The other duty telegraphsman chuckled. Symmyns’ susceptibility to seasickness was well known throughout Eraystor’s company, and Bahnyface wasn’t at all surprised it was giving him problems in this. On the other hand, the fact that he and his messmates could joke about it probably said volumes about their estimate of Eraystor’s ability to survive conditions like these.
“Well, anyway,” Gregori said with the callousness of a man who enjoyed a cast-iron stomach as he clapped Symmyns on the shoulder, “I’m looking forward to a nice, greasy rasher of bacon, fried eggs sunny-side up, and a fresh pot of cherrybean to wash it down.”
The petty officer looked distinctly green around the gills, and the first lieutenant laughed again, then shook his head.
“All right, Symmyns! I’ll stop giving you a hard time. And in case you hadn’t heard, the cooks are serving as much hot, sweet oatmeal as you can hold for breakfast. Maybe you’ll be able to keep that down.”
“Sounds better nor eggs an’ bacon, an’ that’s a fact, Sir,” Symmyns said fervently.
“Just make sure you eat something,” Gregori said more sternly. “I know it’s not the easiest thing in weather like this, but you’ve been at sea long enough to know it’s as important to keep your belly filled as it is to keep a boiler stoked.”
“Aye, Sir.” Symmyns nodded, and Gregori glanced at Bahnyface.
“I’ll leave her in your hands, Dahnel. Besides,” he chuckled again, “I’m pretty sure Vyktyr’s counting the minutes out there on the bridge wing waiting for you.”
“I’m counting them, too, Sir. Just not with the same sort of enthusiasm.”
“Dahnel, if you were enthusiastic about going out there, I’d be sending you to the Bédardists, not the bridge. Trust me on that.”
He nodded and headed down the conning tower ladder. Using the exterior ladders to climb down the superstructure was … contraindicated in the current sea state.
Bahnyface watched him go, then drew a deep breath, nodded to the glum-faced lookouts waiting in their own foul-weather gear, and undogged the armored door to the starboard bridge wing.
The wind’s howl intensified abruptly as it tried to turn the heavy door into a hammer and the bulkhead into an anvil, but he managed to control it and stay un-crushed. Then he bent his head and shouldered forward, leaning into the teeth of the storm like a man leaning against a wall.
Vyktyr Audhaimyr looked just as soaked, cold, miserable—and delighted to see him—as Bahnyface had expected.
“Langhorne!” The second lieutenant had to lean forward, his mouth inches from Bahnyface’s ear. “Am I glad to see you!” he continued, as if he’d read Bahnyface’s mind.
“I can imagine!” Bahnyface bawled back as he clipped his canvas safety harness to one of the rigged lifelines. Those normally weren’t required on the bridge, but today wasn’t normal, and Captain Cahnyrs was strict about things like keeping his crew both aboard and undrowned. “I checked the log! Anything else you need to pass on to me?!”
“Not really!” Audhaimyr turned and pointed to the northeast, water pouring from his outstretched, oilskin-covered arm like a cataract. “We lost sight of Cherayth’s running lights about two hours ago, but she didn’t seem to be in any trouble and we haven’t seen any signal rockets! I figure she’s out there somewhere and we just can’t see her anymore!”
Bahnyface nodded in understanding … and hoped to hell Audhaimyr was right. There were almost two hundred and fifty men aboard each of the City-class ships.
“Bayport’s still where she’s supposed to be!” Audhaimyr continued, pointing aft this time, and Gairmyn’s on station to starboard! Haven’t actually seen Riverbend in an hour or so, but Gairmyn signaled about fifteen minutes ago and Riverbend was on station astern of her then!”
Bahnyface nodded again, even more vigorously. If four of the 2nd Ironclad Squadron’s five ships had actually managed to remain in such close company in weather like this and after a night like the one just past it damned well proved miracles still happened. And Audhaimyr was almost certainly right about Cherayth.
Almost certainly.
“All right!” he shouted in his friend’s ear. “I’ve got her! Go get something hot to eat and grab some sleep!”
“Best offer I’ve had all night!” Audhaimyr punched him on the shoulder, jerked his head at his own lookouts—who’d been waiting with as little obvious impatience as possible (which wasn’t very much) after handing over to their reliefs—unclipped his own safety line, and headed for the relative protection of the conning tower.
I sure as hell wish Sir Dustyn had gone ahead with those enclosed bridges of his, Bahnyface thought glumly, trying to find a corner where the solid, chest-high bridge face would shield him from at least the worst of the wind-driven spray flying aft from the plunging bow. He found one—after a fashion—and grimaced at the unmanned wheel in the opensided wheelhouse at the center of the bridge. The helmsman had moved to his alternate station inside the conning tower, and more power to him. The last thing they needed would be for the man on the wheel to get himself numbed into exhaustion by the weather conditions!
I guess I’m happy for him, but I could do with a nice, snug, glassed-in perch of my own right about now! Of course—he ducked, then spat out a mouthful of the solid bucket full of seawater which had just hit him in the face anyway—it’d have to be pretty damned thick glass to handle this kind of crap!
Well, he understood the King Haarahlds would have exactly that sort of bridge, and at fourteen thousand tons, they probably wouldn’t care as much about the weather as Eraystor did in the first place.
Hah! he thought glumly. It’ll just mean Shan-wei needs to come up with worse storms to keep ’em occupied!
He held on to a stanchion, watching twin geysers spurt skyward through the hawse holes every time the ship’s bow came down, and marveled at the furious energy roaring all about him. There was nothing quite like a storm at sea to remind a man just how puny he was against the scale of God’s creation, and he tried not to think too hard about the thousands of miles yet before them.
They’d left the Trellheim Gulf well astern after stopping at the coaling station Earl Sharpfield had established at Put-In Bay on Hill Island on his original voyage to Claw Island. Hill Island was little more than two hundred miles from the mainland across Heartbreak Passage, but the mainland in question was Trellheim, and the “corsairs” weren’t about to dispute the Charisian Empire’s possession of an island they’d never much wanted anyway. Besides, how valuable was a mountain of coal? It would be harder than hell to haul away, you couldn’t spend it, you couldn’t sell it to anyone else—you couldn’t even eat it!—which meant no self-respecting corsair wanted anything to do with it.
And if that disinterest just happened to avoid pissing off the most powerful navy in the history of the world, so much the better.
That didn’t mean Admiral Zhastro and the rest of the squadron hadn’t been just a teeny bit nervous during the outbound voyage. The City-class ships’ biggest weakness was their designed endurance of only a thousand miles. Even with maximum bunker loads—including countless bags of the stuff piled in every available passage below decks—they could reach only about seventeen hundred. So if it had happened that the coaling station wasn’t there when they arrived, they would’ve been far up shit creek. To be sure, there were additional galleons loaded with coal following behind them, but the whole point of deploying the 2nd Ironclad Squadron was that it could make the trip far faster than any wind-dependent galleon. Sitting at anchor in Put-In Bay—which wasn’t the most sheltered anchorage in the world at the best of times—while its ships waited would not be the best use of its time. And that assumed no one else was in possession to prevent it from dropping anchor in the first place.