Battle Hymn (8 page)

Andrew felt a cool shiver of memory at Emil's words, remembering young Gregory's stirring recitation of Henry V on the second night of Hispania when all believed that the battle was lost.

Another one lost, he thought sadly. Gregory had disappeared the spring after the end of the war while on patrol down the western coast of the Great Sea. It was a frustrating blow. He had shown so much promise, having acted as corps commander for what was left of the old Third. Interestingly, his avocation had given him much fame as well. In the months after the battle he had been called upon repeatedly to appear on the stage, playing Henry V to critical acclaim.

Andrew gazed at the veterans, who were now standing around the lumber pile, talking in an animated manner, the veteran of the Seventh Murom starting to pull his shirt up while the Asgard workers watched with obvious envy.

"It's about the only good thing that comes out of a war," Emil said. "It united us like nothing else ever could. That, and the fact that we won, of course."

"Let's hope we don't forget it too soon."

With a piercing shriek a train at the far end of the rail yard announced that it was leaving, the engineer playing out the first bar of an bawdy Roum tavern song on the whistle. The train lurched forward, pulling a long line of empty flatcars that had most likely been loaded down with rails when it came east. Andrew watched the train as it slowly built up speed and thundered past. The brass work on the engine was polished to a brilliant gleam, "City of Roum" painted in bright red letters beneath the cab. The engineer, posing like a highborn lord, leaned out of the cab and saluted as he passed. The engine was one of the new 4-6-0 designs, rated at just over 1,500 horsepower, twice what the main engines in use during the war had been capable of.

The string of fifteen cars behind the engine rattled past and switched onto the main line heading back west.

"You know, I can almost see their point," Emil said. "Day after day, trains heading out into unknown, carrying the wealth of Rus. More than two hundred fifty thousand tons of iron and steel since the end of the war. That could go to a lot of other things right now."

Andrew didn't reply as the train passed the switch and started the climb toward the low ridge to the west of town. Here was the edge of the frontier. He imagined it was a fair mimic of the frontier back home on Earth. The town had a rough-hewn look about it, smelling of unwashed bodies, fresh-cut pine lumber, horses, ship's tar, and cheap liquor. There was even a form of buffalo out in this part of the steppe, bigger, some of them almost elephant-size and covered with fur. They looked like elephants, with their long trunks, and Andrew wondered if they were native to this world or somehow had been imported from another planet, perhaps even from Earth thousands of years ago.

The thought was intriguing to him, though he would not have debated it too openly back at Bowdoin, since such a theory did fly in the face of accepted religious thought about the age of the planet. There were no records of such beasts. He supposed he could argue that they had simply failed to make the boat and thus were antediluvian.

Several of the flatcars on the train rumbling past were stacked high with cured hides for the new market in fashionable winter coats that was catching on in Rus. Some of the Asgard, led by one of his retired soldiers from the sniper detachment and armed with custom-made heavy-caliber Sharps rifles, were making quite a good living hunting the beasts, providing food for the army and a tidy return shipping the woolly hides back to Rus. It wasn't just the wool, hides, Asgar mead, and changes to the language that were moving on the rails, though. There was something else happening as well, something indefinable.

The historian in him had been musing on this of late. Perhaps it was the frontier that was the definer of a society. It was shaping the America he remembered even before the war. A sense of destiny, a sense of limitless possibilities, even a safety valve for those who couldn't quite fit in with conventional norms. It was interesting to him how many of his old soldiers, men who had been First Corps, the founding unit of the army, had attached themselves to the railroad and moved with it. Maybe they had seen too much, had lived on the edge too long, to go quietly home now. Out here they could be free. Maybe it was the frontier that would define the Republic rather than the notion so many had that the railroad was bringing the definition of what they were into new lands. Perhaps it was that which was triggering the sense of fear in Congress, that things would somehow change even more.

If Congress should put a permanent end to his dream of building a railroad completely around the world, they would retreat back upon themselves. As he walked along with Vincent, the thought crystallized and he realized that perhaps here was part of the answer to why he had decided to come out on an inspection tour. It was to escape from Suzdal, to see what it was they were really doing, and somehow touch it and let it flow into him, reminding him of all that once was. And with it came the chilling thought as well that if they should stop and turn inward again sooner or later the Hordes would win.

As they approached the dockyard Andrew slowed in front of a shed where a new ship was just beginning to take form. Stacks of cured oak were piled outside the building, along with strips of one-inch iron plate. All of it had been shipped from Suzdal, marked and numbered. The crew here had only to assemble it according to the plans.

"Sir, here's our new beauty," Bullfinch announced, and he pointed down toward the water.

At first impression Andrew thought it an ugly monstrosity. His image of ships had been formed in Maine. Bowdoin College was in Brunswick, a major shipbuilding town, and nearby was Bath, famed for its clipper ships. A ship should have masts raked back at a provocative angle, canvas as white as snow to capture the wind. He tried to muster a smile of approval as Bullfinch led him down to the dock.

The crew was lined up along the starboard side, standing on the narrow open deck between the railing and the armored blockhouse. At their approach pipes trilled and the ship's company snapped to attention. Remembering naval ritual, Andrew stepped aboard and turned to first salute the colors, then the officer on deck.

He knew he was expected to give a speech, and so he ran through his short inspiration one, citing the proud record of the navy, then expressing confidence that the men of this ship would carry on the tradition. The hands were dismissed and Andrew surveyed the scene curiously.

"She's an interesting design, sir," Bullfinch stated, taking him forward to stand at the bow so he could have a clear view aft. "She's a twin paddle-wheel design, those twin humps aft, each of them twenty-five feet high, are the armored housing for the wheels."

"I thought screw propellers were better," Emil interjected.

"For deepwater operations I agree, but the Great Sea's an interesting body of water. It's barely been charted. We don't even know yet if you can continue sailing southward on into the Inland sea, down past the Cartha narrows, and somehow eventually swing east and north."

Andrew could sense that Bullfinch was leading up to one of his pet proposals. A ship had already been sent out to explore that possibility and it never returned. There had been no appropriations for another.

"Stick to the question of this ship, Mr. Bullfinch," he said quietly.

"Ah-hmm, of course, sir. As I was going to say, the east coast has a lot of shoals, and approaches to some of the rivers are all but impassable. This ship was designed like some of the ships used during the Civil War. Capable of some deepwater work when necessary, but excellent for poking up rivers, hugging the coast—in general, getting in close. She only draws six feet, is basically flat-bottomed, with three small keels running fore and aft and a rudder that can be raised if we get in too shallow."

Bullfinch, now in his element, started to rattle off the design details. "She's just under a thousand tons, and the armored blockhouse here"—as he spoke he led them back toward the squat black structure that ran nearly the length of the ship—"has two inches of iron backed with two feet of oak. Should keep out anything we've run up against so far."

He led them through an open hatchway into the blockhouse. Pat admiringly approached one of the guns. "These are real beauties!" he exclaimed. "I always did envy you sailors for the metal you can carry."

"Four guns per broadside port, and starboard all of them six-inch smoothbores, but the real treat's up forward."

Andrew followed his lead, ducking low in the confined space of the gun deck.

"Our first hundred-pound rifled Parrott gun," Bullfinch exclaimed proudly, slapping the massive breech. "We can hit at four miles with this."

Pat stood behind the gun, sighting down the barrel through the open gun port, grinning with delight.

Bullfinch finally convinced Pat to leave the gun and led them aft. They climbed a narrow ladder and stepped into the armored bridge. Andrew squatted down to look through the narrow slits.

"Normally we'll sail her topside on the open bridge and use this only if we're in action. Since we don't draw that much for a full lower deck, the engine room's directly behind us, most of it above the waterline. Actually that's where we put the most armor, an inner layer of iron and oak, with coal bunkers around the engine as well. Crew's quarters, additional coal and ammunition are all down below, but normally the men will string hammocks right on the gun deck."

Andrew could see the pride in Bullfinch's face. It was not normally an admiral's job to go on the shakedown cruise for a new ship, but for a navy that had only half a dozen active ironclads with the so-called First Fleet on the Inland Sea, the launching of the first true fighting ship on this sea was an event he could not very well miss.

"Once we get Franklin back there in the boat shed launched next month, we'll have a deepwater ship on this ocean as well, sir. Having only half a dozen sloops to patrol everything out there was stretching it way too thin."

"I know, Bullfinch. Remember, I'm on your side."

"Sorry, sir. It's just that I'd love to see that idea that Jack Petracci and I have been kicking around, to build a ship that could handle the docking and resupply of airships. It would really give us the range to explore and keep a check on those heathens out there."

"Maybe next year's appropriations."

Bullfinch nodded sadly.

"Would you care to join my crew and me for tea, sir?"

Andrew registered Vincent's impatient agitation at the mention of staying for tea.

"Later," Andrew said with a smile. "I think General Hawthorne here wants to get his official part of this visit over with first. Perhaps this evening we'll bring the Nippon liaison officer on board for a tour."

"I'd be delighted, sir."

Following Bullfinch's lead, they went back down to the gun deck and from there to the outer deck, where Andrew had to endure yet another round of trilling pipes and exchanges of salutes before stepping back onto the dock.

"Them navy fellas must have to blow them blasted pipes and salute everything in sight before they're even allowed to dump a chamber pot," Pat growled.

With Vincent guiding them, the group climbed the hill away from the navy yard and headed back through the town. Cresting a low rise, Andrew could see spread out before him half a dozen warehouses of rough framed lumber, buildings more than a hundred yards long and forty feet high. A row of workshops was arrayed halfway down the slope, and coming out of the one closest to the road Andrew saw Chuck Ferguson.

Ferguson started up the hill to meet them, grinning, and came to attention, snapping off a salute.

"Ferguson, how's those lungs of yours?" Emil snapped, stepping in front of Andrew. Without waiting for a reply, the old doctor put his head against Ferguson's chest to listen.

"Fine, sir, fine."

"Be quiet. Now breathe deeply."

Ferguson did as ordered and then coughed slightly.

"Uncle Drew!"

Andrew smiled as a boy of three, dressed in a Union-blue jacket and sky-blue trousers trimmed with the white piping of the air corps, burst out of a cabin and raced up to his side, standing with mock seriousness, right hand at his brow, until Andrew returned his salute.

"He's still coughing, doctor."

The child's mother, Varinia, came out the cabin door, an infant in her arms. Andrew tipped his cap, and she smiled a reply but then hurried to Emil's side.

"He still goes into that damnable workshop, even when they're making gas for the airships," she told the doctor, with a worried glance at her husband.

As Andrew watched the young couple he felt warm inside at the love that bound the two. Varinia was the daughter of Marcus's bodyservant, a man who had risen to serve on the Senate. She had been one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen … until the explosion at the powder mill seared her face, arms, and legs. Her very survival was a testament to Emil's skill and to his own wife's ability as a doctor as well. Kathleen had hovered over the girl for weeks and had come away convinced that it was Chuck's love for her that gave her the will to live in spite of her disfigurement. "I know the beauty within," Chuck had said, "and that's all I'll ever see."

Nursing her back to health had created a close bond, and Kathleen and Andrew had stood as their witnesses when the two were married, and now they stood as godparents for their two children as well.

Andrew watched Emil anxiously as he continued to listen and then frowned. Finally Emil straightened up. "Son, I'm making this plain to you. I told you before I thought you had consumption, and I'm telling you now that you do."

Ferguson nodded calmly. "I knew that all along, sir."

"Well, now. You can live to a ripe old age if you take good care of yourself and follow my orders exactly. We'll talk more about it later."

"Sir, a few things I'd like you to see," Chuck said, ignoring Emil.

"All right, but you're too valuable to be out here in the middle of nowhere," Andrew replied. "You're heading back to Rus with me tomorrow."