China Jewel by Thomas Hollyday Page B

friend, I tell you, I would be planning to bring out another mast soon.”
    Cutter asked, “Captain Etranger, what about my son, Jamie, and the others?”
    “They are doing well. Your son is actually performing as the captain’s mate.”
    “We’ll be back to you. Thanks.” Doc Jerry signed off.
    Stringer burst into the office, door slamming behind him. “What’s happened?” he asked, his voice showing his usual worry. He saw the worried faces of the others and blurted, “I knew something would go wrong. The Peregrine can’t float well in her bow. The hull is too narrow, too sharp. She will dive into waves too easily.”
    “It’s nothing to do with her hull design, Stringer,” said Cutter patiently. He and everyone else at headquarters was tired of hearing the Peregrine hull was going to sink because it was narrow and did not float like a basketball. He said, “Her foremast snapped. We’ll need your drawings in making new masts.” Then he explained what had happened.
    Stringer’s words came out like emotional stutters, “Carrying too much sail broke the mast.”
    “Maybe.”
    Stringer picked up a clean pad of engineering paper and began to make some notes. “We’ll have to cut a mast, of course.”
    Cutter asked, “Do we have the timber?”
    “Jolly and I planned for it. We ordered extra logs for masts. When you process these timbers, you sometimes find flaws. Unfortunately we did not spot this flaw. So, yes, we have timber to shape. It takes time, though. You must understand.”
    “We’ll start at once.”
    “They have to be authentic. We have to trim the logs by adze first.”
    The engineer looked directly at Cutter “Are you aware of the danger of the crew remaining on the Peregrine?” he asked. Cutter knew he would say this and was ready.
    “Hall is in charge. Look, if he thinks there’s any real danger to their lives, he’ll get them to dry land immediately,” he said. “Etranger is also beside them with his boat.”
    Stringer stood on the balls of his feet, his arms across his chest. “I knew this would happen. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since she left.”
    He continued, “The beams of the ship are sized accurately for the early design but they are still half the size for a safe ship.”
    Doc Jerry said, “Etranger can stay for a while but we can’t take anything for granted. He’s tells me he is getting is getting some flak from his French managers. The woman owner wants him to leave the Peregrine and go on to the race. Can’t blame her with all the money at stake.”
    Cutter could have bet that would be her decision and to hell with saving anyone. He looked at his assistant, “What is the weather?”
    Sparkles said, “A storm system above them is slowly moving south. They have a few days.”
    “Shouldn’t we bring her into port to repair that mast?” repeated Stringer.
    Doc Jerry said, “No, it can be done at sea. Captain Hall knows how to rig a mast.”
    Stringer said, pleading in his voice, “We’re going to hear it from the media about sacrificing the ship’s crew to the weather in order to win a race. The risks of loss of life are very high.”
    Cutter said, “We’ll have to take that chance.”
    “We will?” asked Stringer.
    Doc Jerry said, “If we quit without trying to fix her, we’ll be laughingstocks not to mention having a pretty discouraged crew. We owe it to them and the nation to try to keep our heads and fix this ourselves.”
    Cutter agreed. He knew the way the television pundits would portray this, the British boat sailing in spite of the storm, the Americans running for cover.
    “You got that right,” Cutter said. “We’ll alert the Coast Guard we might need help but right now we can handle this.”
    “You’ve got to promise me,” said Stringer, “you’ll do something if it gets much worse.”
    “Yes.”
    Stringer tried one more time. “We could get them off, get the boat towed in, if we start now.”
    Cutter shook his