Arabella was seated to Captain Singh’s left, of course, but as the hero of the hour was naturally placed at the admiral’s right this put her between them. “You set quite a generous table, sir,” she said to the admiral.
“We are well aware of the privations you have suffered in His Majesty’s service,” he replied modestly. “Also, we know that you will not eat so well in the near future—none of us will, sadly. But we will share with you what provisions we can spare, as well as a detachment of Marines to supervise your prisoners.”
“Prisoners?” Arabella asked, surprised. “We took no prisoners—every Frenchman who assaulted us as we launched was killed or went overboard.”
Admiral Nelson spoke without looking up from his plate, where he was busily engaged with the peculiar utensil—a combination fork and knife—which he used for eating one-handed in free descent. “The Venusians,” he said, as though it were obvious.
“They are not our prisoners, they are our shipmates! If it were not for their assistance we should never have managed to depart Venus at all!”
“You cannot trust them, my dear,” Nelson said around a mouthful of roasted kid. “They understand nothing but force, and will serve willingly whoever holds the lash.”
“You describe them as though they are mere animals!” Arabella replied with some heat. “But they are people! They have their nations and their tribes, as we do, each with its own character. These Venusians are of the Wagala people; they were slaves for years, first to the Gowanna and then to the French, and desire Napoleon’s downfall as fervently as any of us.”
“Your trusting nature does you credit,” Nelson said with a patronizing air, “but—merely as a precaution—I will still send a squad of Marines. I wish I could provide you with an escort to Xanthus, but, as I am sure you are aware, we require every ship for the assault upon Napoleon’s fleet.”
Captain Singh interjected himself into the conversation then. “We will not require an escort to Xanthus, or your Marines,” he said, as a flat statement of fact. “We will remain with the fleet.”
“I am terribly sorry, Captain Singh, but we cannot defend your ship in the midst of a battle. Xanthus is not a large asteroid, but it is well-watered and defensible; you will be safe there until action is concluded.”
“We do not require defense.” He took a sip from his wine-skin. “We will participate in the attack.”
Captain Hardy, at Nelson’s left hand, sputtered, “With all due respect, sir! Your Diana is a ship of commerce, not war; your crew inexperienced and exhausted!”
“Although Diana was built for commerce, the French have refitted her as a warship—indeed, a warship with unique capabilities. Not only is she now buoyed by hydrogen rather than hot air, but she has been fitted with the very latest in French cannon and Fulton’s improved propulsive sails, making her equal to Victoire in several important ways.” He did not, Arabella noted, mention Aadim and the automaton’s own unique capabilities. “And as for my crew, they are singularly motivated to take the fight to Napoleon, and furthermore they are all accustomed to Venusian conditions—especially, of course, the native Venusians themselves. Are your Navy men doing well in the heat?”
This last comment was directed to Hardy, who glowered at the implied insult to naval fortitude but said nothing.
“Given proper provisions and the opportunity for practice,” Captain Singh continued, “I am certain that by the time we encounter Napoleon’s fleet Diana will be every bit as proficient a fighter as you could hope for.” And with that, he buttered a bit of bread and popped it into his mouth.
A short while ago Arabella had despaired of Captain Singh’s cool distance. But now, as he chewed calmly in the face of the assembled Royal Navy’s glares, she loved him even more dearly for it.
“You yourself, sir,” he said to Lord Nelson after swallowing and wiping his mouth, “have said you require every ship for the assault upon Napoleon. Diana and her twelve eight-pound guns are at your disposal, if you will but accept her. If nothing else, she will provide a distraction to the French.”
Captain Hardy had been gradually turning red while Captain Singh spoke, and he opened his mouth to register what would certainly have been a withering rebuke regarding the capabilities of a mere Marsman as opposed to a naval vessel. But he was stymied in this, as Nelson touched Hardy’s arm and said to Captain Singh, “Your bravery and commitment to the Crown do you credit, sir. I accept your offer, and wish you the very best of luck in the coming battle.”
Lady Corey raised her wine-skin. “To Napoleon’s downfall!” she called, loud and clear.
“To Napoleon’s downfall!” chorused every one at the table, including Arabella, and drank.
* * *
In the following days they drilled and drilled and drilled again, while Venus once again expanded from a bright star to a globe, looming dark against the blue sky with the Sun nearly behind her. It seemed sometimes to Arabella that she was destined to go back and forth to Venus for the rest of her life … which she fervently hoped would not be the case.
Impressive though her martial capabilities might be by comparison with her previous configuration, Diana could not hope to participate in the coming battle as a ship of the line, so she was assigned to perform the role of a frigate.
Frigates, more maneuverable and less heavily armed than line-of-battle ships, were not expected to take on men-of-war, only ships of their own class. Indeed, it would be a violation of the etiquette of war—even for the French!—for a battleship to fire upon a frigate unless first fired upon. Diana’s role in the battle would be to stay out of the fight, keep the enemy under constant observation, repeat signals, assist disabled ships, and take possession of captured enemies.
This role of support and communication was quite suitable to the cautious Captain Singh, though grating on Captain Fox … but, as all acknowledged, Diana was Captain Singh’s ship.
Fox, for his part, was recovering well under the treatments prescribed by Dr. Barry, assiduously applied by Lady Corey under Withers’s direction. Though his forearm was now quite shockingly scarred, the skin twisted and bright red, the bleeding and suppuration had passed and he wore the scar as a badge of honor. “I will repay this injury to Napoleon a thousand-fold,” he swore upon several occasions.
Nelson had generously provided Diana with food, water, gunpowder, cordage, and a few experienced crew—a surgeon, a signal officer, a master gunner, and a half-dozen Marine sharpshooters—to fill positions necessary for a fleet action. All other functions were performed by Dianas, Touchstones, and Venusians, and under Singh’s and Fox’s guidance they trained and trained until they were an effectual fighting force. The Venusians, to Arabella’s surprise, proved surprisingly adept at gunnery, and soon eight of the twelve guns were entirely crewed by them. The Venusians in the waist also rose grandly to the occasion, and she and they soon worked out a lingua franca through which they could communicate effectively.
Finally came a day when Venus loomed as large as a dinner-plate held at arm’s length, the swirling gray of her eternal clouds plainly visible even though the sun was behind her. Captain Singh, returning from one of his regular meetings with the admiral, called his officers, plus Ulungugga representing the Venusians and Mills and Arabella as translators, together in his great cabin.
Arabella was now attired as an ordinary airman, in clothing obtained from the English fleet. The fine dress loaned to her by Nelson she had returned, with thanks, saying that as she would be required to participate in any action as translator for the Venusians, she would be happier and safer—and, indeed, her modesty better protected—in trousers rather than a dress. Every one knew that she was a woman, of course, even as they had when she had been costumed as “Cesario,” but there was a tacit agreement among all the men to disregard the shameful display of her lower limbs. Lady Corey had merely sighed and said, “I suppose I must simply refrain from regarding you below the neck.”
“We expect to encounter the
French fleet within the next day,” Captain Singh reported. “Lord Nelson has devised a novel, and he hopes unexpected, strategy for the attack.”
From his writing-desk drawer Captain Singh drew two sheets of letter paper and placed them in the air, parallel to each other and about one foot apart. “As you know, aerial fleets maintain this type of planar formation—the English in a square grid, the French in a hexagonal one—for ease of communication and co-ordination between the ships.” The planar formation, Arabella explained to Ulungugga, allowed each fleet’s ships to view flag signals from their allies up, down, and to either side while moving and firing forward at the enemy.
“In a typical large fleet action, the two fleets approach each other thus”—the captain pushed the two sheets together until they were about an inch apart, still parallel—“and they simply fire upon each other until one fleet or the other is vanquished.” He then took one of the two sheets away, leaving the other hanging in the air, and tore it neatly in half. “Lord Nelson proposes to divide our fleet in two and approach the French fleet thus.” He held the two half-sheets in his two hands and moved them toward the remaining whole sheet in a perpendicular fashion, torn edges first. The torn edges touched the whole sheet in two lines. “In this way we will cut the French fleet in three unequal parts, separating the smaller central section—we assume Victoire will be in the center—from the support of its flanks. Once the French fleet has been divided and disordered, our ships will engage theirs one to one; in individual ship-to-ship action Nelson is confident the English, with our superior ship-handling skills, will inevitably prevail.”
“That’s all well and good,” said Stross, “but if we are all in two planes nose-to-tail, pedaling toward the French, only our lead ships can fire on the enemy, while the French can cut the whole fleet to ribbons with fire from the sides.”
Captain Singh nodded. “Nelson is well aware of this. The plan is to drive hard at the French, putting every available hand at the pedals, and overwhelm them with speed. The French airmen are not nearly so well trained as the English and they will be unlikely to hit a fast-moving target. Then, as the English fleet approaches the French, we will shift crew from the pedals to the great guns and pivot left or right to fire upon the French ships’ flanks. Again, superior English ship-handling skills will make the difference.”
Fox appeared skeptical. “The Venusians are prodigious at the pedals, and their gunnery is improving, but I’d be lying if I said I thought our ship-handling skills were up to naval standard.”
“Agreed. But we will be serving a supporting role—not in the thick of the battle.”
“We hope.”
Captain Singh inclined his head. “We do indeed.”
Suddenly a voice interrupted from without. It was Watson’s high clear call: “Sail ho! Sail ho! Forty sail of ship! Hexagonal formation!”
Every one in the great cabin looked at each other, then to Captain Singh.
Captain Singh did not even blink. “We shall beat to quarters, Mr. Fox,” he said with calm resolve.
“Beat to quarters!” Fox bellowed.
But before the drums could even begin to sound, Arabella had already sprung for the door—headed for her action station in the waist.
24
THE BATTLE OF VENUS
Arabella came out on deck to see the French fleet spread across the face of Venus, a hexagonal array of white flecks against the clouds, as tidily ordered as any honey-comb. There was no sign, from here, of French inferiority in ship-handling.
“Action stations!” she cried to the Venusians in the waist, though technically she should wait for Faunt to issue the command first. But Faunt, when he appeared, raised no objection to this usurpation, centering his attention instead upon chivvying his Venusians into proper order. Arabella did her part as well, shouting and pointing and occasionally physically propelling Venusians into position as they worked to maneuver Diana to her assigned station, just beyond the English fleet’s eastern plane.
Meanwhile, above in the main-top, Mills and his Venusians leapt back and forth from mast to yard like spring tokla, setting sails, adjusting lines, and keeping the ship in trim. She envied him his physical as well as his linguistic skills, and strove to emulate him. Also in the main-top, like unexpected fruit, Arabella saw the red coats of the Marine sharpshooters, their long rifles ready to bring down French officers if the opportunity presented.
During the very occasional pauses in her efforts, Arabella looked out at the awe-inspiring sight of the English fleet re-forming itself from one great plane into two smaller ones. Never before had she seen so many ships maneuvering in space—pulsers whirling, sails flashing out, the sun glinting from their pristine copper bottoms—and all was done with such grace and precision that she was filled with English pride.
The whole operation was carried out in what seemed near silence, with only the occasional shout or the crack of a signal-gun being audible over the distance between herself and the fleet. Most of the communication between ships was carried out using colored signal-flags, a military code recently devised by a man called Popham, intended to be clear and unambiguous yet unintelligible to the enemy.
As no one aboard Diana understood this military code, she had been assigned a signal officer, a thin and spotty midshipman named Midgeley who, despite his youth, seemed entirely at ease with the complex system of colored flags. In addition to a small chest of flags and a fine telescope, he had brought with him a code-book, which he had orders to destroy in case the ship was captured. Midgeley took this last order very seriously; the code-book’s cover was impregnated with pungent chemicals, and he carried at all times a small glass vial of sulfuric acid which would cause the cover to ignite. He had said, quite seriously, that he would sacrifice his own life if necessary to prevent the book from falling into enemy hands.
“Signal from the flagship, sir!” Midgeley reported to Captain Singh at one point while Arabella was taking a very brief respite near the quarterdeck. He handed the captain a slip of paper.
Captain Singh read the message, then nodded and handed it back. “Very good, Mr. Midgeley. Repeat the signal.” The repetition of signals from the flagship was one of Diana’s most important duties during battle—flying outside the main fleet’s formation as she was, she would be visible to every warship in the plane.
“Aye aye, sir.” At once Midgeley sprang to the mainmast, where he raised signal flags in groups of two or three to the mast-head, spelling out the message to the other ships.
As Midgeley was hoisting the signal, Captain Singh shot from his station near the wheel to the forward rail of the quarterdeck, stopped himself there with one hand on the rail, and called out in his clear penetrating voice, “Attention all hands! I have a message from Admiral Lord Nelson!”
At the name “Nelson,” every man aboard instantly paused in his labors and fixed his attention upon the captain.
“The message reads: England expects that every man will do his duty.”
The whole ship seemed to catch its breath then. Arabella felt it too—the great trust which Nelson was placing in all of them to win through in the coming battle. It was a great responsibility, and a humbling confidence, and it made her heart swell with pride.
“Hip hip!” cried Fox.
“Huzzay!” responded every one in a full-throated roar, Arabella not least among them.
“Hip hip!”
“Huzzay!”
“Hip hip!”
“HUZZAY!”
As the echoes of the last “Huzzay” drifted away, Captain Singh stood tall and proud at the forward rail, hands behind his back, as firm and straight as though he stood in gravity. “I have every confidence in you. You have trained hard and well, and now you are ready to put that training into effect. Now take your stations, and make ready for action.”
“Aye aye, sir!” chorused the entire crew.
Arabella smiled and turned away from her captain …
… and looked into the up
turned, shining, and very much confused eyes of the Venusian waisters.
She tried to convey the captain’s sentiments to them, but the best she could manage in their shipboard lingua franca—“we will now all raise the mast together”—was not only entirely inadequate but actually confusing, as there was no mast in sight to be raised. She turned to Ulungugga, whose understanding of English was the best of all of them—not that this was saying very much—and begged his assistance with words, gestures, and facial expressions.
Ulungugga, after a time, raised his chin in acknowledgement and turned to his people, delivering a gurgling peroration which raised a strong response of hand-clapping, slapping of feet upon the deck, and enthusiastic croaks. “What did you tell them?” she asked.
It took them a bit to work out a translation, but at last she understood him to have said something along the lines of “Tadpoles that swim together will survive and form a mated clutch.”
Arabella swallowed, then said, “I could not have said it better myself.”
Fox bellowed a command from the quarterdeck then, and Faunt called out “Let go the halyards and clew down!” Arabella translated this into Wagala, and the Venusians immediately leapt to comply.
* * *
Swiftly Venus grew before them, and the French fleet with it. The whole ship thrummed with energy, three-quarters or more of the crew being vigorously engaged at the pedals, and the artificial wind of the pulsers was so strong that Arabella, even in the somewhat protected waist of the ship, was forced to hold her hat on with one hand. The boom, boom, boom of the drum that compelled the pedalers rang steady and fast beneath her feet, Diana’s great beating heart.
Arabella and the Battle of Venus Page 34