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  Andrew smiled approvingly, like a teacher who was pleased with an able student. "The Carthaginians had complete naval superiority, since the Romans had never fought at sea before. The Romans captured a Carthaginian galley, took it apart piece by piece, then used the parts as templates. They set up an assembly line, the first in history, and built an entire fleet, while the Roman soldiers practiced rowing by sitting on benches on the beach."

  Marcus's features creased into a delighted smile.

  "Our father gods built that first fleet. The fleet our ancestors rode to this world was the second one. That is how we came here to Valennia, according to the Tale of Varius, during the great war of the Cartha."

  "Tale of Varius?" Andrew asked, his curiosity aroused.

  "It described how our fleet fell into a vast ocean of light and came here when they set off to defeat the Carthas. They were caught as well. After coming here they sailed south while we took this land as ours. It is all written down."

  "You knew of this, then?" Marcus asked excitedly, looking around the table.

  Andrew nodded.

  "Then tell me. Did our father gods, did the great Cincinnatus win?"

  "You destroyed Carthage," Andrew said, though he would never admit now that personally he had always sided with the Carthaginians in their hundred-year battle with Rome.

  "Just as he said it," Ferguson mumbled, looking over at Vincent with a grimace for stealing his story. "Anyhow, I'm thinking we take one of those Cartha ships apart, right down to the last peg, and number the pieces. We've got hundreds of wood carvers in the ranks—they'd be a natural for this. Then set up an assembly line. We'll add some improvements, though. We've got more than enough iron for nails, so we'll just hammer the siding on."

  "They'll leak like sieves," Bullfinch objected. "And where are you going to get all that seasoned timber?"

  "The hell with the seasoned timber. We'll build them green—that's most likely how the Romans did it anyhow. And so what if they leak like sieves. We'll bail all the way to Suzdal. We'll only need them to get there and fight the Carthas. We can build better ships later."

  "Where in God's name are you going to get all the lumber?"

  "There's a sawmill up the Tiber at the edge of the forest that was starting to turn out crossties for the railroad. We can turn out the planking and ribs in a matter of days. They've got a good stockpile of lumber already cut and waiting to be sawed into crossties."

  "Just fine," Emil said coldly. "So we build our ships, set sail, or row them, and then we meet the Ogunquit or one of those damn gunboats and you'll have a sea of splinters and twenty thousand drowned men."

  "We make ironclads," Ferguson said softly.

  "You've got to be mad," Mina shouted.

  "Maybe it'll take some madness to save our hides," Andrew said forcefully. "Go on, Chuck, I'm listening."

  The room fell quiet.

  "Sir, what did Cromwell do? He cut the top deck down from the Ogunquit and converted it to an ironclad. The same way the rebs did with the Merrimac. We can do the same to those fat grain transports, for starters."

  "Those things aren't designed to carry the weight," Bullfinch objected.

  "Then we'll make them so they can. Hell, you can have a flush deck like the Monitor, with a slope-sided gunhouse on top. If I had the time I'd even take a crack at a revolving turret, but even Ericsson took four months with his first one, and I figure we don't have the time.

  "So we give them a flush deck, and just build a small gun turret in the middle. It doesn't have to move at all. We just square it off and cut a gun port into each side."

  "I heard how out on the Mississippi they were building gunboats from scratch in thirty days," Bullfinch said, warming to the subject.

  "You think you could do the same?" Andrew asked.

  "Well, there's only one way to find out, sir," Ferguson said with a grin.

  "Wait a minute," Mina cried. "Just where the hell are you going to get the armor, the power plants, the guns, the ammunition?"

  "They're all sitting in Hispania right now, sir," Chuck said quietly.

  John started to sputter a comment and then, throwing up his hands in dismay, sat back.

  "I figured it out riding down here, sir, on that damn Apple or Appi Way or whatever you call it."

  "Appian," Vincent said quietly.

  "Right, Appian. Anyhow, we've got twenty miles of roadbed running alongside of it already, coming down from Hispania. Once we hit the end of our roadbed, we just jump over to the Appian Way, and run track straight down it right into the heart of the city and down to the docks.

  "We take the locomotives and run 'em all down, tearing up the track behind us as we go. Once they get to the docks, we'll tear the engines off the wheels, swing them into the gunboats, and you've got your power. The new-model engines should make those things go like hell. You'll have sixty miles of rails and ties for armor and anything else you might need in the way of iron."

  "Merciful God, Andrew, are you really going to let him do this?" John shouted. "Chuck, you and I've been fast friends for years, but this is the parting of the ways," he went on heatedly. "You're talking about destroying all our work."

  "John, I don't want emotional appeals," Andrew said quietly. "If there's something wrong with the plan, then tell me."

  "All right, Andrew," John replied excitedly. "The best run for our tracking crews was just over a mile and a half in a day. At that rate it'll take thirty days to get here."

  "I agree," Chuck replied, "if we lay the track to be permanent. This is temporary. Throw down the ties, don't bother to spike except for every fourth or fifth tie, just enough to hold the track in place. There's forty miles of track stockpiled in Hispania. Cannibalize the other twenty from the line.

  "The hell with gauging work. That Appian Way is pretty damn straight—I heard these Roum, or Romans, knew how to build roads. I figure we could run four miles a day, at least if we had shifts going day and night, and could have the rails and engines in town in under fifteen days."

  "John, is it possible?" Andrew asked, cutting him off before he could object.

  "Sure, it's possible," John replied, "but likely, I doubt it."

  "But can it be done?" Andrew insisted.

  Mina looked over at Chuck coldly, and then slowly nodded his head.

  "All right, you've got the rails and engines into the city. Then what?" Mina asked.

  "Now, I did some figuring in my head. Our rail comes out to twenty pounds a foot. That rounds out to a little over a hundred tons to the mile.

  "How much you think those transport ships can haul, Bullfinch?"

  "Oh, maybe several hundred tons each."

  "Then we've got it," Chuck said. "We deck over the ship with rail iron just packed straight in and spiked down. Build up the gunhouse with more rail iron several layers thick backed with railroad ties. Make it eighteen feet square, the same length as the track, to keep it simple. Armor will weigh about a hundred and fifty tons, total.

  "Now we take the engine right off the wheels and cab. Hell, we do that all the time back in the shops. I don't know much about ship's propulsion—you'll have to help me here, Bullfinch."

  Bullfinch looked over at Ferguson with a grin. "A fleet, a goddam fleet to kick that damn Cromwell under! Hell, I couldn't stand the bastard the first day I signed on board the Ogunquit, and it's gone downhill ever since."

  "Stick to the topic, Mr. Bullfinch," Andrew said with a smile.

  "Sorry, sir," Bullfinch said, his voice charged with excitement. "We can go two ways, sir. The easier to build is a paddle wheel. But the problem is you've got to build armor up all around them. The propeller is definitely the better way, but I know damn little about them, their size in relationship to the engine and the weight of the ship. Cromwell knows all of that; I certainly don't. I could make a guess. I did see one of Ericsson's monitors in dry dock. The propeller on her was a good eight feet across. But it'll be risky.

  "Now hooking the engines i
n is another thing. You've got small cylinders on them set to high ratio. Ship engines are a lot bigger, with slower rotation. You'll need to build some reduction gears. There's no way you can crank a paddle wheel a couple of hundred times a minute."

  "John, can we build the gears?"

  "Tough in the time you're asking. Do it with leather driveshafts to reduce the power into the propeller. We could take some train wheels and cut them and notch them. It might work."

  "Should we go for both systems, paddle wheel and propeller?" Andrew asked.

  "It's good engineering, sir," Ferguson replied. "When you've got an emergency job like this, build two different systems. That way if one fails the other still might come through."

  "Vincent, how many armored ships did he have?"

  "I saw thirteen smaller gunboats, sir, each carrying one or two pieces. The Ogunquit was the monster, though—at least ten pieces."

  "We've got enough to build ten of each," Andrew said quietly. "But that still leaves the Ogunquit. Ferguson, you have any answers?"

  "Give me several months, sir, and I could build something to match."

  "We don't have several months," Andrew replied sharply.

  "Then how long, sir?"

  "How long for the boats?"

  "Thirty days for the ironclads. With luck we could have seventy or eighty oar ships for transport."

  "Then I'm giving you thirty days."

  "So you're actually going to do this madness," John gasped.

  "John, unless you have one hell of a better suggestion, I'm going with it."

  "What about the guns, Andrew?" John replied. "We can't very well go up against their gunboats armed with four-pounders."

  "Can you cast up bigger ones?"

  "Well, we did capture the two fifty-pounders. Terrible pieces, by the way. I think I could pull it off. That foundry can turn out several tons a day. We'll need to cook it up to six or seven, and damn quick."

  "I'd suggest carronades, sir," Bullfinch interjected.

  "What's that?"

  "Been using them at sea since the Revolution, sir. They're short-barreled pieces. They're smaller, so they can be worked better in the gunhousing Ferguson was talking about. You only need half the metal of a longer gun."

  "What's the trade-off then?" Ferguson asked.

  "Range. They aren't much good beyond three or four hundred yards. Those heavy guns can lay into us a mile off. But you can load them a lot faster, and for the amount of metal in a forty-pounder barrel you could cast a two-hundred-pounder carronade.

  "Remember, sir, most of the action between the Monitor and the Merrimac was at a hundred yards. Sometimes they were actually touching."

  Andrew looked over at John.

  "If you can give me the iron, I'll cast them. But I'm going to have to make them extra thick to be safe, and the bores will be crooked as hell—there's no way I can ream them out correctly.

  "At the range Bullfinch is talking about, though, it won't much matter whether they can shoot straight or not."

  "What about powder?" Emil asked. "Those big guns will burn powder like there's no tomorrow."

  "Same thing as the last time around. We'll dig the latrine pits for the nitrates. We'll get the charcoal from wood. What about sulfur?" John looked over at Vincent, who shot a quick question to Marcus.

  The consul sat back for a moment and finally smiled and answered.

  "They've got some springs down in Brendusia," Vincent said with relief. "A hundred miles down the coast and about twenty inland."

  "There is one major question, though," Bullfinch interjected. "How thick is his armor?"

  The group looked over at Vincent hopefully.

  "There's no way to know," Vincent replied. "The handful of prisoners we took were simple line infantry armed with pikes. None were aboard the Ogunquit or any of the gunboats, and they all said those ships were wrapped in secrecy."

  "Any suggestions, then, Mr. Bullfinch?" Andrew asked.

  "For right now maybe it'd be best if Colonel Mina and myself argued that one out, sir," Bullfinch said. "Going with fifty-pounders would be the easiest. We already have those two guns we captured, along with a couple hundred rounds of ammunition. If we could coax it up to a larger caliber, I'd feel better, though."

  "It's going to be a question of metal and what I can do," John said. "I've never worked with heavy calibers before, and there isn't going to be any time for trial and error on this one.

  "I'm nervous to try anything beyond a fifty-pounder. At least we have the template from those two pieces Cromwell made. We know they work. The carronades will carry less punch. The big question is how much armor Tobias has. If he sheathed his vessels for proof against twelve-pounders, we'll sink him for certain."

  "I wouldn't think he's that stupid," Andrew replied.

  "Neither would I," John said. "But the simple fact of it is, you're asking too much already. I'll take a look at going up to a seventy-five-pounder. Give me a day to plan some calculations and maybe I can squeeze out enough artillery to put one gun on each ship. The truth is, we won't know our power till we engage him."

  The group fell silent for a moment at the lack of certainty in their enterprise.

  "What about all the rest of our guns?" Andrew finally asked.

  "Ah, I haven't forgotten those," Ferguson replied. "We'll have nearly a hundred ships. We've got a hundred guns. It's simple.

  "The sides of their galleys and ours will only be a couple of inches thick. Four-pound shot, even a concentrated musket volley, will be devastating at close range."

  "Then we'll follow this plan, though there are some refinements I'd like to throw in," Andrew stated.

  "What's Roum's part in this?" Marcus asked quietly.

  Andrew leaned back and laughed.

  "Marcus, without you it'd be impossible. How about for starters five thousand men to help with the rail line and another ten thousand workers for the boats, both groups working shifts around the clock?"

  "Around the clock?"

  "Never mind, you'll learn. Next we'll need thousands of people digging for saltpeter, refining the sulfur, cutting the wood. Just ask John after the meeting—he'll help you get organized."

  "And for the fighting?" Marcus said coldly.

  Andrew suddenly realized that except for Bullfinch and a handful of men out of his whole army, operations at sea were a mystery to all of them. Without the Roum they'd truly be lost.

  "Good God, sir, we'll need your people there most of all. I expect your people will captain most of the ships and be a fair portion of crew."

  "Then you need us for fighting after all," Marcus said with a grim smile.

  Marcus sat back, a look of contentment crossing his features.

  "You helped save my city. I want to return the compliment so that both Roum and Rus know this is an alliance of equals."

  Andrew smiled in return. If the Merki should come in strength, it would be Roum manpower that would make the difference, if such a thing was even possible, now that the Merki knew the secrets of powder weapons and steam.

  "You said you had some refinements of your own," Marcus asked. "What are they?"

  "There again we'll need your help, Marcus. We have to deceive Cromwell. If he even suspects what we are doing, he could run back up here in a couple of days and make life hell. I want our surprise to be complete.

  "First I want to lay out a security net at least fifty miles out from this city. That'll take thousands of men on patrol. It'll be important that the men assigned know absolutely nothing of what is going on inside the city in case they are taken prisoner, so they should be picked and assigned out immediately. Next and most important, I want Cromwell to think we are coming back by land.

  "Therefore we are going to detach at least three or four trains and start pushing them west. We'll make a couple of them armored, like the one we made for the Tugar siege—we have two armored cars already for that. We'll need a work crew of a couple of thousand and security all along the
line. I'm putting Kindred in charge of that—I'll give him a brigade of Rus troops, and we'll need several thousand Roum. I don't want any legionaires in this—all we need is one to desert and our game is up.

  "We'll push up the line, repairing track, and we'll even try to get an engine manhandled across the river. All the time we'll push our security net out along the rail line."

  "You're hedging your bets, aren't you, Andrew?" Emil said quietly.

  "I have to," Andrew replied. "As Ferguson said, in an emergency, have two plans in case one doesn't work. We'll use Hispania as a base of supply for that operation. We'll cannibalize the track from Hispania running west to repair sections farther up."

  "You're giving me two headaches," John said.

  "The second one will be smaller, John. Kindred's got good sense. Delegate some of your staff over to him. I want Kindred to make a roughshod armor train out of anything he can find, and run it up the line tonight with a regiment in support. We start putting the pressure on now."

  "What about weapons for my people?" Marcus asked.

  "I'll release twenty-five hundred of our rifled muskets, taking them from the crews that will be on the ironclads. Vincent, you're responsible for setting up training of the Roum infantry. Pull out a couple of sergeants and officers from every regiment and put them in command."

  Andrew paused, looking back at Marcus.

  "Would you object to our men leading your infantry, at least for this campaign?"

  "I can't argue with that," Marcus replied. "After all, my men will be commanding most of the boats."

  "A fair enough trade, then."

  Andrew sat back with a sigh.

  "Then we're agreed on our course of action?"

  He looked around the table. Only Ferguson and Marcus were smiling. The rest looked around at each other with stares ranging from confusion to outright disbelief.

  "Gentlemen," Andrew said coldly, "the survival of Rus, of everything we fought for, is riding on this. All our families are back there. If we don't do this, it's all over. I'm asking for a miracle, and I'm expecting you to give me one. If we fail, by the time we stagger back to Suzdal, there'll be nothing left for us."

  "We'd better pray that Hans can figure out a way to hold for thirty days," Emil said quietly.