WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Wind and a Cluster of Stars

Chapter 10

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Opportunity, New and Old

18. Opportunity

April 15, 8:30 a.m.

Maybe because I was so tired yesterday, I woke up a little later than usual.

Outside the window, thick fog covered everything so heavily I could barely see a step ahead.

Even so, it was bright out, and the sunlight would burn the fog away soon enough.

But for now, the fog still ruled the morning.

When I opened the window, the heavy mist rolled over the sill as if it were alive.

I playfully stirred it with my hand a few times, then got bored and went downstairs.

Amy and Zenon had already gone out, and I ate a simple breakfast alone.

I slowly finished a little warm milk and bread spread with apple jam, then stood up.

...

The damp, cold air drifted toward the sea and left dew on the trees.

Playful children kicked the dew-soaked trees and laughed as they splashed each other.

A wagon loaded with milk rattled by with its bell ringing, and busy boys carrying newspapers or shoes ran all over the streets.

A few of them had soot-blackened faces and hands, so they looked like chimney sweeps.

With flat hats pulled low, round brushes and shovels in hand, and coils of rope over their shoulders, they moved about busily in search of work.

Zenon and Amy were at a sawmill near the harbor.

Maybe they had been out since early morning, because they were resting on a stack of lumber.

"Good morning."

When I greeted them, Zenon took off his loose white sailor's hat and bowed his head.

"You should greet the Captain too."

Amy grabbed that cat and waved its little paw at me in greeting.

"Hello?"

It was so absurd and funny at the same time that I just petted the cat once.

Then a brief silence followed.

They had come out early too, but found nothing useful.

Zenon smoked, I peeled bark off a piece of wood, and Amy simply stroked the cat.

...

As the sun climbed and the fog cleared, we passed near the shipyard and got caught up in a commotion.

A group of men in loose work clothes stood facing off against a man in ordinary clothes, probably in his late thirties.

From what they were saying, the men in those dirt-stained work clothes were shipwrights and apprentices, and the man in plain clothes seemed to be the one who had contracted them.

"What? Then you might as well burn the thing down!"

The sun-darkened shipwright with the solid build looked furious.

But the client was no pushover either.

"This is completely different from what I ordered!"

"You already checked the mid-stage inspection and approved it, so what exactly do you expect us to do now!"

This was the gist of it.

They were fighting over a ship.

At first, the client signed a contract with the shipwright and construction began, but things had gone wrong.

While the client was away in another region, his agent looked at the half-finished ship and approved continued work.

The problem was this. The original plan was to build it with teak, reduce the volume a bit, and lower the hull height.

Instead, they had made it into a standard ship assembled from ordinary pine.

The advance payment was not enough to cover expensive Southeast Asian teak, so they naturally assumed it would be pine, the usual wood for this kind of ship.

I had no idea how the message got crossed.

But the real problem was that half the total had already been paid in advance,

and the shipwright had already spent that money on lumber and labor.

"How can I pay the other half when this is different from the original contract! Return the half I already paid!"

But the shipwrights had their side too.

"That was advance payment, so it's done already! And your agent signed right here!"

The shipwright waved a work-start document in front of the client.

I did not know who the agent was, but how could he look at ship timber and know exactly what wood it was?

And how could he tell whether the ship was larger or smaller than planned? He probably thought things were going fine and signed, and that had caused this mess.

And now the ship was only half a day away from completion.

The client was close to losing his mind.

The ship only needed finishing work, but it had turned into something completely different from what he intended.

And on paper, there was no legal issue at all.

On top of that, he had already paid half.

What he did to show good faith had backfired on him.

The shipwright was also at his limit.

He needed to finish the ship and pay the remaining wages with that money, but the client refused to pay.

If he tried to sell the ship, he would never get the contracted price.

And it was not like it would sell overnight anyway.

They needed cash to live and to buy more materials.

My eyes shifted to the ship they were fighting over.

A ship with a faint scent of pine.

A typical fluyt in slightly reddish timber sat in dry dock.

If I could play this right.

After doing the math, I stepped between them and tried to mediate.

The client already looked pale, exhausted from the fight.

"Shouldn't you stop fighting here? This could go on forever. Drinks are on me, let's move somewhere nearby."

Without waiting for agreement from either side, I pulled the client to a nearby tavern first.

Maybe he was too exhausted to resist, maybe he trusted me, but he followed easily, and naturally the shipwright followed too.

Amy and Zenon trailed behind at a distance, pretending they were not with us.

...

Things were awkward between them, so they followed my lead without much fuss.

They probably believed I would somehow get each of them what they wanted, and they were smart enough to know I had not brought them to the tavern for no reason.

In any case, after a few glasses of brandy, they began to calm down.

"I have a suggestion. What if I pay the remaining balance and buy that ship?"

"Then what about my principal money?"

"That is exactly my point. What if I pay half of each side's loss?"

"Good grief, this is maddening."

The shipwright rubbed his face with his rough hand.

It was not easy.

"How much is each side's loss, exactly?"

"It isn't even that much, just buy it already... seriously."

"Then maybe deliver the ship the way it was ordered."

The signs of another argument appeared.

That "half" amount was about 90 percent of all the money I had.

Even if I had a little left, ships needed countless tools and supplies, and that would not come close.

And lowering the ship price was impossible when both sides were already taking losses.

So I ordered more brandy first.

"This is insane. Half?"

After clutching his head for a long while, the client finally accepted.

On paper he was at a disadvantage, so he probably decided getting half back was better than nothing.

"I can't keep doing this. I have to leave tomorrow."

Now only the shipwright remained.

He kept drinking strong brandy for quite a while too, then let out a deep sigh and spoke.

"Can you pay right away? I need money immediately."

"Of course."

19. New and Old

I drafted the documents quickly.

They stated that ownership would transfer from the previous client to me once I paid the remaining advance, and that the shipwright would complete the final work using the money I paid.

As they signed my papers, my whole body trembled.

That ship from before, that well-built ship, would become mine.

I felt like running outside and shouting in the street right then.

I had expected maybe a small brigantine or a Balsa,

but instead I had gained something much bigger than expected.

"Wow!"

Once the client took his money and left, and the shipwright returned to the yard for final work, Amy, who had been watching from a corner of the tavern with bated breath, burst out in joy.

"Amazing, Captain!"

For her too, this meant she finally had a chance to sail a ship that felt like a real ship.

"You argued well," Zenon said.

Zenon looked satisfied in his own way.

He had probably ridden many ships, but he would naturally prefer something sturdier and better organized than a Balsa.

...

"Ha, look at this! Amy! This is my ship!"

A 32-meter fluyt.

Small-class, but a 250-ton all-weather sailing vessel.

My ambition had been bigger than my means, so this was the best possible ship for me.

I walked among the shipwrights fitting the railings in dry dock and looked over every part of it.

Fluyts made of pine, meaning European maritime pine here, were versatile ships used for all kinds of roles.

It was small, but it even had a sterncastle and one deckhouse.

Inside, it connected down to the lower deck.

"Beautiful. It has a captain's cabin."

Tiny, but yes, a captain's cabin too.

If you went down the stairs through the hatch in the middle of the upper deck, it led to the remaining lower-deck compartments, rooms and storage spaces that could be used for many purposes.

If guns were mounted on the upper deck too, it could carry up to fourteen guns.

For now it was only a bare hull, with no tools and no sails attached,

but my mood was sky-high.

This handsome ship had the classic fluyt profile, narrow across the deck and long in the body.

Its rig would be two main masts and one auxiliary mast,

three masts in total, enough to produce decent speed.

Below the waterline it was painted red,

and now all it lacked was the nameplate for the stern.

"What should we name her?"

"Smoke of Habana."

As if he had been waiting, chain-smoker Zenon offered his idea.

"That sounds like a cargo ship just for tobacco."

"Then in my view, Miss Amy should choose 'Yellow Cat' or..."

Zenon grumbled after Amy shot his idea down.

"Both are terrible."

What I came up with in the end was Red Tea.

Not exactly what I wanted, but the pine had a faint reddish tint, and the red coating below the waterline made the whole ship look red overall.

Even though real red tea was called black tea.

"How about Red Tea?"

"It sounds elegant enough."

That was the response.

The problem was that no better name came after that.

So the nameplate was finally fixed as Red Tea.

"When will it be fully finished?"

"Today we attach the nameplate, rig the masts and sails, and place the lines, so it will be ready by tomorrow morning."

The shipwright answered in a slightly flat tone.

His tone made me uneasy.

He could not do sloppy work just because he was being paid less.

So I had a tavern worker send them a crate of beer.

...

April 16, 8:00 a.m.

At last, the ship was complete.

In dry dock, it waited for water.

When the water rose and matched sea level,

the dock opened its gate, and a tug pulled the ship out to sea.

As their final courtesy to the vessel, the shipwrights brought her right up to the dock.

That was the end of their work.

Then, with signatures on the certificate, she truly became mine.

"Small fluyt. We will need at least twenty crew. Zenon, take navigator and boatswain. Please handle crew contracts."

"Understood, Captain."

Zenon left right away to recruit sailors.

He would go around inns and taverns and gather people willing to sail.

First, we needed crew aboard before we could properly outfit and adjust the ship.

"Amy, from now on, take first mate and purser."

"Yes."

I boarded and assigned rooms on the lower deck.

The small room near the bow went to Zenon the navigator,

and the room near the stern, right beside the captain's cabin, went to Amy, the first mate.

I borrowed a cart from the trading post and moved my own belongings from the Balsa first.

It was only a few spare sets of clothes, survey tools,

and things like sea charts.

The rest of the rigging and gear could be moved by sailors later.

I told Amy to guard the ship, then decided to dispose of the Balsa first.

I had to sell it and secure at least a little cash.

...

"That won't work..."

The aging ship dealer shook his head.

Last time too, I had seen one rotten vessel left unsold.

As expected, no one wanted the Balsa, not new and especially not old like this.

I actually had to pay money instead.

I gave one silver coin to the tug for towing fees and came back.

"We should scrap it. I got attached to her lately, but there is no other way."

"I thought so. Figured as much."

I told Zenon and Amy we would scrap the commercial Balsa.

We walked to the dock where she was moored.

In front of the Balsa.

"How much did you buy her for?" Zenon asked, watching sailors move in and out, carrying usable items and sorting the lines.

"Just... about the cost of two expensive dinners?"

"A Balsa can vary by condition... but still, why buy a used one."

"The circumstances forced it."

Amy crossed over to the Balsa and kicked the bow rail hard.

The rotten rail broke off at once and fell into the sea,

and through that gap, Amy picked up a fleeing red crab.

"Did you see that?"

"What, the crab?"

"No."

"Ah, Miss Amy... well, she is spirited. Seeing her smash that."

"No. The mate really likes animals, doesn't she."

"More than liking... I think she is going to feed that to the cat."

"..."

After that, all crew and goods were offloaded,

and I waved to signal the tug.

The tug simply towed the little Balsa out to open water.

When it reached the limit of sight, holes were opened, and it slowly sank.

"It feels bitter... this feels awful."

"You got attached to her all this time, Captain."

Amy spoke softly, holding the cat that had finally been freed from its clothes.

...

April 16, 1:00 p.m.

We held the launching ceremony.

I could not do it like the perfume merchant I had seen before, so I simply bought decent wine, handed it out to the crew, and ended it there.

Zenon, the boatswain and sailing master, seemed pleased to have his own room.

It was still just a tiny room, barely enough for a bed that fit his body

and one personal storage box.

Zenon inspected the ship.

He unfurled the sails and dropped the anchor.

Amy checked the kitchen and storage areas at the very bottom.

Then she inspected her own room next to the captain's cabin.

It was no different from Zenon's room, really.

Her yellow cat got a basket in the corner of that room,

and the red crab, Crab, tucked itself into a carved gap in the bow railing and blocked the hole with its front claws.

"Total crew is twenty."

"You have a lot of responsibility as boatswain."

"Well, still better than a bigger ship."

He chose to see it positively.

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