"Two hundred seven seriously wounded, mostly broken bones and concussions," the Fiernan went on seriously. "Not counting walking wounded fit for duty." She looked up, the cerulean-blue eyes sad. "That's from ships in contact. All ships have reported except for the Farragut, the Severna Park, and the Merrimac," she said.
Alston's belly clenched. The steam ram, a collier, and their secret weapon… and nearly two hundred souls.
Swindapa went on: "We're still trying for-
A rating from the radio shack ran up. "Ma'am!" he said, thrusting a paper at her. "Ma'am!"
"Report from the Merrimac!" Swindapa said.
A sound something like a cheer went up from some of the middies and hands on the quarterdeck, and the officers smiled. Alston allowed herself a slight curve of the lips as well, as she took the transcript.
It didn't quite die as she read it. Nearly doomed wasn't as bad as actually dead. Or so she thought until they came in sight of the stricken vessel…
"Damn," she said mildly, lowering the binoculars.
"Right on the mark," Jenkins said, impressed. "Where you said the winds and current would throw them."
The maintop was a little crowded, with captain, commodore, and a couple of other officers standing on the little triangular railed platform; the usual lookout was out on the yard.
"From the description, it could only be these shores," Alston said absently. "They certainly didn't have much idea where they were. The only good thing about it is that we're here now-and that there's deep water all the way to the cliffs."
She raised the binoculars again. The storm had died down, there were streaks of blue overhead, but the enormous swells still came pounding in from the west, out of the deep reaches of the Atlantic that ran landless from here to the Carolinas. There was already white on the tops of some of the mountains landward; down from there the land ran steep, densely green forest below the moors, then dropped sheer into the sea battering it from the northwest. No sign of human habitation, although she'd give odds that eyes were fixed on her ships from somewhere up there. The wind had shifted to a steady westerly, strong enough to make the rigging drone a steady bass note, and to send the Chamberlain slanting southeast with her port rail nearly under, white foam breaking from her bows. The mast swayed out, over the rushing gray water, back over the narrow oval of deck, out again in a wide warped circle. She ignored it as she focused on the wounded ship to leeward.
"Merrimac, all right," she said. "Badly beat up."
Nearly destroyed might have been a better way of putting it. All three masts were gone by the board, the foremast nearly at deck level, the main about twenty feet up; the mizzen was still there about to the mizzentops. Standing rigging hung in great swaths and tangles; the deck looked as if there was scarcely a foothold free of fallen cordage and spars and sails. The pumps were going, a steady stream of water over both rails, and a set of pathetic jury-rigged sails were up, triangular swatches that looked as if a bunch of small sailboats were sitting on the big Down Easter's decks.
"I wonder Clammp hasn't got his boats out towing," Jenkins said.
"Take a look at her stern davits," Marian said grimly. A boat was dangling there, or at least the rear third of one. "Ms.
Kurlelo-Alston, what boats do we have with the frigates still sound? Six-oared or be:ter."
"Eight, ma'am," Swindapa said instantly. "Three more under repair and ready within a few hours."
"Good… all right. Those boats to the Merrimac. Ship's doctor from the Chamberlain, medical supplies, stretchers, cordage. Portable pumps, four of 'em. She'll need hands… besides the boat crews, fifteen hands and a middie, ensign, or lieutenant from each-good riggers, sailmakers. And ship's carpenters with their mates and kit from, hmmm-mmm, Lincoln and Sheridan."
"Yes, ma'am." Swindapa repeated the order and leaned out, grabbed a backstay, and slid the hundred feet to the quarterdeck with her feet braced against the hard ribbing of the hemp cable to control her speed.
"A tow. Commodore?" Jenkins asked quietly.
Marian Alston looked beyond the laboring hulk of the Merrimac. Close, far too close, the great swells surged and roared against sheer rock, throwing foam mast high. Even across several miles of sea she could hear the sound, and through the binoculars see the grinding snarl where the huge mass of water pushed eastward by the long storm met the immovable object of the Cantabrian Mountains, where the Pyrenees slid down into the Atlantic. There was clear water beyond that last finger of granite reaching out to sea…
… and the Merrimac wasn't going to make it, not under that miserable jury-rig; if she was doing two knots, it was a miracle. The swell and drift eastward would cut her off long before; she was making a yard eastward for every one she made south. Close, but no cigar. Anything that hitched on would be dragged to leeward as well by fourteen hundred tons of dead-in-the-water inertia.
"No, Commander Jenkins. I'm going to save that cargo if I can, but I'm not going to lose any more people for it. Rig for a tow, by all means, ready when and if we can get her far enough out. I'm going over to supervise recovery operations myself."
The deck had already been busy, repairs still going forward on the rigging; now it was doubly so, with lashings being untied and davits swung out. More than a few of the crew exchanged glances; launching a boat in seas this rough was gambling with a dunking at the very least, or possibly with injury and death if something went wrong halfway down. There was a scramble of orders and bosun's whistles, and deck crews formed on the lines. Jenkins murmured to his sailing master, and the voice rang out:
"Clew up!"
"Heave… hoi" The rhythmic chorus rang out, and the square sails spilled wind as the lines hauled them up like a theater curtain. The ship slowed almost instantly, swaying more toward the upright. Also rolling more, but you couldn't have everything.
The bosun's mate in charge of the boats wasn't hesitating. "Boat crew of the day to the commodore's barge! Falls tenders! Trapping line tenders!"
The commands ran on smoothly. Swindapa came up beside her. "Anything else?" she said softly, trying not to disrupt Alston's train of thought.
"Yes," she replied. "Have Captain Jenkins and… who's got the most left in the way of large spars?"
"Of the frigates, Sheridan," Swindapa said. The stores-ships were too far out to be useful just now. "Full set-didn't lose anything."
She wouldn't, with Tom Hitler as her skipper, Alston thought. He'd been sailing master of the Eagle and taught Alston herself most of what she knew of handling big square-riggers. Aloud:
"… and the Sheridan make a bundle of some spare spars-main and foresail-and get ready to put them overside rigged for tow." Luckily the spars were buoyant, being varnished white pine.
Fatigue and anxiety had vanished. She had a job to do; it might well be an impossible one, but all she could do was make the best possible decisions. Focus left her coldly alert, impersonal, and intensely alive.
The bosun's mate had the line team ready, and he scrambled up on the davits to give it a final visual check. A sailor brought her a life jacket; she strapped in absently, eyes still narrowed and gazing at the Merrimac. Swindapa came up beside her, and they both settled their billed Coast Guard caps more firmly on their heads-as usual, a few wispy strands of fine blond hair were floating free from their braid, like streamers to windward since they were both facing the port rail. Alston blinked, felt a fleeting, familiar moment of absurdly intense tenderness, a desire to smooth the strands back. Their eyes met, and spoke later without word or expression.