“Sure,” the captain shrugged.
“Well, the Romanian cook thought it likely that the Cossacks had rescued one of them.”
“Shit.”
Barquentine Loredana
The ship’s rat was one of many. None of them had names but this one thought of himself, and was thought of by the others, as Number One Rat.
Chief rat or not, it was used to having to be a bit circumspect in its movements, as well as to having its way barred in many places. Thus, it was somewhat surprised to see the hatch open to what it thought of as “spacenoisystinky.” It was even stinkier now, and the stink a little different, less toxic and almost alluring.
Number One hadn’t gotten to be chief rat by virtue of taking too many chances. If something was alluring, it was also likely very dangerous. Standing on its rear legs by the hatchway’s wooden frame, Number One looked around the spacenoisystinky. There were, he decided, a lot of weird things going on, all of which spelled “danger” in classical rodent. Or would have, if rats could spell… and if there’d been such a thing as classical rodent. He decided he wanted nothing to do with any of it. Even though he rather would have liked a drink of water, the enticing drip-drip-dripping wasn’t enough to tempt him, given the strange smell. Instead, Number One turned away and, with faint scratching sounds from his claws on the deck, headed to a hidden passageway he knew of. That, in turn, led to the place he thought of as “foodfeedmeahgood.”
Now that was a treasure trove. Someone had spilt sugar, sliced open bags of grain, left out some meat and beans.
I’ll get the others for the feast after I’ve had my fill, thought Number One. Yummyyummyyummy.
Number One stopped his feasting when the galley porthole was suddenly lit up brightly by some external light source.
Ship’s Boat, Barquentine Loredana
Natalya was the first to really notice. “Lieutenant Turgenev, sir,” she said, “there’s something behind us lighting up what is likely the Loredana.”
The oars almost immediately fouled, nudging everyone lightly toward the bow.
Turgenev swiveled neck and body one hundred and eighty degrees to catch a glimpse. “Is that your little explosive device going, Shukhov?” the lieutenant asked.
“Too bright I think, sir,” Shukhov replied. “Mine should be a mostly dim glow, followed by the sudden rising of the sun. And it should have been over quick. We’d also have heard it by now.”
“Searchlight, I think,” offered Lieutenant Babin, “and a fairly powerful one. Could be…”
“Could be what?” asked Turgenev.
“Could be Kerch,” said Babin. “I saw at least one large searchlight aboard before they tossed me overboard.”
Fuck, thought Mokrenko.
“Reach into my pack,” said Turgenev to Babin. “Inside there is a good pair of German binoculars. See if you can make out anything. As for the rest of you, Sergeant Mokrenko?”
“Calm the fuck down, people!” Mokrenko barked. He waited a few moments until he sensed, in the darkness, that he had their attention. “Sir?”
“Once again,” said Turgenev, “get ready to row.” When there was an absence of sound of wood on water or wood, Turgenev decided they were ready. “Now row… together. One… two… three… four… one… two…”
“It’s hard to tell,” said Babin, once he’d had a chance to look through the binoculars, “but if I had to guess… that’s the Kerch, come to hunt us down. I can’t make it all out, but I can see the searchlight and I can see part of the bridge, one… no, two, of the guns. There are other destroyers out here on the Black Sea, but she was closest. I think it’s the Kerch.”
“Probably not to hunt us down,” said Mokrenko. “They’ve no reason to believe we even exist.”
Destroyer Kerch
“Bring up the fat cook,” Razin ordered, watching the portside searchlight playing back and forth along the hull of the anchored vessel. Bringing the cook took some time. When he arrived, it was without the Italian speaking sailor, which led to still more loss of time as that worthy was hunted down and brought to the bridge.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew stood to battle stations, manning the four open 102mm deck guns, both of the 57mm antiaircraft guns, the four thirty caliber machine guns, plus the four triple torpedo tubes. There was even a small team, quite needlessly, on the racks toward the stern that held the ship’s eighty naval mines, two of which they’d automatically prepared for laying.
Whatever else might be said of the Kerch, it couldn’t be said she was under-armed for her size.
The searchlight swept the deck of the barquentine. “Nobody at the wheel, Comrade Captain,” announced the exec. “I think she’s been abandoned.”
“Match course and speed. Get a boat over the side and a boarding party—a well-armed boarding party—ready. Also, bring us closer, no more than twenty-five arshin away.”
“We could close to almost hull to hull, Comrade Captain, and save a little time, no?”
“We could,” Razin agreed, “but getting the boarding party back might be difficult. Besides, we’re a frightfully open ship and unarmored, to boot. I wouldn’t want a dozen hand grenades going off on the deck.”
Barquentine Loredana
Aboard the Loredana, Number One had finally summoned his followers to the feast with joyful squeaks and hisses. On the galley’s deck and the counters, six score fat rats plus three gorged themselves on sugar, flour, and all manner of wonderful things. Like a lord, Number One sat atop a counter, enjoying the sight of his underlings feasting due to his own beneficence and boldness.
The galley sat close to amidships. Farther to the stern, in the engine room, also known as spacenoisystinky, two drips ran continuously. One was of the water, slowly filling a pot that would tip over a good deal of lye into battery acid. This was getting near to full or, at least, full enough. The other was from the fuel tank, where gasoline ran in a small rivulet down to the lowest part of the curve of the tank, and then onto the floor, in a building and spreading puddle.
One thing Shukhov and Turgenev hadn’t considered, since there’d been no obvious reason to consider it, was the action of the rocking of the ship on the entire Rube Goldbergesque self-destruct mechanism. This had been made a little worse with the setting of a few sails, thus allowing the ship to pass ahead of the wind. It hadn’t made much of a difference to the water drip, and it would not make a difference to the lye pour.
But the icepick? To that, it made a difference.
With each roll of the ship, the more heavily weighted handle of the icepick moved, imperceptibly. The ship’s bow rolls upward, going into a wave? The ship’s stern rides over the same wave? With each roll, the pick’s handle goes down. The stern then falls into a trough? With each fall, the handle moves a little up. Rinse and repeat, every minute or so, for some hours. Now add to that the pressure from inside the tank, so far not driven by heat, but still a force not to be discounted.
In short, eventually the ice pick fell out, allowing a much stronger stream of gasoline to leak onto the deck. This was not, so far, a huge problem.
Ah, but then the pot for water filled up enough to tip the lye into the battery acid. A good deal of the lye missed, due to the same roll that had dislodged the icepick. Enough, however, hit the battery acid to start a fire, which spread very quickly to the four bowls filled with gasoline next to it.