Free Web NovelChapter 9: A Crew of Professionals
The display was organized like a ship’s ledger. Names ran down one column, with details listed beside each one. Everything about its layout suggested it expected the reader to know what to do with it.
The Rose continued her steady roll beneath him.
James started at the top.
CUDJOE — QUARTERMASTER
Status : Fit for duty
Age : 31
Aboard : 2 months
Note : Crew disputes reduced by 37% after he introduced a ranking system for insults. Nobody remembers agreeing to participate.
He has successfully manipulated grown men using little more than his voice, disappointment, and eye contact. Further study is recommended.
Around his third week aboard, the original Calloway had noticed that arguments were shorter, tasks were getting done faster, and nobody seemed to be wandering around looking for someone else to blame.
That had raised a question.
He’d gone to Cudjoe for the answer.
Cudjoe had explained what he’d changed.
By the end of the explanation, Calloway was no longer sure how the ship had remained afloat beforehand.
He had considered the results, and written himself a note.
The note had been simple.
Ask Cudjoe first.
James had apparently inherited that instruction along with everything else.
GREY — NAVIGATOR
Status : Fit for duty
Age : 27
Aboard : 1 month
Charts : Standard Caribbean charts, personally annotated. One chart currently contains three separate conclusions.
Grey maintained his own version of every chart he used. The work had created layers of revisions, corrections, and corrections to those corrections.
Calloway’s memories supplied an example.
One evening, Grey had been discovered at two in the morning arguing with himself in writing over a shoal off Hispaniola.
Grey was losing patience with Grey.
The problem, it turned out, was that there were two shoals.
Grey had been right about both of them.
By morning he had fixed the discrepancy, updated the chart, and never mentioned it again.
James shifted slightly on the bed.
The bandaged forearm made him frown in pain.
He kept reading.
BRIGGS — BOATSWAIN
Status : Fit for duty
Age : 33
Aboard : 6 weeks
Note : Crew discipline maintained without use of the lash. Multiple crewmen became unwilling to discuss the alternatives.
Calloway had once attempted to determine exactly how Briggs maintained discipline.
He had abandoned the effort after discovering that grown men became visibly uncomfortable whenever the subject arose.
The results were easier to measure.
Nobody fell overboard on Briggs’s watch. The ropes stayed properly coiled. The deck ran as it should.
Many ships managed neither.
SAWYER — CARPENTER
Status : Fit for duty
Age : 47
Aboard : 1 month
Hull work : Completed during captain’s incapacitation. The crew is unable to determine where ship maintenance ends and friendship begins.
Sawyer treated the Rose like a ship.
He also treated her like a person.
Nobody was entirely sure where he thought the difference was.
He had names for parts of the hull. He used those names whenever he worked on them. More concerningly, he seemed to expect the hull to know which name belonged to which part.
Calloway’s memories supplied an example.
During a previous naval battle, Cudjoe had gone below to check on repair progress.
He had found Sawyer kneeling beside a damaged part of the interior planking, patiently explaining that the cannonball was rude and obnoxious.
Cudjoe had returned topside.
"Sawyer’s working."
That had apparently answered the question.
The repairs had been completed before the battle ended.
Calloway had consequently added the matter to his list of things not to interfere with.
The list was already considerably longer than James would have expected.
James would snort at the knowledge, but his jaw reminded him it remained injured.
He clicked his tongue and kept reading.
FARROW — MASTER GUNNER
Status : Fit for duty
Age : 28
Aboard : 2 months
Note : Maintains a catalogue of things that have fallen overboard. Several entries include commentary.
Farrow maintained beliefs regarding which of the ship’s eighteen guns could be trusted on any given day.
Nobody knew how Farrow decided which guns could be trusted.
Farrow certainly wasn’t explaining it.
Calloway had challenged the matter once during a prize action off the Windwards.
Farrow had advised against using one particular gun. Calloway had overruled him.
The gun had immediately misfired.
The loadmaster’s hat launched so far over the sea that witnesses disagreed about whether it had landed.
Farrow had said nothing.
He had merely watched the hat disappear into the distance.
The gun was never assigned to active duty again.
HOBBS — BARBER SURGEON
Status : Fit for duty
Age : 51
Aboard : 1 month
Record : 31 procedures, 27 satisfactory
Note : Has attempted to trade medical advice for rum on three occasions. Two were successful.
Calloway’s memories contained one incident James would have preferred not to examine too closely.
One time, Hobbs had been digging cannonball fragments out of a sailor’s thigh when someone noticed he was drinking rum.
The sailor had objected.
Hobbs had taken another swallow, removed a piece of metal from the man’s leg, and informed him that criticism from the table was unhelpful.
The sailor had elected not to pursue the matter.
Cudjoe had questioned the practice afterward.
Hobbs had appeared genuinely confused.
"Would you rather I spill it?"
The patient had recovered.
Hobbs had considered that the end of the discussion.
James sighed and moved on.
The remainder of the roster listed the general crew in rows.
Calloway’s memories had a face, a voice, and at least one habit to every name. Weeks of close quarters had made that unavoidable.
An hour ago they had been a number.
Now they were individuals.
That solved one problem and created another.
Sooner or later, James would have to go above deck and act like their captain.
Knowing who they were seemed like a nice first step.
He stopped near the bottom of the list.
KIT — CREW
Status : Fit for duty
Age : 17
Aboard : 2 weeks
Prior work : Fishmonger’s assistant, Port Royal
The boy’s reason for joining depended largely on when the question was asked.
Once, he had claimed he was seeking adventure.
A day later he had explained that a man sometimes had to answer the call of destiny.
By the end of the week he was describing himself as the founder of a future pirate dynasty and discussing possible names for his eventual flagship.
The original dispute had been more difficult to determine.
After some investigation, Calloway figured out it involved a fight with his father and a damaged pig pen.
The exact reason remained unclear.
The boy’s version became less reliable each time he told it.
What had started as a disagreement somehow expanded into a tale of injustice, betrayal, and oppression severe enough to justify a life upon the sea.
Nobody had the heart to point out that his oppressor appeared to be a farmer.
The boy himself was impossible to dislike.
He approached every task with enthusiasm, convinced history itself was watching.
The first time he swabbed the deck, he had treated it like a heroic trial.
The first time he stood watch, he had spent an hour scanning the horizon for enemy sails that did not exist.
Calloway suspected the boy missed home.
The boy seemed equally determined to become a legend before anyone could suggest returning there.
James closed the display.
He had inherited a carpenter who conducted lengthy conversations with the ship.
A navigator whose charts routinely disagreed with earlier versions of themselves.
A surgeon who had drunk rum during a cannonball surgery and considered the successful outcome supporting evidence.
And many more.
There were thirty-nine crewmen remaining.
At this moment they were somewhere above him, doing their jobs and, as far as he could determine, not complaining about their captain.
That raised a more immediate question.
Where exactly were they sailing?
Sitting upright extracted payment from his jaw first, then his shoulder, and finally his forearm.
He accepted the pain.
After a moment he got his feet onto the deck and stood. ƒrēewebnovel.com
You have been unconscious for several hours. It is encouraging that you are now capable of standing. This places you marginally ahead of several previous test subjects. Please do not mistake that statement for medical assistance.
James glanced toward the empty air.
"Wouldn’t dream of it."
He found his coat hanging from the back of the cabin door.
He pulled it on.
Then he headed above deck to find out where the Rose was sailing.
