The Captain of a packet ram wrecked in the Vinegar Seas off the coast of Isidore takes account of his life.
Rated T for moderate non-violent gore
***************Author's note: I'm sharing this now because I think it stands alright on its own as well as within the context of a larger (non-nautical and not quite so consistently gruesome) MBT story I'm working on. Without giving too much of that story away, I'll just say that this is a side tale (or maybe a dream) that will play prominently in the development of one of the characters. Because it is an experience remembered (or dreamed of), it's more an exploration of setting, mood, sentence structure, and characterization (of both Captain and ship) than dialogue or plot. Captain's Tally is written in the present tense, whereas the larger story is in past tense. Your comments and questions will be most appreciated! I don't really know much about ships, so this has felt like rather a stretch. This is the first fiction I've written in over 15 years, so please be patient as I'm still shaking the cobwebs from my right brain. Thank you to Master Come Lately for the wonderful suggestions!***************************************************************************************************************
Captain's Tally
by WinkTabby
Driven deep into the endless maelstrom by privateers who deservedly met a grim fate three hours earlier as their intended victim's cannons rang frank and true, the wrecked packet ram Selenia Clover nears the end of her ordeal. She now lies crippled and split against an unmarked submerged sandbar 14 miles offshore of Hainault. Her valuable cargo of Isidoran whortleberry spirits and citrus fruit begins to spill from a grievously gaping hull wound. A storecrate bounces twice against her deck and tumbles into the raging white-capped sea, where it smashes open and sets loose hundreds of precious oranges to bob adrift like corks.
The handsome, stalwart Captain struggles to stand on the precariously listing forward deck of his drowning ship. Firing the last remaining round of his signalling flammagon high into the air, he lifts his well-cut jaw to the sky and anxiously scans the greenish flare-lit horizon for any sign of answer. None comes. He hesitates only a few seconds before pulling on his stormgoggles. In a final act of preparation, he quickly pulls a stoppered vial from an inner pocket of his seacoat and swallows a bitter draught of buffering potive, hoping it will meet its intended purpose of protecting his innards from the worst perils of the grim duty he is about to undertake. Hoping his boys remember to do the same.
As the storm rages relentlessly around him, the Captain knows that the only speck of hope for his packeteers is swift action that will likely rob him of the life he knows. He crouches and crawls against the fierce wind and tilt of the deck to reach the cathead at the ram's bow. With his feet threatening to slip out beneath him on the slick edge, the Captain briefly straightens tall his body and raises a muscled arm in sharp salute to the ship and crew who have served him loyally these seven years past.
With no further signs of irresolution, he peels off his heavy seacoat and dives into the multihued waves of the hostile vinegar sea. Deftly swimming around to the far side of the ship, he begins struggling to free the lifeboats that rest pinned between the sinking hull and the sandbar. Only he and two of his 48 man crew can swim competently, but even those two are nowhere to be seen. After freeing the first tiny boat, he waves and bellows over the storm's incessant screeching to the glassy-eyed packeteers on deck, instructing them to throw over a rope ladder and paddle for the lifeboat. A few of the fellows begin to climb down the ladder, but most remain on deck, paralyzed with fear. The Captain powers through the caustic swells and quickly hoists the first three drowning packeteers he finds into the madly pitching lifeboat. He hauls two more lifeboats free and pauses for a moment as an ominous growl arises from deep within the ship's hold.
The ram, beginning to lose her grip on the crumbling substrate beneath her hull, shifts suddenly against the sandbar and tips up at an impossible angle. Her mainmast, now fallen nearly horizontal, creaks a few times as it strains heavily against its crosstrees. Bearing the tension no longer, the mainmast snaps unevenly with a ear-splitting crack that echoes sharply even above the thunderous cacophony of the storm. A shower of splintered wood bursts forth from the shattered mast, tossing great showers of jagged shards skyward. Ragged, drenched sails flap uselessly as the ram breaks apart midships. The once proud lady groans her final mighty shudder and slips wearily into the froth, dragging down with her many of the crew who will follow her into the deep.
As the storm churns the ferocious waters, the hapless shipwrecked fellows wash away past the Captain in all directions. His gut wrenches when he catches the innocent looks of betrayed trust in their bewildered wide eyes as the current pulls them out of their commander's reach, and prays that his remaining hours or minutes will pass swiftly so he will soon be set free of this terrible burden. The Captain dives beneath the waves again and again, ferrying his beleaguered packeteers to the boats even as angry blisters bubble up through his skin's surface.
Nearly two hours later, he hauls a limp corpse onto a half-submerged plank. Looking around to take stock, he quickly estimates that far fewer than half of his crew yet survive to huddle miserably in the lifeboats, and the several worst of these will not outlive the hour. It is only after he stops moving that the numbing shock of his exertion begins to lift. The scent of the water, once a faint but irresistible call to an adventurous and daring life at sea, is now an acrid stench stinging hotly at the back of his nose and throat. The vinegar sea's abrasive teeth nibble and gnash at his immersed body, igniting exposed nerve endings and chomping deeply into soft, defenseless tissues.
The ghastly storm diminishes and vanishes altogether as suddenly as it first caught its unguarded victims at dawn, a lifetime ago now. The waves die down to a mirrorlike finish as the piteous whimpers of the lads in the lifeboats echo over the still sea. As the Captain struggles to pull himself onto a floating storecrate, a pair of inhuman miscreated claws reach in front and block his ascent. The attacker's oozing limbs are dissolved away clear through to the muscle in several spots. The distal bone of a shriveled finger pokes through pitted flesh where no skin or sinew remains to hold it back. Flinging himself instinctively back into the relative safety of the colorful waves with a shudder, he notes in a flash of oddly detached calm that this set of ruined claws appears to be connected to his very own arms. The foul sea water he has swallowed and inhaled bites yawning ulcers into the lining of his stomach and lungs as the buffering draught wears itself out.
Refusing to take stock of what further ravages the caustic sea has wrought upon the rest of him, the agonized Captain focuses his attention on a quiet splashing sound near the lifeboats. An approaching schwimmscavenger has begun plucking bodies from the wreckage. He whispers out beseechingly for the nadderer to please take me next. He feels the great scaled beast tentatively nudge its spongy snout against his submerged feet and begs silently for his end to come quickly. Preferring a non-living meal, the docile leviathan cruelly-kindly passes him by and raises an elegant sapphire dorsal fin above the surface as she veers seaward to deliver this day's unexpectedly bountiful harvest to the starving schwimmscaverlings who languish in her fathomless abyssal den.
Two green flashes illuminate the dimming evening sky far to the northwest. The Serenine Merchants' Guard? Help for his crew will be on the way now. Ignoring his surviving packeteers' shouted offers of help, the Captain floats on his back and paddles weakly away from the wreckage. Having fulfilled his duty by pulling every living man to safety, his humble last wish is to die with a shred of dignity and not allow the poor boys in the lifeboats to fuss over him.
Something is leaking through his stormgoggles now and his vision begins to cloud over as he feels the fiery assault strike into his vulnerable eyes. The Captain does his level best not to allow his tormented state and fading sight to interfere too much with turning his gaze again to the western sky for a glimpse of what he knows is his final sunset. The day has reached its end. A chill breeze flutters in from the north. As a crescent moon ascends to the realms above and the bloodied horizon swallows up the shimmering sun's crown, the Captain takes final tally of his life. He speaks aloud to no one in particular, but only to outvoice the persistent ringing that had begun in his aching ears. He doesn't recognize the hoarsely creaking rasp that he hears uttering his unfocused thoughts.
"Uninsured cargo: lost. Ship: lost. Souls: thirteen…eleven perhaps saved, and so many more lost. Back at home, only the dilapidated old stone house, the few scrawny burdenbeasts, a wife as frigid as she is beautiful who's got a knack for making me feel more lonely when I'm with her than not…and…and…there's something else I've left untallied…back home. I know there is… but this vile acid…it gnaws into my very wits through this gash on my head…but I know I yet forget something most important."
The boy! His dear toddling two year old son, the very remembrance of him the only little bright-limn in this dark isolated life at sea. He imagines his precious tyke growing up back in the old stone house to become as icy as his mother, offered neither affection nor challenge. It would not do!
The Captain swiftly flips over and fights through the biting waves with all his failing body's remaining strength toward the nearest lifeboat.