The Argonaut Affair (TimeWars 7)

"If we ran for shore each time the sky grew a little gray," he said, "we would never reach our destination. We have fought fierce battles and emerged victorious. We have survived the Clashing Rocks. The gods watch over us. Are we to shake with fear at the merest threat of rain? "

"What's coming is a great deal more than just a little rain," Delaney said. "You've never seen a real storm at sea."

"If one comes, then I shall see it," Jason said, impatiently. "I grow weary of this journey. The gods have sent us wind to speed us on our way. I shall not fail to take advantage of their gift."

"You'll be calling it a curse before too long," Delaney said. I've been at sea before, Jason, and I'm telling you-"

"Enough!" said Jason. "Who is captain here? If you had not the nerve to make this voyage, you should not have come."

He turned away angrily and walked up forward to stand in the bow, looking out to sea intently, as if he could see Colchis just over the horizon.

"I ought to turn that kid over my knee and give him a good spanking," said Delaney.

"Well, if he wants to see a storm, he's about to get an eyeful," Steiger said.

"Get some rope," Delaney shouted. "Bring all we have. If it gets as rough as I think it's going to get, we're going to need it."

The winds continued to gather strength and the sky grew dark. The sea went from choppy to roiling and the swells grew larger, then the squall struck. The rain came down in stinging sheets and the waves crashed down upon the Argo. Jason quickly experienced a change of heart and ordered Argus to turn in toward shore. Delaney immediately contermanded his order. Jason turned on him furiously.

"You must be mad!" he shouted. "At the first sign of a little wind, you plead to go ashore and now you wish to head out for the open sea? You would take us from safety to disaster! What do you wish to do, drown us all? To shore, Argus!"

"You fool," Delaney said. "It's too late now. We won't even reach the shore in these conditions, whether the gods are watching over us or not! We'll be battered to bits by the waves or smashed upon a reef! Our only chance now is to head out to open sea and ride the storm out!"

"And if your house were to catch fire, you would run into the flames? I have never heard such nonsense! Argus, steer to ward shore!"

"Jason, my lad, I'm about to show you something else that happens at sea sometimes," Delaney said. "It's called a mutiny."

He dropped Jason with a hard right cross to the jaw. "Lash him down!" he yelled to Steiger. "The rest of you, take some rope and tie yourselves to something or you'll be swept overboard!"

He ran back to join Argus and they lashed themselves to the tiller together. The other Argonauts were in no mood for argument. The wind was screaming like a hundred banshees and the waves were crashing down upon the deck, soaking them all and knocking them off their seats. They moved quickly to secure the oars and tie themselves down.

Delaney estimated that the gale was at least Force 9. The waves were now cresting at about 30 feet and the Argo was being tossed about as if it were a toy. There was no point in trying to rig some sort of sea anchor, the Argo was too large for such a solution to be practical. The greatest danger to the ship was not the winds, but the seas shaped by those winds.

In such conditions, the Argo could easily be knocked down or the waves could come aboard and pound the deck to splinters. Even with the sail down, the mast might be torn away and if the distance between the waves was less from crest to crest than twice the length of the Argo, the ship would come over one wave and crash into the next as if it were a solid wall. The different movements of the water at the tops and bottoms of the swells created strong turning forces on the ship, inviting the danger of a broach.

Delaney was not for heaving to. It meant giving up control. An experienced sailor, his solution ran contrary to what common sense would seem to dictate. It terrified the Argonauts and even Argus thought it was insane. Both Steiger and Delaney were grateful for the fact that the crew had tied themselves down, otherwise they might have interfered.

Instead of taking down the sail, Delaney did just the opposite. With Steiger working on deck with the aid of an improvised safety line, they ran under full sail, surfing down the waves at a twenty degree angle to the crest. The idea was to keep the ship sailing as fast as possible and to avoid allowing the sea to get dead behind them, for if the ship sailed straight down a wave, the bow would almost certainly "catch" on the next wave and the ship would flip end over end.

Riding out the storm in the open sea was far less hazardous than it would have been to take the ship close in to land. There, they would have risked running into unseen capes or sandbars or crunching on a reef due to lack of visibility. The currents close in to land in heavy weather would be completely unpredictable and there was the risk of outlying rocks and tidal bores, tidal floods which ran roaring into rivers or narrow bays in a succession of large, irregularly breaking waves that could broach the ship or hurl it up onto a reef or beach.

Delaney held the ship on course for the open sea as he and Argus leaned their combined weight on the tiller. The Argo rose up on the swells as if it were climbing vertical walls, then shot down the faces of the waves into the troughs between them. The Argonauts soon saw the reason why they had been directed to secure themselves, as the waves swept over the ship and forced their bodies to strain against the ropes which held them. With a modern yacht, such conditions would have been arduous enough, but with a primitive vessel like the Argo, it was torture.

Argus quickly assimilated Delaney's technique of running full tilt before the storm and ceased to require prompting, but after several hours of such punishment, the old shipbuilder's strength started to give out and soon he was little more than dead weight on the tiller. Suddenly Hercules appeared at Delaney's side, having fought his way back to them. He untied Argus and lowered him down, then secured him once again and took the tiller with Delaney. Together, with their hair and beards matted down and the spray stinging their muscles and threatening to blind them, they strained against the tiller and controlled the ship on its roller coaster ride up and down the swells. They fought the storm all night, sailing more by feel than by sight, for it was impossible to see well in the hurricane force winds.

By dawn, the winds started to die down and soon the sea was once more choppy and covered with whitecaps. As the sun came up, the storm moved past them and the seas grew calmer. They were out of sight of land. Argus, though still weary, took over the tiller and steered south toward shore as Hercules helped Delaney down, supporting his weight with an arm around his shoulders.

"Aren't you even tired?" asked Delaney.

"You have l-labored for m-m-much l-longer than I," said Hercules. "Sleep now."

"Right," Delaney murmured. "Wake me when we get to Colchis."

He closed his eyes and fell asleep almost immediately.

"Let him sleep," said Jason, who had recovered from Delaney's blow in plenty of time to see the worst of the storm. "He has earned his rest and my respect. We have seen Poseidon's fury unleashed and he faced it without fear. Truly, he must be in favor with the gods."

"If he were," Steiger mumbled under his breath, "he wouldn't be here."