David Weber - How firm a foundation

“Very well, Captain Lathyk,” he said. “I believe it’s time.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.” Lathyk nodded and raised his speaking trumpet. “Man the braces!”

Baron Jahras was still staring at Triangle Shoal when he heard the bellow of fresh gunfire coming from the west. At first he thought the Charisian galleons approaching his line had opened fire, but then he realized his mistake. Somewhere beyond his line of sight, another cluster of those damned… bombardment galleons, or whatever the hell someone wanted to call them, had opened fire on the Sickle Shoal fortress, as well. That was too far away for Jahras to see from his current position, but off the top of his head he couldn’t think of any reason for that fortress to be any more successful than Stahkail’s had been.

He stamped to the forward edge of the poop deck, raising his spyglass and peering through it. From this close to the water he couldn’t actually see the fortress thanks to the curve of the earth, but he could make out the clouds of gunsmoke rising beyond Sickle Shoal. He knew it was pointless, but he was still trying to pick out some sort of detail when Captain Ahlvai cleared his throat.

“Beg pardon, My Lord, but it seems the heretics are about to come calling.”

Jahras lowered the glass and looked across Emperor Zhorj ’s starboard rail, and his expression tightened. The leading Charisian squadron had turned downwind once more, sailing directly into his anchored ships’ broadsides. He had enough of an angle on them to see their rigged anchors and realize they, too, intended to anchor by the stern, undoubtedly on a spring. With the wind setting steadily out of the northeast and the tide making, wind and current alike would help them maintain their positions. There wasn’t much subtlety to it, he thought harshly. A straight broadside duel, a pounding match. One he ought to be able to win, even if his guns were lighter, because he could bring so many more of them to bear. Except for the minor fact that unless he was sadly mistaken, every one of those galleons was about to begin firing the same sort of ammunition which had just blown the guts out of a heavy masonry fortress.

And we’re just a tiny bit more likely to catch fire-or sink-than a fortress, a mental voice told him.

“Open fire, Captain Ahlvai,” he said flatly. . VII.

Inner Harbor, Port of Iythria, Empire of Desnair

The afternoon tore apart in thunder, lightning, smoke, and screams.

HMS Destiny had missed the savage battle in the Markovian Sea, but she made up for it now. The Imperial Desnairian Navy was nowhere near the equal of the Navy of God. Its crews had less training, most of them had less motivation, and although their artillery had been manufactured to the same design, there was an enormous difference in its workmanship and quality. Most of Baron Jahras’ captains refused to load their guns with full charges, given their propensity to explode unexpectedly, and the gun crews (who tended to have a closer association with them) were even more leery of their weapons. Worse, Jahras had been more or less forced to settle for dry-firing their pieces for training, since he couldn’t afford to use them up before they were actually needed in battle. His gunners had mastered the motions of their drill, but it was a largely theoretical mastery, without the experience of the actual thunder of their weapons, the reek of smoke, and-certainly-without a live enemy on the far side of the gunport from them.

On the other hand, there were a lot of guns on those Desnairian ships, and Jahras’ galleons had been in place literally for months. His crews might be nowhere near the equal of their Charisian opponents as seamen, but then very few seamen were. And the Desnairians might not have the Charisians’ tradition of victory-because, again, very few navies did. But what those Desnairian crewmen did have was practice and complete familiarity with their commander’s battle plan, and while they might not have mastered the gunner’s trade in the brimstone reek of actual burned gunpowder, the motions of the evolution had been drilled into them mercilessly. They knew exactly what they were supposed to do, because their captains had explained it to them in detail and they’d practiced it over and over again. And if their fire might not be as accurate or as rapid as their opponents’, it was far more accurate and rapid than it would have been at sea, maneuvering under sail while the ship moved and surged underfoot.

The crewmen assigned to the capstans had spent literally five-days practicing turning their ships, pivoting them to exactly the angles their captains wanted, and they did that now. As the Charisian line, led by HMS Destiny, headed for its enemies, a hailstorm of white splashes rose all about Sir Dunkyn Yairley’s flagship and her consorts. It wasn’t well aimed, but there was so much of it that not all of it could miss, and heavy splintering sounds announced the arrival of twelve-pound and twenty-five-pound round shot. They slammed into Destiny ’s bow as she headed straight into the line of Jahras’ anchored galleons, and Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk saw one of his ship’s long fourteen-pounder bow chasers take a direct hit. Its carriage disintegrated, spewing out a fan of splinters that wounded three men at other guns. Half its own crew was killed by the hit, and one of the survivors was down, kicking in agony on the deck while the fingers of his right hand tried vainly to stanch the bleeding where his left arm had been. Two members of the same gun crew who seemed to be unhurt grabbed their maimed companion and started dragging him towards the hatch and the waiting healers… just as another broadside lashed the water around the ship and another round shot ripped through all three of them.

This time, there were no survivors.

The ensign turned away, looking for his admiral, and saw Captain Lathyk standing on top of the starboard hammock nettings, one arm through the mizzen shrouds for balance while he leaned out, trying to fix the Desnairians’ position in his mind despite the solid wall of smoke their guns were belching out. As Aplyn-Ahrmahk watched, another Desnairian round shot came whimpering and whining out of the thunder. It slammed through the hammock nettings less than three feet from the captain and a flying splinter cut a deep gash in his right cheek, but Lathyk didn’t even seem to notice. He only leaned farther out, as if he thought he could somehow bend down and look under the smoke, between it and the water, to see his enemy clearly.

Sir Dunkyn stood beside the binnacle, hands still clasped behind him, his head moving steadily back and forth as his gaze swept between Captain Lathyk and the masthead weathervane. Sylvyst Raigly stood two paces behind him, head cocked, watching the chaos as if he were considering how best to arrange seating for a formal dinner. Stywyrt Mahlyk stood on the admiral’s other side, arms folded, head settled well down on his neck while he chewed a wad of chewleaf with the air of someone who had seen this sort of nonsense altogether too often.

Yairley seemed unaware of his henchmen’s presence. His expression was calm, almost contemplative as he glanced briefly down at the binnacle compass card, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk drew a deep breath. It wasn’t as if he’d never seen battle before, he reminded himself, remembering the thunder of guns, the screams, the clash of steel on steel from the Battle of Darcos Sound. But there was a difference this time, he realized. For the first time, he wasn’t truly part of Destiny ’s company. He was Admiral Yairley’s flag lieutenant, with no assigned battle station, no responsibility to the ship that he could grasp in mental hands and cling to when the world went mad around him. He couldn’t believe what an enormous difference that made, and yet as the recognition struck him, he also realized it had to be even worse for the admiral. Like Aplyn-Ahrmahk, Yairley was only a passenger this time. The man who’d commanded Destiny, who’d been ultimately responsible for every order given aboard her, found himself with absolutely no decisions to make once the order to engage had been given.