The White Schooner

Two score yachts or more, stripped of their sails, bobbed in the blue jeweled marina. An air of hopelessness pervaded them at the best of times, despite the wealth lavished on their purchase, as few saw the ocean more than a few days a year. This was hardly that and few could look forward to more than a few years hauling coal or opium or fueling some peasant's last fire. As Katherine rowed through to the Stjörnudís they strained at their bounds like chained stallions but she was powerless to set them free. She'd known there had to be sacrifices. Everything had to pulls its weight here. She slid passed the last of the river junks on its return from her vessel. This last one had carried champagne, salvaged at vast expense, and four acoustic torpedoes. The surly crew had their money and ignored her as they spat into the water playing Western games of cards.

The white schooner's mainsail was up and rigged moments after her crash trained crew saw her approaching. She saw the headgirl she'd left on watch lower her absurdly long brass telescope and bark the orders out in Cantonese. Such an aggressive sounding language to western ears unused to its inflection. The meanings of its words changed with the tone in which they were said, much as in English it struck her. She pulled at the oars, heavy with the sweat of years of toil. Much as she enjoyed the clean physicality of rowing, the ever more parlous state of her back was not helped by the constant slapping of the waves.


Ljósadís sunned herself on the prow, she'd learned to grab what moments of leisure she could regardless of the embarrassment of company. Pearson, her long suffering but trusty first mate, did his best to avert his eyes as he stared resolutely forward from the wheel, plotting their path through the rebel mined harbour. Something about the Icelandic girl's appearance, not that he'd caught more than an unwilling, fleeting glimpse mind, obscurely troubled him. He was a man of the world but the girl reminded him of a painting more than a woman come of age. The answer struck him and he blushed before he had time to look puzzled. Katherine had long ago introduced her friend to her little box of wax strips, improvised from medical gauze and melted candles. They both found they preferred it that way.

Katherine clambered aboard. No less poised onboard than she was on land she still found the transitions problematic. The Chinese girls, refugees from the bombed out international school, nodded to their skipper as they busied about the deck. She had made a good choice although she still found their names largely interchangeable. The Lee Enfields, plucked from the brave but bloodied backs of men who'd need them no more, inconvenienced them little. Their natty blue and white banded Breton shirts had been her chosen uniform but the bandannas, and their fierce slogans of revenge, had been the girls' own invention. Rage alone could power this ship and of that, despite their youth, there was plenty. She was prepared to overlook the minor breach of discipline.

She slipped up to check on her friend. Dozing in the sun her cropped blonde hair was almost painfully bright. A discarded movie magazine lay beside her half finished fruit cocktail. Ljósadís hadn't heard of Grace Kelly, nobody had in fact, not yet, but no more improving literature had been to hand when they'd slipped from Vladivostok so abruptly. Katherine ran her salt calloused hand over the glittering brass rail as if her fingers trailed Ljósadís' arm but the sailor in her noted its smoothness. She'd been at pains to insist that such fripperies were the last, not first, items to merit attention while they were in port and their almost liquid sheen reassured her that the smallest cog in the smallest gear was shipshape and Bristol fashion.

The gull bright canvas flapped like freshly landed fish about her ears as she entered the wheelhouse. Pearson, as was his wont, made to step aside from the wheel but Katherine motioned him back to his station. It was a degree or two cooler in here. The looted tank armour degraded both her beloved boat's ambiance and handling but such precautions would prove prudent before they saw the dawn again. She moved to the still primitive sonagraph. It was a tangle of telephone wires and radio valves but she had done her best. On a whim she sent a ping coursing through the limpid waters, like an angel flicking a cathedral bell.
Pearson tapped a dial. "We have a head of steam Miss."
"Sometimes I think I do Pearson. Could you give a shout to Ljósadís...On second thoughts, I'd better do it." She rapped on the shot flecked window and the slumbering girl jerked awake and then grinned. She'd jumped up to take her chosen spot on the Bofors before she realised she was still nude. She shook her head at her sun befuddled silliness and slipped on her blue deck shoes before tripping lightly to the gun.

Barley cupped her hands round her eyes and regarded the heavy green glass, bowed like an old fashioned, or was that new fangled, diving helmet. Heavy formless shapes, like malevolent amoeba, teemed at the heads between the cliffs. A pod of whales perhaps, or more likely waiting Nippon submarines. She was glad the harpoons once arrayed for show round the officers mess were now racked here, close at hand. She sighed, how she missed the Ramilles, then pulled herself together. She brushed a hummingbird feather from the blue serge of her still immaculate blazer and straightened her tie.

The deck girls had completed their intricate pavane of departure. They made a pretence of manning the ropes now, a periscope would not reveal their life jackets or released safety catches. The Stjörnudís would make every appearance of innocently leaving the freeport under sail, in the hope that any attack could be evaded through an unexpected burst of steam. If it came to it the Royal Engineers manning the old Moorish fort on the head could offer some token of covering fire. They'd worked wonders in restoring the Napoleonic cannons to something approaching working order. Despite the odds Katherine remained oddly self confident. Naturally the Schooner had its own resources should some scuffling break out but she planned to keep her powder dry till engaging the main fleet of marauding Nippon battlecruisers.

The Stjörnudís slipped anchor, the rattle of the chain set her teeth on edge but her blood sang with obscure excitement all the same. Ljósadís tested her elevation controls. She wore one of the crews headbands now. Katherine hoped she hadn't guessed the meaning of the bandanna she'd been silently handed. Or, if she had, that she wouldn't take its suicidal bloodlust too much to heart. Bleak as the situation might appear on paper, this was only the beginning, of that she was sure.

She nodded her head and Pearson swung the wheel with a practised hand. A moment later than she was used to, the Stjörnudís slewed starboard. Despite her heaviness in the water, courtesy of the nuclear device in her hold, the boat was ever eager for the fray. On a beach still snake patterned with the skittering footprints of half a dozen laughing schoolgirls, a stately white Ibis stalked for stray fruit cake crumbs. It managed to maintain its dignity though to the locals they were vermin of a kind. Markov kicked the absurd bird aside in his haste to the water's edge. He raised his opera glasses, the boat was definitely moving. He nodded deftly to the weasel, hunched over the battered field radio, to send the prearranged morse to Japanese Central Squadron.
"What?"
"Send..The..Signal."
"Oh, right you are then, Guv."
Despite himself, Markov bit at his black mustache. Barley had done little to hide herself. She was usually more careful. Still, we all get lazy bones the day before we die.