“I don’t plan on sending it, sir.”
Bullfinch withdrew his hand and smiled. “Son, we both know my chances. I’m sailing with my fleet. Just see that he gets it.”
Bullfinch did not even bother to wait for a reply. He walked away, shouting obscenities at his staff as he urged them to mount up and get to work.
Richard saluted him anyhow as he disappeared into the dusk.
Dawn broke wet and soggy across the broad expanse of the lower Mississippi. Theodor, with Captain Rosovich by his side, watched as the dispatch boat, which had come out from the small riverboat town, cast off from the Shiloh. Its lone occupant hoisted a small sail, which bellied out, and the boat heeled over as it started to tack back in toward shore.
Smoke belched from the leaky stack, whiffs of coal gas coming up from below deck where the joints where leaking, and the Shiloh started up again. A sailor came up the ladder that had been lowered over the side. Running past the two, he ducked through a hatchway into the bridge, pausing to pass a bundle of Gates’s Daily to a first mate. Men were already queuing up, handing over ten cents for the five cent paper. Theodor tossed him a coin and opened the sheet up.
The headline splashed across the top was the largest Adam had ever seen, taking up nearly a third of the paper. The banner was but a single word:
WAR?
“What the hell is Gates doing?” Theodor growled. “Of course it’s war. Look at this.”
He pointed at the left column below the headline:
FIGHTING ON BANTAG FRONTIER
Adam leaned over and grabbed the paper. “President’s son reported missing,” he read aloud.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head.
“It happens a lot,” Theodor said hurriedly. “A couple of days later they turn up. Believe me, I know. I was reported dead several times.”
“Still, it doesn’t look good. The Bantag moving to the south, that’s clear enough indication that something is up.”
“Mr. Rosovich?”
Adam saw an ensign standing in the hatchway to the bridge. 1
“The admiral wants you, sir.”
Adam looked over at Theodor, who quickly folded up the paper, stuffed it in his back pocket, and followed Adam through the hatch and up the ladder to the bridge.
It was a roughly made affair of wood, nothing more than an enclosed wooden platform made of three layers of railroad ties to at least give the illusion of protection. There was a chair for the captain, a wheel, compass, barometer, and speaker tubes lined up against the starboard side. All of it was a far cry from the original plans for the Shiloh, with a proper steel cupola and a proper captain’s quarters.
Rear Admiral Petronius was gazing balefully at a telegram, as the two came onto the bridge. “I did not ask for you, Theodor Theodorovich.”
“I invited myself anyhow,” he replied with a smile. Adam remained silent, know that Petronius held Theodor personally responsible for what had been done to the Shiloh and the other two ships of what was supposed to be his flotilla.
“This dispatch went up to Suzdal this morning. Fortunately, the station master back there heard it on the wires”- he pointed at the town that was drifting astern-“and seeing us approach saw fit to at least make sure we heard about it as well.”
Petronius held the telegram at arm’s length in order to read.
“Kazan fleet sighted dawn yesterday, five hundred fifty miles southeast Constantine, steaming northwest ten knots. Shall sortie with entire fleet to engage. God Save the Republic. Bullfinch.”
“They went without us?” Theodor asked.
“Obviously, or am I making this dispatch up?” As he spoke he waved the sheet of paper.
“Petronius, I didn’t mean that. It’s just that if he had waited another day and a half we’d be there to support him.”
“In this weather?” Petronius snapped, indicating the line of rain squalls sweeping across the river. “If it’s this way here, it must really be cutting loose on the coast.”
“Still, it’ll pass. He should have waited.”
“Are you a sailor?” Petronius replied. “Well, if not, then don’t dare to pass a judgment on the weather.”
“I’m a flyer,” Theodor announced, his voice edged with anger. “It’ll pass. He should have waited for everything, throw everything at them at once.”
“Well, he won’t, and I wouldn’t either. Any comment, Mr. Rosovich?”
Adam swallowed and shook his head. “If Admiral Bullfinch sailed, he must have had good reason to do so, sir.” Theodor looked over at Rosovich as if he had just sold out.
“I’m tempted to tell the chief engineer down below to bring us down to half speed. The engines are barely broken in, and we’re banging them to pieces steaming at this rate. We’ll miss the fight and that’s that.”
Theodor shifted uncomfortably and looked over at Adam.
“Sir,” Adam said quietly, “our orders were to make best possible speed to Constantine to report.”
“Report to who? The local madam? The fleet’s sailed, sonny, and we missed it.”
“Still, sir, the orders said the best possible speed.” Petronius crumbled up the telegram and tossed it on the deck.
“Wrong place at the wrong time, damn it,” he growled. Neither of the pair spoke.
“Best possible speed then, Mr. Rosovich. And that thing you were going to build up forward, what about that?”
“The steam catapults,” Theodor replied. “I’ve decided not to.”
“Pray why?”
“It would mean tearing up fifty feet of deck. We have the parts, and they would have been installed for the two scout planes, but I don’t want to risk having a deck torn apart and going into action with the job half done. It will have to wait.”
“This speed that Mr. Rosovich keeps hollering about and the wind. Suppose there isn’t enough wind.”
“You just said there’d be a blow, Petronius.”
The admiral glared at him. The rest of the bridge crew went rigid, staring straight ahead.
“Then see to that damn leaking smokestack. You came along for some purpose or other, make yourself useful.” Both of them, taking his comment as a dismissal, backed out of the bridge and went down the ladder.
“If I wasn’t interested in seeing what the hell happened to you, Rosovich, I’d get off this boat at the next town,” Theodor announced, shaking his head.
“He’s just shaken up, that’s all.”
“Shaken up?”
“He just found out all his old friends are going down to death or glory, and he isn’t with them.”
“Death or glory? You think that’s what war is?” With a sigh Theodor walked away.
The attack came the hour before sunset, catching Abe by surprise. The first wave swarmed up out of the ravine where they had snatched the water a day and a half ago, a position that the Bantag had occupied heavily the following night. Six men had ventured down there last night, but their heads had been found at dawn, carefully placed in front of the redoubt on the west slope.
In spite of the outrage the sight had triggered, Togo was impressed by the gesture. Usually the Bantag ate the brains of fallen cattle in order to kill their spirits. The return of the heads was meant as a sign of respect to a courageous foe.
The mounted charge came forward at a gallop. Abe had posted himself by the unit’s best marksman along the north edge of the butte, trying to spot a shot for him. Earlier in the day they had seen the standard of a leader of a thousand in a ravine to the north. Twice the sniper had taken a shot at him and missed. He was just lining it for the third time, a long gamble at six hundred yards, when the cry went up that an attack was under way.
Abe, crouching low, ran to the west side of the butte and looked down. The charge was already halfway across the six hundred yards of open ground. In a remarkable display of horsemanship, the riders were hanging over the sides of their saddles, keeping the body of their mount between them and any incoming rounds.