Mistress and Commander Ch. 05

Chapter 5

Down To the Sea Again

The voyage of Dread Sovereign continues, to the end of the world. Some sex (not much), some love, much sorrow. Strokers, this one isn't for you.

"Something special for dinner," said Margarethe, turning to Robin. "Can you do it, Robin? We should have plenty of stores."

"Yes, Mistress," he said. "If Jenny will help, we can have dinner in an hour."

"All right, then, Jenny, help out our Robin. Sharyn, Molly, the settee over there is the most comfortable seat we have. If we can't be jolly chums, perhaps we can make polite talk while we wait."

Jenny made sure each of the three had a fresh pint, and went to help Robin.

"If either of you needs anything for the night, you should find it in my cabin. We did a wash recently, so Robin can make up the bed fresh and neat. There's a good alarm clock, get you up in time to catch the drifter back to York. Plenty of hot water in the shower...."

"All the mod. cons.," said Sharyn, with a grin.

"Yes," answered Margarethe. And you can have my bed, my strap-on, my lube, and you can fuck your brains out with the Belfast beauty rose, and I wish I could die, but I can't, because I have to get my two little emotional cripples home, and I'm a fine fucking one to be talking about emotional cripples, I have as much shit in my head as any of you....Her thoughts stopped as she answered the question she barely heard.

"Yes, we're going on to Nat Palmer Land, we have enough fuel to get there and back here, then refuel and start home, I expect."

"Good Lord, why Nat Palmer Land?" asked Molly, "nothing there but penguins and ice."

"Because, I suppose, it's there," said Margarethe. And because I have no other place to go. I have no home but this ship. I have no life but to go sailing on until...until....

Until I can die if I'm lucky.

Changing the subject, Margarethe asked, "When do you get to go home?"

Sharyn answered, "Only two months to go. Gloucester will be coming out, I expect, unless she's needed in the Middle East and we all get extended. Old York is due to be decommissioned, as new destroyers are being built if the country can afford it. She's almost thirty years old, and that's ancient as warships go nowadays. I expect they'll send me on a course to learn the latest IT going into the new girls of the Fleet. And Molly and I are due a month's leave...and oh! do I want to go home with you," she said to Molly, touching her hand but looking the question to Margarethe.

"It's all right," said Margarethe, forcing a smile, "I'm all right."

Sharyn leaned toward Molly and kissed her ear. Molly smiled, turned to Sharyn and kissed her, bringing their lips together as they clasped hands.

Sharyn said, "Margarethe, thank you."

"For what? This is nothing."

"Very well, it's nothing, but thank you."

The talk drifted into silence. They had nothing left to say. What Margarethe had had, she thought, was the only woman she ever loved, loved truly, forgetting herself, utterly lost in Sharyn. What Sharyn knew was that Margarethe never forgot Margarethe, that Margarethe would overwhelm her, that there would be no more Sharyn. What there would be was Margarethe's Sharyn, someone she could never be. With Molly there was Sharyn and Molly, two joined in one but still essentially two, each her own; and that was all Sharyn ever wanted.

Margarethe got up and went to the head to piss away the beer. In fact, though, she went to avoid having to look at Sharyn looking at Molly. She tried to stop the tears. It was useless. The pain was just the same. Now she's going and going for good. And I can abuse Jenny and pretend I love her and hurt her to take away my pain, and go round the same damn mulberry bush forever, but it won't end the pain because nothing ends the pain....

Robin saw Margarethe go into the head, saw her face with the tears starting to run. He didn't want Jenny to see it, so he gave her a little task to help prepare the Yorkshire pudding. How he managed a roast of beef in an hour took some ingenuity and some very high heat in the electric oven (they'd have to get some more Diesel for the VanDerBeeke generator), but he was ready to announce dinner when Margarethe came out of the head.

"Ladies, the roast beef of old England...and Yorkshire pudding."

Jenny beamed, Sharyn and Molly were smilingly appreciative, and Margarethe was grinning, like a small girl. Well, thought Robin, our virgin martyr has an appetite. Plus she actually went to the head. She'll live. And that means we get home.

The prayer ritual was followed by the ceremonial bite by the guests and crew. Margarethe was still trying to follow Slim of Burma.

Before dinner proper, the toast, "The Queen, God bless her." Roast beef followed, with Yorkshire pudding, mashed cauliflower, old-fashioned currant duff, one more pint of Boddington's (I thought we'd run out, must get another couple of cases before we sail, no it won't matter a damn, thought Margarethe), and a splash of Cognac. Margarethe kept the bottle. Robin noticed.

Dinner over, Robin went to make up Mistress' stateroom for their guests. He seemed a long time about it, thought Margarethe, but maybe he was shirking the wash-up after having cooked dinner. Well, I might just let it go this time, but let him not make a habit of loading work onto Jenny--but it doesn't matter any more, does it?, she thought.

The talk was strained. As it got nearer to the end of the evening, the old thoughts returned to Margarethe, and she grew silent. Neither Sharyn nor Molly wanted to make the effort to sustain a conversation that no one wanted to continue.

Robin came out of the stateroom at last, carrying the AK-74 and the Walther PPK.

"Where away with those, Robin?" Margarethe asked, rather more politely than she felt, but her first thought was not in front of strangers, what goes on with my crew is no one else's business.

"I thought the bridge might be a safer place for these, Mistress."

"You're not paid to think, you're paid to ask me first. But the bridge is a good place for now, in the locked shelf next the wheel. Just get them back to my stateroom in the morning."

"Aye aye, Mistress," he said and moved quickly up the stairs to the wheelhouse. Just as quickly he returned and went to help Jenny finish the wash-up.

"Well, I reckon you'll be wanting to get some sleep," said Molly.

"Yes," said Margarethe, "we'll have plenty to do tomorrow, finishing repairs, do a final restocking, top up fuel, and get away south'ard. It's a long cold way to Nat Palmer Land."

"Good night, then, Margarethe," said Sharyn.

"Good night, and thanks to your crew. It was a fine dinner, so it was," said Molly, getting up and extending her hand to Sharyn. Sharyn took Molly's hand, stood, and they walked to the stateroom holding hands.

Margarethe looked at the floor. "Good night," she muttered.

*************************

Dark night of the soul, what a bloody cliché, thought Margarethe. But it was three o'clock in the morning. Margarethe tried to go back to sleep, but it was hopeless. Jenny was sleeping like a child, her hands folded and brought up to her face, her little body curled neatly, a good baby. Margarethe kissed her forehead, gently, so as not to waken her.

Margarethe remembered, just before the second (or was it the third) Cognac took effect, how her earlier vision came true. Sharyn was always a screamer and a squirter. "Molleeeee, Molleeee, aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!" Sure enough, thought Margarethe, my ship, my stateroom, my new clean bedding, my strap-on and my lube, and my damn woman. Molly didn't scream, but the sound of body against body was clearly audible throughout the ship. Molly wasn't a squirter; her orgasm was a muffled grunting, animal, primitive. "Ungh ungh ungh ahhhhh!" Bloody hell, rinse and repeat, thought Margarethe.

They did.

This was what Sharyn and Molly had waited for, not the furtive fingering in a storage area, nor masturbating late at night, each thinking of the other; nor the quick glances or touchings when they were together for an instant. This was a chance to make love, really make love, to be what they wanted to be--lovers.

I remember her tits, thought Margarethe. They were like pears, with small nipples like wild raspberries. And how sweet her skin tasted, and the squirts in my face when we....The tears formed again. When will I stop crying? When can I forget how free we were with each other? When can I forget how good it felt, how every day was exciting? How I could forget everything, being with her, loving her....

Now it was quiet. They were all asleep, the babies were in bed. Now she was all alone with the pain.

They took my little stuffed kitten, the one I kept hidden from them, the one I held onto to take away the pain. They found it and tore it up in front of me. They sent me to bed that night, after another beating, with no blanket and no supper. I didn't care about that, but there was nothing to take away the pain, and I had to cry although I didn't want to, they made me cry. And now I won't cry, damn them, I'll take away the pain myself, damn them damn them.

She got out of bed quickly, slipped out of Jenny's crew cabin, and went to the wheelhouse. And England's far, and honour a name" she thought, and I'll never see it again but there's no point in seeing anything....

She reached into the locked shelf. She found the key where it was hidden (Robin knew the place too, so let him get the ship home or to Hell), unlocked it and pulled out the pistol.

Even in the darkness she slid back the bolt and saw the brass gleam of the cartridge case. The 90-grain slug would make a mess, but the pain would end. She put the muzzle in her mouth, pointed it upward toward the top of her head and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Stunned, shaking, she tried to slide out the magazine. No magazine. She pulled back the slide and the empty cartridge case flipped out and fell on the floor. No primer, no propellant, no 90 grains of death.

She shrieked, "Robin you fucking bastard!"

"You called, Mistress?"

"You're fucking bloody right I called! What did you do, and thank God you did it!"

"I suppose you are aware that you have to get us-- Jenny, you, me and Dread Sovereign-- to the end of the world and back again? And that quoting dead Field Marshals and trying to act like Captain Horatio Hornblower on steroids plus cocaine, while flogging and buggering your crew and incidentally having suicidal episodes because you hysterically overestimate the difference between one young woman and another, is really not the best way to do it? So kindly stop the fucking playacting, get your neuroses under some semblance of control, and fucking act like a Mistress and Commander even if you aren't one! To the end of the world!"

"So you took the bullets out of the pistol?"

"How ineffably clever of you to have noticed."

Jenny walked into the wheelhouse, sleepy-eyed, more like a little girl than ever. "Oh, Mistress," she said, "Please come back to bed."

Margarethe sank to her knees, pulled Jenny to her, and cried big gulping sobs.

"Aye weel," said Robin, "this'll no pey the rint, as we say at sea. Perhaps we can get Juliet and Juliet back to their destroyer, where they can brighten the holds and storerooms with their canoodling, and get this floating soap opera out to Nat Palmer (whoever the fuck he was) and his damned land. Onywye, I'se gangin' back tae me kip, eh fucking what? Good bloody fucking night, or morning, or whatever the Hell it is."

Margarethe rose quickly. "That's the second time you saved my life and my soul."

"You don't pay me to think, remember," he replied.

"I reckon I had better do, then," she said quietly.

"You consider that, Mistress," he said, "now I am going back to sleep."

And he did.

******************************

Morning. Large cups of hot sweet tea. "You'll get breakfast on your ship?" Margarethe asked.

"There'll be something the catering fellas'll have waiting for the liberty lasses, so they will," said Molly.

Sharyn said, "I suppose there'll be some egg-and-B in the wardroom, even on a Monday morning. This is good tea, thanks."

"Finish up, use the head one last time, and I'll have Robin and Jenny get the Whaler ready."

Sharyn said, "I don't know how to thank you...."

Margarethe said, "Then don't," and kissed her cheek.

Sharyn turned away. Molly returned from the head. "Yours, love, then we have to go."

After, they all went on deck. Robin started the Evinrude, and they were off to the dock. Margarethe looked after them until they vanished in the early morning mist.

"I told the Harbourmaster's man on the dock that we'd be fueling by 1400," said Robin when he returned. "When do you want to go to the stores?"

"Now, let's get it done with. Have you the list?"

"I do," said Jenny.

"Good, then let's go now."

Going into the store, they passed a young woman coming out with little girl.

"Oh Mummy," in a little piping voice, "those are the people with all those children, that I told you about."

"Hi Penny," said Jenny.

"Hi. How are the children?"

"We're all just fine, darling," said Jenny.

***************************************

Stores stowed, fuel tanks filled, Whaler secured, the workers gone and their worked inspected and paid for.

The anchor heaved in short, engines turning over.

" Weigh anchor," said Margarethe, the loudhailer echoing. It was as if she had wakened after a long illness and could breathe freely again, and stand, and not shake or stumble.

The anchor chain came in. "Anchor secured," she heard Robin reply.

She turned the wheel and moved the throttles forward. Robin and Jenny entered the wheelhouse. Each placed their right hand on top of hers.

"To the end of the world," she said, "and then home again."