by David Weber
Besides, once they had the Western Squadron well out to sea, it would have a hell of a time crawling into another hidey hole before they laid it by the heels.
“Yes, My Lord,” the flag captain said. “Master Zhones and I will just go and start passing the signals.”
* * *
“Watch your head, Sir!”
Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk hurled himself backwards as Stywyrt Mahlyk grabbed the back of his tunic and heaved. An instant later, the heavy block—streaming two or three feet of tarred hemp—crashed to the deck with skull-crushing force, right where he’d been standing, and bounced high into the air.
“Thanks, Stywyrt,” he said, but he never looked away from the clouds of smoke rising from the Dohlaran brig.
Most of that was gunsmoke, but there was woodsmoke, as well, pouring up out of her midships hatch. At least a third of her crew were desperately fighting the flames, but the rest of her people had other business, and even as he watched, half a dozen more red eyes winked from within the cloudbank streaming from her gunports. Unlike Fleet Wing’s last duel with a Dohlaran brig, the range was short enough for this one to get her carronades into action, and white columns of spray rose around his schooner as the smoothbore shells hit the water.
Only one of those shells had hit Fleet Wing so far … thank God. It was fortunate her captain’s cabin was stripped, its furnishings bustled below, whenever she cleared for action, or else he’d need new furniture. Not to mention a new portrait of Irys. But he’d gladly have traded all his possessions for what that bursting shell had cost him. It had left three dead, four wounded, half a dozen shattered planks, and a pair of badly damaged deck beams in its wake, and it had been touch and go for several minutes for the firefighting parties.
But Fleet Wing had given as good as she’d gotten and then some. Even with the SNARCs’ remotes, it was hard to be certain amid all of this smoke and confusion and artillery thunder, but it looked like the Dohlaran’s people were losing ground on her fire. Hektor was astonished she was still in action at all, after being hit by no less than three 30-pounder and a pair of 14-pounder shells, but they were made of stern stuff, those Dohlarans. Their ship might be on fire, they might be outgunned, and water might be rising slowly in their bilges, yet they were still trying to fight their way past Fleet Wing to get a better count on Baron Sarmouth’s squadron. He liked to think he’d be as persistent—and as gutsy—in their place, but—
The brig Sword of Justice disappeared into an expanding ball of fire as the flames finally reached her magazine.
* * *
“So much for unsolved mysteries.” Caitahno Raisahndo tried not to sound bitter as he stood under his cabin skylight. He also tried not to think about the price his scouting units had paid to buy him the information—the fragmentary information—Gahryth Kahmelka had just marked on the chart. He’d have preferred a more complete report, but that was more than flesh and blood could have given him.
And what he did have was bad enough.
At the moment, Kahmelka stood at his shoulder and Ahrnahld Mahkmyn stood on the other side of the chart table, signals pad and pencil poised. Of the two, the flag lieutenant looked less concerned, although Raisahndo suspected appearances could be deceiving. Mahkmyn was too smart not to realize how bad things were … but he was still too young—and too junior—to feel comfortable being obvious about it in front of his flag officer.
The sunlight streaming down through the skylight illuminated the chart’s markings pitilessly while Hurricane creaked gently about them. Raisahndo listened to the ship’s quiet voice and found himself wondering if she realized what was about to happen to her.
He hoped not. Almost as much as he wished his own imagination didn’t already hear the shrieks—from splintering wood, not simply bleeding flesh and blood—which would replace that quiet all too soon.
You can still scatter and order them to run for it, he reminded himself. You’ve got a good twenty miles to work with, his fleet speed can’t be more than a knot or two faster than yours even with all that frigging copper, and he’s got the smaller squadron. He doesn’t have the numbers to chase all your people, so at least some of them would almost have to make it clear.
Unfortunately, the directions available for running were limited.
Unless he wanted to flee back the way he’d come—which would simply be a slower version of suicide, given what had to have happened to Rhaigair by now—the only directions his ships could run with any hope of avoiding the enemy were east or southeast.
The toe of Shyan Island Shoal prevented him from turning south … unless he wanted to risk ending up embayed in the forty-mile-wide sheet of water bitten out of the shoal between Mussel Shell Ledge and Broken Hawser Rock. As it happened, he very much didn’t want to end up there—there was a reason the local fishermen called that deceptively welcoming water Drowned Man’s Sound—but the wind had continued to veer. It was not only freshening but blowing roughly from the north-northeast, now—a good six- or six-and-a-half-point shift since the day before. Barring a miracle (and those seemed to be in short supply for Mother Church’s defenders) it was going to go on veering, and if it did, Sarmouth would be easily able to cut him off before he rounded Broken Hawser.
And finding himself in Drowned Man’s Sound on a lee shore with the wind and sea getting up and a hostile squadron lurking up to windward would be … unpleasant.
He couldn’t escape to the north or northeast, either. Shipworm Shoal was squarely in the way to the north. He couldn’t run away through it, and he didn’t much fancy cramping himself between it and a more powerful fleet.
The northeast was out because he’d have to sail almost directly into the wind. His schooners and the screw-galleys might be able to do that, assuming it veeered no farther; his squareriggers couldn’t possibly come close enough to the wind.
And at this particular moment, Baron Sarmouth’s squadron was perfectly placed to the east of him, blocking any escape due east and ready to cut him off whichever direction he tried to run.
All of which meant that however widely he scattered, his ships couldn’t—literally could not—evade interception. All he’d accomplish by trying to scatter and run for it would be to transform his squadron into a mob of fugitives, incapable of supporting one another when the moment came.
It’d be Armageddon Reef all over again, with me as Malikai this time around, he thought harshly.
On the other hand, his bleeding scouts’ best estimate was that the Charisians had no more than thirty galleons—thirty-five at the outside—to his own forty-three. True, at least one was a sister of the captured Dreadnought, and where there was one, there might be more than one. And it seemed likely that at least some of the others were more of the Charisians’ damnable “bombardment ships,” with far more powerful armaments than even Hurricane boasted. But a forty percent advantage in hulls was still a forty percent advantage, especially if he was able to keep them under firm tactical control, at least until the action became general. And that didn’t even consider the possibilities Hahlynd’s dozen screw-galleys presented.
You’re not going to find better odds, no matter what you do, and you aren’t going to evade him. Time to bite the bullet and use your numbers, he told himself … and tried not to think about the numerical advantage Duke Malikai had enjoyed off Armageddon Reef.
“All right,” he said out loud, looking up from the chart, “at least we outnumber them damned near two-to-one, counting the screw-galleys. According to our spies, they should have at least half a dozen galleons our scouts aren’t reporting, though. It’s always possible—likely, really—that they’re there and we just haven’t seen them yet, but it’s also possible they’re still up watching North Channel. If they are, we need to hit them as soon as we can, before they whistle up any reinforcements. If we can punch through and get fifty or sixty miles farther east, we’ll clear Broken Hawser whatever the wind does. Give us that, darkness, and maybe a little heavy weather, and at least s
ome of the lads are likely to be able to break for home.”
Kahmelka nodded, his expression tight but his eyes steady.
“I don’t think this is a time for finesse,” Raisahndo went on grimly. “If he wants to close with us, then I’m willing to close with him … and the sooner the better.” He switched his gaze to Lieutenant Mahkmyn. “We’ll have a general signal, Ahrnahld.”
“Yes, Sir?”
“To all galleons, ‘Make all sail to topgallants. Course northeast-by-east.’ To Admiral Hahlynd, ‘Screw-galleys conform to previous orders.’ And to all ships, ‘Prepare for battle.’”
* * *
“He’s made up his mind, My Lord,” Lathyk said, standing beside his admiral on Destiny’s quarterdeck as they watched the Western Squadron’s distant canvas swing to the northeast, turning to sail close-hauled on the larboard tack. Destiny and her consorts, on the other hand, had the wind broad on their starboard beams, which was very nearly a galleon’s best point of sailing.
At the moment, anyway.
“Unless I miss my guess, he’d ‘made his mind up’ about what he’d do in a situation like this before he ever left Rhaigair,” Sarmouth replied. “I won’t pretend I haven’t done everything I could to encourage him to do just this, but he knew what his options were when he set out.” He shook his head. “Reminds me of Thirsk a lot, really. Good men, both of them.” Then his expression hardened. “Too bad they couldn’t find an equally good cause to serve.”
He gazed around the quarterdeck. The wide, holystoned expanse of planking looked pristine and pure in the bright, chill sunlight, he thought. By evening it might look very different.
He shook that thought aside and looked up at the rigging, instead. The masthead pendant stood out boldly, not yet starched stiff by the wind but partly extended and flapping over its entire length. Between twenty-five and thirty miles per hour, his experienced eye estimated, but even with his additional sail, Raisahndo’s speed wasn’t going to be much above four or five knots, now that he’d brought his squadron so close to the wind. He was obviously bidding to keep Sarmouth from getting up to windward of him before they engaged. It was unlikely he thought he could evade Sarmouth that way, since Shipworm Shoal lay squarely across his path on his present course. But taking the wind gauge—if he could—was the right gambit for the Dohlaran.
Whether it would work or not was another thing entirely, but it looked like being a close run race, and if he somehow managed to win it.…
If Sarmouth pointed high enough to contest the wind gauge, he’d have to come starboard, moving the wind forward of the beam for his own ships as he put them close-hauled on the starboard tack, sailing the longer leg of an isosceles triangle towards the point where their courses crossed. If he didn’t contest it, though, and Raisahndo managed to get to windward of him and avoid Shipworm Shoal, the Dohlaran might actually be able to avoid action—immediately, at least—after all. With the advantage of their copper and their loftier rigs, Sarmouth’s ships could manage a good knot—at least—better than the Dohlarans under the same press of canvas … but he also had farther to go if he wanted the wind gauge, and he nodded crisply to himself.
“All right, Rhobair. If he’s in such a hurry to make our acquaintance, it’s only courteous to meet him halfway. Let’s get the topgallants on her and come to west-northwest.”
* * *
“Why do I feel so small and insignificant, Sir?”
Zosh Hahlbyrstaht and Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk stood shoulder to shoulder at Fleet Wing’s taffrail. The pumps worked steadily, although fairly slowly, and hammers, saws, and adzes sounded behind them as the schooner’s carpenter and his mates dealt with her damages. Hektor had just come from visiting his wounded. He was going to lose two of them, and that thought tightened his mouth with a pain worse than any physical injury, yet he knew Fleet Wing had been unreasonably fortunate. Much more fortunate than Sword of Justice, at any rate. Fleet Wing had plucked the Dohlaran brig’s survivors—all seventeen of them—from the icy water, and three of them had already succumbed to their savage burns.
He shook that thought aside … for now. He already knew it would come back to visit him in his dreams. But he found it easier to evade at the moment as he and Hahlbyrstaht gazed out at a spectacle fit to strike awe into any seaman.
Eighty galleons forged towards one another, like two huge, floating islands or distant, snow-capped mountain ranges. Canvas gleamed under the chill midday sun: pewter, or weathered tan or gray, or—here and there—the pristine white of newly replaced sails. Banners floated in brilliant splashes of color against the blue sky and the steadily thickening banks of dark-bottomed white cloud rolling down upon the wind. That same wind sang in the rigging and plucked at uniform tunics and hats, and gulls and wyverns wheeled and plunged, crying to wind and wave as they followed the warships moving through the water with a deliberate, terrible majesty both young men knew was doomed to disappear into history.
That was preposterous in, oh, so many ways, Hektor thought, yet it was also inevitable. Barely seven years ago, those would have been fleets of galleys, closing on oars to ram and board and settle the business with cold steel. Now they were stately castles, driving through the freshening swell under towers of canvas, spray bursting white from their cutwaters, while row upon row of hungry cannon snouted from their gunports.
The difference in raw destruction and carnage those seven years had made was astonishing, even to an officer—or possibly especially to an officer—Hahlbyrstaht or Hektor’s age, who’d lived through the breakneck fury of that change. And yet even as those two massive fleets, without a single unit more than six years old between them, manned by thousands of men and carrying thousands of guns, sailed slowly into the crushing embrace of destruction, Sir Hainz Zhaztro’s steam-powered ironclads must be completing the devastation of Rhaigair two hundred and ninety miles to the north. And the only reason the Dohlarans had accepted battle here rather than staying put at Rhaigair to defend their fortified anchorage was because their galleons—anyone’s galleons, however big, however powerful—couldn’t have lived ten minutes in combat with one of the City-class ships.
And whether the Temple Boys know it or not, something one hell of a lot worse than the Cities is coming on behind, he thought now, grimly.
“You probably feel small and insignificant because Fleet Wing’s only a schooner and she is pretty damned small and insignificant against this,” he said out loud, waving at the panorama of sails with his good arm. Then he lowered his hand and shook his head.
“We won’t see something like this ever again,” he said softly. “Oh, there may be a little cleaning up around the edges, but aside from Thirsk’s Home Squadron, this is the last fleet the Group of Four’s got, Zosh, and Thirsk won’t be coming out to meet us when we finally move on Gorath. Not after what Admiral Zhaztro’s probably finished doing to Rhaigair.” He shook his head with an edge of sadness. “Galleons are about to become as obsolete as crossbows. Nobody’s going to be building another fleet of them after the war’s over.”
“I know.” Hahlbyrstaht sighed. “And I guess it’s pretty damned stupid for anyone who’s ever served aboard a galleon in heavy weather to get all nostalgic over them. Hard to think of any experience more miserable than that! And it’s not like they’ve got some sort of centuries of naval tradition behind them, but … Damn it, Sir! I’m going to miss them.”
“A seaman’s life is a stone-cold bitch as often as not,” Hektor agreed, “but a galleon’s a hell of a lot prettier than any steamer ever designed—yet, at least. Of course, given his choice between going aloft in a hurricane and down to shovel coal in a nice, dry stokehold, I know which any sane seaman’s going to choose!”
“That’s so … pragmatic of you,” Hahlbyrstaht complained.
“What Charisians do, Zosh.” Hektor shrugged, his eyes dark with mingled pride and regret. “Be pragmatic, I mean. It’s what we do best.”
* * *
The opposing squadrons
drew together with the slow, dreadful inexorability of sailing men-of-war. Even on converging courses, their closing speed was barely ten miles an hour. That left plenty of time to turn any man’s bowels to water, Sir Dunkyn Yairley reflected.
Somewhat to his surprise, his own palms were dry and his pulse was almost normal, and he wondered why that was. Fatalism seemed an unlikely answer after all these years of pre-battle butterflies. Was it that this time he understood the reasons—the real reasons—he was out here risking the perfectly serviceable life which was the only one God had given him? Or was it simple duty? Or the realization that, one way or the other, this was almost certainly the last fleet action of the war against the Group of Four?
Maybe it’s even simpler than that, he mused, pacing slowly, steadily, up and down the weather side of Destiny’s quarterdeck. Maybe it’s just that this time I know where every single bastard on the other side is. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of the “fog of war” once the guns open up, but for now—for the first time in any major engagement I’ve ever fought—I know exactly what the stakes are, exactly who’s coming to the dance, and exactly where to find the other side when I want it. Won’t keep a stray cannonball from taking off my head, I suppose, but at least this time that head won’t be wondering what the hell is going on when the round shot arrives!
He chuckled at the thought and never noticed the way the midshipman of the watch relaxed ever so slightly at the evidence of his admiral’s amusement.
* * *
“They’re going to take the weather gauge, Sir,” Captain Trahvys observed unhappily.