then said, "Hank, I authorize you to give the High Commissioner a complete intelligence brief – the sort of background stuff you just shared with us. Do it at his earliest convenience. As much as I hate to admit it, diplomacy may be as useful to us in this war as ships and guns.”

  “Aye aye, sir. And I have one more thing for you, sir.”

  “What?”

  “A new code. As soon as I received your orders about that I went to work. I think I have something as unbreakable as the book code, but on totally different principles.” He reached into the canvas ammo bag he used as a briefcase and pulled out a thin sheaf of typewritten material.

  “This is a one-time pad, sir.” He handed to Sam, who turned over the cover page and saw a page that simply listed the numerals zero through nine, and the alphabet. Opposite each was a seemingly-random number or letter. He turned to the second page, which at first glance looked identical until he noticed that the equivalents in the right-hand column were different. There were thirty-one numbered pages, each with different equivalents.

  “To use it, draft a message using the equivalents from the page corresponding to the day of the month. The addressee will be able to decode it using the appropriate page. Since the code for each day was generated randomly, there should be no pattern for a code breaker to recognize and use. So long as the enemy doesn't get hold of a pad, it should be unbreakable. Even if one pad falls into their hands, they won't be able to break more than one month's messages, at worst, because during your next cruise, I'll generate a new pad for every month,and try to get several months ahead. And once I've done that, it'll truly be a one-time pad, because you'll burn or shred every code page you use as soon as you've used it.

  “For now, though, I only had time to generate one month of tables, and type them up in three copies – one each for Albatros, Roland, and myself. So if you stay at sea for more than a month you'll have to go back and reuse pages this time only.

  “Until we can figure out some secure way to get the codes for each month to Commander Foch, comms with Navy French Port will have to use the old code. So my recommendation, sir, is to keep highly confidential communications with the Rock to an absolute minimum.”

  “Did your clerk help you with all this work?” asked Sam.

  “Oh, no, sir. In the interests of maximum security I did it all myself, after hours, with my office door locked. I used new carbon paper which I destroyed after use, and an extra sheet of paper on the bottom of the stack to minimize the impression left on the roller surface.

  “And by the way, Commodore, I took the liberty of buying a small letterpress with Navy funds. I'm teaching myself to set type now, for when we need to generate more copies of the pads than I can on a typewriter, so I can continue to do all the clerical work on it myself. I'm hoping to keep not just the details but the very existence of this code a closely held secret – only commissioned officers with a need to know.”

  “No problem, Hank. – any expenditures you think necessary, within reason. I agree with the need to keep this code very secret.

  “And that reminds me: how goes the spy hunt?”

  “No joy yet, sir. I'm working with the militia's intelligence staff and the Nosy Be Constabulary, and we've positioned three sensitive RDF receivers around the island that scan for unusual broadcasts every night and try to get a fix on their origins. So far, every one we've followed up has proved innocent, usually just a routine transmission garbled by static.

  “If the agent isn't using radio, then the other possibility is direct contact. The only way we can see that happening is by rendezvous at sea with a pirate dhow, at prearranged intervals, so we're trying to keep track of the movements of all vessels by night. It isn't easy to do, since the militia only has small sailing and rowing vessels for coastal patrol. And a lot of Nosy Be fishermen routinely sail in the wee hours in order to have maximum daylight for fishing. Checking all these small craft is damn near impossible.”

  “Could the Scorpion be helpful in this operation?”

  “Oh, absolutely, sir – a huge help, since she's much faster than anything the Regiment has.”

  “Then it's done: I'll pass the word to Dave Schofield to cooperate with you and the militia. And Hank, with regard to this new code you've come up with … well done.”

  “Thank you sir. With your permission, I'll go over to the Roland now and deliver Captain Murphy's copy of the pad.”

  “One thing first,Hank – do you have any reason to believe that the enemy has in fact broken the book code?”

  “None at all, sir.”

  “Then let's continue to use it for the time being, for less-sensitive traffic, since we'll have to use it to talk to French Port anyway. We'll reserve the one-time pad for the most important stuff. Think about some criteria, a system of classifying messages, so we'll be consistent in choosing which code to use.”

  The conference broke up soon after that, and the participants scattered to their respective duties. Sam went up to the quarterdeck, and from there began to hear his own words bouncing back at him. Probably first used by the XO, they became a catch-phrase for officers and petty officers, usually summing up an order to, or criticism of, a subordinate. “The Commodore wants this Navy run in a more orderly fashion!”, often driven home with a concluding epithet.

  It was used often over the next twelve hours or so, as all hands worked frantically to complete loading stores and ammunition, taking on fuel and water, and the many other things necessary to prepare for a cruise. Roland, too, needed to top up stores, fuel, and water, and Albatros was occupying the only vacant berth. The motor sloop, as well as Joan's motor whaleboat, were pressed into service ferrying dry stores out to the smaller schooner. But to complete her fuel and water she would have to come alongside, and she couldn't do that until Albatros had vacated the only available berth, so the sailing time Sam had set initially – admittedly off the top of his head – had to be allowed to slip.

  Sometime during all this frantic activity, Dr. Francois Cheah had come aboard and been given a quick tour of Albatros's sick bay, and introduced to the interns and SBAs. Marie Girard then slipped quietly ashore and took a cab to the dockyard where the Joan lay.

>   At 0030, Albatros completed loading stores, and shifted back to the Navy anchorage. Roland immediately heaved up and took her place, assisted by the Albatros's motor sloop and Joan's motor whaleboat. Sam was about to comment to Al with some smugness that they would have made his 0100 target if a second berth had been available, when his XO's harried and exhausted appearance made him maintain a charitable silence.

  Roland only took an hour to top up her fuel and water – the former from the palm oil supplier's tank truck, the latter from a dockside connection – and shifted in her turn back to the anchorage, where she let go to a short stay and signaled the flag by flashing light that she was “...ready in all respects for sea.” Albatros immediately replied by flashing the two-letter signals for getting underway and "follow me", in succession, while the order was passed to heave up. Almost immediately the clanking of the chain shot of anchor cable was heard coming from the wildcat– she had anchored with just enough out to hold her. The motor sloop bustled forward and took Albatros's towline to help her out of the harbor.

  Sam watched from the quarterdeck, anxious about how Murphy and the Roland would cope without a tow. He could just make out the schooner, or rather her silhouette, against the background of the town's lights. There was a very faint offshore breeze, just enough for the two-master to get out of the harbor safely – but only if she did everything right, and in the right order.

  Roland, however, was ready for this; as her anchor came aweigh, she set a headsail that swung her bow toward the harbor mouth, followed by her square fore-topsail, so that she had steerage way and was on the right heading by the time she was free of the bottom. Then, with an audacity that made Sam gasp, she set her courses and the rest of her headsails in such quick succession that it almost seemed as if she were anchored under bare poles one moment and underway under full sail the next, while her anchor was still being heaved home. Al, standing next to Sam on the quarterdeck, laughed aloud in sheer admiration.

  “Make to Roland: 'well done', Sam said to the signalman of the watch, who immediately flashed the two-letter signal naval captains loved to receive: “Roland from Flag Bravo Zulu repeat Bravo Zulu”.

  “Looks like Benoit was a good choice for command of the Roland,” Sam remarked.

  “Oh, I couldn't agree more, sir. That was the neatest bit of ship-handling I've seen in a while.”

  “And he certainly did a good job of shepherding the Dame up the west coast.” They both chuckled at the memory of how Murphy, in his dry way, had related the string of near-disasters during that passage, all brought on by the timidity and incompetence of the master of the Dame des îles

  “Captain Riker saved his best for last, though, Commodore. We were almost to Nosy Be – had the island in sight – when we encountered a fishing boat, a little sloop, obviously out of Hell-ville. Well, sir, the Dame turned and ran. Did a one-eighty, sheets flying and canvas flapping, and positively fled from a vessel no bigger than one of her own boats! I had to chase her down and fire three rounds across her bow to bring her to.” Murphy was as good a story-teller as he was a seaman, and he had the whole group roaring with laughter before he reached the end.

  The land breeze wafted them slowly out of Andavakotakona Bay, and they picked up the usual southerly winds of the Mozambique Channel off Point Mahatsinjo and ran up the west coast of Nosy Be. Scorpion, as previously ordered, overtook them and ran on ahead. Sunrise found them off Point Andilana, from which they shaped a course to leave Cape Bobaomby well to starboard. Whenever Sam glanced astern, he was gratified to see Roland in his wake, always at a precise two cables off as if at the end of a towline.

  This cruise is off to a good start, Sam thought, then touched the wooden rail for luck.

  - 15 -

  Once the two schooners had weighed anchor and headed south out of the harbor, Scorpion, too, had gotten underway in the wake of the Roland. Smaller and handier than either of the schooners, she had no problem picking up her anchor and departing on the land breeze without the aid of a tow.

  Dave Schofield stood on her small raised afterdeck, accompanied by Henry Dallas.

  “You're sure about this, Hank?”

  “Pretty sure, but not a hundred percent. I'll buy the first round next time we get ashore if I'm wrong.”

  “Oh, well, we had to get underway sometime today, anyway, to cruise as ordered off the northern coast. The only harm done if it turns out to be a false lead will be that we all got up too early. So if you're wrong you can stand my crew a round.”

  Dallas laughed. “Thanks, Dave. That's very forgiving of you.”

  Once clear of the anchored vessels in the harbor, Schofield brought the little dhow around to a westerly heading, sheeting in the biggest sail in her inventory, the one once used by her Arab crew for reaching or running in daylight. She caught up with Roland as she was making her turn to the north, Point Mahatsinjo abeam. Roland, her watch alert, immediately flashed a challenge. When Scorpion answered with the correct response for the day, Roland flashed back: "Do not overtake". Dave, with an impatient curse, ordered the main-sheet slacked until Scorpion had slowed enough to follow meekly in Roland's wake. Apparently, Roland's watch officer had not gotten the word.

  There was an exchange of signals between Roland and Albatros, then Roland made to Scorpion: "Proceed as previously ordered. You may overtake the squadron". Dave ordered the main sheeted in, and they ghosted gently past first the Roland, then the Albatros. In spite of her much shorter waterline length, the graceful dhow still easily out-sailed both bluff-bowed schooners on the south-easterly breeze they had picked up once clear of the land.

  Dave was nevertheless anxious. Their mission depended upon the Scorpion arriving off Andilana well before sunrise, which required precise timing. The delay, even though brief, occasioned by the Roland's challenge, could have been fatal to Peter's objective.

  “I told you we should have gotten underway earlier,” he said fretfully to Dallas. “We're cutting it awfully close.”

  “We had to sail with the squadron, to make it look to observers ashore as if we're accompanying it,” Dallas replied calmly. “Anyway, we have Special Detail cops watching in Andilana, and we've arranged for the AEWS to launch before sunrise. Even if we miss the rendezvous we may still catch our man.”

  But that wouldn't satisfy Dave; he yearned to be in on the kill, to make the catch himself. He wanted to smell gun-smoke.

  He wrung every tenth of a knot of speed out of the dhow that he possibly could, occasionally making minute adjustments to the main-sheet himself rather than take the time to give orders, much to the irritation of his crew, who thought officers ought to do their own jobs and let them get on with theirs. Whether because of Dave's fine-tuning, or the fact that the breeze freshened a bit, they saw Andilana Point light, dim and flickering, come abeam in the pre-dawn darkness.

  Navigational lights on Nosy Be were a sore point with the Commodore, Dave reflected. Sam Bowditch saw no point in providing navigational aids to the enemy, and thought that Nosy Be fishermen ought to be knowledgeable enough about their own home waters to manage without them. But the Governor and the Council, who were after all politicians who had to stand for re-election, listened to the fishermen, who liked what they were used to, so the lights remained lit and the day-marks in place.

  The quarter-moon had already set by the time the Scorpion had rounded Andilana Point. The dhow showed no running lights, and Dave had ordered all others extinguished, even the dim lamp in the binnacle. The seamen nevertheless found their way quickly and unhesitatingly around the deck, so familiar with their vessel that they did not need much light. The sky was clear anyway, and the myriad stars that blazed overhead provided a surprising if sometimes misleading illumination.

  “Tell me again what we're looking for,” Dave said.

  “A yawl-rigged troller about forty feet long – the yawl rig is uncommon around here, so she should be distinctive.”

  “A trawler?”.

  “No, a troller – a
boat that trolls for fish with baited lines set from poles, port and starboard. She'll probably have her poles rigged so as to look like an innocent fisherman– but in any case look for a yawl rig.”

  Dave passed this description to the crew, every man of whom except for the helmsman and the hand at the main-sheet was keeping a sharp lookout, supplementing the usual lookout perched on the boom where it met the mast. It was Chief Landry who first spotted their prey, however.

  “Small vessel three points on the starboard bow, Skipper,” he said. Schofield and Dallas stared hard into the gloom, and at first saw nothing. Then they could just discern the silhouette of a small fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with a large main and a much-smaller mizzen stepped well aft: a yawl. Dimly visible were several poles rigged at differing angles from both port and starboard, giving her the appearance in the pre-dawn darkness of a giant water insect walking on the surface of the sea. Gauging distance was difficult in the dark, but she appeared to Dave to be about two cables off, steering in a northerly direction.

  He pointed her out to Dallas, who exclaimed, “Dave, you've got the devil's luck! That's her, and we've stumbled right over her!”

  “I'll fire a round across her bow and bring her to …”

  “No, no! Let's trail her at a discreet distance and bag her contact, as well.”

  They sailed on until Dave estimated that they were four or five miles offshore. He allowed the Scorpion to approach no closer to the yawl than the two cables' distance at which they'd first seen her. The yawl did not seem to have spotted the Scorpion – not too surprising, given the darkness, and the fact that all hands on the fishing vessel would no doubt be gazing intently forward.

  Then Dave sensed rather than saw another vessel ahead, a dark blob obscuring then revealing stars on the horizon as it moved. He called Dallas's attention to it.

  “That may be the agent's contact vessel. If it's dhow rigged, I'll be sure of it,” Dallas said.

  They watched, straining to see by starlight, as the yawl approached the unknown vessel.