China Jewel (12 page)

“Smithy is out on his workboat checking his crab lines. We sent out a Whaler to get him back here fast.” Cutter heard Jolly chuckle over the phone line. “His wife said to tell him he better get that mast done for Mister Jolly or not come home until he did.”

Outside, large oak trees, survivors of the historic wooden boat construction days, cast shadows over stacked small boats and lumber piles around the boatyard. Cutter surveyed the boatyard and asked, “Where are the press people?”

“By the front door,” said Sparkles. “We’ll have to tell them something,” she added.

“I’ll talk to them after I call Bill,” Cutter said. He watched the early television news with video footage of the crew below, going to and from the wreckage on the deck of the Peregrine. In this report, French newsmen were sending the pictures. Also circling was an Orion patrol aircraft, its insignia the blue circle around a yellow center, which had flown from nearby Brazil. Near the racers, but not assisting, drifted a Brazilian Navy corvette, the Frontin.

“Let’s get an ocean going tug chartered to stand by the area,” he said to Doc Jerry.

He dialed New York. Monroe answered; “He’s right here,” she said, her voice showing concern.

Bill came on. “I figured you’d call. I’m assuming you got the situation under control. How long before the Peregrine can get under way?

“There’s no guarantee we can fix this one, Bill. We might have to tow her into port.”

“Goddamn. My stock has been taking a ride on the market today ever since this hit the news.”

“Yeah, we got reporters here too. Same mysterious players messing with your shares?”

“Maybe. Lot of guys are short selling all the contestants. They are winning on this mast problem. The publicity of a race is great for the winner. The losers have nightmares. People begin thinking our products are as unreliable as the boat with the broken mast. Then the investors figure our sales and earnings will go down and put in orders to sell our shares.”

“We plan to take out new masts to refit the Peregrine.”

“Can you do that at sea?”

“Captain Hall thinks we can.”

“You want my flying boat?”

“I was thinking that she could land right near the brig. Probably the best way to get it out there. We’ve got a storm coming in too. Can the big plane handle the landing?”

“Willoughby will get her down. I’ve been aboard in some rough seas.”

“OK.”

Bill said, “You know, as I think about it, mounting masts at sea will be pretty dynamic television time. Johnson Company will show in a good light. Also, it’s a matter of American seamanship. That will strike a patriotic chord and sell a few more of our Johnson refrigerators.”

Cutter said, “I think you are right. Judging from the general comments in the news so far, the American press and the public are taking this incident in the same spirit, wanting the ship to correct itself and sail on. If anything, we’re not moving quickly enough to get the repairs to the ship. Fans want her to keep racing.”

“Well you set ‘em reporters straight, Jimmy. I’ll get Willoughby on the ball.”

He added, “Let’s not think about towing her until we have to, all right? My money’s on you.” With that, Bill rang off.

Cutter stepped outside into the still hot sunlight on the small porch entryway and studied the twenty or so reporters for ones he knew. As Stringer and Doc Jerry joined him to stand at his right and left, shouted questions began.

Jolly had joined them from the boatyard below. As the shipbuilder heard the loud voices, he put his hands up in the air to quiet them. Then he bellowed, “You folks can ask your questions one at a time. Settle down now, boys and girls.”

In the comparative silence which followed, Cutter pointed to one of Katy’s friends, who represented a Baltimore television channel. She smiled at him and started with a softball question, “Jim, what can you tell us about the Peregrine’s current condition?”

“The Peregrine has a broken mast. This happens with sailing ships using wooden spars and masts. As you know the Chinese sponsors have required that these clippers be absolutely accurate to Nineteenth Century designs. Although we’re disappointed, we are prepared. Our crew practiced for this kind of event. However, the break was such that we have to prepare new mast sections to fly out to the site. We fully expect our team can handle the necessary installation and renew racing as soon as possible.”

“You say the crew can install the repair without coming into drydock?”

“Yes. It was a common practice of sailing ships to repair at sea.”

“If that is true why do you have to take out a new mast?”

“It was too large to carry aboard in this case. The rules allow us to assist the racers with major repairs to keep them in the race.”

“How close is the brig to a Brazilian port?”

“We’re not counting on bringing her in but if that happens, we can easily tow her with an ocean tug we have standing by to help.” He turned to Doc Jerry, and said, “Why don’t you cover this?”

“1,000 miles east south east of Salvador Bahia, Brazil,” said Doc Jerry.

“How long will the mast take to prepare?”

Stringer said, “It will be delivered as soon as possible.”

“What about the storm north of the Peregrine?”

Doc Jerry answered, “There’s a line of thunderstorms north of the Peregrine. We do not feel she is in any danger. If she was, we’d bring our sailors home right away.”

“Can the ship take this kind of abuse, Mr. Stringer? As the ship’s designer, what's your opinion?”

Stringer hesitated, looked at Cutter then at Jolly and finally said, “It will be fine,” in a low, hard to hear voice.

“Can you tell us about the masts, Mr. Stringer?”

Before Stringer could make another weak reply, Jolly said, “That’s all, boys,” elbowing Cutter and the others towards the side of the porch and the back steps down to the yard. “We’ve got to let these men work,” he said over his shoulder to the reporters.

A reporter called, “How will you get the mast to the Peregrine?”

Cutter turned, “We’ll use the Johnson company seaplane.”

“Isn’t that flying boat too old to make the flight?”

Cutter smiled, “She’s a beautiful plane, capable of carrying the masts, and able to sit down in the seas. We are fortunate to have her.”

“Can we get more information on the plane?”

“It’s called a clipper too,” said Cutter. He nodded at Doc Jerry. “Can you get them some of the company photographs of the seaplane?”

Doc Jerry grinned, “Sure can.”

Stringer walked ahead by himself. When they entered the main workshop, he went directly to the master carpenter, a man named Bilge. Bilge’s big stomach showed under the bottom of his undershirt, while his ball cap was ajar, its brim turned up over his balding head. He and Stringer had been constantly together during the original construction. Cutter well knew they shared the worry the Peregrine was not seaworthy. He was not close enough to hear their conversation but judging from Stringer’s wildly gesticulating arms, he assumed Stringer continued to express alarm at the Peregrine’s sailing characteristics.

The boat shop was a historic affair, as old as River Sunday and involved in most of its history. It centered on the ancient ship hauling ramp which had now become a modern railroad to the water. Much of it was reinforced during World War Two for military contracts with the Russians for wooden sub chasers. After the war it had continued building and repairing countless schooners and bugeyes, the local two-masted fishing craft. At the top of the rails and near the shop and various sheds, was the huge electric motor used for hauling boats of all sizes.

Inside the workshop, amid the smells of sawdust and sweat, were the old offices used during the war. Most were filled with storage materials left over from the recent construction of the brig. These included the dozens of paper printouts of designs of various components, and the patterns used for lofting or marking the frames to make perfect the curves of the hull. Assorted piles of lumber were everywhere. Some of this wood came in for the Peregrine from the South American countries where proper timber could still be harvested and cured. Also present were the old steel desks used by the Navy when their supervisors and the aforementioned Soviets had been on duty.

The first room and the biggest space with the least of the old storage materials was used by Jolly for his own yacht building and repair business. A large and faded wartime photograph of one of the Soviet sub chasers was framed over the back wall in the darkness behind his surplus grey desk. It was pictured in black and white coming off the ways, a small Soviet flag on its bow. A crowd of River Sunday civilians including Bilge and Jolly, caught by the lens as excited young teenagers, stood alongside wartime women, probably mothers. To the left of the new warship were a few men, some of them in uniform, standing on a platform, its base decorated in bunting. Even in faded black and white, the picture had the gray tints representing red, white, and blue. In the background the photographer had included a flight of Republic P47 fighter bombers roaring over the boatyard from practicing touch and go at the town’s runway, in those days a grass one.

A bustle of men moved quickly around the workroom at the center of the shop outside Jolly’s office. Stringer’s area, several flat drafting tables, was along the far wall. Stringer had switched on a bright fluorescent light above him. He was sifting through the large drawings piled on the tables, picking up one and examining it, then throwing it down and lifting another sheet of paper

Cutter nodded towards Bilge who was gathering his tools, his face sullen. He nodded back without expression.

Jolly said, “Don’t worry about Bilge. Once he starts to work there’s no one I’d rather have.”

Stringer beckoned them to his table. When they arrived, he said, “They lost the foretopmast and the foretopgallant. Here, come see.” He adjusted the fluorescent light above the table.

Cutter looked over Stringer’s shoulder and nodded slowly, as Stringer pointed to the drawings.

“What do you think?” asked Jolly.

Stringer said, “Put enough men on it, anything’s possible.”

“I figure we can get them built and flown out there pretty quick. The crew needs as much time as possible,” said Cutter, “to install and right the masts. Then they got to sail to the southwest out of the range of those thunderstorms.”

“You leave with the finished spars in less than twenty four hours. Then you got to fly down there and still give them time to raise the new wood and rig it. You don’t want nothing,” said Jolly.

“Yessir,” said Cutter.

Bilge had come over and after listening to them, said, “We got to find the logs, cut ‘em down, make the taper. We also got the finishing.”

“Forget the finishing,” said Jolly. “We’ll send them out with a fast coat of poly and that’s enough to get the boat to China. What I’m saying, they can do the fancy painting later as they sail towards China.”

Stringer nodded. ”Suit yourself. There’s still the tapering. Mast has to start at one diameter then be smaller up top to fit the next mast.”

Bilge said, “It ain’t going to be easy to get just right.”

He looked at Cutter. “When it gets out there we want them to be able to hang it snug, that’s what I’m saying. It takes time to make sure it be right.”

Jolly looked out at the workshop floor where some logs, the bark still on them, had already been brought in. He said, “Big Smithy’s on the way in here. He’s got the eye for it. He did the ax work on the last ones.”

Jolly took a pencil stub from his jeans pocket and licked it, then began to write on a small pad of paper. His head was wet with sweat, even here in the shade of the workroom.

Behind them, more of the large doors to the harbor were being opened by a team of workmen. A breeze of outside air flooded into the workshop. It was quickly replaced by the stagnant heat of the late Maryland afternoon. The air carried the sour smell of drying and parched clams and seaweed stranded in mud by the outgoing tide.

Jolly compared his notes with the drawings. “That’s two logs. The foretopmast is about thirty feet long with a nine inch diameter. It weighs finished about nine hundred pounds. The foretopgallant is smaller, about twenty feet and a similar diameter and it weighs about five hundred pounds. With finishing the surfaces and mastheads, lot of steady hours all of us working. She won’t be finished pretty but she’ll hold the sails.”

Cutter nodded.

Stringer asked, “How you going to load them?”

Cutter said, “The masts can be stored in the passenger compartment.”

Jolly smiled, “Well, you best get the seaplane in here and moored close. We’ll talk about how to swing them into that plane. Your boss won’t like nothing scratching up his fine interior.”

Jolly inspected the logs. “Too many knotholes in these. Would make the sticks weak,” he said. He pulled his phone and rattled off a conversation in the slurred speech that could only be understood by the local long-time residents. He smiled as he put away his phone. “My cousins will help us.”

They didn’t have long to wait. An hour later a Peterbilt truck with two more large logs of aged white pine were delivered to the side entry of the shop. Smithy waved to his relatives, two burly tanned men Cutter guessed were farmers.

When the selected timber was on blocks, the positions were carefully marked so that the work could be turned. They used templates to assure the rounds and tapers as the carpenters began initial trim work. All this was in preparation for Big Smithy’s arrival.

Big Smithy arrived. He stood by the open door to the harbor for a moment before anyone noticed him. Then the room grew quiet as the workmen saw him and laid down their tools, knowing he would tell them how to proceed from now on. He was tall, the lights flickering on his dark skin, his shoulder straps and the grease on his overalls. He was a black man, a former football lineman who had played for a while with the Baltimore Ravens.

Jolly spoke to him, “There was something weak in the heartwood of those poles we last made for the brig.”

Smithy just said, “I’ll get this one right enough. Got to save them folks.”