Stephen Hunt - Jack Cloudie

‘When did — I ever — receive — that from any upland — officer?’ asked Jericho. ‘The — ship — is yours — Mister Keats. I would ask you — one favour.’

Jack had to stop himself from choking on his reply. ‘Sir?’

‘Not the navy’s — graveyard for — me. I still maintain a family — plot. My wife and son are buried there. Plant — m’bones — down there next — to theirs.’

‘I shall, sir.’

Jericho’s final sigh joined the whistling of the wind through the bridge’s broken canopy, merging and melding with it, until only the wind was left. Trying not to shake, from the cold and the shock of his captain’s death, Jack got to his feet, every eye on the bridge gazing uncertainly at him.

Lieutenant McGillivray removed Jericho’s jacket and slowly covered his corpse, making a makeshift blanket of the uniform. ‘Difficult boots to fill, these. What are you orders, master cardsharp?’

‘Is that it?’ interrupted the bosun, pointing a finger at Jack. ‘The skipper’s gone and we’re meant to salute the boy just because he knows how to cut a punch card for that white elephant on the upper deck?’

‘Shut your trap, now, bosun,’ barked Lieutenant McGillivray, ‘and belay that bilge. I won’t tolerate bellyaching on the bridge.’

‘I’m just saying what’s on everybody else’s mind,’ spat the bosun. ‘He’s a bloody pressed hand, one step ahead of the gallows. Our cabin boy’s been in the service longer than this one — some twistery of the regulations, and the ordinances reckon he should be put in charge? Then damn the ordinances, I say!’

There were murmurs of agreement from around the bridge. Just saying what was on everybody else’s mind. Jack’s included. What would Captain Jericho have done, what would the skipper have said, to reassert control here?

The bosun looked as if he was about to launch into another tirade, but suddenly he was sent flying, collapsing against the altimeter station as a smoke-blackened figure weighed into him with ham-sized fists, beating him into unconsciousness. It was Pasco!

‘Off him, man,’ shouted Lieutenant McGillivray running over to pull the hulking engineer off the bosun. ‘You’re doing murder to him.’

Pasco angrily shoved the lieutenant back, his face as red as one of their airship’s blazing engine cars. ‘Aren’t we all dead anyway? How many enemy airships are out there … one hundred, two? The only question is, are we dead as navy, as cloudies, or are we dead as stinking mutineers?’ He pointed across to Jericho’s body. ‘The old man says that the master cardsharp is the ship’s ranker when she’s running on full automation, that’s good enough for me.’

Jack looked back to the entrance to the bridge. Three of Pasco’s men were standing there, two of them carrying the badly burnt body of a young rating. He’ll follow me, but I had better be damn sure where I want to lead him.

‘The engine room, Mister Pasco,’ said Jack. ‘What is our butcher’s bill?’

‘Thirty-two dead,’ said Pasco. ‘We’ve lost the port-forward engine car to their mines, blown clear off. Now, tell me that doesn’t matter and that you have a bloody plan, sir?’

‘Every life matters,’ said Jack, looking at Jericho’s arm protruding from under the captain’s jacket. ‘We stand for them, we stand for them all. As for the Iron Partridge ’s plan of engagement, we’re exactly where we want to be.’ Jack raised his voice so everyone on the bridge could hear, and even managed to keep it from trembling. ‘We do what Jericho would have done. We press the attack, regardless.’

‘Well, at least you’ve got the old man’s daftness down pat, laddie,’ muttered Lieutenant McGillivray, but softly enough so that only Jack heard it. Yes, let’s hope I’ve guessed right about his intentions.

Somewhere in the distance Jack could sense the tide of triumph from the steamman’s spirit of the sky, Lemba of the Empty Thrusters, as the Loa observed the changes happening across the airship. I’m doing this for us, not for you. For the crew, for the memory of Jericho, for the Kingdom. He hadn’t even noticed he was no longer doing it for himself.

From the outside of the hull there was a fluttering wave of iron plates rising on tiny metal arms, the bridge shifting as the airship rolled slightly, the flight surface of the Iron Partridge becoming a dynamic thing, as manoeuvrable as the feathers on a hawk. Sprays of ballast water and vented gas exhaled from ducts below the plates, the airship’s lungs breathing her first real breath. In the gun deck, sighting mechanisms pushed out from under the cannons’ barrels, tiny windage rotors outside their rubber hoods dropping down to gauge the air currents. The occupants of the h-dome and crow’s-nest dome scrambled out of the way as clusters of telescope arrays fell out of the ceiling and rose out of the floor, filling the space the sailors had been occupying only seconds before. The crew inside dropped their telescopes in consternation while something deep inside the turning calculation drums of the ship’s transaction engines marked and noted the constellations outside against her charts, and then the vessel drew a small crosshair across every moving, turning lamp on every Cassarabian airship in the night sky.

On the bridge, the strangeness of the moment following Jericho’s death was replaced with a wave of confusion as the boards and stations reconfigured themselves, sailors scrambling back as a new chair surrounded by an arc of dials and switches rose on a dais in the centre of the bridge. It was as if some throne from legend had appeared in their midst, beckoning the chosen one to anoint himself as war leader on its steps.

Jack took the seat — settling down into its hard, iron curves — how fitting that its support was never intended to be comfortable. On the controls in front of him there was a detachable speaking tube next to a rotating drum bearing copperscripted names — Bomb Bay, Observation Car, Sick Bay, Wardroom, Lower Lifting Chamber — and Jack rotated it around until it read Transaction-Engine Chamber, picking up the pipe to speak. ‘Mister Shaftcrank, how stands our transaction engines?’

The steamman’s voice warbled out of a voicebox set in the side of the chair. ‘Jack, is that you? Thank the Loas. All our calculation drums are turning smoothly. Processing capacity is at seventy per cent on full automation ship-wide. We have one outstanding query process in queue.’

‘Which system, Mister Shaftcrank?’

‘The ship,’ said the steamman. ‘The whole ship. Query reads, “My orders?”’

‘Your input, Mister Shaftcrank. Card in, engage the enemy . All the ship’s spare processes to be dedicated to gunnery and navigation.’

‘Engaging, aye.’

‘Helm is becoming sluggish, sir,’ reported the master pilot. ‘It’s as if our rudder is no longer responding.’

Jack settled into the chair. ‘Do you ride, pilot?’

‘Sir?’

‘Horses, sir? To hounds? Originally I was a farming man, by trade. The knack of guiding a horse is to point her in the right direction, apply a touch of pressure on the reins, and then just let your beast do all your work for you. Don’t fight the reins, master pilot. Just point her and let her lead you. That goes for everyone here. If your station is doing your work for you, allow your board its head.’

There were disconcerted murmurs from the crew, levers sliding around their stations and control dials flicking to peculiar positions. It’s as if the ghosts of the navy’s legions of dead have returned to possess their vessel. But this was the way that the airship had always been intended to fly. Jack knew transaction engines; he knew them as well as he knew anything. He had to be right about this, didn’t he? The cleverest man in the Kingdom was said to have designed this bizarre oddity of a vessel. And I’m gambling that the unfinished work he left behind as his legacy might just keep us alive.