He staggered off. The new hands at the pumps were swinging the levers vigorously, and there was a perceptible increase in the jets of water going overside. One of them started a chanty, and the others took it up:
"They say life has its ups and downs;
That really now, is quite profound!
I'd like to push the captsan 'round,
But it's pump her mates, before we drown!"
More men and women came running to gather around her as she made a high beckoning gesture with the fingers of both hands; the motion of the ship changed beneath her feet as the added thrust of sixty or seventy strong backs swinging ashwood oars came on to the towline. She looked around at the circle of faces; a couple of ensigns, a lieutenant, and half a dozen experienced petty officers and chiefs-ship's carpenters, rigging specialists.
"Pump me mates Pump her dry;
Down to hell, up to the sky-
Bend your backs and break your bones
We're just a thousand miles from home!"
"All right, people, we need to lighten this ship and get some sail on her," Alston said briskly. "Guns overside. Get the auxiliary pumps started; once you've made some headway in the hold, start her fresh water overside as well-stores, this clutter on deck, everything that can be heaved to the rail except her main cargo." Most of which was far too bulky and heavy to move anyway. "Chips?"
The Lincoln's master carpenter jerked a thumb westward to where two more boats were towing bundles of white pine spars, seventy feet long and a foot and a half thick in the middle.
"With those spars, ma'am, we can do jury masts on the main and fore-scarf and wold 'em. That'll give you something. It'll take a while."
"Sometimes when I am in me bed
And thinkin' of the day ahead;
I wish that I could wake up dead-
But pumpin's all I get instead!"
"Get it done in the next fifty minutes or there's no point," she said over the sound of the chanty. "I want the rigging ready to go up and the sails, too." She pointed ahead, to where the breakers made a white line to their south and east. "The swell, tide, and wind are all shoving us toward that. We need to bring her head around five points, and get some real way on her- five knots, more would be better-and the wind's not favorable." Not dead in their teeth, but coming in over the starboard quarter.
She tapped a fist into a pink palm. "We need what's on board to win this war; to keep it, we have to save this ship, so that's exactly what we're going to do, people. Let's do it; let's go."
They gave a short, sharp cheer and scattered to their work at a run. Alston watched them go, fighting down a ferocious impatience. Who knew what devilments Isketerol might be up to, might get up to in the future, if they gave him time?
Swindapa came up and handed her a piece of hardtack. She looked down at the hard gray-brown crackerlike rectangle, puzzled for an instant, then ahead at the cliffs they'd be passing- hopefully passing, and not running into-in an hour or two.
"If Jack Aubrey could get close enough to those rocks to hit 'em with a ship's biscuit, why not me?" she said, matching Swindapa's grin for a brief instant. It was good to remember that there was more to the world than their present trouble.
The chanty went on, pounding to the rumble and splash of the pumps:
"Yes how I wish that I could die,
The swine who built this tub to find;
I'd drag him back from where he fries,
To pump until the bitch is dry!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
October, 10 A.E.-Hattusas, Kingdom of Hani-land
October, 10 A.E.-Troy
November, 10 A.E.-Northeastern Carpathian foothills
September, 10 A.E.-O'Rourke's Ford, east of Troy
October, 10 A.E.-On the coast of northwestern Iberia
September, 10 A.E.-O'Rourke's Ford, east of Troy
October, 10 A.E.-Achaean encampment, near Troy
I like this game," Raupasha said. "But it will be long before I fight to a draw even with your son, much less you, my sister."
Doreen Arnstein looked down at the chessboard, shivering a little in a way that had nothing to do with the cold that was sending fingers through the thick robe wrapped about her. She was playing her son David and Raupasha simultaneously, with a time limit on her moves. That made it a challenge, enough to keep her mind off Ian; the news from Troy wasn't good. In fact, it was desperately bad, and only desperation would have driven Ken to order the last-chance maneuver that was taking place this night.
David had made his move, and went back to the little three-inch reflector she had mounted on this flat rooftop. Originally she'd put that up as a sort of homage to her beginnings; she'd been a student astronomer at the time of the Event, interning at the little observatory on Nantucket run by the Margaret Milson Association. Tonight her son wasn't studying the stars; in between moves, he had the telescope trained to the southwest.
The Arnsteins had been given a royal villa outside the walls of Hattusas; the Islander military had set up around it, sinking wells and installing rudimentary sanitation and getting doctors and their equipment ready. That had been the first priority, even before starting to shuttle in troops and weapons; then they could move westward toward Troy and the Aegean Sea.
Now the campfires and lanterns twinkled about the building in orderly rows, and a long rectangle off to the west marked the Emancipator's landing ground. The chill of autumn fought with the warmth from wood burning in two bronze baskets, and there were fewer bugs splatting themselves there, or against the kerosene lantern on the table beside them. A kettle of sassafras tea kept warm near one brazier; mugs and a platter of cookies stood beside the chessboard.
Doreen fought to keep her attention on the chessmen; there was something reassuring about the feel of the pre-Event plastic, like an old teddy bear. It was a reminder of a world where your husband wasn't threatened by sadistic surgeon-torturers, or mad ex-Coast-Guard warlords, or barbarians with bronze axes…
No, just by cancer, muggers, drive-by shootings, and LA drivers, she thought. Plus if it hadn't been for the Event, you'd never have met Ian, not really-never even have considered marrying him, at least. No David then, or Miriam. I'm going to call her Miriam, by God, and Ion's going to be there to help with the diapers!
"You shouldn't done that," she said to her son. "Look-I'm in a position where you're going to lose this castle, to save your King. In fact…"
The boy came over and scowled, knotting his brow in thought. Doreen felt her heart turn over; he looked so much like his father when he did that. He was tall for his age, with hands and feet that promised something like his father's inches, but his face and build were more like hers. The Middle Eastern sun had burned him brown over the summer and brought out a few russet highlights in his dark curly hair. The scowl turned into a shrug as he reached out and tipped over his King.
He's worried, too, she thought, giving him a quick hug before he turned back to the telescope. Or he'd fight to the death, the way he usually does. And he'd be his usual one-question-after-another self, instead of so quiet.
"Now you will beat me like, how you say, the big bass drum," Raupasha said.