One of the other two officers who were on the bridge laughed out loud and Jellicoe looked around angrily. Like himself they were dressed in the tropical uniform of the British Merchant Navy -- white shoes, white socks, white shorts, white shirts with epaulettes, and white cap.
'Something amusing you, Two-O?' he asked his second officer.
'No sir.'
'Then get on with your work. I shall of course expect visual bearings for position before we leave port. Not the radar range and bearings. There'll be none of that kind of slackness on this ship, d'you hear?'
'Yes sir.'
'And Three-O? I shall want you to execute a full stowaway search before we sail. On every one of those picnic trays called yachts.'
'There are seventeen of them, sir,' protested the ship's third officer.
'I'm sure I don't have to remind you, Three, that a stowaway search is normal shipping practice on leaving port. I shall want a signature to that effect from every supernumo yacht captain.'
'Someone looking for me?'
The voice belonged to a tall, blonde Amazon of a woman dressed in a pink Ralph Lauren shirt and shorts. Jellicoe wheeled around fiercely. Like cats and alcohol, women were never allowed on Jellicoe's bridge.
She said, 'I'm Rachel Dana, captain of the Jade.'
'Are you indeed?'
Jellicoe caught Sedeno's eye and stretched his face into a smile.
Rachel pointed to the largest yacht, nearest the bridge.
Jellicoe followed the line of her well-muscled, tanned forearm and a long pink fingernail.
'Very handsome,' he allowed.
'Isn't she just? She was built in 1992 to ABS Al and AMS Classification.'
Jellicoe tried to look impressed although he hadn't the faintest idea of what any of this meant.
She said, 'Normally we run with a crew of about ten, but for the purposes of this voyage, we're down to just three.'
'Really? And how do the, urn, how do the men find having a woman as ship's captain?'
'You noticed that, huh?' Rachel shook her head. 'There are no male crew on the Jade. Just us girls. We're an entirely female crew. You might call it the owner's little conceit. Like Charlie's Angels.''
'Outside the pages of Homer, I never heard of such a thing,' Jellicoe said brusquely. 'Well, well.'
'Anyway, I thought I'd better come and introduce myself. And I couldn't help but overhear what you were saying just now. Is there a problem?'
'Jack?' said Sedeno. 'Is there a problem?'
Jellicoe said nothing.
'If you still object to all these supernumeraries, I can always sign the way bills myself,' Sedeno added.
'Did I say I had a problem with them? I was merely doing what any responsible captain would do under the circumstances. I was voicing all the potential safety concerns.'
'Supernumeraries, eh?' said Rachel. 'That's what you call us passengers, right?'
Jellicoe found himself both attracted to and irritated by the woman in pink. Women aboard a merchant ship were always a distraction. Especially when they were good-looking women like this one. He saw that his officers had already noticed the outline of Rachel Dana's nipples on her cotton polo shirt. Not to mention the large and thrusting breasts.
'That's right,' said Sedeno. 'You see, we can't call you passengers because that would mean we'd have to conform to a different set of shipping regulations. We'd have to do things like have a doctor aboard, instead of making do with the ship's carpenter.' He laughed at his own little joke. 'So we call you supernumeraries. Or supernumos, for short.' His grin widened as he smoothly added a compliment. 'It looks like we got the super part right, if you're anything to go by, Captain Dana.'
'Will you be joining us on the voyage?' she asked coolly.
'I'm afraid not. Business here in Fort Lauderdale prevents me.' Sedeno extended a hairy hand and said, 'Felipe Sedeno, ma'am, at your service. I'm the shipping agent. And this is the ship's master, Captain Jellicoe.'
'Pleased to meet you. This is such a fascinating ship you have here, Captain.'
'Is it?' Jellicoe advanced to the window of the bridge, towing Rachel Dana in his wake, and stared gloomily down at the sculpted, almost sensuous flowing shape of the Jade. 'It's not much more than a glorified car ferry. No different from all the other roro freighters that come and go in this port.'
'Ro-ro?'
'Merchant shipping term. Cargo that can be rolled on and rolled off. I suppose we're rather more flo-flo, if you follow me. Anyway, beauty's not our strong suit. We leave that kind of thing to our customers.'
Mistaking Jellicoe's baleful gaze as admiration of her ship, Rachel Dana asked him if he would like to see round the Jade. 'Thank you, but some other time,' he said. 'I have business on deck.' Jellicoe turned to the second officer. 'Where's the chief?'
The second officer pointed outside.
'Supervising the cargo loading,' he said in a where-else-would-he-be? tone.
Jellicoe replaced his cap.
'You have the bridge, Mister Niven. I'll be on deck.'
'Yes sir.'
'I'm afraid you'll find us much less formal on the Jade,' she said.
'Oh, we're not so very formal, you know.' Jellicoe glanced warily in the direction of his two officers as if defying their contradiction.
'Well, I'd better be getting along myself,' announced Captain Dana, and she followed Jellicoe out of the bridge and onto the narrow walkway that led along the twenty-foot-high dock wall that was the Grand Duke's starboard side.
Under the watchful eye of a short, balding officer wearing the same tropical gear as Jellicoe, an assortment of stevedores and yachts' crewmen were drawing an 80-foot luxury sport-fisher toward the stern of the Jade by means of two pairs of headlines that were attached to the sport-fisher's bows.
'Watch that bleedin' bow pulpit,' roared the chief in a broad cockney accent. 'You'll have it through her arse. D'you hear?' He averted his eyes as the pulpit stopped a couple of inches short of the Jade's stern. 'Dozy bugger,' he muttered and then sighed wearily as he saw Jellicoe advancing on him with Captain Dana following on
behind.
The chief said, 'It's all right. Everything's under control. No damage done.'
'I'm very glad to hear it,' said Dana. 'I'd hate to get this voyage started with a lawsuit against your company for negligent cargo handling.'
Jellicoe looked around and shook his head. Already she was confirming his worst fears for the crossing.
The chief laughed wryly and jerked a grimy thumb at one of the port stevedores. 'Might help if some of these dozy buggers could speak English. This bloody city gets more like Havana every time we dock.'
'Don't tell us,' said Rachel, climbing onto the Jade's coachroof where a sunpad big enough for half a dozen sunbathers was located. 'Tell that bastard Castro.'
When she had gone, the chief frowned and said, 'What's up with her?'
Jellicoe sighed loudly. 'Just get on with it, Bert,' he said. 'I'll be in my cabin.'
'All right for some,' grumbled the chief, then scowled at the stevedore standing on the sport-fisher's deck, an orange fender the size of an armchair lying uselessly at his feet.
'Hoi you,' yelled Bert. 'Are you going to sit on that bloody fender or put it over the side like you're supposed to?'
The man looked up at Bert, and said in Spanish, 'No comprendo. Mas despacio, por favor.,
'You what?'
A bare-chested Dave Delano came quickly out of the wheelhouse, slid down the roof onto the deck, and, while the stevedore was still debating the purpose of the fender and the meaning of the chiefs words, picked it off the deck and lowered it over the starboard side.
Bert waved and said, 'Bit more. OK that's enough. Tie it off.'
Dave wiped his forehead, and said, 'Thanks a lot.'
