Truth and Beauty 4-3

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“Ah,” said Jack as the sub-lieutenant entered.  “Mister Barus will be fetching a guest from London, who I hope will consent to be our surgeon.  Please see that he has a sober, responsible man to go with him.”

*  *  *
It was with a sober, responsible hand that Mister Midshipman Barus approached Jack’s inn some hours later.  His companion, a plain-faced, reasonably-proportioned sailor, had her long brown hair pulled back into the traditional pony tail, and Stephen saw them walk into the inn with a feeling of relief.  He had had an unpleasant night of it, wandering the streets with his belongings, and though his training enabled him to spot most thieves and pickpockets before they had even noticed him, he rather thought that he was to be congratulated on having lost nothing more than a threadbare pocket handkerchief, snatched away by the wind as he crossed Saint Croix street.  He had in fact visited the inn at four a.m., just to be sure, rattling the doors and peering through the darkened glass to see the night clerk asleep at the desk.  Stephen had not slept, though he had briefly sat on a few stoops, always moving on before a passing police officer could chivvy him along.

Thus it was with a feeling of relief not far from rebirth that he saw a young naval officer, his uniform marked with the same white facings Stephen had so recently seen Jack remove from his own uniform; accompanied by a capable-looking sailor equipped with a folding luggage truck; both of them discussing a doctor by the name of Russ.  “Excuse me,” he said, stepping forward, “I am Doctor Russ.  Would you be acquaintances of Captain O’Brian, of the Roth?”

They were acquaintances of Captain O’Brian, of the Roth: Mister Barus, midshipman; and Panzer, captain of the top.  In no time at all they had strapped Stephen’s possessions to the truck, along with Captain O’Brian’s chest, and they all three of them set off for the spaceport.

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Truth and Beauty 4-2

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Jack awoke to a genteel tapping on his cabin’s door.  “Just on seven bells, sir,” said his steward.  Jack had slept through the change of watch at 0400, when the starbolines came on duty and the larbolines retired below for four-hours’ sleep.

He yawned and stretched, then slipped out of his cot and stretched fully.  Finding his phone, he pulled up Roth’s muster book and located his steward’s name, “thank you, Bollwerk.”

“Yes, sir” said his steward, still on the other side of the door.  “Will you be wanting breakfast?”

“Coffee, please, in the great cabin.  Three eggs scrambled, or sunny-side up if they’re real, and toast.”

He walked into the great cabin, where the first thing he saw was the midshipman’s hat, still sitting where he had left it the night before.  He frowned at it again, but its presence put him in mind of the need to send a midshipman to the inn for his chest.  This, in turn, reminded him that he had to send a midshipman for Russ, which reminded him that he had no idea what Russ’s last name was.  Well, first things first, he thought as his servant brought in his coffee and toast, “thank you, Bollwerk.”

“Eggs be in in a moment, sir,”

Jack was pouring his second cup of coffee when Bollwerk returned with his eggs, served on heavy ship’s crockery.  The eggs were real, with soft, round, vibrantly yellow yolks that Jack prodded and then punctured with a corner of toast.  He dawdled through breakfast, enjoying the double luxury of being on board ship and having an unhurried meal.  In time, however, the eggs, the rye toast, and the multi-grain toast were all finished, and Jack found himself again frowning at the errant midshipman’s hat.

Eventually he went so far as to pick up the hat and look inside it, where he found Mister Carl Barus, Midshipman, Royal Navy, carefully written in ink along the sweat band, together with the double-underlined admonition DO NOT TOUCH WITHOUT AXPRESS PERMISSION, followed by several exclamation marks.

The passageway opened and Bollwerk appeared to clear away the remains of breakfast.  “Pass the word for Mister Barus, please,” said Jack.

“Mister Barus it is, sir, to report to the cabin.”

Jack was still working out the issue of how to address the issue of Mister Barus’s hat when the sentry announced the midshipman.  “Ah,” said Jack, when Barus appeared, flustered and fully uniformed, except for his hat.  “Mister Barus, I will need you to meet a friend of min in London, and bring him back to the Roth.  We are without a surgeon, and I hope that if we make him comfortable he will consent to stay as one.  At the same time you will collect my trunk, along with any dunnage the doctor has, and bring them all back to the brig.  Do you know how to charge a wherry to the Roth’s account?”

“Yes sir I touch my ID to the reader enter the ship’s - the brig’s ID then my ID then the tip sir.”

“Very good.  Give a 15% tip in absence of compelling reasons not to.  You know how to calculate 15%?”

“Yes sir times 15 and the percent button sir then the equals button.”

“That will have to do for now.  Be certain to get a folding truck off the bosun for the dunnage.  I don’t suppose you have a fare card for the London tube?”

Mister Barus blushed and shook his head.  “No sir,” he muttered.

“You can use mine,” said Jack, pulling it from his wallet and handing it over.  “Now cut along, you’ll need to be there by 1600 - eight bells in the afternoon watch.  And Mister Barus?”

“Yes sir?” squeaked Barus.

“This means full uniform, so you’ll need your hat.”

Mister Midshipman Barus received his hat, dropped it on the floor, apologized, fetched and dropped the hat again before it firmly and retreating.

“Bollwerk,” called Jack, “pass the work for Mister Greensteet.”

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Truth and Beauty 4-1

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CHAPTER 4
But sleep did not come. Thoughts continued to burrow through his mind, uncatalogued and disorganized, seemingly endless. Eventually he sat up.

Roth, having stood down to anchor watch, was now nine parts asleep. The only sound reaching Jack’s ears was the steady rush of the ventilation system. The only light was the mood lighting, faint and blue.

He swung out of his cot, his feet momentarily surprised to find polished wood beneath them instead of cool metal. At the door he fumbled with the latch for a moment then let himself into the cabin.

Light from the wharf drifted in through the stern windows. Jack freed a chair from its wall brackets and pulled it over to the desk, where his sextant was still busy synchronizing with Roth’s central computer. He moved the sextant to one of the upper shelves of the desk and sat, staring out the stern windows at the wharf. Eventually he turned on the desk lamp and began to look through the desk drawers and cubby holes, pulling out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.

Jack had never kept a journal, and was uncertain how to begin, so he took refuge in sharpening the pencil. Once it was as sharp as he could reasonably expect he found a rubbish bin and carefully swept the pencil shavings into it.

“It was a strange thing,” he eventually wrote, “hearing the bosun pipe for me. I’ve heard piping before but never for me - never did it mean,” he stopped.

Crossing out what he had written, he started again: “it was almost like watching a movie - hearing the piping - the familiar piping - and watching the hero walk forward - coming aboard his own vessel,” and, frowning at the word hero, he stopped again.

“People talk of an out of body experience - watching themselves do something - and till now I’ve always thought that was bilge water - but today I heard that piping and saw myself walk forward. And there was Mr G. and the other officers - saluting me. And how did I never realize just how many names a captain - even a lieutenant - needs to know. The muster book will have to be my bedside reading for the next several days or weeks.”

Four bells rang softly on the cabin regulator repeater. Jack put down his pencil and rubbed his eyes. “Four bells,” he said. “Good heavens.” He had written surprisingly little, given how much time had passed, but he slid the paper and pencil into one of the desk’s cubby holes, turned off the desk lamp and locked up the desk, pocketing the key.

Back in the sleeping cabin he slipped back into his cot. I must remember to send a midshipman for Dr - for Russ, he thought. “Good heavens - I don’t even know his last name," he said aloud to the darkness, "I’ve invited him aboard as a personal guest and I don’t even know his last name.”

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Truth and Beauty 3-10

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Before they had taken more than a few steps, however, Roth’s bell gave four double strikes for midnight. This quiet, almost genteel sound was followed immediately by rushing feet and shouting voices as the watch below came on duty. Captain O’Brian cocked his ear to the sound. “Are we not at anchor watch?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said sub-Lieutenant Greenstreet. “All such orders lapsed with the change of command.”

Jack looked sharply at Mister Greenstreet. This was true, of course; once Jevons was superseded most of his orders lapsed. Yet usually the second-in-command, now the temporary-in-command, enacted new orders to fill the gap. “Very true,” he said. “But now I am here, let us stand down to anchor watch. And we can have divisions tomorrow - there’s, there is no need to rouse the men tonight. We can catch the highlights tonight - bridge, engineering, sick berth - and the details then. Indeed, I have a guest coming aboard, I am hopeful that if we make him comfortable he may consent to be our surgeon, and that would be an ideal way of giving him a tour.”

In the cursory review of the Roth that followed Jack saw what he expected to see: a brig that was holding her breath for his inspection, lest any of her perfectly aligned valves might come adrift, or any of the painstakingly squared crates and barrels of supplies, stuffed into every free space, might reveal itself to be slightly out of true. Jack’s was a professional eye, however - he had been in space for most of his adult life and much of his childhood - and he pierced through to the essential truths behind the facade: Roth was an obsolete, largely worn-out transport with a reasonably happy crew and officers who for the most part knew their jobs, but had little imagination. Her armament, 4 GW plasma-arc cannon, might be enough to fight off one of the smaller French privateers, but there was no denying that Roth was no warship.

Her master engineer, a young man named Humphries, was justifiably proud of her engines, however. As Jack had surmised, these were Algonquin-Electric 375s. What was more, Master Engineer Humphries was entirely to his new captain’s way of thinking regarding refitting Roth’s fuel rail with independent, multi-point injectors. He had already retrofitted her engines with Caterpillar feed valves and Scotch-Weiss preheaters and exhaust manifolds, and was eager to get the most out of his brig, even if it meant trying something new. Roth might not have teeth, but if her engines performed as advertised, she could certainly run.

Well, Jack thought, having bid good night to his sub-Lieutenant at the end of their tour and retreated to his sleeping cabin, all in all, things could be worse. He took off his hat, coat, and breeches, hanging them on the wall. After a moment’s search, he found the light switch and shut off the light, and in a practiced, unthinking movement, slid into his cot. And, I suppose, not having a gun in my cabin - cabins - nor the pass to the magazine, means that my cabins won’t have to be knocked down when we go to quarters. He lay back in his cot and studied the mood lighting for a moment, then closed his eyes for sleep.

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