Jearl was standing erect at his side, looking straight ahead.
Down in the ship’s waist, a grizzled brown seaman took out a dreamweed packet of his own and walked to the gunwale. Harg could see half a dozen others ready to do the same. “Get back to your post!” the Torna boatswain snapped at the sailor. The man stopped, glowering. Then he looked up at Harg, as if waiting for him to intervene. Harg stared back, rocklike. “Do you want a whipping?” the boatswain shouted. “Get back!”
At last the sailor glanced skyward, pocketed his weed, and turned back, muttering.
“You can see the problem,” Jearl said, his eyes still on the horizon ahead.
“We all have to bend a bit,” Harg answered.
Except for the Smoke, the ships from Tiarch’s fleet were still commanded by the Torna officers who had come with them, while the ones from Harbourdown were Adaina-led. Originally, Harg had wanted to mix the officers on all the ships, but in the end he had given in to the vehement objections of both parties. The Tornas had argued that it would subvert their discipline, the Adainas that it would undermine their authority. Neither side wanted to take orders from the other. In the end Harg had decided to wait until the divisions were smoothed over by action.
The ship’s bow plunged, and spray leaped over the forecastle. Some of the sailors whooped as the chill water soaked them. They were good seamen, the Adaina; unused as they were to the big ships, they had taken to the techniques instantly. The discipline was another thing. Yet they had to learn it.
The last of the line of ships had cleared Killy Head. Now the fleet was truly on open sea. Ahead, the lead ship was flying signal flags. Harg squinted at them, but waited for the signal lieutenant, spyglass under one arm, to come up and report. The young Torna officer saluted the air somewhere between himself and Jearl. “Wavedancer reports sighting the target off the larboard bow, sir.”
“Wear round in formation,” Harg said. The lieutenant saluted and left to give the signal.
As soon as the signal was up, they saw the Wavedancer shift course to a southwesterly heading. The second ship waited till it reached the spot where Wavedancer had changed course, then followed like a soldier on parade. But the third came about too soon, ruining the clean orderliness of the line.
“Lieutenant!” Harg said. “Signal the Spinneret to get back in line.”
Spinneret was Dev’s ship—one of Barko’s pirate recruits. He had seemed a resourceful captain, ready to take a risk. But not, apparently, a stickler for proper procedures.
Harg glanced surreptitiously at Jearl’s erect figure. He had started out impressed by the man’s knowledge, but now he realized it was almost all book-learned, from old training manuals that still reflected the days when the Innings had used their ships as if they were moveable forts that could be moored alongside targets and used to batter them to bits. The Northern Squadron had seldom attacked anything on the move. Instead, they depended on their mere presence to scare off adversaries. For a peacekeeping force, it had worked. For a fighting one, Harg knew it wouldn’t. Not against the Southern Squadron, at any rate.
It was the Smoke’s turn to come about. Jonci gave the orders in a crisp, calm voice, and the crew brought the ship about with a quick precision. The sails filled again on their new course, riding with the waves. The yawing of the deck was much less giddy now. “Make ready to attack,” Jearl said.
“Gun crews on deck!” Jonci called out. As the order was relayed below, a stream of young men and women poured out onto deck, one knot of them whooping and tussling with each other in high spirits. The gunnery master bellowed at them, and they assembled, ten to a gun, and set about releasing the trucks, attaching tackle lines, and making ready to load.
Harg watched with interest, for guns were something he knew intimately. The ones aboard the Smoke were impressively modern for such a backwater as the Forsakens: seven feet of solid cast iron barrel, they were mounted on rolling trucks so they could recoil inboard, with tackles secured to the carriage to run the guns in for loading and out again to fire.
Now he could see the target ahead—a raft of old barrels with a mast, which they had towed out earlier and set to drift with a sea anchor. It bobbed and wallowed in the waves. “Ports up!” Jonci ordered, and all through the ship there was a deep rattle as the gunports lifted. Jearl scowled, and Harg knew it was because the ports hadn’t gone up precisely at the same second.
“There’s too much sea to use the lowest guns,” Jearl said crossly, glancing over his shoulder at the approaching squall.
“The Innings won’t let us choose good weather,” Harg said.
The first boat was almost upon the target. “Lieutenant! Signal to fire at will,” Harg said.
The signal flag was no sooner up the mast than they saw a puff of smoke erupt from the Wavedancer’s side. A few seconds later a ragged report reached them. There seemed to be no effect on the target.
Wavedancer sailed on. One by one, as the ships came even with the target, they took their turn firing on it. Harg watched carefully for each puff of smoke and its timing.
Smoke’s gunner went down the larboard battery, checking the priming on each gun. Jonci ordered, “Run the guns out!” The crews heaved at their tackles till the black snouts of their weapons protruded from the side of the ship.
On such a rough sea, the aim would be more a matter of the ship’s heading and roll than of any adjustments to the guns. As the target neared, Harg felt an old itch of excitement. He glanced back to make sure the steersman was alert, then reminded himself it was Jearl’s business, not his.
Each gun captain had a piece of slow match smouldering, waiting for the command to hold it to the touchhole. The target seemed very far away, but with these guns, four hundred yards was point-blank range; it would do no good to get closer.
As they drew even with the target, everyone fell silent. Then, as Smoke began to lift on a wave, the gunner shouted, “Fire!”
The main deck battery gave a deafening bellow and the huge cannons recoiled back on their breeching-ropes. Half a second later, the gun deck battery fired. The ship rocked with the force of the explosion. The gun crews peered through the clouds of smoke to see what effect their salvo had had.
“Reload, rot you!” the gunner shouted. The crews turned back to their duties. Wet sponges hissed, thrust down the hot throats of the cannons.
From the quarterdeck Harg could see what most of the crew couldn’t—that the entire salvo had gone sailing harmlessly past the target into the sea. As he watched the men methodically sponging, loading, ramming, and wadding, he said to Jearl, “They need practice. If they can’t move more quickly than that, the Innings will be aboard us between shots.”
“Yes, sir,” Jearl said noncommittally.
“During the war, we aimed to refire our guns within a minute’s time if we could.”
“I have heard two minutes mentioned as a goal.”
“When the other ship’s firing on you, two minutes might as well be a day. If we tangle with the Southern Squadron, and they can get off two shots for every one of ours, we’ll be in trouble.”
“Yes, sir.”
Harg couldn’t help getting the impression that to Jearl, the prospect of actually meeting the Southern Squadron in battle was more theoretical than real. He raised his voice so that Jonci and the signal lieutenant could both hear. “All right, we’re going to come about and bear down on the target again, and this time we’re going to get off two shots before we’re past. And we’re going to make them hit.”
A gust of wind painted dark streaks across the sea, and raindrops began to spot the deck. Harg ignored it, watching as the line of ships came ponderously about. They had to tack twice, close-hauled against the unpredictable wind, in order to come on the target again. The pace was irritatingly slow.
By the time the fleet was in posit
ion to attack again, the rain was falling in sheets. Harg paced back and forth, trying to keep an eye on the other ships through walls of wind-driven rain. Jearl stood immobile, streams of water running from his hat.
The flag went up to signal the attack, and ahead the Wavedancer made the last course change to bring her down on the target. The raft was hard to spot this time—now hidden, now revealed by the building waves. Jonci’s voice cut through the drumming of rain on the deck as the port battery made ready to fire.
“Sacred horns!” Harg swore, peering ahead. “What’s Windemon up to?”
One of the ships had broken from the line, already made ragged by wind and waves, and seemed to be shaking out the reefs in its sails to overhaul the ship ahead.
“Lieutenant! Signal Windemon to resume position,” Harg snapped. Inwardly, he cursed Katri, Windemon’s captain. She had the daring defiance of a pirate, and her Adaina crew loved her for it.
If Katri saw the signal, she paid no heed. Windemon and Spinneret drew abreast; now Dev was putting on sail as if it were a race. As they neared the target the two ships parted, one on each side, with barely 500 yards between them. They fired simultaneously. Even the laconic Jearl gave a startled exclamation. Splinters flew, and the mast on the target twisted, swayed, then came crashing down into the sea. A cheer went up from the Smoke’s crew.
Harg clenched his teeth. That little show of bravado would cost him dearly. All the effort he had spent defending his Adaina captains to the sceptical Tornas had gone flying into the wind with one rash, undisciplined move. He wanted to throttle Katri.
The way back to Harbourdown was grey with a drenching downpour. As soon as the ships nosed into the harbour, Harg said, “Signal all ships’ captains to assemble on the flagship. I’ll see them in the aft cabin.”
They were already arguing when they came in. Katri and Dev were together, displaying a smug defiance that set Harg’s teeth on edge. The Torna captains were sourly disgruntled.
“If it’s each ship for itself, we might as well be a pack of animals,” one of them was saying.
“What I can’t stand is commanders who don’t think for themselves,” Katri shot back. “Some people can’t pee without permission.”
“You’re out of line, Katri,” Harg snapped. “You’ve been out of line all day.”
“Damn right I have,” she flared back. “This sailing around like we were soldiers on parade—anyone who’s been in a fight can tell you, it’s not how to win. You’ve got to swarm your enemy, intimidate him.”
Jearl’s face was stiff and expressionless. “What you did was against all the rules of naval combat,” he said in a dry, clipped tone.
“Whose rules?” Katri said impatiently. “The rules of the people we’re fighting, that’s whose! Well I’ve got a rule for you. If it’s two to one, the enemy’s twice as busy as you.”
“If you attack from both sides, you’re as likely to hit your ally as the enemy,” Jearl said.
Harg caught the quick glance Katri and Dev gave each other, and instantly understood. “Did you hit each other?” he demanded.
“Only a little hole,” Dev said. “Easily patched.”
“You might not be so lucky in a real battle,” Jearl said.
In a rebellious undertone Katri said, “What do you know about real battles?”
“What was that?” Harg said.
“Nothing,” Katri answered.
“It was something. Listen here, Katri. The issue isn’t who was right. The issue is, you had orders and you disobeyed them. You’re not a pirate any more, and you can’t just take it on yourself to decide our battle tactics.” He paused, hating what he was going to have to say. “You’re relieved of your command until further notice, Katri. Your first lieutenant will be in charge of the Windemon till I decide what to do.”
Katri stood staring at him, her mouth set in an angry line. Dev was scowling darkly, arms crossed. The Torna officers were utterly quiet. The silence stretched painfully; then Katri turned and strode out.
For a moment Harg thought Dev was going to follow her. Harg said, “We can’t fight a war never knowing who’s going to be behind us when we attack, or whether they’ll follow orders. We can’t be negotiating strategy and deciding tactics by vote. To beat the Innings, we have to use the weapons of the Innings: discipline and order. Otherwise, we might as well sink all those ships out there in the harbour, and save the Innings the trouble.”
Dev was still scowling, but he didn’t move. Harg turned to the Torna officers, who were staring at him with a surprised respect. “Now, the other big problem I saw today was gunnery. I want all gun crews to be able to reload and fire again in less than two minutes. Drill them till they can do it.”
The ride ashore in the gig was silent. All Harg could think was that Katri was right. He would make her wait a fortnight, but he would reinstate her, because she had more instinct for a fight than the rest of them combined. He needed that pirate cleverness and initiative, and the Tornas needed it too, if they could only see it. And they would, in time. That was the problem—it took time to mould a functioning force out of a mismatched collection of martinets and rebels.
When he stepped onto the dock, an aide was already waiting for him with news. While they had been out, a merchant vessel had arrived from Tornabay, having dodged the blockade. “There was someone on board who wants to see you,” the aide said. “He is waiting in your office.”
Harg had been looking forward to a pint at Rosenry’s, and he headed toward the Customs House in a bad mood. But when he entered his headquarters and the newcomer rose to meet him, everything else disappeared. It was Gill.
They hadn’t seen each other since that confused night in Tornabay, when all of Harg’s plans had fallen apart and they had had to scatter and flee. Harg was across the room in a few strides, and engulfed Gill in a bear hug. “By the root, am I glad to see you! Tell me what’s happened. Where’s the Ripplewill? Where are the others?”
Gill was smiling. “Hello, Harg,” he said. He looked windblown and weary. “I got here as soon as I could.”
“Where have you been?”
“I’ve been in Tornabay, hiding out. They never got close enough that night to get a good look at me; they were too busy going after you.”
“What about Torr? Tway?”
“By the time I made it to the harbour, there was no sign of Ripplewill. She must have gotten away in the night. I couldn’t find Tway. But Harg—they captured Calpe.”
He desperately didn’t want to hear this. “What have they done? Tried her?”
“No. You’re not going to like this.”
“What?”
“One of the Innings in the palace there, a fellow named Provost Minicleer, keeps a kind of harem, a collection of women to serve his pleasures. He took a fancy to her. She’s his personal prisoner.”
The thought of Calpe—his fierce, beautiful lieutenant—served up as a native delicacy for some Inning lecher’s consumption made Harg wither inside. “Is there any chance of rescuing her?” he asked.
“Not now,” Gill said. “Tornabay’s swarming with troops. The Southern Squadron finally arrived.”
This news had been inevitable, but even so it had a doomsday sound. “Tell me,” Harg said intently. “Ships, men, anything you know.”
“They’ve got thirty-nine ships—fourteen warships, ten frigates, the rest sloops and supply boats.”
Harg calculated rapidly. “That means over six thousand men.”
“More than that. They were short when they got to Tornabay, so a lot of the crews were raised by press gangs. They just about swept the streets clear.”
“When are they setting out?”
“A squadron has probably set out already. They hadn’t intended to move so soon, but when the news about Holby Dorn came in, the outcr
y in Tornabay was so loud, Admiral Talley was just about forced to act. He promised to send a squadron against Dorn, under Commodore Tenniel. He’ll follow soon himself, with the rest of the fleet.”
“Where’s this squadron heading?”
Gill shrugged. “Wherever Dorn is. You probably know that better than they do.”
Harg shook his head. “Dorn’s a free agent, more’s the pity. But he’s served a good purpose now, getting them to split their forces.” His mind was flying. He could never have taken on the whole fleet with just seven warships; but an isolated squadron on police duty, expecting nothing more than pirates, was a bait too good to pass up. Tiarch would be livid; his remit was to deal with Dorn, nothing more. But sometimes opportunity just trumped orders.
An echo of his own words about discipline and orders came back to him briefly, but he thrust it from his mind, and clapped Gill on the back. “You’re a hero, Gill. I’m going to get Rosenry to give you a good meal and a good night’s sleep so you can leave with us tomorrow.”
“Leave? For where?”
“We’re going to go hunt us some Innings.”
4
A Beautiful Way to Die
The dawn was holding its breath as Harg swung himself up onto the Smoke’s main deck from the -gig. His order for silence had held; from the seven ships anchored behind Mariveg Head not a sound rose but the occasional creak of rigging and the tap of blocks against the yards as the swell rolled under them. The clammy fog still hung thick, but it now had the sickly yellow hue that meant there was clear sky somewhere above. The rigging drooped listlessly in the still air.
The captains were already assembled on the quarterdeck, waiting for him. He paused till Jearl and Gill had followed him up from the gig, then spoke, softly.
Ison of the Isles Page 7
