David Weber - How firm a foundation

“Now, Bynzhamyn! Let’s not be bringing up the past,” Merlin said severely, and turned back to Pine Hollow. “What I’ve been thinking, My Lord-”

“Sir Dunkyn?”

“Yes, Hektor?” Admiral Sir Dunkyn Yairley looked up from the captains’ reports in front of him as Lieutenant Aplyn-Ahrmahk stepped into his day cabin.

“A messenger from the Port Admiral’s just come aboard, Sir. He has a dispatch for you.”

“And I presume there’s some reason you haven’t already handed it to me?”

“As a matter of fact, Sir, I’m afraid you’ll have to sign for it. Personally.”

Yairley’s eyebrows rose. He considered his young flag lieutenant for a moment, then shrugged.

“Very well, I suppose you should ask this messenger to step into the cabin.”

“Aye, Sir.”

Aplyn-Ahrmahk disappeared for a few seconds, then returned escorting a full commander.

“The plot thickens,” Yairley murmured at sight of the “messenger’s” seniority.

“Commander Jynkyns, Sir Dunkyn,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said.

“I see. You have a dispatch for me, Commander?”

“Yes, Sir. I do.” Jynkyns saluted, then opened an attache case and extracted a heavy canvas envelope. A paper label was stitched across the open end to hold it closed, and he laid it on Yairley’s desk.

The admiral looked at it for a moment, then dipped his pen in the inkwell and scribbled his name across the label.

“Very good, Sir Dunkyn. Thank you,” Jynkyns said, retrieving the envelope and examining the signature briefly but closely. Then he drew a small knife and carefully slit the stitches which had closed the envelope. There was another smaller envelope inside, and he withdrew it and handed it to Yairley before returning the outer envelope to his attache case.

“I was instructed to inform you, Sir Dunkyn, that Admiral White Ford requests an estimate of your readiness to deal with this matter within the next two hours.”

“I see.” Yairley weighed the envelope in his fingers. It didn’t seem all that heavy, but then again, orders never did… until the time came to carry them out.

“Hektor, would you please see Commander Jynkyns back to his boat?”

“Of course, Sir Dunkyn.”

“Thank you. And, Commander,” Yairley’s gaze moved back to Jynkyns-“inform Admiral White Ford that I’ll report to him as quickly as possible.”

“I will, Sir Dunkyn. Thank you.”

The commander saluted again and withdrew, escorted by Aplyn-Ahrmahk. Yairley watched them go, and when the cabin door closed behind them, opened the second envelope, extracted the half-dozen sheets of paper, and began to read.

“Yes, Sir Dunkyn?” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said, stepping back into the day cabin ten minutes later. “Sylvyst said you wanted to see me?”

The lieutenant, Yairley observed with some amusement, was clearly on fire with curiosity about the mysterious dispatch. It was equally obvious that nothing on earth could have prevailed upon Aplyn-Ahrmahk to admit his curiosity.

“I did,” he acknowledged. “I think we’re going to be a bit busy for the next hour or so, Hektor.”

“Of course, Sir. How?”

“I am requested and required to report to Admiral White Ford within no more than two hours’ time the squadron’s readiness state and whether or not we can depart Thol Bay with the evening tide.”

Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s eyes widened slightly. Destiny had only officially left dockyard hands the day before, and-as always happened these days-she’d hemorrhaged manpower while she was being repaired. Captain Lathyk was almost seventy men short of a full complement, and the chance of his coming up with that many men in the next six hours ranged from non-existent to something somewhat less than that. Then there was the minor problem of how they provisioned and stored the ship in that same six hours… which, frankly, sounded impossible to him. There could, however, be only one possible response from any king’s officer to such an order.

“Of course, Sir,” Lieutenant Aplyn-Ahrmahk said calmly. “I’ll just go and find the Flag Captain, shall I?”

. I.

HMS Destiny, 54, Schueler Strait, and Tellesberg Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming.”

Most of the faces around the polished wooden table in Sir Dunkyn Yairley’s day cabin were worn with weariness, grooved with lines of fatigue, and adorned with at least a day or two of stubble. Yairley, however, was clean-shaven and brisk, his eyes bright, without any sign of exhaustion, which was something of a miracle under the circumstances.

Somehow (and most of his captains didn’t know how, really, even now) his squadron had made its departure time, sailing on the evening tide almost exactly five five-days earlier. Since then, for reasons none of them knew, Yairley had driven them as if Shan-wei herself were in pursuit and gaining steadily. He’d informed them that he intended to be off Schueler Strait within twenty-eight days, which most of them had regarded as an outright impossibility. Instead, he’d done it in only twenty- six, which had required him to maintain an average speed of almost eight and a half knots. Topgallants, royals, staysails, studding sails-he’d set every scrap of canvas that would draw, and refused to reduce sail until he absolutely had to. He’d even ignored the Navy tradition of “reefing down,” reducing sail and taking a precautionary reef in his topsails every night, lest some squall, unseen in the darkness, overtake a ship under too much canvas and rip the masts out of her or even drive her bodily under.

He hadn’t told them why, he’d only told them how and then driven them like a slave master, and to their total astonishment, they’d actually done it. Now the squadron’s ships lay hove-to in the mouth of the strait, their crews sunning on deck despite the brisk, chill weather while they luxuriated in the brief, well-earned (and badly needed) respite and all his captains repaired aboard Destiny where, just perhaps, they might finally learn what all of this was about.

One captain was missing. Captain Daivyn Shailtyn’s Thunderbolt had lost her main topgallant and royal masts when she’d been hit by a sudden gust before she could reduce sail. Some of Yairley’s officers had expected him to take Shailtyn’s head off for letting that happen, but the admiral wasn’t a fool. He knew whose fault it was, and so he’d simply signaled Shailtyn to continue at his best speed to a rendezvous point fifty miles south of Sarm Bank in the approaches to Sarmouth Keep, although why anyone in his right mind would want to go there was something of a puzzle.

Hopefully, they were about to discover that puzzle’s answer.

“I’m sure all of you have wondered what could have possessed me to push our people this hard,” Sir Dunkyn said, as his steward and flag lieutenant silently and efficiently provided each captain with a snifter of brandy. “I can now tell you at least part of the reason, although there are other portions of our orders which must remain confidential for a while longer.”

The captains glanced at each other. Secret orders weren’t exactly unheard of, but they were more heard of than actually seen. And orders whose contents couldn’t be shared aboard vessels hundreds of miles from anywhere in particular were even rarer. Who was going to overhear any careless talk out here, after all?

Yairley watched those thoughts go through his officers’ minds, then cleared his throat gently, recalling their attention to him.

“The squadron is ordered to attack, seize, and destroy Sarmouth Keep,” he told them. “This isn’t simply a raid, Gentlemen; it’s an all-out attack which will leave nothing but rubble where the fortifications are now. In addition, it will include the seizure of any shipping we may encounter in Sarmouth itself and the destruction of the city’s docks, wharves, and warehouses.”