NUMA 8 - Medusa

NUMA 8 - Medusa

NUMA 8 - Medusa

NUMA 8 - Medusa

PROLOGUE

THE PACIFIC OCEAN, 1848

IN ALL HIS YEARS SAILING THE WORLD’S OCEANS, CAPTAIN Horatio Dobbs had never known the sea to be so barren. The captain paced the quarterdeck of the New Bedford whaling ship Princess, gray eyes darting like twin lighthouse beams to every point of the compass. The Pacific was a disk-shaped blue desert. No spouts feathered the horizon. No grinning porpoises danced off the bow. No flying fish skittered above the wave tops. It was as if life in the sea had ceased to exist.

Dobbs was considered a prince in the New Bedford whaling hierarchy. In the waterfront bars where hard-eyed harpooners gathered, or in the parlors of the rich Quaker shipowners on Johnny Cake Hill, it was said that Dobbs could sniff out a sperm whale at fifty miles. But only the rank smell of a simmering mutiny had filled the captain’s nostrils of late.

Dobbs had come to dread having to record each day of failure in the ship’s logbook. The entry he had penned in his log the night before summed up the troubles he faced. He had written:

March 27, 1848. Fresh breeze, SW. Not a whale in sight. Hard luck hangs over voyage like a stinking fog. No oil in all of Pacific Ocean for poor ship Princess. Trouble brewing in the fo’c’sle.

Dobbs had a clear view of the length of the ship from the elevated quarterdeck, and he would have had to be blind not to see the averted gazes and the furtive glances from his crewmen. The ship’s officers had reported with alarm that the usual grumbling among the forecastle crew had become more frequent and vehement. The captain had instructed his mates to keep pistols ready and never to leave the deck unattended. No hand had yet been lifted in mutiny, but in the dark and dingy forecastle, the cramped living quarters located where the bow narrowed, men were heard to whisper that the ship’s luck might change if the captain were to meet with an accident.

Dobbs was six foot four and had a profile like a cliff. He was confident he could put down a mutiny, but that was the least of his worries. A captain who returned to port without a profitable cargo of oil had committed the unpardonable sin of costing the ship’s owners their investment. No crew worth its salt would ever ship out with him. Reputation, career, and fortune could rise or fall on a single voyage.

The longer a ship spent at sea, the greater the chance of failure. Supplies ran short. Scurvy and disease became more likely. The ship’s physical condition deteriorated and the crew lost its edge. Putting into port for repairs and supplies was risky. Men might jump ship to sign on to a more successful vessel.