David Weber - How firm a foundation

“Baron Seamount and Baron Ironhill have been keeping me just a little busy, Tym,” Sahlavahn replied wryly. “Oh, and High Admiral Rock Point, too, now that I think about it.”

“The reward for doing a difficult job well is to be ordered to turn around and do something harder,” High Rock observed. “And no good deed goes unpunished.” He fluttered his right hand in a waving away gesture. “And other cliches along those lines.”

“I believe I’ve heard something to that effect before, Sir,” Pruait acknowledged, then looked back at Sahlavahn, and his expression sobered. “How’s your sister, Trai?”

“As well as can be expected.” Sahlavahn shrugged and waved at Mahndrayn. “I think Urvyn’s actually had a letter from her since I have, though.”

“I got one a couple of five-days ago,” Mahndrayn acknowledged. He and Sahlavahn were second cousins, although Sahlavahn was more than ten years his senior, and Mahndrayn had always been close to Sahlavahn’s younger sister, Wynai. “From what she has to say, things are getting pretty damned tense in the Republic, but there’s no way she’s going to convince Symyn to relocate to Charis.” He shook his head. “Apparently he’s making money hand-over-fist at the moment, and even though he’s just about the most rabidly Siddarmarkian Siddarmarkian you’re ever going to meet, his family does come from the Temple Lands. His various aunts and uncles ‘back home’ are already pissed off at him for living in the Charisian Quarter in Siddar City; Langhorne only knows what they’d say if they realized how enthusiastically he was helping violate Clyntahn’s stupid embargo!”

Pruait snorted in understanding, and Rock Point reclaimed control of the conversation.

“Commander Mahndrayn’s here in his role as liaison between Baron Seamount and Master Howsmyn,” he said, “and Captain Sahlavahn was a member of Baron Seamount’s Ordnance Board. He’s been promoted to other duties since then-in fact, he’s assumed command of the Hairatha powder mill-but he’s still thoroughly familiar with most of our usual ordnance concerns, and he happens to have sailed down from Big Tirian for a conference with the Baron. So I thought I’d bring both of them along.”

“I see, Sir,” Pruait said with a nod. “And I’m glad to see them, because frankly, I’m not sure what our best solution is.”

Rock Point scowled in agreement.

In many ways, the problem came under the heading of “an embarrassment of riches,” he thought. The prize ships they’d captured carried literally thousands of artillery pieces, although a lot of those guns, especially the ones from Harchongian foundries, left a lot to be desired. The bronze pieces were probably acceptably safe; he wouldn’t have trusted a Harchongian iron gun with a full powder charge if his life had depended upon it.

The Temple Lands’ foundries had done a better job, and they’d also cast almost exclusively bronze guns. He wasn’t overly concerned about those guns from a safety standpoint, but none of them used the same shot as the standard Charisian pieces, which meant no Charisian ammunition would fit them. Their smaller bores also meant their shot were lighter and less destructive, of course, which was another consideration.

“For the moment, we’re going to leave you with your present gundeck guns,” the high admiral said. “I know it’s not an ideal solution, but in addition to all of the artillery pieces, we’ve captured several hundred thousand round shot for them. We’re not going to have the manpower to put all the prize ships into commission anytime soon, whatever we’d like to do, so what we’re going to do in the short term is to raid the shot lockers of the ships we can’t man for ammunition for the ships we can man-like yours, Captain Pruait.”

“I see, Sir.”

It would have been unfair to call Pruait’s tone unhappy, but he obviously wasn’t delirious with joy, either, Rock Point observed.

“I said that’s what we’re going to do in the short term, Captain,” he said, and smiled at Pruait’s expression. “Exactly what we decide to do in the long term is going to have to wait until Master Howsmyn, Baron Seamount, and Commander Mahndrayn have had the opportunity to kick the question around for a while. To be honest, we’ve captured enough guns that it might very well make sense to begin casting shot to fit them. On the other hand, Master Howsmyn’s production lines are all set up around our standard shot sizes. And then there’s the question of what we do about shells for non-standard bore sizes. Do we manufacture shells for the captured guns, too?”

“How much of a problem would that present, High Admiral?” Pruait asked. Rock Point raised an eyebrow, and the captain shrugged. “I don’t really know very much about these new ‘shells,’ Sir,” he admitted. “I’ve talked about them with as many of the officers who were with you and High Admiral Lock Island in the Markovian Sea as I could, but that’s not the same thing as really understanding them or how they differ from solid shot in terms of manufacture.”

“I’m afraid you’re hardly alone in that,” Rock Point said wryly. “It was all very closely held before we were forced to commit the new weapons to action. Even Captain Sahlavahn and the Ordnance Board were left in the dark, as a matter of fact. Baron Seamount, the Experimental Board, and Master Howsmyn and a handful of his artisans did all the real work on them.

“And in answer to your question, Captain Pruait, I don’t have the foggiest notion how much of a problem it would be to manufacture shells to fit the captured guns. Commander Mahndrayn and I will be leaving shortly to go discuss that very point with Master Howsmyn. We’ll drop Captain Sahlavahn off at Big Tirian on our way, but I wanted to have his expertise available for our discussion here before we left.”

“I’m afraid it’s going to be mostly background expertise, Tym,” Sahlavahn said dryly. “As the High Admiral says, I actually know relatively little about the exploding shells even now. I understand”-his tone got even dryer-“that I’m going to be learning more shortly, though. Baron Seamount tells me we’re going to be filling quite a few shells, and the Hairatha Mill’s going to be called upon to provide the powder for most of them.”

“Oh, we’ll be filling a lot of them, all right, Captain,” Rock Point assured him with a hungry smile. “We’re going to have a use for them sometime soon now. And we’re counting on that efficiency of yours to help smooth out some of the bottlenecks to make sure we’ve got them when we need them.”

Sahlavahn nodded. Although he’d commanded a galley under King Haarahld at the Battle of Darcos Sound, he’d served strictly in shoreside appointments since. He was nowhere near the gifted technocrat his younger cousin, Mahndrayn, had proven to be, however. In fact, he was inclined in the opposite direction, with a conservative bent that was occasionally frustrating to his superiors. But if it was occasionally frustrating, it was far more often valuable, the sort of conservatism that had an irritating, maddening ability to point out the flaws in the latest and greatest brilliant inspiration of his more innovative fellows. Even more to the point, he was at least as gifted as an administrator as Mahndrayn was as an innovator. The commander would have been hopelessly ill suited for the task of commanding the Hairatha powder mill on Big Tirian Island. His mind worked in leaps and jumps, thriving on intuition and incessantly questioning the known and accepted in pursuit of the unknown and the unconventional. Sahlavahn, on the other hand, had already expedited three production bottlenecks in the Imperial Charisian Navy’s third-largest gunpowder production center by approaching them from his usual pragmatic, unflappable, conservative perspective.