At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  Dahnel Bahnyface was Eraystor’s Gunnery Officer as well as her third lieutenant, a new position which placed a commissioned officer between the ship’s captain and the Chief Gunner, who was traditionally a warrant officer. The former Chief Gunner was now simply the Gunner, and served as the Gunnery Officer’s chief assistant and advisor, and in action, each division of the armament was assigned to one of Eraystor’s other commissioned officers. Or, in the case of Third Division, to a passed midshipman who remained two years shy of legal age for a lieutenant’s commission.

  “I don’t think we’ll be wasting any, Sir,” Bahnyface told the captain now. “Not from the after divisions, anyway.”

  “Are you confident of engaging St. Charlz from this range?” Cahnyrs asked.

  “Reasonably, Sir.” Cahnyrs could almost see Bahnyface’s slight shrug. “The roll’s not bad, and it’s not like we’ll be shooting at a moving target. I don’t guarantee very many hits from this range, but we’ll score you at least some, Sir!”

  “In that case, you may open fire, Master Bahnyface.”

  * * *

  “My Lord!”

  Major Kylpaitryc had deliberately looked away from the heretic ironclad. At a range of over four and a half miles, the smoke-spouting thing was still tiny with distance, but there was something undeniably … ominous about its steady, unwavering progress. Perhaps it was because it was moving directly into both current and wind, its smoke banner blowing dead astern. Or perhaps it was that dense, unnatural smoke itself.

  Or perhaps, he’d thought grimly, it’s the fact that it’s steaming directly into the converging fire of over fifty heavy guns and it doesn’t seem to give a spider-rat’s arse about it.

  Whatever it was, he’d found other things to do than peer through his spyglass at it, which meant he was looking in the opposite direction when the lookout shouted to Lord of Foot Bauzhyng.

  Now he spun around, eyes widening in surprise, as a dense, brown eruption of gunsmoke billowed from the ironclad. It was still almost bows-on to Battery St. Charlz, but it had slewed enough to starboard to bring its forward larboard guns to bear. It was also so far away that the thunder of those guns hadn’t yet reached his ears when six 6-inch shells came sizzling down out of the heavens ahead of the sound of their passage.

  * * *

  “Not bad at all, Alyk!” Zhaztro commented as the shells impacted. He had to raise his voice—a lot—to be heard through the thick earplugs protecting Eraystor’s crew’s hearing from the artillery’s deafening thunder.

  Three of Lieutenant Bahnyface’s shells threw up tall, white columns of water—all of those had landed short—but three more erupted in dark, fire-hearted explosions that ripped into Battery St. Charlz’s berm. He doubted they’d done much damage to anything—or anyone—on the far side of that berm. Unless they scored a direct hit on one of the gun embrasures—and the odds of that at this range were effectively nonexistent—they weren’t going to seriously injure the heavily protected battery. One of the sail-powered bombardment ships might well actually have been more effective than Eraystor’s higher-velocity, lower-elevation broadside weapons, since the bombardment ship could have dropped its fire into the battery’s interior without worrying about its berm. Unfortunately, with wind and current both against them, working one of the bombardment ships into position would have been a time-consuming and potentially risky proposition. And whether or not they were inflicting actual damage at this range, it was at least likely to give the enemy commander “furiously to think,” as Emperor Cayleb might have put it.

  I’d really like to get the bastard to return fire while we’re still as far out as possible, he thought, standing on his flagship’s exposed bridge wing with his double-glass to his eyes. Getting a feel for their range and accuracy before we get too close would come under the heading of a Good Thing. And I’d like a better feel for how likely those new “Fultyn Rifles” are to actually punch through our armor.

  He grimaced at that thought without lowering the double-glass, because he was less confident on that head than he’d been prepared to admit to any of his officers, including Alyk Cahnyrs. He wasn’t unconfident … exactly, but he’d had enough experience with flagships getting pounded into wreckage to last him the rest of his life.

  “Not bad,” Cahnyrs agreed from beside him, watching through his own double-glass. “Dahnel can do better, though.”

  “And he will,” Zhaztro replied. “The guns are cold, the range is long, and his gun captains need to get a feel for her motion.” He smiled thinly. “And at least Eraystor’s a hell of a lot steadier than any galleon.”

  The ironclad’s guns bellowed again,

  * * *

  That’s got to be eighty-five hundred yards, Major Kylpaitryc thought as the dirt and debris thrown up by the nearest shell pattered back down around him. Most of that debris was fairly small, but a few larger chunks thudded down onto the heavily sandbagged roof of his observation post. I didn’t really expect them to open fire from that far out. Or to be that accurate when they did, either!

  He raised his spyglass, capturing the lead ironclad’s image once again as the huge, dense clouds of brown gunsmoke rolled astern. Part of that was the wind, which was already beginning to shred the cloud bank, but part of it was also the armored ship’s steady forward progress. The long, black fingers of its guns hadn’t recoiled at all, as far as he could see, and even as he watched, they belched huge, fresh bubbles of fire.

  Langhorne! Something cold settled in the vicinity of his stomach. The reports from Geyra said they could fire those things quickly, but I didn’t expect them to be that fast! It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds!

  Battery St. Charlz’s Fultyn Rifles—especially the huge 10-inch weapons—could never hope to match that rate of fire. They’d be doing well to get off one shot every couple of minutes! Of course, the battery had many more guns than any single ironclad could bring to bear, but not all of St. Charlz’s weapons could be brought to bear on the same target, either. And unlike an ironclad, the battery wasn’t going to be moving.

  And we don’t have to worry about an ironclad; we’ve got to worry about five of the frigging things!

  He didn’t like how powerful the heretics’ shells appeared to be, either. According to the Desnairians, who’d actually measured one of the heretics’ shells which had failed to explode at Geyra, the ironclads’ broadside weapons fired only 6-inch shells, considerably smaller than the ones fired by their bombardment galleons. If that was accurate, however, then the Imperial Charisian Navy had managed to build a 6-inch shell which seemed to carry a bursting charge at least as big as anyone else’s 10-incher.

  That’s going to hurt when they start registering a lot of hits, he thought grimly, lowering his spyglass and ducking involuntarily as four more dazzlingly white columns of water—tinged mud-brown at their bases—erupted from the Main Ship Channel. Two more shells burrowed deeply into the protective berm before they exploded, and fresh showers of debris came pelting down.

  * * *

  Eraystor forged onward, the range dropping steadily. She’d taken Battery St. Charlz under fire at a range of 8,400 yards—still 12,000 yards from Battery St. Rahnyld on the eastern end of Sharyn Island and 10,500 from Battery St. Agtha on East Island’s Cut Bait Point. That put her well beyond the effective range of the other batteries, although the range to St. Agtha dropped just as steadily as the range to St. Charlz.

  At six knots, she’d need an hour to reach her shortest range to St. Charlz, at which point—assuming she held her intended course—she’d be less than one thousand yards from the muzzles of the Harchongese guns. It was a sobering thought … especially since those guns had yet to fire a single round.

  “Signal Bayport to reduce speed!” Admiral Zhaztro ordered. “Captain Gahnzahlyz is to open the interval between her and Eraystor by at least a thousand yards.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir. Bayport to reduce speed and open the interval to Eraystor by at least a thousan
d yards,” the signalman repeated. Zhaztro nodded, and the signalman and his assistant started pulling signal flags out of their bags.

  The ironclad’s guns fired again, the shock of recoil hitting the soles of Zhaztro’s shoes like a hammer and Captain Cahnyrs leaned close to shout in the admiral’s ear in the—relatively—quiet interval between shots.

  “Buying a little more time for Lynkyn to look things over before it’s his turn, Sir?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Zhaztro shouted back with a shrug. “Can’t pretend I won’t be happier when the bastards shoot back and give us a better feel for what they’ve got!”

  * * *

  Major Kylpaitryc coughed and spat out a mouthful of grit, then dragged a watch from his pocket and peered down at its face.

  Thirty minutes? He shook his head, feeling like a prizefighter who’d taken too many punches to the body. It has to be more than half an hour!

  But he knew it hadn’t been, whatever it might feel like.

  The ironclad’s side disappeared behind a fresh eruption of flame-cored brown smoke and two 6-inch shells came screaming across the top of the eastern berm. One of them slammed into the inner face of the western berm, blasting a huge divot out of the masonry backing the thick earthwork.

  Brick shattered, men screamed, and Kylpaitryc cursed. Each of Battery St. Charlz’s guns was mounted in its own, individual bay—a vaulted chamber built out of thick, solid brickwork and then buried under as much as twenty feet of solid earth. Those bays were impervious to anything short of a direct hit … which was exactly what that Shan-wei-damned shell had just scored. Worse, the hit had come in from the bay’s rear, where it was open to St. Charlz’s small parade ground. The 8-inch Fultyn Rifle lurched drunkenly sideways, spilling from its fortress carriage and crushing one of its crew to death before the entire bay collapsed and buried him and half his companions.

  Shouted orders brought more men on the run, ignoring the heretics’ fire as they dashed from their own protected positions to help the gun crew’s survivors dig frantically for their buried fellows, and Kylpaitryc shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

  There was something more than a little terrifying about the ironclad’s remorseless, unflinching approach. The range had fallen from over eight thousand yards to barely three thousand, and the hellish ship had turned to present its full broadside to St. Charlz. Now eleven guns bellowed from it three times every minute, driving their merciless fire brutally into the earthworks, filling the air with smoke and dust.

  How much longer was Bauzhyng going to wait? The heretics were already well within his five-thousand-yard range, and still he simply stood there, gazing out through the vision slit at the channel! Dust and dirt speckled his immaculate uniform and his face bled freely where a fragment of brick had flown in through the slit and opened an inch-long cut just below the cheekbone. Yet his expression was calm, almost contemplative, and Ahdem Kylpaitryc had discovered that he felt a deep admiration—almost a sense of affection—for the arrogant, fastidious “fop” who commanded Battery St. Charlz.

  Another heretic broadside thundered, blasting into the fortifications outer face, and more screams arose, faint to Kylpaitryc’s brutalized ears. The ironclad was close enough now, firing rapidly enough, that its fire had finally started to shred even those high, thick earthen ramparts. Surely Bauzhyng had to—

  “All batteries will open fire now!” Kwaichee Bauzhyng said.

  * * *

  “The bastards do have guns in there, don’t they, Sir?!” Alyk Cahnyrs demanded in tones of profound exasperation.

  “I’m sure they do!” Zhaztro replied. “And sooner or later, they’ll have to shoot back!”

  After thirty minutes’ steady firing, he felt as if he’d been hammered out on a flat rock and left to dry in the sun. So far, Eraystor had fired almost four hundred 6-inch shells into Battery St. Charlz. She carried only a hundred and twenty shells per gun, so that represented fifteen percent of her total ammunition supply … and almost a quarter of her total supply of standard shells. And still the Harchongians hadn’t fired a single shot in reply!

  Whoever the hell’s in command over there is one tough-minded bastard, Zhaztro thought with the grim admiration of one tough-minded bastard for another. Son-of-a-bitch must be determined to get us in as close as he possibly can before he opens up.

  The admiral raised his double-glass, peering through the lenses—and the swirling clouds of smoke—and smiled bleakly as a solid line of explosions ripped into the fortifications. He could scarcely see it clearly in the current visibility—or lack thereof—but he’d be astonished if a single shot had missed. The range was down to barely a mile and a half, and even if the gunners’ vision was badly obscured by the torrents of gun and funnel smoke, their target was unmoving and they knew exactly where to find it. At such a short range, their shells drove even deeper into the earthworks protecting the Harchongese guns and the whirlwind of fire opened deep gouges in the battery’s battered berm. Zhaztro didn’t care how thick that berm was. Sooner or later, those guns had to open fire or simply find themselves buried in their ramparts’ collapse, and—

  The entire face of Battery St. Charlz belched a rolling cloud of flame as thirty-four heavy rifled guns fired as one.

  * * *

  “Yessssssss!” Ahdem Kylpaitryc heard someone scream … and realized it was himself.

  Every gun on St. Charlz’s southeastern front vomited fire and smoke. There were three dozen Fultyn Rifles on that face of the battery, although one of them had been dismounted by a direct hit and another was unable to fire because the rampart above its bay had collapsed across its embrasure.

  Twelve of those guns were “only” 8-inch weapons, firing hundred-pound solid shot. Kylpaitryc hadn’t really expected very much out of the 8-inchers, given their target’s thick, armored hide … but he also hadn’t expected the heretics to come within twenty-five hundred yards before St. Charlz opened fire, either. At this range, even their shot might just penetrate, and their rate of fire was thirty percent higher than the 10-inch weapons could manage.

  On the other hand, there were twenty-two of the 10-inch rifles. Their shot weighed over four hundred and fifty pounds apiece … and only three of them missed their target.

  * * *

  It was like being inside the world’s biggest bell, Sir Hainz Zhaztro thought. Or perhaps more like being inside one of Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s boilers while a hundred maniacs with sledgehammers pounded on its surface.

  Whatever else it might be like, it was nothing at all like the fire Eraystor had taken at Geyra. Even at the very end, when he’d closed to four hundred yards of the Geyra waterfront, the defenders had scored very few hits—largely because he’d completely shattered their defensive works before he ever came into their range. But even then, the heaviest shot to actually hit his flagship’s armor had come from one of the Desnairian 40-pounders. Now Eraystor rocked as just over four and a half tons of solid iron slammed into her in a single wave.

  It wasn’t all concentrated in a single spot—and thank God for it! He and Captain Cahnyrs and the rest of the bridge crew had retreated into the conning tower’s protection when the range fell below two miles, which was just as well. Zhaztro was peering through one of the vision slits when a three-hundred-pound solid shot ripped into the open bridge at an angle almost exactly perpendicular to the hull’s centerline. Wood and steel shattered, spraying the face of the conning tower with fragments which would have shredded anyone still in the open, and the incredible cacophony as dozens of heavy projectiles slammed into the casemate armor was indescribable.

  Three of Eraystor’s gunners who’d been in direct contact with that armor were bowled over, hurled effortlessly from their feet as one of those 10-inch shot sent a savage concussion straight through the tough, face-hardened steel. Two of them were simply stunned; the third drove headfirst into the breech of his own gun and the impact smashed his skull like an eggshell.

  Two of St. Charlz’s shot
s went high, punching contemptuously through the ironclad’s funnel. She’d hoisted out her boats to tow astern to protect them from blast damage, but both larboard lifeboat davits and the steam-powered boat crane fitted to her mast were shattered in that tempest of screaming iron, and one of the 8-inch shot went home forward of the armor belt, punching through the relatively thin steel hull plating and into her cable tier.

  None of Battery St. Charlz’s shot actually penetrated Eraystor’s armor, but the casemate face and her belt armor were dimpled and scarred. Here and there the outer face was actually broken, although the tough, flexible inner layers of the Howsmynized plate held, and Zhaztro’s face tightened. Charis’ spies had reported that Lieutenant Zhwaigair, the infernally inventive fellow who’d come up with the screw-galley concept for the Earl of Thirsk, had proposed a way to attack armor that couldn’t actually be penetrated. He called it “wracking,” and the idea was simple: get in as close as possible with the heaviest possible gun and pound that armor again and again and again until its securing bolts or even the supporting frames behind it shattered. Zhaztro hadn’t been particularly impressed when he first read those reports. Now, as his flagship heaved under that massive impact, he found himself wondering if Zhwaigair might not just have hit upon something.

  * * *

  Battery St. Charlz’s gun crews swarmed over their pieces with the urgent, disciplined speed Lord of Foot Kwaichee Bauzhyng had drilled so ruthlessly into them. There was more to it than simple training, though. That accursed ironclad had pounded their fortress for over half an hour, increasingly accurate, scoring ever more hits, killing and wounding men they knew—friends—and they’d been refused permission to reply. Now it was their turn, and they bent to their guns with a will.