At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  He and Baron Sarmouth had discussed their unpalatable options exhaustively and come up with the best approach they could. Which wasn’t remotely the same thing as saying they’d found a good one.

  In many ways, they would have preferred to use Needle’s Eye Channel, between Meyer Island and Green Tree Island. It was broader, but it was also shallower, and there were even more guns on Green Tree than on Sandy and Wreckers’. That ruled out the Needle, and at least they’d managed, courtesy of Admiral Seamount, to come up with one wrinkle Zhaztro was pretty sure hadn’t occurred even to someone as canny as the Earl of Thirsk.

  He trained his double-glass astern and smiled again—thinly, but with genuine satisfaction—as he watched the converted steam powered landing barges churn steadily along off Eraystor’s quarter. They’d been towed all the way from Lizard Island by the larger steamers, because they weren’t the best seaboats in the world, and their relatively low speed now that they were no longer on tow was the reason it had taken five hours to reach the squadron’s current position, but he wasn’t about to complain.

  He swung his double-glass back towards Wreckers’ Island and felt himself tighten internally. The entire island was barely eight miles long, and it reminded him ever more strongly—and unpleasantly—of Battery St. Charlz as it drew steadily closer. According to the seijins, the batteries along its eastern shoreline not only mounted heavier guns but were even better protected than St. Charlz’ had been, and no one had ever accused Dohlaran gunners of faintheartedness. On the other hand, this time he’d have Gwylym Manthyr in support.

  He knew Sarmouth would actually have preferred to take the lead with his far more powerful, better armored flagship. In fact, he’d initially planned to do just that, but Zhaztro had convinced him it was out of the question. Manthyr was less maneuverable, she drew more water, and she was far less expendable. There was also the minor consideration that it would be … less than desirable to blow up the expedition’s commanding officer on a drifting sea-bomb. Sarmouth had seemed less than overwhelmed by that part of the argument, but he hadn’t been able to ignore the rest of it, and his expression had been almost petulant when he finally accepted Zhaztro’s alternate suggestion.

  Now Zhaztro snorted in amused memory and lowered the double-glass.

  “Signal Manthyr that we’re prepared to proceed,” he said.

  * * *

  “Admiral Zhastro is ready to proceed, Sir,” Ahrlee Zhones reported, holding up the message slip in his hand.

  “Good,” Sir Dunkyn Yairley said in a tone which was considerably more confident than he was. He didn’t like what the SNARCs were showing him one bit, but there wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment. No one aboard Manthyr was in any position to see the threat that worried him most, and he couldn’t exactly order Halcom Bahrns to open fire on something no one—or at least no one without access to the SANRCs—even knew was there. Especially not if that fire produced the spectacular result it almost certainly would. That might well validate his bizzare orders, but it certainly wouldn’t explain them, and there was only so much that he could wave away as blind chance and luck.

  “Remined Lieutenant Makadoo that I want to know the instant he sees anything—anything at all—out of the ordinary,” he directed. “Especially if he sees any sign of warships or floating rocket launchers.”

  “Yes, My Lord. At once.”

  Zhones sounded a little perplexed, and Sarmouth didn’t really blame the youngster. He’d already prodded Makadoo with that message—or a variant on it—several times, and he wondered if Zhones thought the fight the Cape Toe batteries had put up had shaken his nerve. Unfortunately, he couldn’t explain his motives to his flag lieutenant … any more than he could come right out and explain them to Makadoo.

  He thought again about ordering Manthyr to take the lead, but all Zhaztro’s arguments against that decision still stood.

  Yes, they do. And you don’t know that it’s going to be anywhere near as bad as you’re afraid it could, Dunkyn, he told himself. For that matter, even if you told Hainz all about it, he’d only point out that we still have to force the channel and clear the damned sea-bombs and tell you it didn’t change a thing, and he’d be right. It doesn’t change anything … except which men—and how many of them—may be about to get killed, perhaps.

  “Very well,” he said. “Hoist the signal to proceed.”

  * * *

  “We’re moving in, Sir,” PO Hahlys said, and Zoshua Makadoo finished chewing and swallowed hastily.

  “Got it,” he said, and shoved the rest of the sandwich into his pocket and crawled forward. Hahlys squirmed past him as they exchanged positions and the lieutenant settled back into place with his double-glass. After better than six hours aloft, he and Hahlys had been ravenously hungry when Bosun Mykgylykudi sent their lunch up on the powered messenger line. Hahlys had eaten first, while Makadoo maintained a lookout, then the petty officer had relieved him.

  And I almost got done eating, the lieutenant thought with a chuckle as he raised the double-glass.

  It was a bit strained, that chuckle. Zoshua Makadoo was about as irrepressible as a young man came, but his wyvern’s eye view had shown him far too much carnage this day. He’d seen everything, and it was almost worse that it had been so far away, so tiny. He’d heard the thunder of the squadron’s guns and watched shells bursting all over the Dohlaran fortifications, but it had been like watching toys fighting toys … until he raised his double-glass and saw the dying “toys” writhing in broken agony whenever the smoke parted. He’d seen Dohlaran shells hitting Eraystor, Riverbend, and Gairmyn, as well, and he wondered how many men he knew aboard those ships had been killed or wounded.

  No one ever promised it would be easy, he reminded himself, focusing the double-glass on Eraystor as she steamed steadily towards the enemy once again.

  “Message from Admiral Sarmouth, Sir,” Hahlys said. Makadoo looked over his shoulder at the petty officer, who held up the slip of paper he’d just taken from the message cylinder.

  “Read it.”

  “Yes, Sir. ‘Remember to report anything—’ that word’s underlined twice, Sir ‘—out of the ordinary. Especially—’ three underlines on that one, Sir ‘—any warships or floating rocket launchers.’ That’s it, Sir.”

  Makadoo grunted in acknowledgment and frowned as he turned back to the vista below, swinging his double-glass across to Wreckers’ Island. Admiral Sarmouth had personally briefed them before they launched, and his instructions had been very clear. It was unlike him to repeat himself—and, especially, to repeat himself this often—and Makadoo couldn’t help wondering if the admiral knew something the rest of them didn’t. If he did, the lieutenant couldn’t imagine what it might be. He’d already examined Wreckers’ Island as meticulously as he could from this distance, and reported everything he’d seen.

  It was obvious this target was going to be a tougher slabnut than Cape Toe had been. Only the very muzzles of the battery’s long, lethal Fultyn Rifles were visible, peeking out of much smaller—and harder to hit—embrasures than the Cape Toe batteries had shown. The parapet itself looked half again as thick, as well. He’d already passed that information along, and he was just as glad they hadn’t waited another few five-days, since it was clear the Dohlarans had still been piling up fresh dirt to add even more breadth and depth to the parapet. In fact, they must have been doing that right up to the very last minute, he thought, as he studied the half-dozen barges moored behind the island. They were obviously very shallow draft, given how little depth of water there was on Broken Keel Shoal, between the island and the mainland. In fact, given the state of the tide, they had to be hard aground at the moment, which probably explained why they hadn’t run away. Two of them—quite a bit smaller than the others—were empty, although there were still a few heaps of dirt scattered around their open-topped holds. Clearly whoever had been swinging the shovels hadn’t been all that worried about getting all of it. But the other four were m
ounded high with still more dirt destined for the parapet. In fact, the dirt was heaped so high he was surprised they’d been able to float the damned things across the shoal at all.

  Left it just a little late, though, he thought with a thin smile. Don’t know how much the extra dirt would’ve helped, but we’ll never find out now, will we?

  * * *

  “Looks like they’re finally getting down to it, Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Zhordyn Kortez said grimly.

  “Surprised it’s taken them this long,” Captain Ezeekyl Mahntayl replied. Mahntayl was forty-six, ten years older than his executive officer, and he’d lost a leg and an eye in the Kaudzhu Narrows. He was also one of the Royal Dohlaran Navy’s two or three most expert gunners, which explained his present command.

  “I guess Captain Dynnysyn’s boys hammered them pretty hard,” Kortez observed.

  “Probably. Not hard enough, though,” Mahntayl growled. “Should’ve done a lot better!”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Some people would have taken Mahntayl’s words as a criticism of Cape Toe’s CO, but Kortez knew better. Mahntayl and Cayleb Dynnysyn had been friends for years. The anger in Mahntayl’s voice had a lot more to do with that friendship and the reports they’d received about Cape Toe’s casualties than with the fact that the heretics hadn’t lost a single ship … so far, at least.

  “I know the lads are ready,” the captain went on now. “But there’s still time for another walk-through. Well, for somebody who still has both feet, anyway.” He actually managed a smile. “See to that for me, if you would.”

  “Of course, Sir.” Kortez saluted and headed for the deeply dug-in and heavily sandbagged command post’s entrance. Unlike Cape Toe, the garrison of Wreckers’ Island could depend on the enemy coming in close enough to be seen from sea level. There was an observation tower in the center of the island, but it was unmanned at the moment. If the heretics wanted to waste a few shells demolishing it instead of shooting at his artillery, Mahntayl would be delighted.

  And the guns aren’t all I have for you, either, you bastards, he thought harshly, peering through the tripod-mounted spyglass. You just keep right on coming. I don’t think you’re going to enjoy your reception very much.

  * * *

  “Open fire!”

  The first broadside thundered from Eraystor’s larboard broadside in a fresh volcanic cloud bank of brown smoke, and Sir Hainz Zhaztro found himself—again—wishing he was still on the bridge wing.

  But I don’t wish it very hard at the moment, he told himself, peering through a view slit as the Wreckers’ Island battery disappeared behind a swirling cloud of its own gunsmoke.

  Shells screamed overhead or hurled up huge columns of white, mud-stained water, and he felt his belly muscles tighten as the size of those fountains confirmed the weight of the artillery his men were about to face.

  * * *

  “What the hell?” Ezeekyl Mahntayl muttered.

  The heretics’ shells came shrieking in like vengeful demons, slamming into his battery’s earthem defenses, blasting craters deep into them. But some of those shells didn’t explode. Some of them gushed dense billows of smoke, instead. Which had to be the most unnecessary thing he’d ever seen in his life! His guns were already making plenty of smoke. Even with the brisk northeasterly blowing lengthwise down the Zhulyet Channel, it was thick enough to severely restrict his gunners’ visibility, and that could only get worse, despite the 12-inch rifles’ slow rate of fire. For that matter, the heretics were producing more than enough gunsmoke of their own to obscure their ironclads! Surely they’d be better served hammering Wreckers’ Island with explosives than churning up still more smoke!

  Unless there was something else they didn’t want him to see.

  * * *

  “All right, Wahltayr,” Commander Tahlyvyr Sympsyn said as smoke enveloped Wreckers’ Island … and hopefully blinded its gunners. “Let’s get this circus moving.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir!” Lieutenant Wahltayr Rahbyns replied, and glanced at the grizzled petty officer at the converted landing barge’s helm. “You heard the Commander, PO. Take us in.”

  “Aye, Sir,” PO Styv Khantrayl acknowledged and eased the wheel expertly.

  “A bit more speed, I think,” Rahbyns added, looking ahead through his double-glass, and the seaman acting as engineer opened the throttle a bit wider.

  The paddle wheel thumped and vibrated, churning the water as Bombsweeper One—the only name the converted barge had ever been given—gathered speed.

  “Stream the kites!” Rahbyns ordered in a louder voice, and four more seamen bent over the winches mounted on either side of Bombsweeper One’s blunt bows. It took two sets of hands on each winch to control the speed with which the heavy wire cable paid out, and Rahbyns watched critically.

  He’d been a less than happy man when he first heard about the Temple Boys “sea-bombs.” A floating explosive charge, just waiting for a ship to sail over it? A charge that didn’t care how heavily armored the ship in question might be? A charge that hid invisibly in the water until the fatal moment? The very thought had been enough to send an icy chill through any sailor.

  But he should have known Admiral Seamount would find a solution, and so he had. It wasn’t perfect, and it was one hell of a long way from anything a man might call “safe,” but he doubted the Dohlarans would like it very much.

  The cables finished paying out, and Bombsweeper One labored more heavily as the tethered objects someone from Old Terra would have called paravanes spread outward on either bow. The cables angled sharply back, and the depth-maintaining vanes had been carefully set to keep the sea-kites in precisely the right position relative to their mothership.

  If Bombsweeper One happened to run directly into one of the sea-bombs, the consequences would be … unfortunate. But no matter how dense the field of sea-bombs might be, the odds were heavily against a direct bows-on collision. A sea-bomb attack was actually more likely to succeed if its target sailed past it, close enough for the wake to suck it into contact with the hull.

  But the sea-kites’ cables would intercept the mooring cables of any sea-bombs caught in their path and guide the explosives not inward, towards the bombsweeper, but outwards, towards the kite. That meant the only real danger spot was directly ahead of her and no wider than her own beam … in theory, at least. Hopefully, the mooring cable would actually break and the sea-bomb would float to the surface, where the M96-armed riflemen standing along the rails on either side would be waiting for it, rather than be drawn directly into the kite. Their magazines were loaded with a special incendiary bullet designed to punch through the sea-bomb’s casing and detonate its gunpowder filler.

  There were drawbacks to the system, of course. The bombsweepers had to steam straight ahead on painstakingly plotted courses if they wanted to have any idea where the swept channel was when they finished. That would make them unpleasantly easy targets. And clearing a sufficiently broad channel required the combined efforts of several bombsweepers, steaming in a carefully maintained formation so that their deployed kites overlapped without fouling one another. At the moment, Rahbyns’ sweeper was the head of a blunt triangle three sweepers—and just over three hundred yards—across. The other two were what Admiral Seamount had christened his “wingmen,” steaming far enough back that their inboard kites were at least fifty yards inside Rahbyns’ kites but a minimum of seventy-five yards astern of them. The overlap guaranteed—in theory, at least—that no sea-bombs would be missed.

  Lieutenant Mahkzwail Charlz steamed parallel with Rahbyns at a distance of just under five hundred yards in Bombsweeper Five, leading a second triangle of bombsweepers. Theoretically, the entire formation would sweep a six hundred-yard wide channel through the middle of the Dohlaran sea-bombs in a single pass, although the plan called for them to turn around, find their navigation marks, and sweep a second channel that overlapped the first, clearing a path approximately a thousand yards wide.

  It al
l sounded good, and the training exercises had gone well, but no one had been shooting at them during the exercises, and none of the “sea-bombs” they’d swept had actually contained gunpowder.

  That was why there nine more bombsweepers in reserve, waiting to replace any casualties.

  * * *

  “What the hell are they’re doing?” Lieutenant Commander Kortez demanded, and Captain Mahntayl looked up from the spyglass with a scowl.

  “I presume you’re talking about the little bastards?” Mahntayl had to raise his voice to be heard over the thunder of artillery and the roar of bursting shells, despite the command post’s thick walls, and Kortez nodded.

  The captain hadn’t heard his second-in-command return to the bunker, which probably shouldn’t have surprised him, given the ungodly bedlam of the artillery duel. Now Kortez stood beside him, glaring out through the same view slit. The blinding walls of smoke, reinforced by the heretic’s damned smoke shells, made visibility spotty as hell, but the wind had shifted ever so slightly. The smoke remained as dense as ever, possibly even denser, between his gunners and the ironclads, but the range to the small steampots churning towards the sea-bombs was actually clearing.

  “Well, the only thing I can think of,” he said sourly, “is that they know about the sea-bombs and they think they’ve found a way to clear them.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Kortez muttered, but he sounded like someone who wanted Mahntayl to be wrong, not someone who thought he was.

  “If you can think of another reason for those pissant little boats to run around in the middle of a Shan-wei-damned artillery duel, I’m all ears,” Mahntayl replied.

  He and Kortez looked at each other for a moment. Then the lieutenant commander shrugged.

  “No, Sir, I can’t. The question is whether or not they can really do it, and I wouldn’t think—”

  He broke off as one of the bombsweepers’ kites brought a sea-bomb to the surface. The tide was ebbing steadily towards dead low-water, and it was obvious the Charisians had planned their attack for a time when the sea-bombs would be closest to the surface and most visible. Now the sea-kite’s cable did precisely what it was supposed to do, guiding the captured sea-bomb towards the kite. Rifles cracked from the sweeper’s deck, raising quick little spits of white around the sea-bomb. Nothing else happened for four or five seconds. Then it exploded ferociously—but harmlessly.