The full grown oak 6/9

Jennifer Jane walked off slowly, saying in a voice just loud enough to be heard, “I only thought you might have been having a problem with your longitude. I was going to offer to help.”

“Hey, wait a minute that sailor, what do you know about navigation?”

Jennifer Jane had a quiet chuckle to herself before she turned round and walked back to the wheel. “Presumably you know our position north and south, but not in an easterly or westerly direction.”

“We lost our dead reckoning in the storm, but that’s nothing unusual. Our problem is that we have to deliver a perishable cargo, so we don’t have too much time to spare trying to find out where we are.”

“I suppose you think that if your lot can fly to the moon, you’d know how to find a ship’s position accurately,” said the mate.

“Well it’s rather old technology in my world, but yes I can. All you need is an accurate clock set to the time of your port of departure. Then it’s easy to work out where you are. You find out when its midday here and seeing how far in advance or behind the time is to midday at your starting point.”

“Easy enough to say, but who’s got a clock that’s accurate over a time as long as a week or so?”

Jennifer Jane smiled and held up her wrist. “I have,” she said proudly.

Both goblins laughed. “That little thing! We had a look at it before you woke up, when you first came aboard. Goodness only knows what you use it for, it’s not even a clock, it hasn’t got any hands at all, you couldn’t possibly tell the time with that!”

“This is a very small clock called a wrist watch. It doesn’t need any hands; you just have to read the numbers. It’s accurate to within a minute a year and I haven’t altered it since we left Timber Creek! I’ll tell you what the time is so you can work out our position. If I’m right then I’ll give it to you if you’ll let me out on deck next time we go through a travel fog. You can say the cabin door was broken in the storm if you need an excuse.”

The captain looked at the mate, “Worth a try,” he said, “we’ve got nothing to lose. The bad weather must have affected all the other shipping in this area as well, so we’ll get a good bonus if we can deliver our cargo on time.”

He looked expectantly at Jennifer Jane and held out his hand. She gave him the watch and then explained how to read the numbers instead of looking at clock hands. She left him to work out the sums by himself, as she felt that he might be embarrassed if she watched. Half an hour later the watch on deck was called to make sail and the Swan headed off in a westerly direction.

A few moments after the change of course, the mate put his head into her cabin. “I hope you’re right about that clock thing of yours, if you’re not then we’ll miss our delivery and we’ll all be in trouble. Especially you!”