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FREEBOOTER’S HOLD

JAMIE MCFARLANE

FICKLE DRAGON PUBLISHING LLC

Copyright © 2020 by Fickle Dragon Publishing LLC

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form

or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use
of brief quotations in a book review.

& Created with Vellum

 CONTENTS

Preface

. Standing Proud
Noxed
XNAYD

Crew Training
Pledge
Back in it
Duty
Pride of Mshindi
Griselda
oO

Purpose Built
. Picking Battles
OC

. Personnel Issues
eS
YH

. Gun Fight, Dummy!

BP
WN

. Mistaken Identity
Be

. Smuggler Wallet
Be
F

. Rabbit Hole
Be
ADM

. Slipping Jabs
Be

Empty Handed
Be
ON

. Rue the Day

Pe

. Hunt
oO
20. Strange Bedfellows
21. First Impressions
22. Paid in Blood
23. Hero's Rest
24. Sticks and Stones
25. Big
26. Finale

About the Author

Acknowledgments
Also by Jamie McFarlane
 PREFACE

Life of a Miner

Fen OLIVE
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 1

STANDING PROUD

ire in the hole!" Tabby called over

’ ’ local comms.
I chinned the ready-check,
acknowledging her warning as I
settled on the moon's rocky surface. I found it
ironic that I'd run so hard to get away from my life
as an asteroid miner, only to find myself back at it
so often.
"What a view." Noah landed next to me and
placed a hand on my shoulder. My half-brother
Noah appeared to be a few years my junior, but
he'd been born while I was in suspended anima-
tion and our birth dates were separated by forty
years.
"Talkin' about the girls or Elea Station?" I joked.
From our low position, Tabby and Ada were out-
lined on Xenon's horizon such that the massive gas
planet, Elea, filled the sky behind them.
"Both," Noah said, a grin in his voice. "Well, you
know... Ada, not Tabby."
I chuckled. Noah and I were still feeling out the
boundaries of our relationship. Apparently, admir-
ing Ada Chen, my copilot and good friend, wasn’t
a concern, but ogling Tabby was a line he wasn't
looking to cross. I could accept that. If asked, I
might say I'm not the jealous type. That'd be a lie.
A perfect line of evenly spaced explosions sent
geysers of rocky debris shooting into the moon's
thin atmosphere. The jets of debris marked ex-
panding gas bags we'd pushed into laser-bored
holes in a five-meter-tall, twenty-meter-long, four-
meter-deep shelf of rock. A moment later, the
overburden detached and slowly slumped in the
moon's low gravity.
"Bags are free, boys," Ada chirped happily over
the comms as she and Tabby withdrew the gas
bags and prepared to drill our final cut.
"Let's roll." I stepped onto the back of an ore
scoop and snapped a magnetic belt around my
waist to hold me in place. The machine was differ-
ent than I was used to but covered the basics all
the same. Our job was to scoop up loosened pay-
load and drop it into the separator. That we were
operating in a micro-gravity environment added
complexity but also provided advantages.
Turns out, scooping material with a big metal
bucket in near zero-g is next to impossible. Physics
pretty much demands that for every action, there’s
an equal and opposite reaction. Running into a pile
of rocks with a big metal bucket is guaranteed to
send material flying in the opposite direction. To
counter this, the scoop’s heavy-duty gravity gen-
erator keeps material in the bucket and holds our
wheels against the moon's surface.
From a mining perspective, dropping payload
into the separator was the last step in a labor-
intensive series of tasks. The separator's job is
three-fold. It softens the payload with good, old-
fashion kinetic pounding, and after pounding the
load, metallic ore is separated from the junk with a
complex application of gravitational and magnetic
fields. The shaker's final task is to eject the slough
and route the useable material into transportable
containers. After that, the minerals and ore are re-
fined for use.
"How many tonnes does that make?" Tabby
called as I dropped my first load into the shaker.
My AI, overhearing the question, reached out
to the shaker and displayed an estimate on my
HUD. "If these last two cuts are similar, we'll have
forty-two tonnes." It sounded like a lot, but after
refining, we'd end up with less than twenty tonnes
of steel —just barely what Mom was asking for. "We
also have ten kilograms of silver."
"You have an incoming communication request
from Elea Station," my AI announced.
"Go ahead, Elea," I answered.
"Liam, a frigate class ship just passed through
the Tamu wormhole." Silver, my mother, appeared
in a floating virtual window. In her late sixties, she
was in the prime of middle age, accepting her gray
hair but still unwilling to slow down. Called the
Gray Lady by most of Elea Station's inhabitants,
she was the governor of the station and responsi-
ble for its eight hundred souls.
Achirp in my ear indicated that others had
joined the comm channel. My eyes flitted to the
HUD's information display, which showed the
newcomers to be Marny and Nick. "Marny, do you
have them on Hornblower?"
"We've got it, Liam," Nick James, my best friend,
business partner, and Marny's husband answered.
"Current acceleration puts them on station in six
days." I did some quick math and whistled. Who-
ever they were, they were burning heavy.
"Any idea what their hurry is?" I asked.
"I'm taking Hornblower to Condition-Yellow,"
Marny announced. As commander of our largest,
most powerful ship, an ancient battle cruiser,
Marny's primary responsibility was to defend Elea
Station. Condition-Yellow would call up forty addi-
tional reserve personnel to supplement the other-
wise skeleton crew common to patrols.
"I managed to get acomm through before they
jumped to hard burn," Nick said. "I imagine they'll
make contact when they hit the midpoint." It was
a fact of inter-system flight that while under a
hard burn, ordinary communication was impossi-
ble.
"Copy that," I said. "Hoffen out."
"What was that all about?" Tabby asked, having
overheard my side of the conversation.
"Frigate just jumped in from Tamu." said,
"Coming right at us in a hurry. They're only six
days out."
"T'll bet tonight's dessert that we get another
contact at the wormhole in the next six hours,"
Noah said.
"T'll take that action," Ada said, her face the
picture of concentration as she positioned a min-
ing drill and fired off the laser.
I scooted my ore scoop around Noah as he
approached and dumped his own load. "Your
loss. Nobody moves that fast if they're not being
chased," he said. "I heard someone brought up cit-
rus berries from the Underhill gardens. I love me
some lime pie."
"Kids," Tabby said, shaking her head in mock
disgust. "Noah, have you thought for even a
minute that even if you win, you lose?"
"How's that?" he asked.
"Rings of Saturn, Noah," I said. "Even I know
this answer. Ada already takes your dessert. You
think that'll change after a bet?"
He huffed. "Frak."
"I'm not that bad," Ada said, defensively.
“Want me to put the question to the AI?" I
asked.
A few seconds passed. "Negative," she replied.
The four of us continued, falling back into
a comfortable rhythm. We'd been working the
moon's rich iron deposits for several days and with
the end in sight, we all wanted nothing more than
to be done with our task.
Located in the remote Mhina solar system,
our gas refining station wasn’t on the way to any-
where, which meant that chance visitors were ex-
tremely unlikely. While this offered safety, it also
meant that traders found no value in coming our
way. As a result, if we couldn’t salvage it, make it or
grow it, we had to go without.
Two hours later, I dropped the final load into
the separator and parked my ore scoop next to
Noah's. Mhina system's entire population lived
either on Elea Station or in the very small commu-
nity called Underhill, one planet over. The moons
in the system were uninhabited, so there was no
reason for us to tote around the ore scoops or the
separator. They would be here when we got back.
"Are you sure you can handle five containers?"
Noah asked, looking skeptically at the thick cables
that stretched out from beneath Hotspur and at-
tached to each of the large metal boxes. "They're
gonna move all over the place if you're not careful.”
"Oh, did he really just question Ada's flying
skill?" Tabby asked, greeting me at the hatch which
led from Hotspur's hold into the lower, galley deck.
Her question had been over the private comm
channel, but it might as well have been public.
"I've been pushing boxes of gravel since I was
ten years old and barely able to see over the bulk-
head," Ada said haughtily.
 "Elea Station is hailing," my Al interrupted.
"Told you! That'd be the ships I predicted. Right
on time," Noah said, bounding across the low grav-
ity moon and landing in the hold.
"Go ahead, Elea," I answered.
"We have a group of four Abasi ships entering
from Tamu system," Mom said. "Their idents are
showing Kifeda House, interceptor class."
I sighed. The interceptor class of ship was
thirty percent lighter than a frigate and normally
heavily armed. It was also the class of ship used
by Kifeda House's long-range patrols. Four ships
were unusual. Kifeda patrols normally consisted
of a single ship that rarely ventured into the Mhina
system.
"Do you want to handle contact, Cap?" Marny
asked. We had only a few moments to send com-
munication bursts before the ships were burning
too fast to receive comms. "They've embedded a
comm stream, but we'll lose the ability to reply if
you listen to it first."
"Negative," I said. "Send the standard response."
The standard response informed visitors that
they'd entered the sovereign domain of Abasi
House of the Bold and that we required turret lock-
downs at a hundred thousand kilometers. It was a
pleasant reminder that we were open for business
and welcomed trade. In actuality, the comm was a
lot longer than that and had hundreds of stipula-
tions, but it was expected to be read by an AI and
simplified for sentient consumption.
"Looks like they're after that frigate," Nick said.
"Are we offering sanctuary? What if that frigate is
flagged by Confederation of Planets?"
"Did you get ident yet?" I asked.
"Negative."
"Kifeda has no authority in Mhina,"I said. "I
won't know how to deal with the frigate until I
know who they are."
"Cap, four interceptors could cause quite a bit of
trouble," Marny said. "They'll overtake that frigate
before it reaches the station. If we want to stop
them, we'll have to get proactive."
"Mom, can Elea hold off four interceptors if
they get past us?" I asked.
"Not without casualties," she answered. "That's
a lot of risk for an unidentified ship."
"If we don't stand up to Kifeda House, they'll
take it as a sign of weakness," I said.
"T hope you're right," she said. "They've left us
alone so far."
"Because we haven't had anything they’ve
wanted," I shot back.
"T understand, Liam," Mom said, irritation
creeping into her voice. It was a conversation we'd
had several times. Where she preferred a more
passive existence and pulling up the drawbridge
when invaders threatened, I was inclined to meet
our enemies head on, especially when they were in
our territory. "Elea Station will be ready if they get
past you. Silver out."
"Cap, we're taking on crew right now," Marny
said, still on the line. "I'd like to bring Intrepid even
though she's down an engine. Hotspur's armor
isn’t up for those interceptors."
"Copy that. We're three hours out," I said. "Ada,
we need to get back to Elea."
"I could make it in one if we left the load be-
hind," Ada answered.
I shook my head. "Negative, the ore is critical.
Merrie will have our hides if we show up without
it."
"Yeah," Tabby added. "And she'd do that whole
creepy crawly thing she does with her new arms
when she's mad."
Ada visibly shuddered. "Ooh."
I smiled at their drama. Merrie had recently
undergone a substantial physical transformation.
Really, it was a retransformation. When I first met
her more than two decades ago, she'd been a young
engineer stranded on a backward planet. We con-
vinced her and her husband to come with us to the
Dwingeloo galaxy.
The problem arose when her brainchild,
Elea Station, fell into the hands of the evil, half-
mechanical people known as Mendari. Instead of
killing Merrie as they had the others they'd cap-
tured, the Mendari transformed her by adding four
mechanical arms so she could run Elea Station's
mining and refinery operations single handedly —
or six-handedly. We rescued Merrie again and as
luck would have it, were able to convince a pow-
erful ally to keep her from dying. In the process,
they'd been required to restore Merrie's mechani-
cal arms to keep her from being driven mad. Really,
it's another story entirely.
"Ship is secure," Noah announced.
"Hold on, boys and girls." Ada lifted Hotspur
from Xenon's surface, slowly placing tension on
the cables stretched between ship and containers.
"I'm headed up,"I said, catching Tabby's eye
as Ijumped into the cylindrical zero-g lift that
provided a corridor between Hotspur's two decks.
I landed on the deck and jogged forward to the
raised cockpit, sliding into the portside pilot's
chair.
"You want the stick?" Ada hadn’t taken her eyes
off the holographic display that showed accelera-
tion vectors for each attached container of ore. The
load was a lot to manage, but the AI made it easy,
showing recommended adjustments and pointing
out potential failures.
"Looks like you've got it."
"Who's going out in Intrepid?" Tabby asked,
settling into the gunner's chair just aft of where I
was located. "That ship is only a few days out, but
if we're going to mix it up, I'd like at least three in
fire control."
Tabby was a decent pilot, but her aggressive
nature and unnaturally quick reflexes made her
irreplaceable in fire control. The thing was, she
wasn't much of a team leader, preferring the role
of lone wolf.
"Noah?" I asked. One of my jobs had always
been to find the right place for everyone on my
crew and then get out of their way. Like Tabby,
Noah was a decent enough pilot, but where he
really shined was managing people. Where I
could be a bit too in-your-face, Noah came off as
thoughtful and concerned. He also didn't mind
kicking someone's butt if they got out of line. It
was a balance I'd always had trouble with. I found
it easy to defer to Noah more and more on ques-
tions concerning staff.
"T'll get Praj, Noxen and Bobs," he said.
"Noxene" I recognized the other two names. My
HUD showed a chubby, middle-aged Pogona male.
By selecting his virtual nameplate, the image was
replaced by pertinent information. He was fifty
standard years old, which was middle-aged for the
Pogona. They ordinarily lived into their early hun-
dreds, just like humans. He didn't have any formal
training but had worked for an engineering union
on Jhutti orbital station when younger.
"Roby's checked him out," Noah said, finally
arriving on the bridge deck carrying a handful of
sweet electrolyte drink pouches, which he handed
out. "Says he's talented but might have some
attitude."
"Who's this Bobs guy?" Tabby asked as the
image of a male Felio appeared on our HUDs. Thin
and tall, Bobs' angular face was covered in short
gray fur with slightly darker gray stripes. He had
the look of a man who'd been demoralized and
forced to accept his lot in life.
"House Mshindi,"I said, reading his data sheet.
"He served on Mshindi Prime's battleship. It was a
fluke that he wasn't aboard when it was destroyed
by the Kroerak. Just happened to be grounded
because of an injury. Says here he was a gunner's
mate."
"How'd Marny miss this guy?" Tabby asked.
"She didn't," Noah said. "He's got a problem
with Pogona. Marny's got notes on him. Mshindi
didn't think much of the Pogona and Bobs brings
that attitude with him. He's pretty caustic."
"Not telling you your business," Ada said. "But
I don't think we need that on a mission like this.
You're bringing Prajna and Noxen. I don't know
Noxen, but Prajna won't put up with any crap. I'll
kick his ass myself if he goes after my girl."
"T've talked with Bobs about his reputation,"
Noah said. "I'll manage it. I want to give hima
chance."
"You better," Ada said. "Praj is only a teenager."
I glanced at Noah and tried to keep from
smiling. I loved that he wanted to redeem an old
warrior, especially one from House Mshindi. To see
the good in people who were otherwise discarded
was a trait I admired. Ada’s description of Prajna
as a teenager was a bit misleading. Sure, that was
her age, but she'd grown up hard and was as salty a
crew as I'd ever sailed with.
"Feels right to me," Tabby added cheerfully. "A
curmudgeon, a speciest and a mouthy teenager.
What could go wrong? I just want to know who's
overseeing crew training."
"Oh, sister, like you even have to ask," Ada said,
holding a fist out behind her for Tabby to pound.
Noah dropped his head into his hands and
shook it slowly. "Kill me now."
Elea Station was only about a quarter rotation
clockwise from Xenon and the view was spectac-
ular. She was first visible as a small black dot that
steadily grew out of the muddy orange, red and
brown swirls of the planet.
The station had started life as a derelict
transport vessel. The ship had been built to save a
pastoral colony of peaceful Felio who once inhab-
ited Kito, one of only two inhabitable planetary
bodies in the entire Mhina system. The Felio had
fled in front of a massive invasion force of Kroerak.
In the end, not all the transport vessels had es-
caped. It had been Merrie who suggested pulling
the abandoned wreck to Elea and placing it in low
orbit so it could be repurposed.
"Elea Station, this is Hotspur, requesting
assistance from the refinery platform," Ada called.
"We're inbound with a loose load. I'd like permis-
sion to drop some kids off at daycare."
I raised an eyebrow. While I followed the
conversation, I was pretty sure that dropping kids
off wasn't any sort of standard speech for what
we were attempting. That said, hauling shipping
containers by simply dragging them behind a
spaceship was hardly standard, so we were in new
territory.
"Copy that, Hotspur," Merrie answered. "I've set
up a web for your little flies. Bring them to Mama."
"Okay, that just got a little creepy," Ada said,
muting outgoing comms, as Merrie's voice broke
into a high-pitched cackle. "Am I right?"
"Why is it always spiders?"
"Come on, guys," Merrie said, her voice back to
normal. "I've already got the reputation what with
my mechanical legs. Best to run with things, right?
It's like I can suck the blood out of ore containers."
Ada laughed nervously into the comms. "Uh,
right, had me going there, Merrie. Good one. I'm
closing on your... er... web. Go ahead and extend
your gravity range."
The capture system was ingenious in its sim-
plicity. The gravity generator on the open refinery
deck could be configured to hold in place large
and small volumes of material, depending on cur-
rent conditions. By extending a large field of low
gravity, Merrie would capture the containers and
slowly bring them to the deck. To make sure none
escaped, she’d fashioned a grid of cable that would
stop the containers from sliding off the end of the
deck. Other than the gravity trick, it really was like
a spider's web.
"Was she always this ingenious?" Noah asked.
"You don't know the half of it," Tabby said.
“When we first met her, she was living in the iron
age. All by herself, she’d unearthed an electronic
encyclopedia. She set her sights on building a
steel furnace, drones, and a bunch of crazy tech. If
anything, this station might be a bit tame for her
skills."
"I'd heard rumors," Noah said.
I didn't need Ada's announcement to know we
were free of our load as Hotspur jerked when the
lines were released. It seemed a shame to use the
proud sloop as a humble ore hauler, but necessity
was a demanding mistress.
Ada slipped Hotspur around in a gentle arc and
swept past still unoccupied decks until we arrived
at the newly constructed docking bays on Alpha
Deck.
 "Hornblower's just getting in," Tabby said, point-
ing out the portside window.
My AI flashed a blue outline around Hornblower
as she steamed slowly toward us. It was awe in-
spiring to see the sixteen-thousand tonne mam-
moth proudly roll into her home port, fresh paint
showing off her colors. Subconsciously, I stood,
unable to stay seated at her approach. Having
rescued me and mine more than once, Hornblower
held a special place in my heart and I didn't care
who knew it.
 NOXED

iam, I'm glad I caught you," Mom

’ ’ said, as Tabby and I made our
way down the newly repurposed
concourse that led to Intrepid's
mooring. Unlike Hotspur, our frigate, Intrepid, was
too large to be accommodated by a bay and instead
was tied to the side of the station and held in place
by magnetic lashings.
"Do you need me, Mrs. H?" Tabby asked as we
stopped, causing Mom to smile. Tabby had used
the name Mom's students called her when she
taught primary education on the asteroid colony
where we grew up. Mom embraced me and I closed
my eyes, enjoying the moment. I frowned for a sec-
ond, searching her face as I pulled away. It might
have been my imagination, but she seemed thin-
ner since I'd last seen her.
"No, dear. I just need a moment of Liam's time
before he runs off again," she said. Glancing over
Mom's shoulder, I noticed her assistant, Jasinder,
waiting patiently, giving us a private moment.
Tabby gave Mom a quick hug. "I'll grab your
gear," she said, tipping her head back to catch my
eye.
"Thanks. I'll coordinate supplies with Ada," I
said as she disappeared around a corner.
Mom beckoned for Jasinder to join us. “Liam,
we just received bad news from Underhill. They've
had a crop failure."
"How bad?" For all of Elea Station's technologi-
cal marvels, food production wasn’t one of them.
While biological projects were underway, those
supplied only a tenth of the kilo-calories con-
sumed by the roughly one thousand inhabitants
of the station. In the long run, we hoped to tame
the nearby moon, Kito, but we couldn’t afford to
spread ourselves too thinly.
Jasinder held out an electronic tablet. The
screen had a graph with two lines on it. The first
line represented food stores, the second showed
a relatively flat line of caloric intake. Every ten
days, shipments from Underhill arrived and the
first line spiked up and then fell back toward the
first, indicating few reserves. The regularity of the
spikes made missing shipments easy to spot.
"We'll start rationing right away." As Mom said
it, Jasinder touched an icon on the screen and the
daily calorie line dropped. While the restrictions
were helpful, they only delayed the inevitable.
"What about the blight? Can it be fixed?" I
asked, oblivious about how crops grew, especially
in an underground cavern energized by Iskstar
crystals.
"Our farmers have faced these problems before.
New crops can be started, but it takes an entire
growing season," she said. "We barely survived last
time."
I nodded. "You know what this means, right?"
Mom nodded. I'd been advocating to set up a
trading run for quite a while. Elea Station was
overflowing with fuel and other valuable products
found in its atmosphere. The problem was, House
Kifeda, the current ruling power of our neighbor-
ing solar system, Tamu, had made it clear that we
were persona non grata.
The feud wasn't hard to understand. Techni-
cally, House of the Bold was an Abasi house, even
though we weren't Felio. Our entry into Abasi
culture came at a dark time when Kroerak were
invading and destroying all who got in their way.
Our payment for helping Abasi win the Kroerak
war had been an official House and the Mhina solar
system. At the time, it hadn't been much of a trade,
because the Mhina system was in the path of the
Kroerak invaders.
What we hadn't seen coming, was that after
a bloody and devastating war with the Kroerak,
House Kifeda would turn on its sister houses.
Kifeda seized power, crushing the returning but
weakened Houses of Mshindi, Perasti and Gundi.
As a result, Kifeda declared the exchange of Mhina
and the creation of House of the Bold as null and
void.
"How will you get around their patrols?" she
asked. "Hotspur is best suited for slipping past, but
you can't possibly carry enough supplies."
"Intrepid is fast," I said.
"Not with just three engines," Mom pointed out.
She was right. Intrepid was nicely over-powered
with four engines, but one had been knocked off
in a recent skirmish with another angry neighbor,
the half-mechanical Mendari. With three engines,
she was still fast but would barely outrun the in-
terceptor class patrol vessels.
 "We'll figure it out," I said.
"What if you took Hotspur to Jhutti?" she asked.
Asmall orbital station over a nearby Pogona-set-
tled world, Jhutti was also impoverished. Many of
Elea Station's residents, including Mom's assistant,
Jasinder and her daughter, Prajna were refugees
from there.
"Do you think they'd have enough food to
trade? Even if we could fill Hotspur, by the time
we got there and back, we'd have to turn around
again. We’d be locked in a vicious cycle, assuming
we could find someone to trade with." I voiced an
old argument. There was no doubt Hotspur could
slip around Kifeda patrols, but the hold was so
small that we couldn't transport enough to feed a
thousand people for long.
Mom looked to Jasinder, wordlessly prompting
her to weigh in. Jasinder gave me a tight smile.
"I've plotted a recurring shipment with Jhutti.
Using our knowledge of items available on Jhutti
and known market conditions, I've estimated an
exchange of fuel for foodstuffs."
Jasinder's graph changed, showing a new set
of bumps in the station’s food stores, presumably
where Hotspur returned with a full hold. Indeed,
the graph took the station off reduced rations, if
only just. Jasinder scrolled the image, taking us out
nine ten-days. The graph spiked up significantly as
production at Underhill returned.
"If we do this, we survive, Liam," Mom said. "For
it to work, we only need the shipments to continue
for ninety days."
Ninety days wasn't a long time, especially if
Underhill could get their crops back on schedule.
"You're right. After we deal with this unknown
frigate and Kifeda patrol, I'll take a crew to Jhutti
station."
"Thank you, Liam," she said, placing her hand
on my arm. “I know I'm pushing you, but I don't
want to take risks with so many people depending
on us."
My stomach soured as I hugged her. Survival
mode made me sick. She was doing the right thing,
but desperation now clung to me like a malodor.
"Captain on the deck," Prajna snapped as I
turned the corner and entered a wide hallway
ending at an airlock. Transparent panels of armor
glass sat on either side of the hatch and bright
station lights illuminated Intrepid's starboard and
the gangway connecting ship and station. I looked
quizzically at Prajna, not ordinarily one for deco-
rum. She stood, stiff at attention, with a rucksack
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
sailors found that the Scotch people were fond of them and proud of
the record for behavior left by the thousands of their comrades who
had landed from Admiral Rodman’s battleships.
After twelve days in the Firth of Forth, the Corsair was relieved by
the Chester and received orders to report at Portland, England.
During the voyage north, Commander Porter had navigated through
four hundred miles of swept war channels where the abundance of
German mines was presumed to require the most ticklish care. The
cleared passages were strewn with wrecks and most British
merchantmen were anchoring at night. The Corsair had picked her
way, not in a reckless spirit, but because she was due to reach her
destination at a specified time and it was the habit of the ship to
arrive when she was expected. While returning south to Portland, a
pilot was taken on at Yarmouth and casual reference was made to
the fact that the yacht had chosen the north channel into the mouth
of the Thames while coming over from France.
“My word, but you are lucky beggars!” exclaimed the ruddy pilot.
“You should have gone in by the south channel, you know. The other
one is a bloomin’ muck o’ mines that ain’t been swept. You couldn’t
wait a week for a bally pilot, eh? The sportin’ chance! I fancy it’s the
proper spirit in a navy, what?”
At Portland the Corsair found the U.S.S. Bushnell which had
served as the mother ship of the American submarine flotilla in
Bantry Bay. With her waited five mine-sweepers and five submarine
chasers all ready and anxious to sail for home. The yachts Harvard
and Aphrodite had come over from Brest and were attached to the
North Sea patrol. Later in the winter they were sent to Germany. The
Aphrodite hit a mine en route, but luckily its action was delayed and,
although damaged, she was able to make port. What aroused eager
interest at Portland was a group of five German submarines, moored
close to the Bushnell, which comprised an installment of the
surrendered fleet of U-boats. Their frightfulness was done. Meekly
they had crossed the North Sea, at the bidding of the victors, to be
tied up all in a row as a rare show for the jeering comment of British
and American bluejackets.
 To the sailors of the Corsair it was fascinating to inspect and
investigate these uncouth sea monsters which they had hunted and
bombed with no more mercy than if they had been vermin. Instead of
winning the war for Germany, they had turned the tide against her by
arousing the United States to launch its armed forces in the cause of
the Allies. And they had branded the German name with infamy and
reddened German hands with the blood of thousands of slain
seamen.

WITH THE GRAND FLEET AT ROSYTH

 SURRENDERED GERMAN SUBMARINES TIED UP AT
PORTLAND TWO AMERICAN SUBMARINES ARE WITH THEM

Christmas Day of 1918 was spent in this English harbor of

Portland and the occasion was not as joyous as might have been,
although the Corsair’s log of December 24th contained this entry:
Received the following general stores: 118 lbs. geese,
23 lbs. ducks, 12 bunches celery, 100 lbs. cauliflower, 50
lbs. Brussels sprouts, 85 lbs. beets, 700 lbs. bread, 5040
lbs. potatoes.
The home-made poetry inspired by this Christmas in exile seemed
to lack the punch of former ballads as sung by the bluejackets’ glee
club. One of the productions went like this, with a perceptible tinge of
pathos:

“It was Christmas on the Corsair,

’Neath England’s cold, gray skies,
And one and all on board her
Hove long and pensive sighs.
 “Some of us longed for our families,
Our wives and children dear,
While others wished for their sweethearts
And maybe shed a tear.

“We sailors, tho’ outwardly happy,

Were moved by memory
Of mother, home, and sweetheart,
So far beyond the sea.

“So while the war is ended

And gladness reigns supreme,
Yet to the boys on the Corsair,
Peace is an idle dream.

“Waiting for sailing orders,

The ships all on the bum,
This special duty is surely enough
To drive a man to rum.

“But the sailor believes in the doctrine

Of sunshine after rain,
And as soon as the job is over,
He is ready to try it again.

“So when we get back to the homeland,

As we will some day, we trust,
There isn’t one if called upon,
Who wouldn’t repeat or bust.

“The destroyers are gone to the west’ard,

The battleships, too, are home,
But this poor old yacht has been forgot
And is left here to finish alone!!”

On the day after this rather subdued Christmas, the Corsair was
informed of her destination, which was Queenstown, Ireland, and her
mission was to relieve the U.S.S. Melville as the flagship of Admiral
Sims, Commanding the U.S. Naval Forces in European Waters. The
Melville, the last word in naval construction as a repair and supply
ship, had been nominally the flagship during the service of the
destroyer flotillas at Queenstown, although the official headquarters
and residence of Admiral Sims were in London. During this time the
Melville had quartered Captain J. R. P. Pringle, the American chief of
staff and his organization which coöperated with the British Admiral
Sir Lewis Bayly in maintaining and directing the destroyer force.
The elaborate and smoothly running machine of operation, supply,
equipment, and personnel had come to a halt with the armistice. The
destroyers had fled homeward. The barracks and dépôts for material
at Passage, a little way up the river, had been almost emptied, and
the great naval aviation base on the other side of Queenstown
Harbor was like a deserted city. All that remained was what Admiral
Bayly called the job of “cleaning up the mess.” For this the American
chief of staff was required to linger on the scene, but it was decided
to send the Melville home and the Corsair was elected to take the
place, or, as her men said, “it was wished on her.”
On December 27th the yacht tied up alongside the Melville in
Queenstown Harbor, and three days later Captain Pringle and his
staff transferred their offices and living quarters. This group of
officers comprised Commander A. P. Fairfield, Lieutenant
Commander D. B. Wainwright (Pay Corps), Lieutenant A. C. Davis,
Ensign W. B. Feagle. Soon the Corsair was alone as the only
American naval vessel in this port which had swarmed with the keen
activity of scores of destroyers and thousands of bluejackets. To
build up this force and keep it going at top speed had been an
enormous task, but it was no slight undertaking to pull it down again.
Winter rains and sodden skies made Queenstown even drearier than
when the liberty parties of destroyer men had piled ashore to fill the
American Sailors’ Club, or surge madly around and around in the
roller-skating rink, or live in hope of cracking the head of a Sinn
Feiner as the most zestful pastime that could be offered.
Dashing young destroyer officers no longer lingered a little in the
pub of the Queen’s Hotel for a smile from a rosy barmaid with the gift
of the blarney, and a farewell toast before going to sea again, while
the Royal Cork Yacht Club, down by the landing pier, seemed almost
forlorn without the sociable evenings when American and British
naval officers had swapped yarns of the day’s work and talked the
“hush stuff” about mystery ships and U-boats that would never see
their own ports again.
High up the steep hillside, the White Ensign flew from the mast in
front of Admiral House, and Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, austere,
efficient, but very human, one of the ablest officers of the British
Navy, still toiled at his desk or puttered among his flower gardens in
the rare hours of leisure, but his occupation as Commander-in-Chief
of the Coasts of Ireland was mostly in the past tense. Soon he was
to retire, with the stripes of a full admiral on his sleeve and a long list
of distinctions following his name, Knight Commander of the Bath,
Companion of the Victorian Order, the Legion of Honor of France;
but more than these he valued the friendship and high respect of the
American naval force at Queenstown, memorable because it was
here that, for the first time, the British and the American navies had
worked and dared as one, salty brothers-in-arms, to conquer the sea
and make it safe against a mutual foe.
 THE CORSAIR AT QUEENSTOWN, AS FLAGSHIP OF ADMIRAL
SIMS

All of this the Corsair perceived in retrospect while Captain Pringle

finished his fine record of service by disposing of all the odds and
ends of work demanded of him before the Stars and Stripes could be
hauled down and Queenstown finally abandoned as a base. As soon
as the Corsair arrived in port, opportunity was offered the Reserve
officers and men to quit the ship and go home, instead of detaining
them longer on foreign service. Three officers and thirty men took
advantage of the chance and felt, fairly enough, that the war was
over and the call of duty no longer imperative. Other officers came to
the ship in their places—A. T. Agnew, Assistant Surgeon, who had
joined at Rosyth, Ensign C. R. Bloomer, Boatswain A. R. Beach, and
Boatswain H. W. Honeck.
It was a long and tedious duty, lasting almost three months, this
serving as the flagship at Queenstown, but he also serves who only
stands and waits, and this was true of the Corsair. The aftermath of
the war was mostly drudgery, with all the fiery incentive and thrilling
stimulus removed, but the need was just as urgent and the Navy
responded, displaying the spirit which was best exemplified by Rear
Admiral Strauss and his mine-laying fleet which placed a barrier of
forty thousand mines across the upper end of the North Sea and
then manfully, uncomplainingly, spent a whole year in sweeping them
up again.
One pleasant souvenir of the stay at Queenstown was a copy of
the following letter from Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly:
The Captain of the Dockyard has informed me that
valuable assistance was given by officers and men of the
U.S. Navy in extinguishing the fire in the Dockyard
yesterday, Tuesday. I desire to thank you very much for
the assistance so smartly and ably given.
On March 20th the Corsair left Queenstown for Spithead and
Cowes to meet a number of large German merchant ships and, as
the flagship of Admiral Sims, represent the United States in the
business of transfer to the American flag, as provided in the terms of
the armistice. The departure from Ireland caused no heart-breaking
regrets, although many congenial friendships had been formed
ashore. For weeks the crew had been more interested in sewing
stitches in the homeward-bound pennant than in any attractions that
foreign ports could afford. Rumor had been misleading as usual, and
hopes often deferred.
At Cowes the Corsair found four American destroyers, the
Woolsey, Lea, Yarnell, and Tarbell, and the naval tug Gypsum
Queen which had been sent to do the work in hand. Drafts of
American sailors had been brought from Brest, La Pallice,
Queenstown, and English ports to man the German liners after their
own crews had been taken out of them. Commander T. G. Ellyson,
U.S.N., acted as the representative of Admiral Sims and was in
charge of the transfer. While at Cowes he lived on board the Corsair,
with his staff. The London Times described the episode as follows:
During the last few days a number of German merchant
ships which have been surrendered to the Allies under the
Armistice conditions have arrived at Cowes roadstead.
The Hamburg-American liners Cleveland and Patricia
were the first to arrive, and they were followed by the Cap
Finisterre, the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, the Graf
Waldersee, the Zeppelin, and the Kronprinz Friedrich
Wilhelm, making seven of the eight expected at this port.
The La Plata is expected to arrive in a day or two.
In place of the smart, spick-and-span German merchant
sailors of pre-war days, these large vessels, ranging up to
24,500 tons, were mostly manned by motley crews of
Germans, many wearing bowler hats and untidy civilian
dress. Many of them speak English and in conversation
showed that they were familiar with the Solent and local
shipping, while others had been to Cowes in Regatta
times. One officer stated that he had been there on the ex-
Kaiser’s yacht Meteor. These Germans are not allowed
ashore but are transferred to the Cap Finisterre, in which
they will return to Germany when the La Plata arrives.
They have brought their own provisions with them but they
have been reprovisioned here.
New crews have been provided for the surrendered
ships by the American Navy, representatives of which are
superintending the transfer of the crews and the dispersal
of the German ships which have left for other ports. The
Cleveland, Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm, and Pretoria have
sailed for Liverpool, the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria and Graf
Waldersee for Brest and the Zeppelin for Plymouth. The
German ships fly the blue and white flag of the Inter-Allied
Nations and have an American escort, including the
armed yacht Corsair, destroyers, submarine chasers, and
store-ships.
The North German Lloyd liner Zeppelin, with an
American crew on board, arrived at Devonport yesterday.
The remainder of the American naval forces at Plymouth
will embark on her to-day, and after coaling and taking on
stores, the Zeppelin will leave for Brest and the United
States.
 Up to yesterday twenty-four of the one hundred German
vessels allocated to Leith had arrived there. A number of
the ships were new; in fact this voyage was their maiden
one. When the total is complete, the vessels will form a
very handsome addition to the shipping in the port. The
conduct of the sailors is said to be satisfactory. There were
rumors that there was among the crews of some of the
vessels a revolutionary spirit, but these had no foundation.
The crews are reported to be eager and willing to do all
that is required of them.
The duty of taking part in the distribution of German shipping, in
which the naval representatives of the United States were
concerned, took the Corsair next to Harwich, the important East
Coast base of England, at which the main fleet of German
submarines was surrendered to Rear Admiral Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt,
R.N. It was at Harwich that the British submarines had rested and
refitted between their perilous patrol tours across the North Sea
when they stalked the U-boat in a deadly game of hide-and-seek
which Fritz lacked the courage to play. The British losses had been
heavy, many a gallant submarine erased from the list as missing with
all hands, but the toll of U-boats had been much greater and the
results were worth the price they cost.
 SEAMAN HENRY BARRY, GUNNER’S MATE SIMPSON
BEFORE THEY WISHED HOPES TO SPOT THAT SUB
ANOTHER JOB ON HIM

Out of Harwich had dashed that wonderful light cruiser division

under Admiral Tyrwhitt, always under two hours’ steaming notice to
run north as a tactical unit of the Grand Fleet or to tear at thirty knots
for the Strait of Dover to help defend and keep clear the main road to
France. And now the cruisers and destroyers and submarines no
longer moved restlessly in and out of Harwich Harbor to patrol the
North Sea, and Harwich was again a railway terminus on the route to
Antwerp and the Hook of Holland. As the American flagship, the
Corsair tarried there through part of April before sailing to Southend
to execute similar orders and duties. England was green and
blooming with the loveliness of its rare springtime, and the men of
the lonely American yacht were more than ever absorbed in thoughts
of flying that homeward-bound pennant.
 At length there came an order from London, transmitted through
the cruiser Galveston which was also at Southend, that seemed to
promise the Corsair a start on the long road home:
On completion of transfer of stores and quota of draft of
the German steamship Brandenburg, you will proceed to
Plymouth, England, with the vessel under your command,
arranging to arrive in the afternoon of May 7th. On arrival
report to the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces,
European Waters, for use of the Secretary of the Navy.
Secretary Daniels and his party were at this time on their way to
France and the United States after visiting the Allied naval
organizations. The Corsair was designated to carry them from
Plymouth to Brest, and the British Admiralty carried out its part of the
programme with the most punctilious attention to detail, as is shown
in the printed memorandum under “Devonport General Orders”
which was signed by Admiral Cecil F. Thursby:
Embarkation of Mr. J. Daniels, Secretary of the U.S.
Navy.
U.S. Yacht Corsair and one U.S.T.B.D. will arrive p.m.
7th May and will be berthed as follows,—Corsair
alongside Resolution, bows to southward, if possible.
T.B.D. alongside No. 1 wharf, unless she requires oil when
she will proceed to Orangeleaf and complete with fuel.
The train conveying Mr. Daniels and party will arrive at
No. 6 wharf at 0800 on Thursday, 8th May. The
Commander-in-Chief will receive Mr. Daniels. The Vice
Admiral Commanding First Battle Squadron and staff and
the Admiral Superintendent are requested also to be
present at the wharf. (Dress No. 5 without swords.)
A working party of three petty officers and twenty men in
No. 5 dress, in charge of a warrant officer, is to be
provided by Depot, and to be at No. 6 wharf by 0745 to
transfer baggage from train to Corsair. As soon as Mr.
Daniels and party and all baggage have been embarked,
 Corsair will proceed down harbor. Admiral Superintendent
is requested to arrange for a tug to be in attendance.
The Corsair arrived punctually at Plymouth and was waiting to
obey the foregoing instructions when, at midnight, there came a
telegram which quite overshadowed the episode of carrying the
Secretary of the Navy, with all due respect to the dignity of his office.
The message, for which the yacht had waited so long, came in the
form of a smudged carbon copy as sent through the U.S. Naval
Post-Office, but in the eyes of those who scanned it the document
was beautiful. It read:
U.S.S. Corsair hereby detached duty European Waters.
Proceed Brest with Secretary of Navy and report to
Admiral Halstead. Load any personnel for which space is
available and then proceed New York, touching at Azores
if necessary. Transfer any flag records to U.S.S.
Chattanooga before leaving Plymouth.
Escorted by the American destroyer Conner, the Corsair made a
fast and comfortable run to Brest. The passengers were the
Secretary and Mrs. Daniels; Rear Admiral David W. Taylor, Chief of
the Bureau of Construction and Repair; Rear Admiral Robert S.
Griffin, Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering; Rear Admiral
Ralph Earle, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance; Commander Stewart
E. Barber, Pay Corps, who was officially attached to the Corsair;
Commander Percy W. Foote, personal aide to the Secretary; and
Private Secretary May.
Brest Harbor was a familiar panorama to the few men aboard the
Corsair who had shared the toil and excitement of those early
months of patrol work offshore, almost a year before. Now, however,
the transports were crammed with troops homeward bound, and
there was no more convoying the “empty buckets” out of Saint-
Nazaire and Bordeaux and Quiberon Bay, nor was there any chance
of a brush with the persistent U-boat which had been dubbed
“Penmarch Pete.”
The Corsair undertook her good-bye courtesies and ceremonies,
one of them a luncheon party on board, at which the guests were
Rear Admiral A. S. Halstead who succeeded Admiral Wilson as
commander of the naval forces in France; Major General Smedley D.
Butler, commanding the embarkation camp at Brest; Vice-Admiral
Moreau and Rear Admiral Grout of the French Navy and Mme.
Grout; and Commander Robert E. Tod, Director of Public Works at
Brest.

THE HOMEWARD-BOUND PENNANT. “WE’RE OFF FOR LITTLE

OLD NEW YORK, THANK GOD”

Not much time was wasted in port. Two days after arriving, on May
10th, the bunkers were filled with coal, and there was precious little
cursing over the hard and dirty job which had so often caused the
crew to agree that what General Sherman said about war was
absurdly inadequate. It was different now. Every shovel and basket
of coal meant steam to shove the old boat nearer home. That
homeward-bound pennant trailed jubilantly from the masthead, a silk
streamer of red, white, and blue, one hundred and eighty feet long,
into whose folds had been fondly stitched the desires, the yearnings,
the anticipations of every man in the ship. Only a few of them had
stood, with bared heads, on the Corsair’s deck when she had been
formally commissioned as a fourth-rate gunboat of the United States
Navy in May of 1917, and the bright ensign had whipped in the
breeze.
Many of that company had seen service in other ships and some
were civilians again, but memory was apt to hark back to the Corsair
with a certain affection and regret. And wherever they were to be,
these youthful sailors would feel a thrill of pride and kinship at sight
of a Navy man and they would kindle to the sentiment:

“But there’s something at the heart-strings that tautens when I

meet
A blue-clad sailor-man adrift, on shore leave from the fleet.”

Lieutenant McGuire, bred to the sea and experienced in ships,

thought it over after he came home and wrote these opinions of the
Corsair’s company and the work they did:
It was a pleasure to watch how eagerly the boys took
hold of their new jobs and how rapidly they became good
sailors. For a comrade to stand by in danger, give me first
of all a plain, every-day, American gob. He is not so much
on the parade stuff, but offer him a chance to risk his skin
or his life for his friend or his flag and he is there every
time.
If this war has helped us as a nation in no other way, it
has, I believe, taught hundreds of thousands of men the
meaning of their country’s flag, taught them to love it as
their own, and that to die for it is an honor to be prized.
While the duty abroad was pretty strenuous at times, yet
the average American has the faculty of making friends in
every port, which helped to pass the few hours at his
disposal when not engaged in coaling ship. How we did
envy the boys in the oil-burners!
 The chief petty officers and petty officers of the
American Navy are exceptionally intelligent and proficient
in their duties, and on many occasions helped the average
Reserve officer over rough places. I also felt great
admiration for the officers with whom I served and came in
contact, both Regular and Reserve.
 CHAPTER XIII
HONORABLY DISCHARGED

O F the old crew, the crew which had sailed with Pershing’s First
Expeditionary Force, only two officers and eighteen men
watched the frowning headlands of Brittany sink into the sea as the
Corsair turned her bow to follow the long trail that led to the twin
lights of Navesink and the skyline of New York. A day at the Azores
for coal and she laid a course for Bermuda and another brief call
before straightening out for the last stretch of the journey. On May
28th she steamed into her home port after an absence just a little
short of two years. There was no uproarious welcome when the gray
Corsair slipped through the Narrows and sought a berth at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard. The war had ended more than half a year
earlier. It was already an old story, but the ship had done her duty
and was content with this.
A few days later she ceased to be enrolled in the United States
Navy. There was no ceremonious formality and the documents in the
case were exceedingly brief, but they signified the end of a story
which had added a worthy page to the annals of American manhood.
“Ships are all right. It is the men in them,” said one of Joseph
Conrad’s wise old mariners. This was true of the Corsair and the
other yachts of the Breton Patrol. And so the Navy Department
spoke the last word in this concise order:
Headquarters of the Third Naval
District, Brooklyn, New York
June 6, 1919
From: Officer in Charge, Material Department.
To: Commanding Officer U.S.S. Corsair, S.P. 159.
Subject: Orders.
Proceed to W. & A. Fletcher Shipyard, Hoboken, N.J.,
June 9, 1919. Place the vessel out of commission in
accordance with orders enclosed herewith, and deliver the
 vessel to representative of the owner, Mr. J. P. Morgan.
Have enclosed receipts in duplicate signed and return to
this office.
(Signed) C. L. Arnold,
Captain, U.S.N.
(Enclosure.) The U.S.S. Corsair is hereby placed out of
commission, June 9th, 1919.
Her owner surmised that the Corsair had been run to death and
worn out in the Bay of Biscay, that she was to be regarded rather as
a relic than a yacht; but in this Mr. Morgan was happily disappointed.
The staunch ship was still fit to be overhauled and made ready for
the peaceful and leisurely service of other days. In her old berth at
Fletcher’s Yard she swarmed with artisans instead of bluejackets,
and they found many things to be done besides restoring the
furniture, fittings, partitions, and so on.

Copyright, 1899, by C. E. Bolles, Brooklyn

THE CORSAIR WHEN IN COMMISSION AS A YACHT BEFORE

THE WAR
 A stalwart man may tumble down three flights of stairs and escape
without a broken neck, but he is bound to be considerably shaken
up. This was painfully the case with a yacht which had been kept
going month in and month out, the fires drawn from under her boilers
only when she positively declined to make steam enough and was in
a mood to protest against such unfair treatment. That December
hurricane had been a bruising, almost fatal experience, and the
repairs made at Lisbon could not be called final.
As a ship, however, the Corsair had strongly survived the ordeal,
and soon she began to resume the semblance of a shapely, sea-
going yacht. The graceful bowsprit was restored to the clipper stem,
the deck cleared of gun mountings, and the overhang was no longer
cluttered with the gear of the depth bombs. Chief Engineer
Hutchison returned to his own engine-room, and there was clangor
and clatter as gangs of mechanics repaired, replaced, and tuned up
machinery which had been driven to the limit of endurance.
The Corsair’s steaming record in foreign service had amounted to
49,983.6 miles from June, 1917, to December, 1918, when she
ceased cruising to spend her time in English ports and at
Queenstown. The distance, by months, was as follows:
1917:
June 3244.4 miles
July 3358.7
August 3441.5
September 3343.7
October 2994.4
November 3045.6
December 557.1 (Engine counter disabled in hurricane)
1918:
January 880.9 miles (at Lisbon)
 February 2635.8
March 2519
April 1279.3
May 3554.5
June 3823.8[7]
July 3609.8[7]
August 4300[7]
September 4027[7]
October 1155.7 (Repairs)
November 1030.4
December 1182

On July 31st, less than two months after being placed out of
commission as a naval vessel, the Corsair hoisted the Commodore’s
flag of the New York Yacht Club. Trim and immaculate, she
proceeded to her anchorage at Glen Cove, to await cruising orders.
There were differences, however, and the Corsair was not the same
as of old. Freshly painted, the hue of her funnel and hull was the
gray of the Navy. For a season, at least, the glistening black of her
hull was not to be restored. It seemed more fitting, somehow, that in
this way she should recall her long service in helping guard the road
to France.
Upon her funnel were two service chevrons. The regulations
awarded a stripe for the first three months overseas and another for
a full year thereafter, until the date of the armistice. The decks were
scraped and holystoned and spotless, but where the guns had been
there were wooden plugs to mark the half-circles of the mounts, and
the pine planking was scarred where cases of shells had been
dragged to be ready for the swift team-work of the agile gun crews.
These, too, were marks of honor which it seemed a pity to obliterate.
They signified that the Corsair was something more than a yacht.
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