WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Wind and a Cluster of Stars
Chapter 17
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The Big Yellow Cat, Heading South
32. The Big Yellow Cat
April 24, 10:30 a.m.
The ship was moving quickly through the Strait of Dover and into the English Channel.
By now, the weather had warmed enough that we could work during the day in just a single long-sleeved layer.
We were probably passing south of Plymouth around this time.
Soon we would turn the bow south and head far, far down.
The line infantry finally seemed a little more alert.
Still, seasickness was not something you adapted to in a day or two, so they still looked drained.
Lieutenant Shawn, though, was perfectly fine, leaning on the rail and making something.
-Clang, clang, clang
He had borrowed a hammer and was tapping at something.
When I went closer and looked, he was flattening a silver ornament about the size of a coin.
There was not much to do in that idle stretch of time, so I leaned against the mast and watched him work.
Sailors passed back and forth around us,
but he kept hammering the silver piece on the rail.
It looked like something meant for a uniform collar or a dress sword decoration,
and it seemed to have had some pattern on it, which he was hammering away.
Once the soft silver was fully flattened, he picked up a nail and tapped letters into it with the hammer.
'Cabbage'
Then, when the cat passed by, he took out a spare strip from his trouser hem, caught the cat, and measured its neck.
The silver piece had become a pretty name tag collar for the cat.
The tiny silver medal, about the size of a small coin, suited the yellow cat very well.
And because the edge still had the words '9th Regiment of Foot' on it,
it looked like some kind of army mascot.
Since Amy was the only one who called that cat Cabbage, the lieutenant must have asked her for the cat's name.
"Pretty, right?"
"Uh... yes."
"We had a cat at our house in Cambridge too. Betty. She was very cute."
The lieutenant seemed to really like cats.
The cat seemed to like him too.
No, more specifically...
"Ah, that's right."
The cat looked up at him with expectant eyes.
The lieutenant pulled out some salted meat wrapped in paper from his coat.
The cat's amber eyes gleamed, drawn by the smell.
He sliced a thin strip off the hard salted meat with his knife and put it in his mouth.
Then he rolled it around and softened the meat in his mouth.
"Here."
After that, he took it back out, shredded it with his fingernails, and fed it to the cat.
The cat ate it eagerly, even licking its lips like it was delicious.
"It is eating that again."
I was so dumbfounded that the words slipped out before I knew it.
Whether I said anything or not, Lieutenant Shawn and the yellow cat went on enjoying their time together.
...
1:00 p.m.
After a light lunch, I was leaning on the rail, taking in the wind.
Then I saw something small and fast jump out from a bundle of ropes and dart between wooden barrels on deck.
I thought I might have seen wrong, so I shook one of the barrels.
Sure enough, a brown rat shot out in panic.
"Look at that!"
The line infantry got excited and started jabbing rifle barrels around wildly.
"I'll catch it!"
"Aah! Don't shoot!"
I jumped in and stopped them, worried their bullets would scar the ship.
In the chaos, the rat slipped back into a gap in the rope bundle.
"There's a rat! Boatswain, close the hatch!"
"Aye aye, sir!"
Zenon quickly shut the hatch leading below deck.
"Deckhands! Cover the grating!"
"Yes, sir!"
Two deckhands rushed over with canvas, spread it out, and blocked the upper-deck grating that opened down to the lower deck.
"Line infantry!"
"Infantry reporting!"
Not to be outdone, Lieutenant Shawn called in his men.
"Block the path to the stern!"
For something so small, the line infantry packed together in a row and blocked off the deck.
Now all that was left was catching it.
"Looks like it got mixed in with yesterday's cargo. Or maybe these gentlemen brought it as a pet."
Having a rat on board did not feel good at all,
so I grumbled and shoved the rope bundle with my foot.
The rat bolted out again.
It was only a small rat, and it ran right past the kitten.
"Get it, cat!"
But the cat only watched and did not move at all.
Lieutenant Shawn and bored soldiers had kept feeding it,
and its belly was unbelievably stuffed.
It was my first time learning that, unlike people, a cat's belly can puff out to the sides too, not just forward.
With everyone watching helplessly, the rat ran in circles for a long time looking for a place to hide, then slipped into a pile of materials.
"I thought someone said cats do not eat much and are good at catching rats."
I pressed the point at the person next to me, too stunned to believe this.
Amy's face turned red with embarrassment.
The cat was making her lose face.
This time, the sailors moved the pile and forced the rat out again.
"Amy!"
"Eeeh!"
Amy let out a whiny sound, grabbed a broom, and ran in.
After smacking the circling rat a few times, she finally caught it,
then swung the limp rat hard sideways and flung it into the sea.
"Oh, Captain, you have a fine cat.
Looks like the big yellow cat catches rats better than the little yellow cat."
Zenon made a surprisingly refined joke.
...
After the commotion settled, I was idly reading a navigation book in the captain's cabin.
The rear window was open, and the steady sound of waves came in. I looked outside,
and a massive galley was overtaking our ship.
I quickly opened the cabin door, ran through the corridor, went up the stairs, and stepped onto the upper deck, where a truly startling sight unfolded.
To the beat of drums, rows of oars slammed into the sea all at once with a roaring splash,
and with that power, the galley shot past at impressive speed.
Its near-flat bottom and broad flat deck gave room for rowers,
and with many of them pulling huge oars, the ship gained quick acceleration
and could move even in calm, windless water.
Another similar galley followed behind it.
From the way countless oars in a line moved in complete unison,
it was obvious those rowers were highly trained.
Ottoman Turkish flags were fluttering from the masts, and now and then we could see turbans,
so these were clearly Islamic merchants.
Once the ships built enough speed and the sails caught wind,
the rowers raised their oars together to reduce water resistance.
The unified motion and the sheer presence of those giant hulls were truly remarkable.
The two galleys drove forward with surprising agility for such huge bodies,
and before long, they vanished beyond the horizon.
Lieutenant Shawn and the line infantry also stood there, staring at those exotic ships in a daze.
33. Heading South
April 26, 8:00 a.m.
It was the second day since we had started heading south.
Whenever the weather was good, Zenon made the sailors work without exception,
and today, from morning on, he had them splash water over the deck, scrub it with deck stones, and clean it with brushes.
If nothing special happened, scrubbing the deck clean every day was routine.
The line infantry slept in late, and not one soldier was out yet.
They seemed to be sleeping more and more.
As if they were getting sluggish, maybe lazy.
At least they were not causing trouble, so maybe that was fortunate.
"Cabbage! Get down here!"
The yellow cat was climbing up the sailcloth of the mainsail.
Its claws were quite sharp, so climbing thick sailcloth like that was probably easy.
Amy climbed the rope ladder to pull the cat down.
Then, by chance, she leaned on the starboard rail
and saw a black speck moving up and down against the blue sky.
It gradually got bigger and took the shape of a bird,
and it looked like it was barely flying from exhaustion.
Since we were still not close to land while moving along our route, the bird's target
was probably this ship.
Sometimes ships gave birds a place to rest.
But that black bird, flapping unsteadily, almost reached the ship,
then dropped into the sea like a dive.
It had spent all its strength just before arriving.
I looked down.
Luckily, it was a seabird, and it floated back up.
If it stayed there, it would be easy prey for a seal or a shark, so I threaded a basket onto a harpoon
and scooped up the drifting seabird.
The black seabird was pulled up smoothly and set down on the rail.
It was only a little bigger than a fist, and it was not the kind of bird that lived in European farmland or bushes.
"Where did you come from?"
It had a white body, and black markings started from its forehead, giving it a sleek look.
There were no islands around here,
so maybe it had been trying to cross the Atlantic and reach land.
The seabird sat on the rail and spent some time resting while smoothing its ruffled feathers.
Its long black tail feathers looked like a tailcoat, true to its name, and
its pale pointed beak made it clear it lived by catching fish.
I quickly went to the stern rail and took some dried deep-red sardine flesh hanging there.
When I held out the fish, the bird did not eat and stepped back two paces.
I put it down nearby again, but it did not even glance at the sardine.
I sketched the sleek bird on the inside cover of the book I had been reading.
The nameless seabird kept preening in that same spot until I finished the charcoal sketch.
Using the back of its beak, it spread and straightened each feather, restoring its gloss.
After resting enough, the bird watched me for a moment, then fluttered off toward land again.
...
10:00 a.m.
Something heavy got caught in the net we had cast, and the sailors made a huge fuss.
What came up in the tangled net after all that straining was not a fish.
"It's a turtle, a turtle."
One sea turtle, a green turtle, came up onto the deck along with a few horse mackerel.
Even at a glance, it was easily over a meter long.
"But why is it called a green turtle?"
Because it was common, sailors knew a lot about this kind of sea turtle.
Still, this one was rather dark, not green-looking at all.
*(In Korean it is called sea turtle, but in English it is called green turtle.)
"That is because the oil made by boiling that turtle is green."
Experienced Zenon gave the reason.
"Today's lunch is going to be excellent. We can make a fine stew with turtle meat."
I was not used to the idea, so I felt some distance from it.
But when I thought about it, livestock meat and fish were all meat in the end, and suddenly I was curious about the taste.
Besides, for everyone's health, we needed fresh meat instead of salted meat.
"Urgh!"
The sailors worked together to flip the turtle on its back so it could not escape.
Then they quickly cut its neck and killed it.
But the real problem started there,
because the cook had never cleaned a turtle before, so he was clumsy at every step.
He drove a chisel between the belly plates and finally got the shell off, then carved out the meat inside.
By then, the cook looked like a butcher, covered in blood.
The turtle bled an enormous amount,
so much that the deck was drenched as if it had died cursing us.
The turtle meat was removed and put into baskets.
There was not as much meat as expected.
Still, the meat looked like chicken, only with a deeper red color.
They hauled seawater, washed and trimmed it, and Amy took it and chopped it into the stew.
Amy also said it was her first time with turtle meat,
but brushed it off, saying, "Meat is all the same, isn't it?"
Soon the finished stew tasted excellent.
The turtle meat had texture, and in some ways it felt like chicken,
but in stew it gave off a rich aroma and deep savoriness.
I emptied a bowl in no time.
Lieutenant Shawn and the line infantry also ate it well without even asking what kind of meat it was.
...
April 29, 2:00 p.m.
With Lisbon not far away, one small incident broke out.
I was counting ammunition in the magazine when I heard noisy commotion from the cargo hold.
I left the magazine, passed through the corridor, and stepped into the hold.
Six or seven line infantrymen had just shoved Amy aside by force
and were openly drinking the loaded whiskey.
"What do you think you're doing!"
The issue was not the liquor itself, but that they had laid hands on a ship officer.
Amy stood in the corner and started crying in hurt and sadness.
She had clearly tried to stop them, and the line infantry had rushed the crates as a group anyway.
"What exactly are you doing! Didn't you make a clear promise with me!"
Whether I shouted or not, some of these men kept drinking straight from the bottle.
Had they not been given beer too?
Maybe they had decided that if they were getting scolded anyway, they might as well drink first.
I could not openly berate guests too harshly, so I was trying to keep at least basic courtesy,
when Lieutenant Shawn arrived.
Lieutenant Shawn must have thought the scene was a complete disgrace.
Amy was sniffling, half-spilled whiskey bottles were rolling on the floor, and soldiers holding bottles were frozen in place...
Shawn's face turned red.
"You could have just asked, why cause this kind of disaster..."
I made my point plainly.
"Corporal!"
Lieutenant Shawn shouted for the corporal.
But the corporal did not come, maybe because he did not hear, and that only made the lieutenant angrier.
"Corporal!!!!!!!!"
It seemed he truly felt humiliated.
-Tak tak tak tak
Soon, running footsteps started echoing from the corridor.
"What are you doing! Stealing liquor in plain sight?! And you still call yourselves Redcoats?!"
Lieutenant Shawn's yell thundered through the not-so-large hold.
The corporal who arrived looked to be in his mid-thirties, the oldest among them,
and he looked confused at what he saw.
"Theft. Punish them!"
Lieutenant Shawn stormed out, fuming.
The corporal briefly greeted me, touching the brim of his hat with his fingers,
then said quietly to the soldiers,
"Follow me."
Soon after, the sound of something like firewood being split with a blunt axe started coming from the deck above.
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