Emerald Sea

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Herzer had heard the call of “All Hands! Shorten sail” and had made his way up to the deck to observe. The sailors were already aloft doing their high-wire act by the time he got on deck and he watched it again, in awe. To work with the sails required them to first climb to nearly the top of the mast and then work their way out on thin foot-ropes. All of this while he was having a hard time standing upright. He did notice, this time, that they were all wearing some sort of harness attached to a safety rope. If one of them slipped the harness would, presumably, keep them from falling to their deaths.

He’d noticed a lot of little touches like that on the ship. Danger areas marked off with yellow and black paint. Notices pasted up where hazardous materials were stored. Warnings about lifting heavy weights. The ship matched some of his expectations and violated others. He had read stories from the old sailing days and back then injuries and death were considered just the common lot of the sailor, like bad food, hammocks and no decent bathroom.

This ship had showers, even for the crew, functional toilets and sinks. The crew berthed in cots, albeit ones that were stacked four high. The food was well prepared and as varied as any that he had seen in the post-Fall period. They lived, come to think of it, better than Courtney and Mike. Better than Blood Lords on campaign.

But when he watched them shimmying on those ropes he had to admit that they deserved their improved conditions.

The first real blast of wind hit as the last of the crew were descending from the rigging, and despite the fact that most of the sails were “furled” the wind pushed the ship over on its side to the point that a wave washed up onto the deck. The ship, though, responded to it sluggishly. The wind was howling in the rigging but the ship was digging into the swells rather than running over them, water creaming over the bow on a regular basis. She was riding them out, but it didn’t look good to Herzer.

When the rain hit he decided that he’d like a bit more cover and headed up to the quarterdeck. There were now two men on the wheel and it was clear that they were needed; it seemed to be kicking like a live thing in their hands.

“Following sea,” the skipper yelled to him when he noticed the look. “The waves push into the rudder and try to push it aside.”

“Won’t happen with my hands on the wheel, sir,” one of the sailors called. “She gripes, though, she surely does.”

“The pressure of the wind is pushing her nose down,” the skipper translated. “We’ll have to move some stores aft to give her more weight back there.” He turned and called below for a party and gave some rapid instructions including calling for Mbeki.

“It’ll take a while, though,” he added. “I’d appreciate it if you moved below, Lieutenant. This may look easy, but it’s not.”

“Yes, sir,” Herzer said, heading for the companionway. It didn’t look easy for that matter.

Instead of heading for his cabin, though, Herzer headed for the hatch to the wyvern area. The main hatch had been closed and “dogged down,” meaning that catches had been firmly sealed from the inside. There was a personnel hatch, though, and he opened that and went below, carefully setting the dual-side catches in place before he climbed down the ladder.

The scene below was a veritable Inferno. The wyverns were not happy at the change of motion in the ship and they were making their disquiet abundantly clear. They also had decided that since they weren’t going to be let out to go potty, it was time to do it indoors. Between the screeches and the smell he nearly climbed back out, but he stuck with what he considered his duty.

He saw Jerry slithering across the slimy floor and, grabbing a convenient rail, headed in his direction.

“Anything I can do?” he yelled over the squalling dragons.

“I dunno,” Jerry yelled back. “Can you either get the ship to quit pitching or find me a wyvern sedative?”

“No,” Herzer answered with a laugh. “Have they been fed?”

“Of course they’ve been fed,” Jerry answered. “Then they puked it back up. And I couldn’t believe it but it really did look worse coming back up. I’m starting to worry, they’re not getting enough water.”

“This gale isn’t going to quit any time soon,” Herzer said. He’d gotten close enough that they could carry on a conversation at normal tones. “What are we going to do?”

“Not sure,” Jerry admitted. “Whatever we can. Hopefully they’ll get their sea legs after a couple of days. I’m getting better; how ’bout you?”

“Yeah,” Herzer admitted. “At least before I came down here. Is there some way to clean this out?”

“I haven’t had time to find out,” Jerry admitted.

“I will.”

Herzer made his way back up the ladder and then paused when he reached the deck. The ship was still pitching and tossing and the wind was shrieking around him like a banshee. But from his experience of storms on land, the first part was usually worst. Once it passed over, if it passed over he temporized, it should get better.

He grabbed a passing seaman and was directed forward to where Chief Brooks was directing a party that was attending to the lashings on the longboat.

“Chief, you need to tell me who to bother when you don’t want to be,” Herzer yelled over the storm. The ship chose that moment to bury her nose in a wave and a flood of green poured over the side. Herzer instinctively shot a hand out and grabbed a rope, holding onto a young sailor that was passing by with his clamp. As soon as the flood had passed he pulled the sailor upright, noticing in passing that “it” was female, and tossed her back towards the longboat. “Back to work, seaman.”

“Well, you’re here,” the chief yelled back, grinning at the interplay. “Not bad for a bloody landlubber. What’cha need, Lieutenant?”

“The wyvern area is fisking horrible.”

“So I heard. But I don’t have a party to help you.”

“That’s not the problem. We just need some idea what to do with all the… stuff.”

“There’s a washing system down there. Didn’t anyone show the riders?”

“Apparently not.”

“Fisk!” the chief snarled. “Bosun! You’re in charge.”

“Got it, Chief,” a muscular woman yelled to him over the wind and rain.

“Let’s go, sir,” the chief said, working his way aft.

When they got through the hatch the chief said “Faugh” at the smell, then looked around for the riders.

“Warrant, weren’t you briefed on the cleaning apparatus?” he yelled over the screeching wyverns.

“No, Chief, we weren’t,” Jerry called back. “What cleaning apparatus?”

As it turned out there was a saltwater pump and a draining system that the chief identified. Then he gave a short class on its use. The pump could be operated by two people, but four was better. The water drained to one of four points in the compartment where it was collected in a pipe that led to the exterior of the ship.

“There’s a one-way valve at the end,” the chief explained. “But in this sea you’re going to have to pump it out as well.” He showed them that pump. “With only the two enlisted riders there’s no way you can clean all this up,” he finally admitted.

“I can help,” Herzer interjected.

“No, I’ll get a working party,” the chief said. “Could I speak to you two young gentlemen?”

He led them over to a corner of the compartment and put his hands on his hips.

“I appreciate as much as anyone when officers are willing to get their hands dirty,” he said, looking them both in the eye. “We’ve had some young gentlemen come on this ship and think they’re too good to do anything but walk around with their noses in the air. But you’re officers, sirs, and your job really is to supervise. That’s not another word for sitting on your ass, sirs; it means just what it means. And, frankly, this isn’t even a job for officers to supervise, it’s for a petty, one of your sergeants, to handle. Your job’s to figure out what’s going to happen next, sirs, while my job, your sergeant’s job, is to handle what’s happening now.”

“Understood, Chief,” Herzer said, grinning to finally feel back in the military. “Thanks for the kick in the ass.”

“I understand too, Chief,” Jerry said with a sigh. “I’m too used to being the doer.”

“Well, you’re a warrant, sir,” the chief said with a frown. “Warrants, really, are doers, too. But not cleaning up shit and piss and puke. That’s what enlisted men are for,” he added with a chuckle. “Have these boys been fed?”

“They puked it all up,” Jerry said. “And, yeah, that’s got me worried.”

“And they get angry when they’re hungry,” the chief said.

“They’re too sick and nervous to be angry now,” Jerry said.

“But when they’re over being sick and nervous?” the chief prompted.

“I wouldn’t put an arm though the bars,” Jerry admitted.

“With all due respect, sir, I’d suggest feeding them. Even though they puke it up. As you can see, now, we can clean that up easy enough.”

“Agreed, Chief,” the warrant said, then grinned. “Ever thought of being a rider, Chief?”

“Not on your life, sir,” the NCO replied. “I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t even like climbing the rat-lines. I’m so afraid of heights it’s not funny. I’d rather eat dirt for the rest of my life. How’s the commander?”

“You mean Joanna?” Jerry asked. “She’s not sick, except at the smell. She’ll be glad to get the area cleaned out.”

The chief looked at the deck overhead for a moment then smiled.

“I wonder if she minds rain?”

They moved forward to where the dragon was curled up, looking at the bedlam with a beady eye.

“Commander Gramlich, we’re going to get this area cleaned out,” the chief said. “But it will be a bit and it will get messy. I was wondering if you might be okay with moving to the landing platform.”

Joanna looked at him for a moment then rustled her wings.

“I weigh nearly two tons, Chief,” she answered after a moment’s thought. “I notice that the ship tends to… move when I do. That’s why I’m placed damned near the center of the ship. Won’t the skipper have something to say about that?”

“Well, ma’am, as it happens, we’re in the process of moving some weight aft…”

“And I’m a nice mobile weight?” she asked with a chuckling hiss.

“I’d not put it like that, ma’am,” the chief said with a smile. “But we can lower the ramp easy enough, even in this sea. The toughest part will be opening and closing the hatch. But if you were to nip through quick-like…”

“Be sure to tell the skipper and then, yes, I’m game,” Joanna said. “Anything to get out of this damned hold.”

“Annibale, Bodman,” PO Singhisen said. “Fall out for a working party.”

It felt like Joel had just gotten his eyes closed. With the storm he’d been in the galley getting the fires put out and making sure everything was lashed down. So had Bodman, for that matter, who was one of the mid-watch cooks.

“I just put my head down, PO!” Bodman protested, trying to roll over and go back to sleep.

“Fall out,” the PO said, sharply. “Now.”

Joel rolled off his bunk and pulled on his clothes. The wind was still strong but the ship seemed to be riding better.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“The damned dragons had as much trouble last night as the rest of the crew,” Singhisen said, shaking her head. “We’re going to go get their compartment cleaned out.”

“Oh, fisking joy,” Bodman whined. “Why can’t the riders do it?”

“Because there’s only two that ain’t officers,” the petty officer explained as if talking to a small child. “And officers don’t clean up shit and piss. It ain’t their job.”

“Join the Navy,” Bodman complained as they made their way forward. “Join the adventure.”

Fortunately they didn’t have to make their way on deck and the dragon deck was almost uncomfortably warm.

Singhisen had gotten more than just the two of them and there was a group of deck-apes waiting in the wyvern deck when they arrived.

“Okay, McKerlie. Take your team and man the hose pumps. Mbonu, your people are on the outfall pump; you know how to operate it?”

“Yes, PO,” the lead seaman said, waving her group over to the pump that was at the forward end of the compartment.

“Annibale, Bodman, you handle the hoses,” she continued, waving around the room. “We need to get these decks rinsed down. Then we’ll swab everywhere but in the occupied cages. Then we rinse ’em down again.”

“Thanks PO,” one of the riders said, coming to the aft of the compartment. “I’m getting my riders up here; we’ll try to keep the wyverns from taking anybody’s arm off.”

“Is that a real problem?” Singhisen asked.

“I dunno,” the rider said, shaking his head. “They’re not in the best of moods.”

Joel unreeled the hose and set to work as the deck-apes pumped. The… material on the floor was unpleasantly solid and splashed when the salt water hit it, throwing chunks of material around the compartment. He had to get down to a low angle to get it moved and that tended to splash more onto him. He’d wondered why the two stewards were doing the, relatively, lighter job of using the hose but he decided quickly that it was the worse of the two evils. Score one for the deck-apes.

The material did move, though, sloshing back and forth and forming an ugly puddle at the forward end of the compartment as the team there pumped it out. The riders were sliding around in it, moving from cage to cage and trying to calm the hissing wyverns. One of the latter got a muzzle through and took a swipe at him as he was spraying under the edge of the cage, trying to get a lodged chunk of… something sort of greenish yellow, worked free. The female rider, who had sergeant stripes instead of a PO’s chevrons, whapped it on the nose and it pulled back into its cage. He gave the sergeant a nod, washed the chunk of… whatever loose and kept spraying.

Finally, when he and Bodman had the compartment more or less clear the PO got the deck apes on the outflow pump working with mops. It didn’t get long to get everything but the cages clean and by spraying under them they even got most of the crap out of those.

It was a nasty, disgusting, job and not one he wanted to repeat any time soon. In his professional opinion, dragons belonged on the land and not in a damned ship.

He was really gonna have to have a long talk with Sheida when this mission was over.

In no more than twenty minutes Joanna was ensconced on the landing platform. The chief had even rigged heavy ropes so that she could hold on; since the rear of the ship was still bucking up and down it was necessary. After a bit she thrust a couple of talons under the ropes, curled in a ball, closed her eyes and appeared to go to sleep.

“Dragons, wyverns for that matter, tend to sleep a lot,” Jerry yelled as they headed back down to the quarterdeck. “They use high energy when they have to and try to sleep most of the rest of the time.”

True to Herzer’s mental prediction the wind seemed to be moderating and with it the seas. And with Joanna’s weight to the rear of the ship, along with whatever stores had been moved, the bows were now sweeping over the waves instead of digging into them.

They headed down into the hold again where a team of sailors, with Vickie and a female PO directing, were cleaning out the wyvern stalls. With the materials available the sketchy cleaning didn’t take long and Jerry directed the feeding afterwards as the hands, most of whom were probably from an off-duty watch, walked out of the compartment grumbling. Some of the wyverns barely poked at their food but most of them ate as if they were starving. Some of their distress must have been hunger because by the time they were done most of them had settled down. And, just as Jerry predicted, those that had fed almost immediately tucked their heads under their wings and, swaying with the ship, went to sleep.

“Good,” Jerry said. “That’s the first decent rest they’ve gotten in two days.” He frowned at Chauncey and Yazov, both of whom had ignored their food. They were still mewling piteously although they’d quit the metal-bending shrieks.

“If we found something tastier for them they might eat,” Herzer suggested.

“Yeah, and then the next time they didn’t like their food they’d wait until we gave them something better,” Jerry said. “No, they’re just going to have to eat it or not.”

Chauncey looked through the bars of his stall and mewed piteously at Herzer.

“I’m sure the cook has some scraps left over,” Herzer said. “What if we just gave them a few? That might make them hungry enough they’d eat their slop.”

“I dunno,” Jerry said. “It goes against the grain.”

“If I’d been puking,” Herzer said, mentally adding which I have, his throat was still raw with it, “I wouldn’t want something that looked like puke.”

“You have a point.”

Herzer, getting lost only one time, made his way to the main kitchen, which the sailors insisted be called a “galley,” of the ship and caught the eye of one of the NCOs.

“A couple of the dragons are badly off their feed,” he said. “We’re hoping some scraps will get them eating again.”

“All the edible garbage goes in those pails,” the petty officer said, pointing to a line of buckets lashed to the wall. “Take whatever you want; we just pitch it over the side.”

Herzer went over and checked them over. Most of the garbage consisted of ship’s bread and vegetables, but one bucket had a fair amount of stew from the evening meal in it. He untied that one and started to carry it back to the dragons.

“Hang on, sir,” the petty officer said. “Johnson, carry that for the lieutenant, then head back here when you’re done. Bring the bucket.”

Herzer wasn’t sure if the petty officer just wanted his bucket back or if he was getting another class in “enlisted men do, officers supervise” but he followed the sailor, who didn’t get lost, back to the dragon deck.

The scraps, when added to their slop, were a big hit with the two dragons. They got enough meat that they started sucking on their slop right afterwards.

“Sir, if you don’t mind,” Johnson said. “We can try to segregate the meat that gets thrown away. And there’s bones and things that don’t get used, too.”

“As long as the PO says it’s okay, that would be great,” Herzer said. “Johnson, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks for your help,” Jerry said. “If you ever want a ride, assuming we can get them back in the air…”

“That would be great, sir.” The sailor grinned. “I’d better get back.”

“Thanks again,” Herzer said. When the sailor had left, Herzer grinned at the rider. “I think you’ve got a convert.”

“Oh, we’ve had plenty of people ask us about rides,” Jerry said. “Or even becoming riders. Especially since we’re down two.”

“One of them being me,” Herzer said. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem,” Jerry replied. “Duke Edmund has been fairly clear on that. As soon as the weather calms down, and assuming as I said that we can take off and land in this mess, we’ll see about getting you trained. But I warn you, landing on this thing is not easy.”

“You need at least one more rider than you have dragons,” Herzer said. “Or, at least, dragons in the air.”

“Why?”

“For the LSO. I don’t know that I’d have been able to do it if I hadn’t had that one experience with riding. It gave me a grasp of what I was doing.”

“Point,” Jerry said. “Well, since we’ve got the wyverns settled and there’s not much going on, I might as well start with giving you the ground school portion.”

“Ground school?” Herzer said.

“You have no idea.”