'GANS AT SEA

by Ms Lucille D'ecoupage

It was now two months to the day since they had sailed out of Greenwich. Their only sight of their fellow man had been the whaling fleet and the untimely arrival of their guest. The weather had kept them on a static line and the time had come whereupon they were forced to consider their options. If the winds did not pick up they might not make sufficient season to arrive at a cache of supplies which, hopefully, had been delivered as planned some months before. Any further delay in their arrival on the shores of New Found Land made the likelihood of an attempt on the passage this year impossible. The ice, simply put, would be too thick.

Doctor Dickinson sat at the map table and quilled -

It is now well paste the pointe at which we must intercept our supplies. The crewe for the most part seems unconcerned and continues to focus upon petty interventions and the fair distribution of the daily tot of rum. I fear that if this supply wears thin ~ Fore now we can continue as planned, some of the olde hands are no doubt aware of the consequences of making landfall too late in the year. The officers are increasingly isolated and the true spirit of the men can only be read in their faces ~ of which a sort of blank resignation can be founde...

He stared at the rest of the page as a tide of anxiety rose in his gut and did not pass. Suddenly, as if to prove that things indeed could get worse, Lts Caudal and Tarbin burst into the quarterdeck.

"I don't know the exact lee," said Caudal, "I haven't had sufficient speed to see what drift the wake is cutting or to throw the log!"

"But thurly a varianthe of five degrees is something you'd mention."

"There hasn't been sufficient time for me to compare..."

"Gentlemen!" It was Farthing, who had emerged from his bunk and was buttoning his vest. "Are we two suddenly combatants?"

The two of them stood with their heads held low. It was Caudal who spoke first, "Sir. We seem to have struck upon a problem."

"We've run aground!?"

"No Sir. It would seem as though, as I and no doubt every other man on board has heard, we ah, have run a scroottie off course."

The Captain furrowed his brow. Without delay he pulled one of the charts from the rack below the table and unrolled it. Dickinson shuffled his diary quickly to one side and helped secure the chart using the integrated clips on the table. The chart itself showed, or perhaps more accurately didn't show, vast areas of coastline. What coastline it did was rendered in smooth flowing lines - nothing like the jagged rocky shore they lay some thousand nautical miles from. Caudal calculated his bearings and positioned a protractor as a guide. He spoke as he drew light lines on the chart, "The prescribed bearing is north-northwest as we know..."

"And we lie here." Stated Dickinson, as much a question as a fact.

"Correct." Caudal drew another line only a few degrees to the north, away from the known coast of the Americas and sadly, representing another fornight's sailing due west. The four of them stared at the chart as though willing it not to be so.

"You are certain of our current position?"

"As of a few moments ago Sir. The cloud cover has broken enough to get a bearing, trusting that our marine clock is correct."

"Cutting acroth the Gulfe current in these conditions? We shall be back in Bristol before long." proclaimed Tarbin.

"Damn it to hell!" Farthing cried, his fist splintering on the hard oak of the table.