A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess (4 page)

“The ship won’t sink if it’s stuck on a shoal, will it?”

“I don’t know. What if the tide’s out right now? If the water level rises, it can float us off and then we
will
sink.”

“Well, is the tide in or out?”

“How would I know?”

The launching of the raft, they discover, has now become complicated by the angle of the deck and the fact that the raft is now wedged into the breach its corner has punched in the bulwark. They first have to secure the raft by tying a cable from it to the remaining stump of the mast, to prevent the raft from falling into the sea prematurely. Once this is done, they begin the laborious task of cutting away the shattered lumber
.
It is now quite dark: neither moons nor stars are visible through the low, level canopy of heavy vapor. Bronwyn and the captain have to work by the light of the single unbroken lamp they are able to find. Bronwyn again wields the axe and Basseliniden a heavy pry bar. Her muscles ache painfully from the previous day’s labor and she fights to keep them from cramping. She has to consciously force herself not to panic and try to work too quickly; more will get done by deliberation and steadiness: a difficult thing to do when facing such a literal deadline. She knows all too well that whatever condition the tide is in, it will be changing within a matter of hours . . . at best six, at worst any moment. Dual moons make such calculations difficult even for one who knows how to make them, which Bronwyn does not, and neither, apparently, does Basseliniden.

In spite of their best efforts and most fervent hopes, the tide turns early. And, as Basseliniden fears, they had been at low tide. Soundlessly and steadily, the water above the shoal deepens and Bronwyn feels the ship almost imperceptibly begin to shift. Then, with a groan, it slides from the sandbar into the deeper surrounding water. It does not right itself, however, and the deck remains steeply slanted to port. Instead, and to the princess’s acute distress, the ship continued to settle into the water until the small waves began to lap at the breach in the bulwark.

“We’re sinking!”

“We certainly are.”

“What’re we going to do?”

“We’ve got to get the raft launched before the ship carries it under, and us with it.”

There is a sudden rumbling, hissing sound and thick white clouds burst from every seam and opening.

“What’s happening?” cries the princess.

“Well, something good, for what it’s worth: the water’s put out the fire.”

“Well, that’s wonderful news, isn’t it?” she replies sarcastically. “How’re we going to launch the raft? It’s still jammed into the bulwark.”

“It’s almost free. If we can cut that piece there loose, it’ll slide right off the deck.”

The captain is perfectly correct: a single blow from Bronwyn’s axe splinters the remaining wreckage and she is only just able to leap back as the raft thunders from the deck and into the water with a splash that soaks them both.

“Quickly now!” cries Basselinden, unnecessarily. “Onto the raft! The ship’s going down!”

Bronwyn vaults the bulwark and would have landed with both feet squarely on the raft have it been beneath her. She surfaces spitting, choking, gagging and flailing for a grip upon the raft. Unless one counts the time she waded and swam a short distance in Stuckney Bay, just downstream from Glibner, this is the first time in Bronwyn’s life that she has found herself, willingly or otherwise, immersed in seawater. She is immediately conscious of only two things: that she feels as though she is suspended above a bottomless black abyss, which for all practical purposes she is, and that she is swallowing a liquid that has been home and shelter to countless generations of sealife, as well as their toilet and graveyard, and how many hapless seamen and travelers are dissolved in the very water she is now inhaling? She hates to think.

Basseliniden, who has made a much more successful transfer from ship to raft, pulls the sodden and disgusted princess aboard. She shivers and spits.

“There she goes!” he cries, pointing behind her. Bronwyn turns in time to see the
Sommer B.
slip from the sandbar that had trapped her.

“No she doesn’t,” the princess replies, for the ship, after coasting for a few yards, settles until it reaches an equilibrium, its deck awash and only the remaining masts and deckhouse roofs showing above the waves.

“Well, what d’you know about that?” says the captain, a little awestruck.

“What’s
that
?” asks Bronwyn, indicating a point just beyond the now nearly invisible ship.

“What’s what?”

“Over there, see it? Doesn’t it look like someone in a small boat or on a raft?”

The coincidence would be ridiculous and the captain says as much.

“No, look! I’m sure of it! They’re waving a flag or something!”

“What
is
this? A convention of castaways?”

“Who are they?” she asks, ignoring the sarcasm.

“ ‘Who is it?’ might be a better question. There’s only one person.”

Whoever it is has evidently just taken notice of the captain and the princess; Bronwyn sees a dark figure erect itself and begin semaphoring with its arms. The fellow castaway is still much too far away to be more than a mere silhouette against the leaden sea and sky.

“Can we get to him?” she asks, taking off her wet jacket and waving it in broad circles around her head, in answer to the stranger’s signals. The cheap sailor’s blouse she wore beneath clings to her like wet tissue and she shivers in the light breeze, although the air itself is warm.

“I don’t see how. We’ve no way yet of either steering or propelling the raft.”

The problem is a moot one as it relates to the princess and ber companion; once the distant figure perceives their answering signals
,
he or she promptly throws up a ragged-looking sail. Although the breeze is only a very mild one, the stranger immediately begins to draw perceptibly closer.

“Well, he certainly knows how to sail,” says Basseliniden, impressed.

“I hope he has some food,” murmurs the princess hopefully.

It is something like half an hour before the stranger approaches Bronwyn’s refuge, riding up and down the long, low swells like a toboggan.

“You know,” says the captain, “that figure looks uncannily familiar.”

“It does indeed. In fact, it should. It’s Professor Wittenoom.”

“It cann’t be!”

“Why not?”

“Well, he’s . . . I don’t know . . . I mean,
Wittenoom?”
he stammers, as though that word explained everything. In fact, it did. The last person one might expect to meet adrift in the midst of the South Mostaza Sea would be the cadaverous, unworldly chief scientist of the Londeacan Academy of Sciences.

“What happened to the
Smiling Scrod
?” the captain wonders aloud. “Did the entire fleet go down in that storm?”

“I haven’t given the other ships a single thought,” replies the horrified princess. “Do you think that they might have? What’ll we do if they did?”

“I don’t know,” says Basseliniden seriously. “We’ll just have to see.”

The captain begins waving his own jacket at the approaching waif, while the princess had completely forgotten about the professor and his plight.

Holy Musrum, What if the fleet is lost? What will I do then? Without Thud. Without Gyven, without the Baron, without the Duke, without my army . . . what am I to do?
Sue
Payne and Ferenc?

By now she can hear the thin, reedy shouts of Wittenoom who, apparently, has finally recognized his fellow castaways. After a few more moments, his raft draws to within a few yards of the princess’s. The professor deftly strikes his sail, which Bronwyn now sees is nothing more than a large blanket, and coasts to a halt.

“Hello, princess!” he shouts cheerily in greeting. “Hello, Captain Basseliniden! How are you?”

“Hello, yourself,” replies the captain. “What happened to your ship?”

“My ship? Oh, that really
is
unfortunate. Did you know that we were hit by a monstrous tempest? It was terrible!”

“Yes, we rather guessed.”

“It was the worst I’ve seen since aught aught.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know if I can adequately explain it to you. All I can remember is a great deal of darkness, noise and water. Fortunately, so it appears, I’d thrown myself onto a hatch cover and is clutching its grid like a limpet when the ship capsized and I and the hatch cover are thrown free. That’s really all I can remember until daylight. I’d been wrapped in this blanket when I rushed onto the deck to see what all the disturbance is about, so I employed it, along with a little wreckage that’d been providentially floating nearby, as a sail and here I am.”

“It’s lucky for you that you know how to sail.”

“Me? I’ve never been on so much as a rowboat before in all my life!”

“Then how . . . ?”

“Simple aerodynamics. Elementary, really, though it isn’t strictly within my field.”

“Professor,” interrupts the princess, “do you know anything about navigation? Where are we? How can we get to land?”

“That’s ridiculously simple.”

“You know where we are, then?”

“No, I haven’t the slightest idea. I meant that it’ll be simple enough to find out. It just haven’t occurred to me that it might be useful to try.”

“Let’s get the rafts together, first,” offers Basseliniden.

“Excellent idea!” responds the professor.

By tying a light cord to one of his shoes (the princess having lost hers back on the
Sommer B.
)
,
the captain is able to throw one end to the waiting professor, who then uses it to draw to himself a heavier rope. A few minutes later, the two rafts are side by side and while the captain lashes them securely, the princess greets Wittenoom with a handshake.

“It’s good to see you, professor. Do you have any food?”

“Not a crumb, I’m afraid. I take it from your question that you’re a little short of provisions yourself?”

“Everything is lost with the ship.”

“That ship?” the professor asks, pointing to the
Sommer B.,
whose mast stumps and deck house still protrude above sea level.

“Yes.”

“Reached a state of temporary equilibrium, has it?”

“If you say so,” replies the princess, a little sourly.

“Well, then, if there are still any supplies on board, why can’t we recover them?”

“The galley and its storeroom are under water, for one thing.”

“So?”

“And the ship is likely to sink any second, for another.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. If is going to sink suddenly it would have by now, I would say.”

“You’re not suggesting that we try to get back aboard it, are you?” asks the horrified princess.

“Why not? Are you suggesting that we starve, instead?”

“Of course not!”

“Well then, there you are!”

“What’re you suggesting?” puts in Basseliniden.

“Surely there must be a large quantity of canned and preserved goods that haven’t been harmed by their brief immersion. It should be simple enough to recover them.”

“Simple enough for whom?”

“Why, you, surely, captain,” answers the professor with some surprise. “Who else?”

“Who else?” repeats Basseliniden.

“If there’s a chance that there
is
food that we can use,” puts in Bronwyn, “I think you should try and get it.”

“You do, eh? Well, you can just forget it.”

“What do you mean?”

“What did it sound like?”

“It sounded,” says the princess with a sneer, “like a coward talking.”

Basseliniden stiffens and for a moment he doesn’t reply. “My courage has nothing to do with it. It’s just that the risk hardly seems necessary. We can’t be more than fifty miles in any direction, except north, from some shore. And these are busy waters, besides. Why should I risk my life for a few soggy groceries when we’ll either make landfall or be picked up in a day or two at the most? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“But I’m hungry!”

“Well, that’s just too bad.”

Bronwyn’s lips tighten and her eyes narrow to a pair of level slits that look like the kind of icy slivers one gets from splintering an emerald with a hammer. She can look intimidatingly frightening with almost no conscious effort whatsoever and without a second’s thought. That the captain is actually making a lot of sense never occurs to her, not that it would have made a lot of difference if it had. Basseliniden, who knows in his heart that he is right, nevertheless finds apologies and excuses rising to his lips, dragged there by the almost actinic glare of her face.

“All right,” she finally says. “At least now I know exactly where you stand.” Before the captain can defend himself against these unfair accusations, she turns to the professor, who stands in some embarrassment and confusion. “Do you think you can determine where we are? Even approximately?”

“Oh, well, I should think so,” he stutters. “It’s nearly nightfall; if the Polar Parallelogram is visible I shouldn’t have much difficulty in at least discovering our latitude with some accuracy.”

“Aren’t there some instruments you need?”

“It would be nice, of course, but I think I can make what I need easily enough . . . at least if twilight holds out long enough.”

The professor squats on the surface of the raft, folding up his long legs in a disjointed manner that makes Bronwyn certain that be possesses more joints and angles than are normally allotted a human being. He pulls a small notebook from a breast pocket and from it tears a single leaf. He then proceeds to fold it several times
,
until it forms a very narrow triangle. Unfolding the paper reveals a series of very equally spaced lines all radiating from the same point. Wittenoom then, with a stub of pencil, divides the spaces between the creases even further.

“You’ve made a protractor!” cries the princess.

“Yes, indeed! Now all that is necessary is to measure the height above the horizon of the indicator star in the Polar Parallelogram. The angle will tell us our latitude. I need a string and a small weight, however, to make a plumb.”

“Here,” says Basseliniden, pulling a short piece of heavy thread from the hem of his coat. “This and a buckle should do.”