Chapter 28: Pay Day is Headache Day

Soon after we got back -by boat- to our ship, one of the council members who I’d already met showed up with three men. The Queen and the council had both subcontracted the watch over their ships to Lady Philipmina’s company and they were there to take over so my people could leave. I sent Filo, Matto, and Jono to the three ships they had commanded on our way up to here to tell our teams that we’d been paid, and soon we had everybody back onboard.

We had taken on as crew two of the seamen rescued from the Fortune, but we had lost three men capturing the Arrow and the Wave so we had 80 men -one less than when we left Widemouth- on the rolls. We also had Ceecee, Donna, three women who claimed to be crewmen’s wives and I was not going to even START asking questions about that as long as everyone did their jobs, and about a dozen ‘passengers’ who weren’t crew but didn’t want to leave the ship yet.

As soon as we could get everything at least struck below and off the deck, we cast off and shifted back to where we had first moored over at the town’s pier. There were still some town guards standing around, but it was nothing like our greeting two days before. Since he’d been with me before, I sent Jono with some men to see about renting a cart or wagon as well as some horses to pull it.

As long as we were here, I thought that we might as well find out how much trouble letting the men loose would be. If I could, I wanted to stay for four days and let half the crew go each evening. And, if it was at all possible to resupply we should. We were going to need to refill water barrels and food barrels, we were going to have to take that empty chest to the bank and fill it with the men’s pay, and we would need to make the rounds every morning that we were here to pick up our hung-over sailors.

I wanted to have Garth and Jen see about getting some more missiles for their launchers, too. We’d only brought ten and we’d already lost half of them. The two that we had recovered were damaged. Considering what they had done for us I wasn’t going to complain, but what if we got into an extended battle and ran out? Even if they had to be stacked like firewood on the quarterdeck or the forecastle I wanted to get twenty good solid logs if they were available. The launcher crews could spend their spare time converting logs into missiles.

Jono and his men came back with a small cart like the one we’d borrowed at the shipyard, saying that I owed him a Quad and the cart was ours. I suppose that that was a reasonable purchase. Two men could handle it empty and six or eight would do when it was full. It was small enough to go down in the hold, too, so we wouldn’t lose it when we sailed. In fact, if we placed a few more boards down there it could be used down there to move the smaller barrels around. Good idea. We didn’t really need a larger wagon; we could have the merchants deliver things that were too large for it.

It was large enough for the pay chest. That was clearly something that everyone needed done next. Sure ... We were a whole expedition, going to the bank. Filo, the Commander, four of his shieldmen, Michael, and four sailors to push the cart around.

I wasn’t going to have them all crammed into the bank with me, so I asked two of the shieldmen to go in with us while the other two waited outside with the sailors. Michael and Filo carried the chest in while I held the door open.

They put it down in front of the counter, and I asked for “enough Pinches to pay eighty men four Pinches a day for eight days.” Hopefully that would be enough for a quick visit to Small Cove, too. The clerk asked if we wanted that in Pinches, Quads, or larger coins. I had decided to try half in Pinches and half in Quads, to start with.

This time, the clerk asked me to wait a minute and he went back and got the manager. This was the first time I’d seen that. I’d seen the manager, looking over things and making sure all was well, but this was the first time I’d seen the clerk go ask for help.

“Sir, that’s a lot of coins. May I ask what you need them for?”

“My crew needs to be paid. I’m giving it to them at only four Pinches a day so that they don’t get robbed and lose it all, so I need it in Pinches and Quads. Four Pinches a day times four days is a Shell for each, but I want it in Pinches so that’s ... twelve hundred and eighty Pinches?”

“Let me verify that.” The manager scribbled on a wax board for a second. “That’s right, twelve hundred and eighty Pinches.”

“And then the same amount again in Quads, should be three hundred and twenty.”

“Right. And that comes out of your account?”

“Yes.” Should I separate ‘my’ money from the crew’s pay, or is that too complicated? What happens if I get killed or sent back to Earth? “Before you do that, is it possible to set up an account for the ship itself? So that if I get killed or something, my officers can still pay the crew?”

“We can do that easily. Just tell us who should have access and under what conditions.”

“Okay, let’s do that first. Set up the new account. In my absence my officers can access that money to pay the crew.”

“We will need to identify each man allowed access.”

Right, their finger-in-the-hole DNA analyzer thing. I had Filo, the Commander, and Michael all do that, then asked Filo to go back and take the watch so that Jono and Matto could come do it. Meanwhile I realized that I didn’t need all that much since I was only letting half the crew off each night. We’d already talked about that.

When we finally got around to all the stacks of coins, I cut that down to Pinches for two days plus Quads for two days. It was still a lot of coins, though. If everyone wanted Pinches, it was enough for half the crew per night for four days. Six hundred and forty Pinches made a big stack in the chest. The hundred and sixty Quads all went in a big bag on top.

I had the two junior officers lug the chest back out to the cart, and the expedition went back to the ship. Now we had the cash to let the sailors act like sailors.

When we got back I told the crew that we had the cash to give each of them their four Pinches, so all that was left before they went and proved how much ale they could drink and how many women they could satisfy was to divide the crew into two sections that were as equal as possible. The gunners were easy, Garth’s crew and Jen’s crew. The Commander would split his shieldmen and the archers into two sections, and Jono and Matto were going to do the same thing with all the seamen. When we were done, we should have two half-crews which could each sail the ship and fight if needed. Lieutenants Filo and Michael, the Commander, and myself were not going to be in either section.

Once that was done Jono and Matto were going to roll dice to see who got tonight off and who had to stay onboard. Whoever it was who got the night off tonight, again they had to be back before noon so that the other half could have tomorrow night off. I pointed out that the sailor who had last night off was not going again tonight; he should be held back for tonight’s section. Clearly, since the gunner who had last night off was in Garth’s crew, it would be Jen’s crew with the night off tonight. The Commander would likewise put his two men from last night in the section that was staying aboard tonight.

Meanwhile, while the two sections were getting organized, Filo and I would get ready to pay each man going ashore for the night. Letting them know that they weren’t getting paid until they were walking off the ship, and that they weren’t walking off the ship until the two sections were organized, immediately ended most of the discussion.

Still, I had to yell to be heard. “Everyone who goes out should carry a knife as well as a pouch or pocket to carry their pay in. The knife is not to cause trouble with, but to defend yourselves with. No one should be helpless. The Guard’s shieldmen may carry swords but not their shields or armor.”

Filo had the crew-list, the list of every man who had given oath. Note that none of the Guard had given oath to obey me, the list merely listed “Guard Captain, 10 Shield Men, and 20 Archers” so that we would know that they were really supposed to be obeying the Captain, now Commander. That was why I always tried to ask the Commander to have his men do something, rather than ordering it done directly. They didn’t work for me.

Filo and I occasionally put a word in, trying to make the sections as equal as possible, like putting Aldo and Cookie in different sections. Neither one really had a backup but they sorta kinda did different sides of the same job. Eventually we had thirty-some-odd men on deck, waiting to go. “Lieutenant Matto, is your section ready for a night of ale and women?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Very well. Call the roll.”

I couldn’t help it. That is the opening to the final scene in “1776”, a Broadway play and movie about the colonial deliberations in Philadelphia which led to the American Declaration of Independence. After two years of discussion, dithering, and idiocy, they finally have a document and they must put their names on it and announce to the world that they are all traitors to the British crown. The scene starts with the chairman John Hancock verifying that the Declaration is ready, then saying ‘Very well. Call the roll.’

It was a major event in our nation’s formation, and if the war had gone badly each of the men signing the Declaration would have hung. Sure, this was nothing like that, but that scene had always stuck in my mind and those words just came out without any thought.

“As you call each name, have the man step up to be paid. Once you have been paid, go to the pier. You don’t HAVE to go get drunk or laid if you don’t want to, but stay out of the way until we are done here if you are coming back to the ship. We’ll not have people trying to go through the pay-line two or three times. Lieutenant Matto, you will be last after all your men are paid.”