They've fitted them with real venturi. Some of the rockets, anyway. Just as Belisarius predicted.
She took a breath. "I think-"
Wahsi was already shouting the orders. A moment later, the Ethiopian crew was swarming over the ship, erecting the new rocket shields. Each Axumite ship was carrying almost two hundred soldiers. Most of those men, under normal conditions, would have been busy at the oars. But with the ships under sail, they were free for other work. The shields were erected within minutes.
As she watched, Antonina gave herself a silent reproof. Wahsi's determination to fight under sail, she now realized, had not been the decision of a truculent male eager to show his mettle. The commander had foreseen the necessity to erect the shields quickly.
She glanced at Ousanas. The aqabe tsentsen, once again, was grinning at her. She grinned back, accepting the jeer in good humor.
I, too, when it comes to this, am nothing but an amateur. Let the professionals handle it.
She turned her eyes to the shields. Her own professional pride surfaced. She might not know anything about ships, but shedid know gunpowder warfare. Better than anyone in the world, she thought. John of Rhodes might have a superior grasp of the theory, but not the practice.
Except my husband. After all these months fighting the Rajputs in Persia, I'm sure he's better than I am.
The thought combined pride and worry. Antonina had no idea if Belisarius was still alive. By now, he should have gotten the message she had sent him, telling Belisarius when she would leave Adulis for their rendezvous at Charax. That message would have been taken by fast horses to the nearest semaphore station, at Aila. From there, flashing up and down the line of semaphore stations which she and Belisarius had constructed the year before, the message would have reached Ctesiphon within a day. Persian couriers would carry it to Belisarius' army in the nearby Zagros, again using the fastest horses available.
But there had been no way for a message to be returned. Belisarius had told Antonina, once, of the almost-magical communication devices of future centuries. "Radio," one was called. Such devices were far beyond the technological capability of her time-and would be, even with Aide to guide them, for decades to come.
She sighed unhappily. To shake off her anxiety concerning Belisarius, she resumed her study of the shields.
Antonina had designed the shields herself, before she left Constantinople the year before. Not, of course, without advice from Belisarius-and plenty of help, when the time came to translate theory into practice, from the Syrians of her Theodoran Cohort. The gunners and their wives, being borderers born and bred, were excellent blacksmiths, carpenters and tanners. And whatever they couldn't handle had been done by the Ethiopian artisans and craftsmen whom King Eon had put at her disposal in Adulis.
Each Axumite ship had been fitted with iron hoops on the rails near the bow. A heavy wooden ridgepole was affixed to the mainmast. The ridgepole ran parallel to the ship's hull, right down the center, its end stabilized in the stem.
As soon as Wahsi gave the order, the Syrian gunners and the Ethiopian sailors began erecting the shield. While Ethiopians furled the sails, the gunners set sturdy wooden braces in the iron hoops along the rails. Each hoop had a bar welded across the bottom to hold the brace butts. The top end of each brace had a hole drilled through it. As the gunners lowered the braces toward the ridgepole, the Ethiopian sailors began threading rope through the holes. Within minutes, the tops of the braces were bound tightly to the mast-andridgepole structure. The end result was a sloping A-frame which covered the bow of the ship.
Other sailors were already tossing ropes over the ridgepole and braces. Quickly, with the speed of experienced seamen, the ropes were drawn tight. The A-frame was now lashed down. The ropes provided further strength, along with a filled-in framework.
The wives of the gunners, meanwhile, had finished hauling the special armor out of the hold. The spans of boiled leather, already precut and punched with holes, were stitched onto the pole-and-rope framework with thinner cord. The sailors began dowsing the leather armor with buckets of seawater.
Antonina moved to the bow along with Ousanas and Wahsi, admiring the handiwork. Wahsi did not share her enthusiasm. "Ugly," he groused. Through a viewing slit in the shield, the commander glared down at the bow-waves, which were noticeably smaller. "Slow. Clumsy."
"Ignore him, Antonina," said Ousanas serenely. The aqabe tsentsen pointed to the nearest Malwa vessel. The huge cargo ship was less than four hundred yards away. Kshatriyas could be seen scurrying about their rocket troughs. "Soon enough, he will be glad to have that shield."
Seconds later, the Malwa vessel was shrouded in rocket smoke. Six missiles came streaking across the water.
Five missed, most of them widely. But, again, the sixth missile sped straight and true. Antonina held her breath. She was about to discover if her inventor's pride was warranted.
It was. The rocket struck the sloping side of the shield and glanced off. The shield boomed like a giant kettledrum. The missile soared into the sky, exploding fifty yards overhead.
She blew out her breath, as a second relief came to reinforce the first.
No impact fuses, thank God. Belisarius didn't think they'd have them yet. Not for cargo vessels, anyway.
Theoretically, she knew, the shield should protect the ship even from rockets armed with impact fuses. Partially, at least. If the Malwa fuses were anything like the Roman ones, they were crude devices. A glancing impact might very well not be enough to trigger them-and, even if it did, most of the force would be spilled across the shield instead of punching through. The design would have been well-nigh useless, of course, against heavy cannon balls. But the Malwa had not yet equipped their ships with cannons. Not these ships, anyway.
"Good," grunted Wahsi. "It works." Grudgingly: "I didn't really think it would."
And why not? thought Antonina merrily.It worked at Hampton Roads, didn't it?
But she kept the thought to herself. Both Wahsi and Ousanas knew of Aide. Ousanas, in fact, was one of the few people in the world who had entered Aide's world of future vision. But they were not really comfortable with the knowledge. At the moment, in the midst of battle, they needed surety and solid ground. It was not the best time to launch into a discussion of visions.
Besides, I've got a reputation as a genius to maintain. Won't help that any, if I admit I got my design from a future ship called the Merrimac.
Another volley erupted from the Malwa ship. Then, seconds later, a flight of missiles soared off the deck of another enemy vessel.
Wahsi ignored the oncoming rockets. He stooped, sticking his head into the entrance of the shield, and bellowed orders. The orders were passed down to the steersman at the rear.
The Ethiopian ship began pulling toward the nearest enemy. Progress was slow, of course. The shield was not especially heavy, but it caught the wind like a giant drag. The oarsmen strained, grunting with every sweep of the oars, forcing the craft forward.
Fortunately, neither the seas nor the wind were heavy. Antonina had been told they wouldn't be, as a rule, this time of year. She was relieved to find the information accurate.
Slow progress is still progress. The Malwa convoy-all merchantmen, now that their escorts had been destroyed-were simply seeking to escape the Ethiopians. But the Malwa ships paid a price for their huge and ungainly design. They, too, crept along like snails.
Ousanas verbalized her own assessment. "We'll overtake them," he pronounced. "Soon, I think."
Chapter 30
"Soon" proved to be half an hour.