Hanth considered that unhappy fact as he held his cherrybean mug one-handed and ran his left index finger across the crayon-marked lines indicating 4th Brigade’s positions on his oilcloth map.
“I think we need to see about asking General Sumyrs if Brigadier Snaips can borrow the Third Alyksberg to shore up his right for a few days, Dyntyn,” he said thoughtfully. “We might ask for the Seventh South March, too. The high road’s in good enough shape to get them forward, and I want to pull Major Klymynt’s battalion completely off the line while it refits.”
“Yes, Sir,” Karmaikel said, jotting a brief memo in his notebook.
“And after you’ve gotten that message sent off, send another one asking Admiral Sympsyn to plan on joining us for lunch. I’d like to discuss how to get the best use out of our new angles, once they arrive.”
The earl tried—mostly successfully—to keep the bitterness out of his last three words, and he knew it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. But that made him no happier that so far he had one—count them, one—battery of the new 6-inch angle-guns. Despite how hellishly difficult they were to move under current conditions, that single battery had already proved worth its weight in gold, however, and if Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s word was as good as usual, he’d see at least four or five more batteries within the next few five-days.
“I could wish they were sending us a few of the new four-inchers, as well,” he continued. “Langhorne knows I don’t want to sound like a whiner, but angle-guns and mortars can only do so much, and I’d love to be able to pull the thirty-pounders completely off the line right along with Klymynt’s battalion. Still, let’s be grateful for what we’re getting.”
This time Karmaikel only nodded as he went on writing, and Hanth stood a moment longer, looking down at the map.
You’re only trying to delay the inevitable, Hauwerd, he thought. It’s still going to be raining whenever you finally get your arse into the saddle.
He entertained an ignoble temptation to send young Karmaikel on the scheduled trip to inspect the progress of Ahrthyr Parkyr’s engineers’ without him. Surely the major could bring back all the first-hand impressions he needed!
They need to know you appreciate the way they’re busting arse, he reminded himself. And having the general lean over their shoulders can’t hurt their … sense of urgency, either. Especially if the general’s feeling wet, cold, and grumpy while he does the leaning! Just remember they need positive encouragement, too. And that it’s not their fault you’re going to be wet and cold.
He snorted again, this time in amusement, and took another long swallow of cherrybean.
“All right, Dyntyn,” he sighed then, lowering the mug. “I suppose you’d better go collect the horses.” A harder burst of rain pattered on the shielding tarp, and he shuddered. “I’ll just stay here and finish my cherrybean—and hope the morning gets this—” he waved his mug to indicate the rain splattering across the tarp “—out of its system while you see to that.”
“Is this another of those ‘rank has its privileges’ moments, Sir?” Karmaikel asked with a small smile.
“Why, I believe it is, Major.” Hanth’s smile was considerably broader than his aide’s. “I believe it is.”
.II.
HMS Serpent, 22,
and
HMS Fleet Wing, 18,
Trosan Channel,
Gulf of Dohlar.
“Bugger’ll be up to us in another two, two and a half hours, Sir,” Lieutenant Karmaikel Achlee said quietly in his CO’s ear. “She’s faster’n we are, damn her.”
Lieutenant Commander Truskyt Mahkluskee nodded, trying his best to keep his unhappiness out of his expression. It wasn’t that he doubted the capability or courage of his crew, but the Royal Dohlaran Navy had learned the hard way that crossing swords with the Imperial Charisian Navy on its own terms was almost always a bad business, and the fellow chasing him wouldn’t have been if he wasn’t confident he could engage on his terms.
Mahkluskee clasped his hands behind him, spyglass tucked under his right armpit, and gazed back across the taffrail at the schooner-rigged sails sweeping steadily closer. The wind was almost directly out of the northwest at about twenty miles an hour, with six-foot waves—what sailors called a topsail breeze—but it was steadily strengthening, and cloud banks rolled down upon it. There was rain in those clouds. Mahkluskee could almost smell it, and he would have vastly preferred for that rain to have already appeared, preferably in driving squalls that cut visibility to nothing. That wasn’t going to happen, however. Or not until long after the vengefully pursuing schooner overhauled Serpent, at least.
Oh, stop being an old woman! he scolded himself. Yes, they’re Charisians and they’re chasing you. Is there some reason that should surprise you? Any Charisian warship’s going to be out for blood after Hahskyn Bay—hard to blame them for that!—so this fellow may be pissed enough to run risks he wouldn’t otherwise. And Charisians or not, they aren’t ten feet tall and they don’t pick their teeth with boarding pikes. Best you remember that … and don’t let any of the lads think for a minute you ever doubted it!
“Actually, I think it’ll be closer to two, Karmaikel,” he said judiciously. “Pity nobody’s had time to get us coppered.”
Achlee grunted in agreement. The RDN had learned how to copper ships to protect them against borers and weed only after they’d captured a few Charisian ships and taken them apart to find the bronze fittings below the waterline. No one knew why that worked, but they did know every attempt to attach copper with iron nails had been a dismal, disintegrating failure. Yet even after they’d discovered the secret, coppering a ship which had been put together originally with those same iron nails was a significant challenge. New construction was one thing, but simply pulling all the iron from an existing ship and replacing it with bronze was a time-consuming—and expensive—proposition. Eventually, however, the shipwrights had figured out how to sheath a ship’s hull first in an additional layer of planking, well coated with pitch and fastened to the original hull with bronze, before screwing the sheet copper to it. It was still expensive as Shan-wei herself, but it worked, and any trifling speed which might have been lost to the additional beam was more than compensated for by the copper’s immunity to the long, dragging tendrils of weed which started cutting an un-coppered hull’s speed within five-days after it was scraped clean.
Serpent, unfortunately, was a lowly brig. The Navy realized ships her size needed speed even more than larger ships, but they were also more expendable, and the galleon fleet had been given a much higher priority. Then the screw-galleys had been added to the mix, and they took priority even over the galleons.
Which had left Serpent sucking hind teat.
Again.
“How do you think they’ll go about it?” Achlee asked after a moment.
“They’re bringing the wind down with them,” Mahkluskee said, and shrugged. “They’re faster, they’re schooner-rigged, and they’ll have the weather gauge. Unless they screw up—and when’s the last time you heard about a Charisian screwing up in a sea fight?—they’ll be able to choose the range. The question, I suppose, is whether this fellow’s a dance-and-shoot type or a drive-straight-in type. To be honest, I’d prefer the latter.”