CHAPTER TWELVE
RIPTIDE
They sailed at dawn. Loholo, now crew master, had brought twenty young apprentices, all well armed. The stores were aboard, and MacLean had fitted the leeboards, huge, fan-shaped, wooden boards pivoted at the small end of the fan and fastened nearly amidships of the vessel. When raised they were like giant shields. MacKinnie got the crew and passengers aboard the night before they were to set out, and watched with interest as MacLean and Loholo helped the crew sling hammocks, cursing the men into place in the narrow space below decks.
MacLean had placed the quarters in a traditional manner, his own cabin right aft with smaller staterooms to each side for MacKinnie and Mary Graham. Just forward of them, Longway and Kleinst had even tinier compartments, really not much larger than bunks with doors to close them in; then Hal and his guards slung their hammocks in a compartment which stretched from one side of the ship to the other. MacLean insisted that two of Stark’s men be on duty and armed at all times, posted on the quarterdeck near the great tiller which steered the ship.
In the first light, mist still rising from the water, the crew was turned out from their hammocks to man the sweeps.
Loholo clucked his tongue at the arrangement. There were no rowing benches; instead the men walked the decks with great oars dipping down to the water, two men to an oar. The ship moved slowly away from the shore out into the bay.
“Wouldn’t it be better to go at night?” MacKinnie asked. They stood on the quarterdeck with the other Samualites, Hal and his guards in full armor. Armor for the rest of the crew was secured with rawhide lashings in convenient places about the deck. Just forward of the quarterdeck Brett and Vanjynk stood at the ready, also in armor. It was impossible to make Vanjynk man a sweep, and MacKinnie decided that it would be senseless to require Brett to do so, so the two were carried as guards. Their mounts were stabled in the hold with the cattle Subao carried as part of the food supply.
MacLean eyed the distance to the slowly vanishing shore, then peered through the mists ahead and astern before answering. “No, Trader. The night would not keep the pirates from seeing us, and the wind dies away then. By midday there should be a strong wind. The sea breeze and the prevailing westerlies lie together on this shore. It will take a strong wind to outrun the pirate ships.”
“If you say so,” MacKinnie said with a shrug. And if the wind doesn’t come up? He shrugged again. “It’s the only chance we have, anyway. Carry on, Captain MacLean.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” There was a note of the contempt seamen have for lubberly owners in MacLean’s voice, but Nathan saw no reason to make a point of it. He needed MacLean to reach Batav.
He went to the rail and stared overboard. Around him the dawn was already turning the dark water clear. Small fish-like creatures swam lazily near the boat, looking at it before they darted away, easily outdistancing the men at the oars in spite of Loholo’s shouted oaths. The crew master counted strokes in a tireless voice, keeping a steady rhythm not interrupted when he fell to cursing one of the men: “Sweep, step, back, back, Fool, step, back, back, Pull, you, stinking, filth, Sweep …”
MacLean left MacKinnie to stand near the tiller, his eyes on the compass mounted on the small mast just forward of the helmsman. Another mast, well forward, towered above the ship, and on both the sails were laced around the booms, their covers removed and stowed below decks. The sails were ready for instant action. MacKinnie could already feel the morning breeze coming from the south before it shifted to the west in the afternoon.
Mary Graham and Longway made their way over the slowly rolling deck to stand at the starboard rail with MacKinnie. Loholo’s calls were clear and slightly musical. “Stroke … step … back … back … Stroke …”
“Point to starboard, Mr. Todd,” MacLean said softly.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“We should see the land over there as soon as it gets light,” MacKinnie told his companions. “I understand Loholo thinks we should hug the shore. There are reefs and rocks only he knows, and he swears he can get us through them without the pirates being able to catch us.”
“Interesting,” Longway said pensively. “Then why did he not take some other ship through there? Why has the pirate blockade been so effective?”
“You’re not supposed to ask that,” Nathan replied. “But MacLean thinks it’s worth trying anyway. Add something to our chances, and the farther we get before the pirates intercept us, the better chance of coming ashore where there aren’t any barbarians.” It was getting light faster now, and the shoreline could be seen dimly ahead. Above the fog, fifty miles away, the peaks of mountains flashed whitely in the morning light.
“If we can get to those, the barbarians won’t matter,” MacKinnie said. “All we’ll have to worry about will be the pirates. We could even beach and run for it.”
“It would be a long walk,” Longway said.
“True. But what else can we do?”
Kleinst stood quietly at the rail, and MacKinnie thought he noted a slight tinge of green to the scholar’s complexion. If the young fellow couldn’t manage in the gentle swell they were experiencing, he was in for big trouble when the real wind came up. Kleinst had kept out of the way the whole time they were on Makassar, although he seemed to have developed a strange friendship with Brett. Nathan had more than once noted the scholar and the singer conversing over wine in the physicist’s quarters at the dockside inn.
“Where are these pirates, Trader?” Longway asked. “As a practical matter, should we be getting the oarsmen in their armor?”
“Not for hours,” MacKinnie replied. “They stay well out of the harbor itself, probably afraid of the Navy boys. But they’re out there, all right, just over the horizon. You’ll see them soon enough.”
“Sooner than I’d like,” Longway muttered.
It was fully light now. The Eye of the Needle had cleared the eastward land mass to send its rays slanting across the sea. The early morning mists vanished rapidly as the ship moved quietly along, and there was no sound but the commands of Loholo, who had lowered his voice until he could barely be understood on the quarterdeck. “Stroke…”
The harbor had dropped well out of sight when the sun burned off the last of the mists. The water was an incredible light blue, the bottom visible not more than three yards below the surface. Long, thin fish darted about, pursued by tentacled monsters nearly a meter in length, green eyes glaring after their prey. Larger creatures of the same general form swam into view to look intelligently at the humans on the boat before swimming lazily away. MacKinnie wondered idly what they were when MacLean shouted from his post at the mizzenmast.
“Hands make sail!” he ordered.
MacKinnie watched with interest as the Samualites gathered in the waist.
“Man the mizzen halyards,” MacLean called. He turned to the helmsman. “Turn her into the wind, Mr. Todd. Put the helm over.”
“Helm’s down, sir.”
“Stand by mizzen halyard. Get those gaskets off, there.”
Hal and one of the guards took the lacing from the sail, then seized the halyard. “Make sail,” MacLean ordered. The big gaff rose jerkily, the men on the throat halyards pulling too fast, but eventually the throat and peak rose together. “Take a turn around the winch. Haul, men. Tauten it, that’s it. Haul, you bastards! Now belay it all.” The gaff sail flapped in the wind, and the boat slowed noticeably.
“Now forward to the main,” MacLean ordered. “Get it up, smartly now.” The men ran forward, and the big main, almost twice the size of the mizzen, was hauled up almost as quickly as the smaller one had been. “Man the sheets,” MacLean ordered. “You fool, that line over there,” he added to a guard who stood looking blankly about. “Stand by to trim the sheets, Mr. Stark.”