WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Wind and a Cluster of Stars

Chapter 28

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Sunset

50. Sunset

How many sailors could there even be in this little town?

There were probably plenty of men who worked as sailors, but the problem was how few of them were British.

Hiring sailors of another nationality when we could not even communicate was a problem in itself.

And after getting hit this badly once, I understood it even more clearly. A crew that shared one language was better.

But this place was far from Britain, and the town itself was small.

Most sailors stayed with their ships and worked. In a place like this, they were rarely in taverns or inns.

In a big city like London, even tiny taverns were full of people looking for ship work and people trying to hire sailors.

Zenon and Colton took this problem on.

It was a heavy burden for them.

"Captain, come take a look. We found someone worth considering."

Zenon looked like his old migraine was coming back.

He had the duty and responsibility to fill the crew, so this had to be a bigger headache for him than for me.

Around the time the drinking party was breaking up, Zenon and Colton found candidates in another tavern.

Candidates?

If they were truly useful sailors, the boatswain would hire them on his own authority, would he not?

I politely greeted the lieutenant, who was wiping his mouth with proper manners, and stepped out.

I left the rest to Amy.

"Amy, handle what comes next. And take care of the bill."

"Hehe!"

"Did you understand?"

"Heh-"

Instead of answering, she just gave me a vacant smile and swayed. It worried me a little...

Still, she would probably manage somehow.

...

"Huh...?"

The two sailors "on the shortlist" were at the table in front of me, faces bright red, cheeks nearly pressed to their plates.

Still, one of them had his eyes open and was holding a fork, as if investigating what material the table was made of.

The tavern was dark even in daylight, with a low ceiling, and filthy.

The walls were smeared with grease and stains, and the place smelled bad.

And judging by the cheap sherry they were drinking, they seemed broke.

In a corner by the fireplace, a sewer rat twitched its nose and sniffed the air.

"These two are all we've got?"

"We still haven't checked every place. It's not like there are only one or two taverns.

But the owner said these two are probably it."

Truthfully, I did not like it.

But if we lacked manpower, ship work would become difficult. That was obvious, so every single person mattered.

"Still, these fellows are something else."

This was what Zenon heard from the tavern owner.

After finishing a contract, they apparently blew all their wages at once.

They rented three carriages, burned their hat in one, burned a cigarette case in another, and rode around town in the third. (There really were cases like this.)

The other one held an African-style rite to comfort the soul of a dead sailor.

He scattered dozens of casks of rum and ship's biscuits into the sea.

"They're completely insane!"

"Hey, these guys aren't criminals, are they? They're magnificent fellows, hahaha!"

Only Colton admired their spirit.

Maybe he thought they were better than him, since he was too broke to do anything like that himself.

"What kind of nonsense is that. Want to get hit?"

At the boatswain's words, the deckhand shrank his neck like a turtle.

"You two, if you want to drink again, you'll need work, right? How about a contract?"

-Snort

One passed-out sailor heard Zenon's words and let out a sneer.

The tavern owner answered in his place.

"Th-that man, debt. Thir-ty shilling."

He spoke in halting Dutch-accented speech.

"So they each owe thirty shillings? That's one and a half months of pay."

"..."

Zenon spoke a little fast, and the tavern owner did not understand.

"Thirty shilling? Thirty shilling?"

Zenon pointed at each man as he spoke, and the tavern owner nodded with satisfaction.

"This is insane. If we want to take them, we have to pay their debts."

"It'll be deducted from future wages, right?"

"Of course."

"Then that part is up to you, Boatswain. More than anything, I'm worried they might cause trouble."

One of the passed-out sailors snorted again when he heard me.

"That's my responsibility. Colton, bring the boys and get them onto the ship."

"Boatswain, won't you ask their opinion?"

"Isn't this already decided?" *

(*This kind of case was mild. It was common to just get them drunk and kidnap them, or drag them by force and throw them aboard.)

...

The sun was setting.

Crimson shards scattered across the beautiful tropical sea.

Behind the anchored Red Tea and Agincourt, the huge, flat, red sun was sinking heavily into the water.

When sailors had spare time, they helped repair the ship, and when work ended, they stayed aboard.

Other than that, they would spend their free time at ease until the ship was fully repaired.

They bought bottles with their own money and soothed the lingering regrets still left in them.

"Hehe."

"What are you so happy about?"

"We're seeing so many new things. Back when I was at Navigation School, Ceuta was the farthest I'd ever gone."

She still seemed half drunk.

I walked along a sandbar hardened as the waves pulled back.

For the first time, I left my footprints on completely new sand.

Maybe this was what adventure was.

A new world.

Beautiful, mysterious, and... the feeling of discovering something you could not put into words.

It had not been that long since people learned the Earth was round, so the world was still wide and full of mystery.

How proud and wonderful was it to discover something first, myself, anything at all?

Something no one else could do, something no one else had seen, and I was the first to find it...

"Let's go togetherrr-"

Amy's shadow stretched long behind me.

Now the whole world had become simple, crimson light and the black made by its shadows...

Yet even with just those two colors, this sea and this beach were beautiful.

The sun had sunk halfway, and it dropped fast enough to see.

The evening sun had dimmed enough to look at directly, maybe that was why it seemed larger.

Everything between me and the sun had turned into black silhouettes.

A single-sailed boat returning nearby had the sun at its back and "shone" in black.

Amy and I, until all light disappeared and we could no longer see, picked up wave-rounded golden shell linings and smooth potsherds that gleamed like jewels.

Treasures that would vanish when the sun rose tomorrow, and jewels worth nothing.

51. Resumption

May 20, 9:00.

[May 12, 9:00. Cloudy, westerly wind, strong breeze]

Engagement time: around 12:35.

Enemy: French 1,000-ton class 32-gun frigate, Pendant

Allied side: 250-ton class 14-gun fluyt, Red Tea

600-ton class 18-gun sloop-of-war, Agincourt

Damage: Red Tea heavily damaged, 6 dead.

Most food supplies and gunpowder unusable for reuse

Agincourt half-destroyed, 3 dead, 15 wounded.

Result: Frigate Pendant escaped

=================================================

Once the exact scale of the damage was confirmed and the ships stabilized again, I could finally write the log in detail.

I sat in the shade of a tree beside the waterway and wrote in my log on a wooden board.

Then I put down my quill for a moment and watched the shipyard workers shave wood.

On deck, I could still see Amy groaning as she dragged sacks of trash pulled from inside the ship to throw them out.

"Whew..."

Now that the ship had proper form again, I felt I could finally close this part of the adventure.

Since the repairs used relatively cheap pine with high supply, progress was quite fast.

Once a day, whenever we had five or six free hours, we worked in earnest on the outer hull.

At high tide we repaired the deck or prepared materials, and day by day the ship visibly recovered.

Burst and split sections were removed whole, rebuilt to spec, then fitted back in place.

Thankfully, Red Tea was repaired with pine in a similar color, so she avoided a patchy look.

For finishing, we painted again, and all the rigging and pulleys returned to their places.

It took a full week for the ship to look like new again.

The ship had been built just over a month ago, and we had already done major repairs.

I was busy in my own way, and the officers were busy in theirs.

I had to reassess and reorganize all supplies, gunpowder, shells, and everything else, while Amy had to worry over ship assets and food stocks.

"There's not a single grain of salt left!"

Amy, wearing a coral hairpin, shouted from Red Tea's deck down to me as I watched the painting.

Finding a matching red paint and applying it carefully again was important work.

"That makes sense... the waves probably washed it all away."

When I went below deck, I found Amy sorting food with the hatch open.

With the cook, she had been sorting out supplies that had been soaked in seawater and effectively pickled all this time.

Amy tossed one last sack filled with shriveled cabbage, onions, and apples cured in seawater.

Just like she said, in one corner there was not a single grain left in the salt sacks.

Even though they had been tied tightly shut, the salt took this chance and returned to its original home.

"Nothing else worth salvaging, right?"

"I thought we could still use at least some of the alcohol, but besides a few barrels of beer, everything shattered."

"Moisture seeped into the gunpowder and hardened it. It didn't reach all the way inside, so only a little from the core is usable."

At least this was the tropics, so most food was cheap, and that was a relief.

I covered repair costs with some of the gold dust we had, and bought food again with Red Tea's funds.

As expected in a hot region, salted fish and grains were very cheap, so we stocked plenty of high-quality goods.

Zenon recruited two more men, in addition to those two drunken sailors.

One of them was a red-haired Irishman, the kind of skilled sailor we needed most.

The sailor named McGregor had a distinct Irish accent and a sturdy build, and looked very dependable.

He was also similar to Colton, even in age and sideburns.

But McGregor had the better build and rougher hair, while Colton's eyes were sharp and hard, and McGregor looked a bit more simple and honest.

After talking with him a few times, I realized he was not naive or stupid at all, so I liked him quite a lot.

So we still could not fill twenty sailors (strictly speaking, since Colton was a deckhand, it was hard to put him in the officer tier. Like a squad leader, for example?),

but with eighteen, we should be able to sail decently enough.

Agincourt also finished treatment for the wounded and repairs well enough, and was ready to operate again.

So where would they head now?

...

I took Navigator Zenon with me and went to the Agincourt.

The sailors were vigorously scrubbing the deck with brushes and rubbing stones, and Captain Howard, his officers, and NCOs were gathered together in light conversation.

"Greetings, Captain."

When he saw me, Captain Howard greeted me with a very elegant motion, lightly lifting his gold-trimmed tricorn.

"I came because I wanted to discuss something. I'd like to know Agincourt's future sailing route."

"Ah."

It was hardly a major matter, but with that one exclamation, this noble young man drew everyone's attention.

"We're heading farther south. Karibib, or maybe even farther south to the Cape of Good Hope."

Since he obviously knew why we came, the captain gave us the route.

While heading south, we could receive protection from this warship.

"Red Tea plans to go to the southern landing area of Benguela. Could we sail together?"

"That won't be difficult. It's only natural for the Royal Navy to protect British vessels.

But you'll have to use the standard trade route."

What the captain meant was that we could not go straight to the southern Benguela landing area. We had to follow the trade route around the Cape of Good Hope, stay a bit farther from land, then turn toward the coast only after getting close to Benguela.

That was because their objective was to patrol the route.

It would take a little longer, but it was definitely safer.

"Then if you tell us your departure time tomorrow, we'll follow behind."

"Very well."

Thanks to Captain Howard's consideration, I also got another chance to look around the Agincourt.

"Sergeant Whitehead, show the captain around the ship."

"Yes, sir."

The tour was handled by the most distinctive person on this ship, Sergeant Whitehead.

In truth, I had never spoken with him before, but I found him special because of his clothes.

Most sailors wore white or brown, while marines, officers, and NCOs wore red.*

(*As everyone knows, naval uniforms differ by era.)

But this man alone wore green, and he stood out immediately.

Even the first time everyone drank together at the tavern, and whenever he passed by now and then, he stood out in green.

Zenon said he was a Greenjacket.

As if proving Zenon's words, he carried a very expensive, precise rifled weapon.

A Greenjacket was, exactly as the name said, a rifle shooter who wore a green jacket during operations.

According to Zenon, that meant an elite marksman, and in the field they wore dark green for concealment.

It seemed this sergeant took great pride in being an elite shooter.

Surely he had spare clothes too, as an NCO.

"May I take a look at your rifle?"

At my words, Sergeant Whitehead brightened at once and showed me his rifle.

I think I was right.

...

Agincourt seemed to be an excellent ship.

Its armor was thick and sturdy, and it had many compartments, so in an emergency, sealing these small sections could reduce the risk of sinking.

On top of that, this sleek hull and streamlined sloop-of-war were famous for speed and handling wind well.

Unlike a hybrid fluyt like Red Tea, this was a complete warship, with almost no cargo hold. The rest was divided into powder magazine, cabins, and gun deck.

That was why this ship could carry as many as 68 men.

"What do you think?"

Sergeant Whitehead looked pleased, wearing a proud expression.

"If I weren't an adventurer, I'd want to be in the navy."

I answered honestly.

Zenon, who had served in the navy, looked at me strangely.

Then, as if something came to mind, he asked the petty officer:

"Excuse me, when did you make sergeant?"

"It's been about three years."

"Ah... is that so..."

Zenon gave a little snort that sounded almost mocking.

That was when I understood.

Sergeant Whitehead was a sergeant, but Zenon, though retired, had been a warrant officer. *

(If you put it simply in Korean army terms, Sergeant Whitehead was a fresh young sergeant, and Zenon was closer to a veteran warrant officer with long service.

In the Royal Navy, warrant officer was the highest rank an ordinary sailor could rise to.)

"Uh... I failed to recognize you, senior..."

Word spread quickly, and soon every sergeant and warrant officer on Agincourt respectfully removed their hats and greeted Zenon whenever he passed.

...

May 21, 12:00 noon.

At last, Red Tea and Agincourt, which had been anchored for over a week, used the high tide to leave the waterway that had sheltered them.

After checking the ship from every side and moving her around, she slid well with no particular problems.

The repairs were done thoroughly, and I was very satisfied.

We loaded enough food and ammunition, enough water and materials too.

Now everything had become smooth again.

The sloop-of-war Agincourt left port first, and Red Tea followed behind.

This was the true beginning of the adventure.

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