A Ravel of Waters

He consulted a bank of dials before answering. 'It would be too risky while at anchor to set even a royal to demonstrate for you. You've no idea how powerful even Jetwind's small sails are, given a light breeze only.'

'I'm not asking you to set any sails. I want to go aloft and see for myself,' I added. 'I would also like to inspect the place where Captain Mortensen met his accident.'

For the first time since our introduction I felt a shadow of reserve onTideman's part.

He nodded at the mast towering through the roof of the bridge. 'Up there, in Tuesday — Number Two mast. Tops'l yard service bay.' 'Let's go.'

He seemed unwilling to take me aloft. He said, 'You can't see much while the sails are furled. Is there any particular point you'd like explained?' 'The whole works. Everything is new to me.'

'I think the best person to do that is the sail-maker. The aerodynamics are above my head.'

'Fine,' I replied. 'I'm in a hurry. I have to go ashore soon. Give him a call.'

Tideman picked up an intercom phone and said to me, 'Not him, sir — her.' 'Her? What do you mean?' 'Jetwind's Number One sail-maker is a woman — Kay Fenton.' 'A woman?'

He held the phone poised. 'Why not? Mr Thomsen discovered her when she was taking a sail and mast course at the Stahlform yard in Germany — the world's master mast-makers. He enlisted her as a junior member of the Schiffbau Institutes design team. She's been intimately concerned with the wind-tunnel testing of Jetwind’

I looked at him questioningly. 'So have you, from the sound of it. I thought you'd joined the ship after she'd been built.' 'No,' he replied. 'I was involved at the design stage as well'

'I didn't know the Royal Navy was as keen as all that on the lost art of sail.'

I felt somehow that I had trodden on thin ice. He replied impersonally. 'We have the Navy Adventure School for sail trainees. I sailed yachts belonging to the School round the world.' 'You mean, skippered?'

'That's right. They gave me the experience in sail necessary for Jetwind’

Something still eluded me about Tideman. 'As second officer,' I added.

He answered me a trifle defensively. 'Captain Mortensen was a very fine sailor. He'd graduated in square-riggers and knew deep-watermen. My background did not include them. Also, he was from the Aaland I sips. You know what that implies.' Holding the telephone still, he asked, 'Shall I call Kay?' 'Yes. Tell her to come quickly.'

He dialled 'S' on the intercom and said to me while the instrument rang, 'Jetwind's phones are automatic — all the main control-points have code-rings, "S" for sail-maker, "O" for bridge — officer of the deck, "E" for engine room — and so on.'

We waited. 'I'll bet Kay is stretched out full-length on the deck stitching a sail,' he said. 'You must visit the sail-room — it's big enough to house a whole sail spread out. Kay's favourite habit is to lie down and work at them.'

The phone came alive. I heard a burst of background music and Tideman said, 'Kay! Switch that damn thing down, will you? The skipper wants you…' There was a pause and he eyed me. 'No, the new skipper, Captain Rainier. Yes, he's on the bridge now. At the double, please.'

'You will have common ground with Kay — she's another Cape Horner,' Tideman said.

'Was she one of the all-women crew yachts in the last Round the World?'

'No. She was sail-maker in Peripatetic II. There was one other girl aboard, the navigator. I reckon it must have been the Round the Worlder which threw Kay's marriage. Marriage and the deep sea don't go together.' ' She's divorced, then?'

'Aye. The guy was a starchy up-and-coming young London stockbroker, I heard. Couldn't stand the absence, and the adulation Kay got over the race. Peripatetic finally finished sixth, which was no mean feat.' 'Is that all that broke it up?' 'Kay's not that sort. Aboard Jetwind we sort of regard her as the Old Lady of the Sea.' 'Meaning?'

'Well, she's twenty-six, and that's a ripe old age amongst this crew. Their average age is twenty. They even look upon me as the Ancient Mariner — I'm twenty-seven.' 'Same as me.'

'Jack, our other sail-maker, is really our Old Man of the Sea — he's thirty.' He grinned. 'He's a wonderful practical sail-maker but he hasn't Kay's flair for the theory. I myself don't understand half the maths she talks when she gets on to sail aerodynamics.' 'Are there any more Cape Horners aboard?'

'Aye. Four of my own lads from the Adventure School. Then there's Pierre Roussouw, who sailed with Tabarly. And the bo'sun, Jim Yell. As you probably realize, a bo'sun in this sort of ship has a very special position. There are only two officers, apart from the captain — Grohman and myself. Yell is a sort of sergeant-major — not that this crew needs chasing. But they're fretting, and the sooner we get to sea, the better.'

Tideman's remarks about the chain of command made me wonder again where Grohman was. Protocol required that he should have been on the bridge to greet me in the first place. Nevertheless, I had resisted a temptation to summon him. I wanted to find out about things without him around. It seemed to me, however, that he was cocking a snook at me by his continued absence.

I said, brusque with inner tension, 'I hope they get their wish. There is an Argentinian destroyer on her way here to detain Jetwind’

Tideman stared at me in disbelief and then exclaimed, 'Detain!’

'That is my information. She will arrive tonight or tomorrow.'

I was saved from further explanation by Kay Fenton's arrival. I had been unprepared, in the light of Tideman's 'Old Lady of the Sea' description, for the person who came quickly through the bridge door. She was tallish, with a mod style hair-cut which made her blonde hair lighter than it really was where it had been sun-bleached above her ears. The long legs of her black velvet corduroy pants were dotted with scraps of dacron sail thread. Her slim breasts were free under a green woollen shirt. The Pacific seemed to have left something of its blue in her wide eyes, and Cape Horn something of its greyness. The damped-down turbulence at the back of them was her own.

She held out her hand to me. As I gripped it we both laughed. She had forgotten to remove her sail-maker's leather palm.

'I'm not really as horny-handed as all that,' she said. I welcomed the way she repeated the handshake after removing the palm. I also liked the low modulation of her voice. Like her eyes, it seemed to have a background of sadness.

She by-passed a whole ocean of social conventions by getting down to the subject which, basically, interested both of us.

'You made the correlation between the theoretical performance of the Venetian Rig and its practical one look a bit battered. Captain Rainier,’ she said. 'We tested your rig at the Schiffbau Institut. If we had had Albatros's actual performance figures then, we could well have plumped for a Venetian Rig for Jetwind’

Tideman added, 'It takes a sailor to achieve Albatros's results, Kay.'

Then she asked me with the same eager air as Tideman had shown previously, 'Now that you're here, will we be sailing soon?'

I dodged the question. 'Mr Tideman has given me a rundown on Jetwind’s controls. Now I want to see the sails themselves — the real power house. I would also like to see the exact place where Captain Mortensen met with his accident.' She flashed a glance at Tideman. 'John?'

His voice lacked any inflexion. 'I considered you'd be the best person aboard to explain the merits of the sails.'

'Let's make it as quick as we can,' I said. 'I have to see the chief magistrate shortly after lunch.'

She gave Tideman another inquiring look and then said, a little uncertainly, it appeared to me, 'Let's go.'

After operating one of a bank of switches on a nearby console, she led me down a ladder to a central well immediately abaft and under the wheel-house itself. The mast ran through it. Access to its interior was via a steel door which slotted into the curvature of the mast. Kay explained that this servicing door was held shut magnetically until released by the bridge control she had manipulated.