'Good morning, Mister Goosen,' Lewrie said to the Dutch ship chandler, who had contracted to do the survey. He was a square-built fellow in his early fifties, heavily bearded contrary to current fashion elsewhere, garbed much as Lewrie was, but for a wide straw hat on his pink and balding head. Reddish cheeks and nose, the sign of the serious toper… or, one who spent his days in the harsher African sun, and on the water, to boot.
'Gut morning, Kaptein!' Goosen jovially replied from his boat, an eight-oared thing nearly fourty feet long, with both a false forecastle and imitation poop, that had once been as grand as an admiral's barge, but had gone downhill rapidly in civilian hands. Goosen waved a wooden piggin at Lewrie, by way of greeting, then emitted a belch at him, which required a fist against his chest. 'Cold, sweet lime water. Ver' gut on hot days, Kaptein, but making die bilious,' he explained.
'What have your divers discovered so far, sir?' Lewrie asked as he shared a look with the Bosun, Mr. Pendarves, who was sitting on the edge of his catamaran with his feet and shins in the water, alongside the damaged rudder.
'Rudder iss fucked, Kaptein,' Goosen replied with an expression halfway 'twixt a scowl and a grin. 'Sacrificial fir baulks shattered, die main piece, uhm… iss die green-twig broke. Not clean broke but hang by shreds? Thin end, oop dahr, iss strained at both tiller-head holes, it flop too much after break happen. Be bitch to fix, oh ja.'
'Come from too much helm effort, sir, th' tiller-head holes,' Mr. Pendarves added, flapping his feet and shins in the harbour water. 'Gudgeons an' pintles 'bove th' waterline seem sound, but, th' way she she were swingin' so free, I've low hopes 'bout the two lower-most.'
A pair of Oriental-looking sprogs came bursting to the surface in welters of foam, bobbing like corks for a moment before starting to paddle with their legs and wave their arms sideways to stay afloat. One swabbed water from his face and long hair, then kicked a few feet over to Goosen's barge, took hold of the gunwale, and began a palaver in a tongue that was most-likely half-Dutch and half-Javanese, neither of which Lewrie could follow.
Goosen listened, nodded here and there over the choicer bits, sucked his teeth and winced, then translated. 'Kaffir say gudgeon at bottom of sternpost iss open. Iss bolted to sternpost, but die hole-for-pintle-part iss not hole, but like diss!' Goosen said, frowning, and holding up one hand, thumb and fingers forming a cylinder, before snapping them apart to make a wide U-shape.
'And the lower-most pintle?' Lewrie prompted.
'Iss half tore loose, Kaptein, wit' pintle pin bent,' Goosen further translated, bending his forefinger into a crook to describe it. 'Die bolts heff tore up rudder, too. Next-est to sternpost, be gone. Pintle fitting hang by last bolt, next-est to aft end.'
'What in God's name hit us, then?' Lewrie wondered aloud. 'If the lowermost of the five sets of pintles and gudgeons are the thickest and heaviest-forged of all?'
'Ah, but deepest part of main piece rudder taper thinnest, die wood be planed slimmest, Kaptein,' Goosen pointed out, with too much heartiness to suit Lewrie. 'Bronze thickest, but bolts shortest, for die upper four pintles and gudgeons be expect to bear die most weight.'
'And the fourth set?' Lewrie further enquired, his hopes for a quick repair sinking.
'Bent,' Goosen told him, making as if to wring out a wet towel. 'Bad wrench, when rudder be shot. Pintle and gudgeon there both are wrench. When Frenchman dammitch rudder oop dahr, whole weight go on die next-est oop set. Gudgeon dahr be wrench almost out. Gon' need whole new rudder, oh ja! New pintles, gudgeons, bolts, nuts, top to bottom, ja!'
Tell me something we didn't know! Lewrie sourly thought, musing on that sad news and looking away, up the shattered sternpost and the rudder to the square overhang of the transom. He had to smile, nonetheless, for the sash-windows of his great-cabins were open, and both of his cats were posed in them, paws resting on the sills, intrigued by such a rare sight below.
'We've received enough iron and bronze to have new pintles and gudgeons fashioned ashore,' Lewrie stated, looking back at the sweaty Dutchman. 'If our own armourer cannot do the work, that is. New oak, of this size…? Or, is there some sturdy local tree that might serve just as well, hereabouts, Mister Goosen?'
'Local timber? Pah!' Goosen countered with a humourless laugh. 'Die verdammte African termite eat gut timber, quick as goat eat paper, Kaptein! Unt oop in mountains… die Cederburg, Hex Mountains, die Drakensberg, iss only pine grow tall unt straight,' he said, waving a hand at the far distant blue ranges surrounding Table Bay. 'Termite, he bad as ship-worm. All rotten, in a few year, oh ja.'
'Well, damme,' Lewrie sourly said.
'Other African tree,' Goosen morosely went on, 'if sound, not full of termite, not grow thick unt straight, unt iss only good for die knees, fashion pieces. Before you rooineks come, I can get fine, big wood from Rotterdam… Hamburg oak, English oak, compass oak, unt Americanischer white oak, gut for ship repairs, but now…'he said with a fatalistic shrug. 'Ashore, heff many blacksmither, carpenter, but… little to work wit', you see.'
'Then we're stuck here 'til an Indiaman comes back with a hunk of teak or mahogany,' Lewrie spat. As he mused over that, even more of Goosen's Javanese divers bobbed to the surface from their mysterious work below the hull, gasping for air and laughing together, which did little for Lewrie's sour mood, either.
How long can they hold their breath? he asked himself, for he was sure that they'd been down long before he'd been rowed round the stern. 'We can't wait that long, Mister Goosen,' he said, trying not to sound like he was pleading. 'Surely, there must be something…'
Lewrie rather doubted he and his officers could invent enough make-work aboard an idled, crippled ship for two whole months of dull thumb-twiddling to keep the crew from going dull or querulous. And, if their last shore liberty was anything to judge by, his only other option was to keep them penned aboard ship, else Cape Town would end in splintered ruins long before a replacement rudder turned up!
'Wahl…' Goosen drawled, with a cagey stroking of his beard. 'Table Bay iss bad anchoring, Kaptein Leew… Loo… myhneer. Unt, worser iss False Bay, other side of peninsula, below Simon's Town. I know of a fresh wreck, dahr. One of your rooinek Indiamen, drove in by bad wind to first-est shelter. Her kaptein mistake Cape Hanglip as Good Hope, at last see Simon's Town, unt try steer there, but hit die Whittle Rocks, for iss too far North of best-est course to round die Noah's Ark Point. Drive ashore to save what he can before she sinks? Ver' gut work, dat, for he miss Roman's Rock unt hard shoal, then go aground on sand beach North end of Simon's Bay.'
'A wreck,' Lewrie said, most dubiously.
'Drive ashore bows first-est, Kaptein!' Goosen hooted in glee. 'Stern, sternpost, unt rudder still in six, eight feet of water, oh ja! Was three, four month ago, middle of winter. Die burghers down dahr get much work for to salvage… much booty, for it three days before rooinek soldiers, or your navy, get there to stop them, haw haw haw! Almost nobody drown, for rooinek kaptein iss die slim kerel.. . crafty fellow, see? But, ship is total loss.'
'God A'mighty, Cap'm sir,' Mr. Pendarves exclaimed, 'her rudder must be s' big, ye could whittle a barge out'n it! There's some o' it still sound oak, sure!'
'But, you say she's been salvaged over, looted…?' Lewrie said, unwilling to raise false hopes too soon.
'Other chandlers unt me been strip her over,' Goosen admitted. 'Mast, spar, sail canvas, unt cordage… upper bulwarks, deck planks, unt blocks. Locals take boats, cabin goods, straightest oak timbers for houses, unt I was going to go down dahr unt burn what is left for her nails unt metal, butt…' he drawled, brightening. 'Stripped so far only halfway, to midships, so far. Hoisting rings still standing. You hire my kaffir divers to undo bolts unt t'ings, rig hoisting line wit' kedge capstan unt shear-legs…! I sell you big rudder for gut price, Kaptein Loo… myhneerl'
