A little bit of a cliff hanger on this one. I know how much you all like those. Hopefully the next chapter will appear on Saturday: Dawn

Stone 58 – The voyage

Jason sailed again two days later and made five more trips before the Moon Goddess was ready. Then the two ships sailed, one voyage in convoy to break in the new vessel, and then leaving on alternate weeks. This continued for two months, until Stone, or more properly Rayla was ready to make the voyage across the ocean.

Eventually she was ready. She would have been fine not knowing about the three towers of power, or how they had all come to this world. But she knew that Stone had a deep desire to learn the truth and the only way seemed to be making the year-long ocean voyage.

Stone had built his second ship mainly to maintain ocean service between the ports while the Sun Goddess was away for so long. During the time that there were two ships on the run, neither was full on a trip, but it seemed that when the Sun Goddess was gone the Moon Goddess would become lucrative. When the ship was finally laden with provisions for the long trip, Stone had a wagon load of gold put into the lower holds in a location only Jason and he was aware of.

The owner’s cabins had to be renovated. Usually these had been used for passengers wanting to make the sea voyage, and once it had been used as a jail. On trips with no passengers, the rooms had been used for additional cargo space. Now they were renovated with Rayla choosing the designs for the cabins that she and Stone would share, and Emily, now 11, picking the décor for the cabin she would share with Sissy. Jason would continue to room with the other mates.

The crew was young, mostly single men who had no steady girlfriend. Stone had announced that the bonus for a successful trip would be two gold … a fortune to a sailor. The captain was married, with his wife and four remaining children collecting a sizeable draw from the jewelers as long as it took for the ship to return, and for life if it didn’t as many people in town were suspecting.

There was a two-week period stocking the ship, including Doug, who was quite upset that the 12 mares he requested were not loaded. Instead there were 18 sheep and a ram to provide a steady meat source. Forty chickens were on board to provide a supply of eggs for the family and the crew. There were barrels of potable water, flour, even whale oil. The hold containing the animals would have to be lit during the day to keep the animals healthy. Three barrels contained nothing but limes. Stone did not want the ocean disease to strike, having determined that it was nothing but scurvy. After a week or two at sea the limes would be broken out and each seaman would get a quarter of a fruit each day. Stone announced that anyone refusing to suck their lime would not get their daily grog. Boxes of vegetables were also loaded as well as bags of dried beans and rice.

In all there were supplies for the two years of the voyage there and back. It was uncertain how long they would spend in the southern continent, but Stone hoped that they would be able to get fresh food while they were there.

Finally, it was the day to set sail. Emily had dozens of her friends at the dock, waving her goodbye. Jason noted that there were more than a few boys in the group. That was to be natural, as the girl was considered one of the beauties of the town, with her flawless chock-colored skin.

Emily and Sissy were enthralled by the ship and the voyage for several hours. Then Emily remembered the wagon trips she had taken as a child. Exciting at first, followed by a monotonous boredom of the same thing, hour after hour. At least on the wagons there was some variation when it came time to make camp at meals. But on the ship the flapping of the sails never stopped. Kookla brought them food three times a day, and they ate in the cabins. The food was tasty, but nothing like the meals that Cass used to make them. But Cass and Keeper were back in WestPort, Cass keeping the house, and Keeper acting as local agent for both the wagon trains and The Moon Goddess.

Stone was not bored like the girls. He had sailed on one of the shakedown trips for the ship, but after listening to Jason explain things when the boy was ashore, he knew he had much to learn about sailing. The first thing he learned was that his son was no longer a boy. He was a man and a leader, and his men listened to him. Stone stayed up past midnight the first evening to see Jason on duty and was surprised to hear the boy call out: “Colonel Stone! What is 342 and 219?”

Stone had heard the boy calling out math questions to his men, to keep them sharp through the night, but hadn’t expected to be quizzed. But most of them had gotten one- and two-digit numbers to add. Stone had to think a bit and calculate. “561,” he finally announced.

“That is right,” Jason called out. “Explain how you arrived at that number.”

“Well,” the big man said. You start at the right. The 2 and the 9 makes 11. You use the 1 and carry the 10 to the second column as a 1. In the second column you have 4, 1, and the 1 you carried, so 6 with nothing carried. The final column is 3 and 2 so 5. Thus 561.”

“Perfect,” Jason shouted. “You other men pay attention. You learn your numbers as well as the Colonel and one day you might be a rich shipowner too.”

Stone went to his cabin soon after. Rayla was asleep but woke up when the heavy weight dropped onto the bed.

“Our son is something special,” Stone whispered to her as he put his arms lovingly around her waist. “He is in full command of the ship right now, and the men love him and obey him, even at age 14. He knows the sea and it is his life. We were wrong to try and keep him from it at first.”

“Yes,” she replied. “But I was so worried about losing him.”

“Are you worried now?”

“No. Now if the ship goes down, we all go together. But I don’t worry about that. I trust you and I trust Jason. The two of you will keep me safe.”

“I certainly hope so.”

Two weeks later Rayla was at the rail of the ship when an off-duty Jason came next to her: “Are you bored mother?”

“No. Yes, a bit,” she said. “It is taking so long.”

“Well we only have 351 more days to the other side,” the boy said. “I’ll admit to being a bit bored myself. My longest trip in the past was three weeks, and most were less than two. There might be some excitement today. Father has ordered that the men start taking limes tonight. It will be interesting how the men take to them. They are pretty tart tasting.”

The family members had all taken limes the night before. Emily spit hers out at first, but finally agreed to suck it. Sissy actually liked it. Not so much for the taste as that she could leave the slice in her mouth between her lips and teeth, creating a green smile shape. Some of the men on the deck had seen her and realized that if a mentally-deficient girl could take it, then grown men should be able to.”

As well, the word of the new rule went out. Lime were handed out at lunch or supper, and the seaman had to return the completely sucked rind to the cook in order to get their ration of grog.

The result was dozens of men miming Sissy and holding the lime peel in their mouth as they worked, making the crew look humorously odd. But in the next few weeks no one showed any signs of the sea disease, and men started to realize that the limes were helpful.

One morning soon after Jason was ending his shift at 8 a.m. when he saw his mother and sisters watching the sunrise in the east. “Pretty, pretty,” Sissy said, causing Jason to look. It was the pretty red sunrise that indicated that there was a hurricane coming.

“Pretty, but dangerous,” the boy said before heading off to alert the captain.

Keenstone stared at the ominous sunrise. “Damn,” he said under his breath. He told the first mate to call all the men to storm watch. Then he turned to Jason: “Hopefully this will be better than last time. I’d hate to have to go back to port for repairs. Jason, I want you to cover the watch at midnight. I’ll command until then but will need to get a few hours of sleep before then. I want you to try and get a few hours yourself. I know it will be hard but try.”

Jason then went back to his family and explained the dangers that came with the pretty sunrise. The waves were already getting stronger and the captain had already furled sails on two of the masts. It was better to cut sails when the men were still able to get into the rigging. The winds were already picking up.

“What should I do?” Stone asked.

“Keep the family safe in the cabin,” Jason said. “I’ll try to bring lunch to you. There probably won’t be any supper, or breakfast tomorrow. I’ll bring biscuits you can munch on to keep the hunger down. I don’t want any of you out on deck other than an emergency.” He turned to his father: “If you have to come out, don’t walk freely on the decks. Always hold onto the ropes that will be set up. It is too easy for a rogue wave to knock you overboard, even someone as big as you.”

The storm worsened during the day. This time the hatches were battened well before the rains and high waves came, so there was no pumping duty to undertake. Jason sent Kookla into the cabins ‘to protect the ladies’ and took over the limited cabin boy duties himself. The captain and the mates ate at their posts, but the cook did make a lunch for Stone and family in the cabins. After serving the meal, including a sack of ship’s biscuits, Jason tried to sleep for a few hours, but was unable to do much more than doze with the storm increasing around him. He finally gave up, and went back on duty, directing the men in various tasks, and even going into the rigging. It was he who had the men in the crow’s-nests come down: it was too dark from the storm to see much anyway.

He relieved the captain at midnight, and Keenstone also went below to get a few hours of fitful sleep as the storm raged around them. Jason was still not strong enough to man the tiller, but he kept the helmsman alert and on course, cutting the ship into waves rather than taking them broadsides. Even so at least once a minute a wave would crash over the decks from behind, with some even topping the aft castle.

About 4 a.m., in the pitch dark, Keenstone gave up on trying to sleep, and returned to the tiller position, taking over from Jason, who remained nearby. The storm raged on, and several times Jason and the others on the aft had to hold onto ropes to avoid being swept away. Few men were on deck, and none in the rigging. All day the men had prepared for the storm, and most men went below to try and rest in the wildly swinging hammocks.

It was going to be a dark sunrise, with the storm surrounding and tossing the ship about. There were occasional bursts of lightning that showed nothing but the angry sea around them. Then, around 6 a.m. there was a flash of lightning while both Jason and Keenstone were staring ahead. The momentary light showed something huge, dark and ominous directly in front of them, and they were about to crash into it.