The Song of the Sea

38. Camouflage

For the last couple of hours, while Jacob's men had been busy with the physical jobs of getting the ship ready, Jacob had been cooped up in the navigation room with Pete trying to come up with a plan to get them home.

Sure, they'd managed to take out the biggest threat in the ocean, but that didn't mean that there weren't other dangers lurking out there. The Tredda had some pretty mean battleships that could do a lot of damage to Jacob's galleon, and if he was being completely honest he wasn't convinced it would be able to survive any more damage.

Eventually they had come up with a possible plan, but it involved Raephier, and Jacob wanted to be sure that he was comfortable with what they would be asking of him.

"Raeph!" Jacob shouted, getting his attention and then beckoning him to come and join them.

By this time Lyle and James had also joined them in the navigation room and they had already given their input.

Once Raephier had joined them, Jacob began.

"We've come up with a plan to get us home, but we wanted to run it by you to see what you thought."

For a moment Jacob thought he'd said something wrong as Raepheir seemed to freeze, but then he gave Jacob a smile and said,

"Ok then, what's the plan?"

Jacob smiled back at Raephier in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

"Well we decided that as we have Jinx's ship, it might be best to use it. We thought that if we sail it alongside our own, anyone who sees us will assume that Jinx is controlling us and won't bother to engage for fear of getting in Jinx's way. The main problem is when we approach our island. The island where we live has a large estuary on the south side which is deep and wide enough for ships to sail up the river for about a mile to the port of Tarmouth. As that is the only route in for large ships, it's heavily guarded, and I don't think the presence of Jinx's ship will be enough to stop the Tredda engaging this close to home.

"So," Jacob said, taking a deep breath, "we've decided to come in on the north side of the island. This won't be defended anywhere near as well, as the sea on this side is shallow and the sea beds are rocky which makes it treacherous for a ship of this size to try to navigate its way to the small port of Greyton.

"Which is where I thought you might be able to help," Jacob said, looking at Raephier.

Raephier looked deep in thought.

"You want me to help you navigate," Raephier said, not as a question, but a statement, showing that he understood what Jacob was asking.

Jacob nodded. "Is that something you think you could do?"

Raephier slowly nodded his head. "I can't say I've ever helped a ship navigate into port before, but I'm willing to try. I'm thinking that you're going to want me to swim ahead of the ship and plot out the best course looking for the deepest sections of water?"

"Exactly," Jacob said, feeling oddly proud of Raephier's understanding.

"Ok," Raephier said with a wide smile, "we'll have to come up with some sort of communication system while I'm in the water."

"We can work on that tonight," Jacob said. "If everything goes to plan we should reach home by sundown tomorrow."

Jacob was about to dismiss everyone when Raephier hummed to himself, seemingly lost in thought.

"Is there a problem? What are you thinking?" Jacob asked, a little concerned by the frown on Raephier's face.

"It's nothing," Raephier said quickly, but when the men continued to stare at him, he shrunk back into himself like he was afraid to say what was on his mind.