SOLO III
Demon World
Part 036
Gail watches, Ada at her side. Some crewmen
grab long poles with hooks on the end. They snag the boat still
hanging outside the ship and pull it in over deck. It just barely
fits between rigging and rope ladders that go up from the rail to the
forward and aft masts. The four mates who hauled it up reach down
and unloop the lines from cleats on one side of the cargo hatch.
They let out line slowly as the boat is pulled further in board.
The boat is settled down on its keel and rolls over a little settling
against the ships rail.
The two mates with the boat hooks stow them away and
come back, unhooking the boat from it's four block and tackles.
The other four mates quickly pull out the slack in the blocks and tie
off the ropes with pegs on the rail. Then all six crewmen roll
the boat over and carry it over to the cargo hatch. The boat is
about as wide as the cargo hatch but longer. The settle it
centered over the hatch. A coil of rope is taken off a hook on
the aft mast and tossed to another mate.
Four of them take up positions by the cleats at each
corner of the cargo hatch with the boat between them. They pass
the rope back and forth. Looping it over the upside down boat,
around a cleat, then back again. When done the boat is very
secure and fixed in the middle of the deck.
Most of the crew is standing around on the fore
deck. They pull open a hatch and all of them go down a steep
stair to a sub deck. Gail sends her astral dragon in to watch.
The room under the fore deck has two tall narrow
windows on each side of the bow. Large chains come from the
window and lay in huge boxes fixed to the deck. They form up and
grab the chain in teams. One man in the front of each team goes
forward to the windows and grabs hold of large iron poles going through
links in the chain. The iron poles keep anymore chain from
sliding out the windows. Like pins. The teams pull against
the chains, leaning back. It takes a while but soon they get some
slack, the ship must have slid forward a bit, and the two metal pins
are pulled out. The two mates set the pins in slots in the floor
and rejoin the teams.
With a lot of 'hup, hup, heave' the teams start
pulling in the anchor chains. They feed them into the huge
crates. The links of chain coil up and slowly fill the
crates. Fairly quickly the anchors appear in the windows.
Each anchor is about the size of a man. Four men break off the
front of each team, move forward, and grab it by its post. They
lift it up, level the shaft, and pull the anchors snug against the
outside of the windows. The flukes of the anchor are flat and
cover the windows entirely. One mate breaks off of each, pulls
the pins back out of the deck and slides them through slots at the base
of the anchor shafts. The anchors are now raised and secure.
The crew moves back on deck. A quarter of them
start up the rope ladders to the aft mast, and another quarter up the
fore mast. The other half move to the rails standing by lines and
to the base of the masts, standing by lines there. The crews up
on the rigging reach the ladder on the masts and climb up to the
crossbeams. Some break off and crawl out on the crossbeams while
the rest continue up. Once spread out there are four men, two on
each side of the mast, for each crossbeam. There are four
crossbeams on the aft mast, and three on the front. Once in
position they are all laying down on the top of the crossbeams.
Legs wrapped around and one arm passed underneath. The free arm
of each is holding the end of a knot of rope that ties the sails back.
Down on deck the first mate looks around. He
checks the men at the rails, the group at the aftmast, and looks behind
him at the group at the fore mast. Satisfied everyone is in
possition on deck he looks up at the men on the crossbeams. Gail
and Ada can see the mate pointing to each with one hand and counting
fingers on the other. When he gets to the last one he looks down
at the deck and closes his eyes. He calls out "On the
Ready!" He has a booming voice, and it looks like he is trying to
bounce it off the wooden planks below him. Maintaining a cadence
like he's chanting he calls out "All hands steady!" and he holds his
arms out in front of himself palms together. "Go go go go!"
He opens his hands bringing his arms straight out to his sides.
Every man on a crossbeam pulls their knot loose and
the sails unfurl, dropping down to the beam below them. The men
on deck start pulling ropes fast, hand over hand, taking in the
slack. In one fast moment every sail on the ship snaps open and
is pulled taught. The air fills them instantly, and with a pop,
pop, popping of the sails; the ship leans under everyone's feet.
It begins to slide forward. "Secure all stations!" The
first mate calls.
Then he turns around, cups his hands around his
mouth and hollers up at one of the mates on the forward mast.
"You busted thumb, bucket head!" On the top crossbeam of the
forward mast on the left hand side, the mate closest to the mast is
still fighting with his knot. His part of the sail is still hung
up. "You got swab duty! Again! Now fix that sail you
pollywog, and get down here!"
Most of the mates have tied off and pegged their
lines. Two mates are still standing by the forward mast holding a
line and waiting. The Mate further out on the crossbeam from the
pollywog has to wait to crawl back in.
One of the mates walks up to gail and offers an
unrequested explanation. "Guzzler can hear every sail pop
individually." He hooks a thumb over his shoulder toward the
first mate.
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