Provided, of course, that the woodclad itself survived the battle. The problem wasn't the ramming damage. Demansk could see for himself, now, that Thicelt and Trae's estimate had been quite correct. The woodclad had obviously come through the impact with no real damage to the ship's own structure. An impact like that would have broken a normal war galley in half. Or, at the very least, hulled it enough to cause it to sink rapidly. Instead, the woodclad, after recovering from the initial jolt, was remaining level and steady. From what Demansk could see, it hadn't even sprung any leaks.
No, the real danger came from the fire which the woodclad had created on its enemy. If the Islander's ram hadn't gotten wedged, the thing should pass easily enough. Demansk could see that the woodclad's crew had taken up positions to combat any spreading of the flames onto their own ship. Except, of course, for the oarsmen nearest to it, who were now frantically using their oars to try to push off from the burning enemy ship.
If the ram was not wedged, they weren't in much danger. As much as seamen feared fire, it wasn't really likely to happen here. The heavy timbers of the woodclad's hull wouldn't take flame easily, and the sailors had already removed all of the sails and rigging which presented the worst fire hazard.
But if the ram was wedged…
A vivid image came to Demansk's mind. Trae's infernal oily concoction, spreading all over the steam ram as the jar burst. Rivulets of the horrid stuff, already starting to burn, spilling through the ventholes and the gunports-slits narrow enough to provide protection from missiles, but not from a mass of liquid. Then, in the hellish interior of the steam ram, the stacks of wood which it used to fire its furnace-and, worst of all, the gunpowder for its guns. Most of it stored more or less safely away in the powder room, to be sure, but not all of it.
He grimaced. If the woodclad was still right next to the steam ram when that stuff was reached by the flames…
"They're safe," pronounced Thicelt. Again, the pointing figure. "Look-they've made a space, and Willem's already getting the rowers working. The ram couldn't have gotten wedged."
Sure enough. Within fifteen seconds, the woodclad had moved thirty yards away from the steam ram. Demansk could now see the enemy vessel clearly. Insofar, at least, as the flames and smoke which seem to cover most of its surface allowed him to see anything.
"She's gone," said Sharlz. His voice held a trace of horror as well as satisfaction. "That'll be pure agony in there. And not really even any way to get out, except-yes, look! One of them's doing it!"
Demansk saw one of the gunports, all of which had been shuttered, swing open. An instant later, a man came spilling out, barely managing to squeeze through the narrow opening. He fell headfirst into the water. Within seconds, two more men followed him.
Thicelt was shaking his head. "Can't be many of them get out that way. The main hatch'll be impossible. By now it'll be too hot to even touch." His eyes ranged the water, narrowing as he saw the fins cutting through it here and there. "One or two of them might make it to another ship. No redsharks in these waters. But even greenies and Lemare's Maidens are nothing to share an ocean with."
Another gunport opened and two more men spilled out. By now, the woodclad was eighty yards off. A third gunport began to swing open, and Demansk saw a man crawling through.
Before he'd managed to get more than his shoulders through, however, he seemed to fly out of the gunport. As if The steam ram seemed to belch. Then… swell; then-suddenly, the entire vessel disappeared in an eruption and a cloud of smoke three times the size of the one that had already engulfed it. Even at the distance, Demansk couldn't help flinching a little. Sharlz, he noticed vaguely, didn't even try.
He held his breath. No one really knew what would happen if the powder magazine of a gunship exploded. If Trae and Thicelt's best estimates were accurate, even the woodclad should be safe-it was almost a hundred yards off, by now. Demansk himself, and the rest of the fleet, should be perfectly safe at a much greater distance. But-no one had any real experience with the thing, in real life.
There came another, louder, explosion. Suddenly, rising up through the cloud of smoke, came the weirdest apparition Demansk had ever seen in his life. It looked like- what?
" The Lady of the Sea save us, " whispered Thicelt. "Blew the whole shell off in one piece."
Demansk realized that what he was seeing-vanishing now back into the smoke-had been the iron armor of the enemy vessel. The bolts which held it together hadn't given way. Instead, when the magazine blew, it had simply lifted the armor off the ship itself. The shell must have guided the explosion's force mostly against the wooden hull proper.
"The rest of it just disintegrated," added Thicelt. "Must have."
Sure enough. When the smoke finally cleared away, which didn't take much more than a minute, there was nothing left. A few pieces of wooden flotsam, here and there; a couple of bobbing heads-men still alive and swimming toward the nearest Islander galleys-and… nothing else. The armored shell must have plummeted straight down to the bottom once it hit the water.
"Shallow waters here," murmured Thicelt. "Good divers… we might be able to salvage something."
The built-up tension erupted from Demansk in a bark of laughter. Very bad for tradition, that. But-who cared?
"Give it up, Sharlz! You're not a scruffy pirate any longer. Special Attendant and Admiral of the Fleet, remember?"
Thicelt grinned. "Old habits. Sorry." The grin vanished as fast as it came. A moment later, Thicelt was bellowing new orders.
The woodclads beetled their slow way toward the three surviving steam rams-which, for their part, had already turned broadside and were beginning to roll out their cannons. Clearly enough, no steam ram captain was going to try another ramming maneuver.
The signal drums were beating wildly now, and Demansk could hear the signals being passed along by the drummers on the nearest ships. Thicelt had set the entire fleet in motion. The regular war galleys of the Confederate navy were surging forward. No slow beetling, here. Even if they weren't as fast and maneuverable as islander galleys, Vanbert triremes-even quinquiremes-could move quickly enough.
"It's over," said Thicelt, when he finally finished with his orders.
"It's just started, " protested Demansk.
His admiral shook his head, the gold earrings flopping back and forth. His face was unusually solemn. "No, Triumvir. Trust me in this, as I would trust you in a land battle. Casull's only hope was that his steam rams could work a miracle-repeat what one of them did at Preble last year."
He waved a hand toward the woodclads. "But they will keep them off. Those timbers will stand up well enough even against cannon fire. And with ten against three, even as slow as they are, they'll be able to keep the steam rams hemmed in. The rest of it will just be a giant melee. Too many ships in too small a space for clever maneuvers. It'll be a Vanbert kind of sea battle-and when was the last time anyone beat you at that? " He snorted heavily through a heavy nose. "For that matter, when was the first time?"
And so it proved. Within an hour, before the sun had even started its downward descent, it was all over. One of the steam rams, either from desperation or simply because it had a fanatical captain, managed to take a woodclad with it. Ramming again, and this time with the ram wedged. Even then, most of the crew of the woodclad was saved by the bold captain of a trireme, who risked bringing his ship alongside in time to evacuate them before the magazine blew and engulfed the woodclad as well as the ram itself in the destruction.
The other two rams managed to survive, but only by keeping their distance from the woodclads who kept after them. The battle between steam rams and woodclads became something almost ridiculous, with neither side able to inflict any real damage on the other. The rams were fast enough to stay away from the woodclads, but the frantic maneuvers forced upon them to do so-two ships trying to evade nine, even if the nine were much slower-meant that they couldn't fire too many well-aimed broadsides. And even the few they got off, just as Trae and Thicelt had predicted, did little damage to the heavy timbers of their opponents.