Union Forever Read online

  "Starving."

  "A couple of the bodies in there aren't too charred. I've tried them, and actually they're rather good, if you peel the skin off."

  "It sounds wonderful," Jubadi said with a smile.

  He found it impossible to sleep. Rising from his sweat-soaked bunk, Tobias pulled on his trousers and threw his uniform jacket over his shoulders, then stepped out onto the gun deck.

  All was silent, the boat rocking ever so slightly at anchor. Climbing up the ladder, he stepped out onto the top deck. A sentry standing watch saluted, and with a nod, Tobias motioned for him to go forward.

  Alone, he walked over to the stem and with a quiet sigh leaned against the signal mast.

  All the old features were gone from her, he thought with a wistful smile. He had joined the navy when billowing canvas was entering its last great days of glory; when there was no hissing rattle below deck, no grimy smoke sweeping down the ship. Only the snap of the heavy canvas in the breeze, the creaking of wood, and the exhilaration of running before the wind.

  How long ago was that? he wondered. We've been here over three years, and I joined in '38 as a midshipman on the old Constellation. Over thirty years. The thought filled him with sadness. No family in all that time other than the family of the sea. But then, how could he ever have a family? And he pushed the thought away, for there was something dark and fearful in it.

  All those years alone, walking the night watch, lying in the cramped cabin of a junior lieutenant while others rose above him, to live in the great cabin astern. All of that was finally to be vindicated here.

  He looked back out at the long dark menace of what he had made out of the Ogunquit. They would never have given such as this to me back home, he thought coldly, but even better, I have made one for myself. All the rest of his ships rode at anchorage around him. The eighteen gunboats, like low dark beetles, circled the Ogunquit like evil night creatures surrounding their brood mother. Beyond, anchored off the beach, were the galleys, the crews sleeping at the oars.

  This is the place where I will wait, this is the place that will be my victory.

  "The night before battle is always a time for thoughts."

  Startled, Tobias looked up.

  The damn creatures still struck him with a dread chill.

  "You could not sleep?"

  "Just considering tomorrow," Tobias said, looking closely to see who he was talking to.

  "I am Tamuka. It is easier for me to see you—you humans cannot gaze in the night as we can."

  He barked a soft laugh, and Tobias felt he had been insulted, but the tone was almost considerate.

  "When there is battle in the wind, the spirits stir," Tamuka said evenly. "The ancestors gather in the everlasting sky to gaze down, to watch, to call out their encouragement, and most of all to judge those who will be fit to ride with them.

  "The spirits stir even now. There will be battle tomorrow."

  "Why would your spirits care what we do?" Tobias replied. "After all, we are only cattle."

  Tamuka looked over at Cromwell, sensing the sarcasm in his voice. This one knew he was safe, though how safe he truly was he would not know until it was too late.

  "It is a war that concerns us as well," Tamuka replied.

  "And there are Merki here, who will be aboard your ship, who might die as well."

  The old Zan Qarth for one, Tamuka thought, and the new one as well.

  "Your plan—is it all in order?"

  Tobias nodded in reply.

  "The galleys will put out from this bay at dawn with two of the gunboats. They'll move very slowly eastward in screen, saving their strength. When Keane appears, if he appears, he'll be running close to the coast—his people don't have the skill to navigate over open water. The galleys will retreat back across the mouth of the bay, and then the Ogunquit and the rest of my ships will sally out. The galleys will then come about and charge back in."

  It is almost like the maneuver of the horns, Tamuka thought, the favorite entrapment maneuver of the hordes, to lure an enemy into a chase and then strike in with your main strength from the flanks while the center turns.

  "But you have no force out to sea to close the net."

  "Our ships are far more seaworthy than his. We spent a year building them; he only spent a month. And besides, if I run a couple of ironclads out there, he'll see the smoke on his flank from twenty miles away. This bay is perfect. The hills to the east of it are high, which should mask our smoke, and Hamilcar will leave some men on shore to tend smoky fires, as if it were an encampment area. That should further cover our own smoke. Coming up from the sea, he won't know there's a bay here till he's almost on top of it. There's a chance he might have some Rus sailors with him who know this coast and warn him, but even so, I'll still have the element of surprise."

  "Let us hope so for your sake."

  "For our sake," Tobias snapped in reply. "Remember, you're on this ship as well."

  "But of course," Tamuka said quietly.

  This cattle was indeed curious. Somehow the man was not a true warrior. There was always a nervous look to his eyes, not the steady gaze of one like Hamilcar, who even when addressing one of the Chosen Race still would not lower his gaze. This one put on the bluster of a warrior, but Tamuka could sense that inside there was a terrible dread.

  It was a heart that would not be worth eating, he thought coldly.

  "Then to our victory," Tamuka whispered, and he turned and walked away.

  Tobias watched as the Merki disappeared into the night. There was something going on between those bastards. He had seen the tension between them ever since their damn princeling had ruined any chance of holding Roum.

  Somehow it might affect him, but he had yet to fathom how or why.

  The cool breeze from the northwest continued to pick up, and Tobias pulled his cloak in tight around his shoulders.

  Is this the moment I am supposed to feel heroic? he wondered, looking up at the sky. The paintings he had so admired, showing Nelson on the deck of Victory, or John Paul Jones shouting out his defiant reply, had always held him. When the war started he had dreamed that someday in the center spread of Harper's Weekly there would be an engraving of him upon the quarterdeck, bearing down on a rebel ram.

  The truth fluttered through him for a moment, the memory of falling over the side of the Cumberland when the shell exploded. They had always suspected him of jumping but could not prove it. All because of that.

  But am I supposed to feel heroic now, the admiral looking over his fleet the night before battle? He wondered what Keane was doing now. Was he on the deck of his ship, filled with his damnable confidence, his circle of admirers gathered around him?

  "Damn him," Tobias whispered, as a gust swept past, sending a shiver running down his spine.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "Red rocket forward!"

  Stirred from his misery, Andrew stood up, banging his head on the low ceiling of the gunhouse. Rubbing his brow, he looked over at O'Malley.

  "Going up," he said weakly.

  The artilleryman came over, and grabbing hold of Andrew, he helped him up through the pilothouse hatch. Bullfinch, reaching down from above, pulled Andrew into a sitting position inside the cramped turret. Standing up on trembling legs, Andrew came up through the outside hatch and half crawled, half climbed out onto the top deck.

  "The forward galley," Bullfinch said, returning to his telescope. "She's definitely coming about. It can only mean one thing."

  Shortly after they had pulled out of their anchorage, a lone Cartha ship had been seen on the horizon directly ahead, and throughout the morning it had kept out of reach, half a dozen miles ahead. His own picket ships, six of Marcus's fastest vessels, had tried to close the gap. The rocket could only mean one thing.

  "We've hit them," Andrew said sharply.

  Bullfinch looked over and nodded.

  "We'd better signal the fleet to go to quarters!"

  Andrew, feeling somewhat o
ut of place, sick as he was, nodded in reply.

  "Signalman! Send up the pennant—enemy in sight!"

  The lone occupant on the top of the turret beside Bullfinch and Andrew went over to the wooden mast affixed to the pilothouse. Pulling open a box strapped to the side of the pole, he drew out a large red pennant and ran it aloft to fly directly beneath the regimental standard of the 35th and the old national colors flying one above the other on the same pole.

  Looking over at the Gettysburg, rising up over a low-cresting wave, Andrew saw Mina waving in response, the same red flag going up beneath the standard of Rus.

  Across the whitecap-studded ocean, from every ship the red pennant appeared, distant cheers rising up from the galleys riding astern of the ten ironclads.

  "Their spirits are up," Bullfinch said. "It's about time we got into this."

  "There, I can see them," Bullfinch cried.

  Andrew, raising his own field glasses, braced his arm against the pilothouse and looked forward. The ocean kept bobbing up and down. After several sweeps he stood up, his legs wide apart.

  For a brief moment he held the western horizon steady. Numerous dark shapes rode upon the water. There was a flash of light, and then a series of them.

  "What's the light?"

  "Reflection from the oars. They're almost like mirrors if the angle's right."

  "So it's just galleys."

  "I think I see a couple of traces of smoke. Wait a minute."

  Andrew lowered the glasses. They had done him in. He was so used to the ritual now he didn't even care who saw him or where it happened. Going down on his knees, he leaned over the side of the gunhouse, being careful, at least, not to hit the open gun ports. Gasping, he came back up to his feet.

  Bullfinch looked over at him sadly.

  "Maybe once things get started it'll go away, sir."

  Maybe I'll just get killed and end it, he thought. Never in his life had he felt so miserable. At least when he was hanging halfway between living and dying after Gettysburg, the pain had been in his arm and head, not in his stomach.

  "You know, if there's a torture in hell for me," Andrew groaned, "the devil will put me on a boat."

  "How we doing?"

  Emil stuck his head up through the hatch and looked over at Andrew.

  "The usual."

  Emil held up a large mug.

  "Don't say no. It's broth—drink it."

  "It'll come back up."

  "Dammit, drink it and try to keep it in. You're going to need it in a couple of minutes."

  Trembling, Andrew took the cup and forced the contents down. He had learned that after the nausea won, it would leave him alone for at least a brief span before starting the torture again. The warmth of the drink was soothing, and he gulped it down.

  "At least it will give me something to bring back up," Andrew gasped, passing the cup back to Emil.

  "I see two gunboats for certain, sir, running behind the galleys, nothing else. The enemy fleet is pulling back."

  "Where's the rest of the fleet?"

  "Could he have left them back at Suzdal?" Bullfinch asked.

  "I doubt it. If he knew we were coming, he'd run everything out here to smash us up."

  "Maybe they don't know our size," Emil ventured. "Now that they do, they're pulling out."

  "Get Vasili up here, Emil."

  The doctor disappeared down the hatch. Moments later the Rus sailor came up topside with Emil behind him.

  "What's up ahead, Vasili?" Andrew asked, pointing forward.

  The young sailor looked along the coast, shading his eyes.

  "The point of St. Gregory, sir, about four versts ahead. We call it that since the rock looks like the blessed saint's head. It is a day's sail down from Rus, twenty versts beyond the beach where you first appeared. See, their ships are already disappearing around it."

  Andrew looked forward, but all he could see was bobbing dots.

  "On the other side of the point."

  "Ah, a wonderful place for fish. Even the great whales can be found there. A deep anchorage, though, with steep hills on three sides."

  "A bay."

  "Yes, a bay."

  "He's waiting there for us," Andrew said evenly. "The bastard's pulling us straight in and then he'll knife out."

  Andrew looked forward again, shading his eyes. A light mist of spray and sweat clouded his glasses, and with a curse he took them off and handed them over to Emil. It was yet another thing he had never quite mastered with only one hand, the art of cleaning his own glasses. The last several days had been far too humbling, revealing to him too many weaknesses he wished he did not have to admit to others or to himself.

  Emil patiently wiped the lenses clean and handed the glasses back up to Andrew. The pause gave him an excuse to think.

  So, we're walking straight into the trap he wants, he thought. Always before, Andrew had strived to lead the enemies onto his own ground, tricking them into action on his own terms.

  He turned to look out over his fleet. Six ironclads were to landward, fifty yards separating each, with the closest one in less than a hundred yards out from the beach, while the other three were arrayed to his left farther out to sea. Several hundred yards behind, the galleys were arrayed in ragged groups of ten. Far astern he could barely see a smudge of smoke, Dimitri and his ironclad now converted to a Quaker boat, struggling to catch up. Now that he thought about it, it was absurd, and he dismissed it, looking back forward.

  "What are your orders, sir?" Bullfinch asked.

  "Signal the fleet to prepare for battle."

  "You're going straight in?" Emil asked, incredulous.

  Andrew watched as the second red pennant went up.

  "That's what we built this fleet for," Andrew replied. "To seek him out and destroy him. These men aren't sailors, they're soldiers, so it's going to be a frontal assault."

  Bullfinch looked over at Andrew and smiled in agreement.

  "Besides, there are going to be a hell of a lot of men in the water in another hour or so. I'd rather see it happen close in to shore than three or four miles out. It might make the difference for quite a few thousand lives before this day is out."

  Now that action was coming, it all seemed so terribly slow and stately in its progress. He was used to the terrible waiting before going in, as on the day at Fredericksburg when they had stood for hours in the freezing cold, watching wave after wave go up Mayre's Heights to be slaughtered, knowing that the moment would finally come when the order came to go forward. But when the order did come it was almost a release, a rushing forward into the charge.

  This was so strangely different. He could now see the enemy galleys. No longer were they dots here and there; a ship would turn for a moment, revealing its long, slender form. But there was nothing, just the slow tension of the closing.

  He looked back astern to the galleys. Already they were starting to spread out from their formations. All of them were riding dangerously low. The ones closest in to shore, where the water was calmest, were almost up on the ironclads, while those over a half mile out were wallowing in the three-to-four-foot seas, each wave breaking up over their greenwood sides. From more than one boat he saw the crews bailing furiously.

  The row of half a dozen picket ships were still far ahead, spread out across a front of a mile.

  "They're sending out a line!" Bullfinch announced.

  Raising his glasses again, Andrew saw a dozen enemy galleys charge forward.

  "They're driving back our picket line," Andrew announced. "That's it—he's definitely on the other side of that point. How far is it now? I'm not good at judging distance out here."

  "About three miles, sir."

  Forty-five minutes to go. Dammit, it felt like an eternity.

  "We've just got some reliable reports in from a fisherman down by the coast," Kal announced, as O'Donald and Hans came into the room and nodded to a white-bearded man standing in the comer, hat off and obviously rather frightened.
<
br />   "Go on, grandfather, tell him," Kal said gently.

  "I was down on the beach," the old man said nervously. "I hid my boat in the rushes when they came and went into the forest. Well, I had to eat, my Helena's not been well, you see, and I promised her a nice baked fish for dinner."

  "About the boats," O'Donald said impatiently.

  "Yes, yes," the old man said, and he reached into his tunic and pulled out two sticks.

  "This is them."

  O'Donald took the sticks and looked over at the man as if he was mad.

  "Counting sticks," Kal said quickly. "Feyodor, isn't it?"

  "Yes, your excellency."

  "We all used them before your people made parchment so cheaply. He notched a stick for each galley that passed."

  "And the smaller stick for the devil ships of smoke," Feyodor interjected quickly.

  Nodding, O'Donald took the two sticks and started to run his thumb down the line of notches.

  "Eighty-two galleys," he announced and then took the other stick up. "Eighteen ironclads."

  "And then there is this," Feyodor announced, pulling out a small block of carved wood, deftly shaped like the Ogunquit complete to its stack and gun ports.

  Breaking into a broad grin, O'Donald clapped the man on the back.

  "I watched as all of them sailed away to the east until they finally disappeared."

  "We thank you, Feyodor," Kal said, coming around from behind his makeshift desk.

  The old man started to bow low, but Kal grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him back up.

  "You say your wife is ill?"

  Feyodor nodded sadly.

  "Then leave here at once, and tell the guard outside you're to go to my wife and tell her everything. We'll send one of our nurses with you by horse."

  "The blessing of Perm upon you," Feyodor whispered. "My only son died in the war against the devils. She is all I have left."

  "We will help to make her well again, my friend. Now go." Kal guided the old man out the door, then closed it and looked back at the two officers.

  "So they're definitely going to meet Andrew," Hans said.

  "That leaves just the two mortar boats and twenty galleys for the city. Four thousand men, along with whatever people in the city sided with Mikhail."