The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3) (5 page)

“
R
eady forward
!”

Alexis peered through the nearest gunport at the short tube of hull material
Shrewsbury
would use as a target for gunnery drill. It was being towed on a long line by the captured Hanoverese frigate. As she waited for the aft guns to be ready, bolts of light flew toward the target from the main gundeck, blasting great holes in the target.

“Read … ready aft!”

“
Fire!
” Alexis called almost immediately.

Captain Euell had set the decks in competition against each other for this drill, and they weren’t so far behind that they couldn’t catch up, if only Artley and his teams would speed things along a bit.

Alexis stepped back and watched the teams working to reload. Forward the work went as efficiently as she could hope, but the aft guncrews were frequently in disarray. Loaders found themselves having to check their pace on the way to the breech, gun captains found access to their gun’s breech blocked, men examining the barrels were jostled out of position and forced to begin again, and all, as nearly as Alexis could tell, a result of Midshipman Artley placing himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How on earth can a single boy find himself under so many feet?

“Mister Artley!” she called. “Stand clear of the guns unless your assistance is required!”

She turned to the fore guns as Artley’s “Aye, sir!” crackled over her suit radio. Walborn’s crews were moving with the smooth motions she’d come to expect. The more senior midshipman stayed out of his crews’ way, stepping in only when needed and knowing where to stand so that he’d not impede their work.

Captain Euell had taken advantage of the last merchantmen departing to exercise
Shrewsbury’s
guns on a daily basis, and Artley should have gained the knack of at least staying out of the way by now.

“Ready forward!”

Alexis peered out through the nearest port. Shot flashed from the main gundeck below to strike the target.

“Ready a-aft!”

“Fire!”

Her deck was a full ten or more seconds behind the others now. She had a sudden urge to rub her forehead at the frustration of it, stopped only by the helmet of her vacsuit.

Shouts of alarm sounded over the radio. Alexis drew back from the port and looked around, then rushed aft as she saw the crowd of spacers around the eleven gun struggling with something. She couldn’t make out what was wrong until she got there; the shouts ran over each other.

She shoved her way through the crowd of men from the other guns and found Artley. The eleven gun’s captain and crew were struggling to free the gun’s breech where the sleeve of Artley’s vacsuit was caught. A jet of vapor streamed from his suit where the breech torn it, and Artley was struggling to pull himself free. As she watched, his struggles lessened and the jet of vapor trailed off. At first, Alexis thought that his suit had finally sealed against the tear and he had calmed as his suit reaired, but then saw his right hand go to his helmet’s collar.

“No!” Alexis leapt forward and grabbed his arm before he could release his helmet.

Something must have gone wrong with his suit and it hadn’t sealed. Artley was out of air and trying to remove the helmet, not caring in his desperation that the entire deck was in vacuum. One of the spacers grasped Artley’s upper arm and pressed tightly, trying to keep any remaining air in the suit. Artley’s struggles against Alexis’ grip on his arm continued.

The gun captain grabbed a discarded shot canister and slammed it against the breech, which moved just enough to free Artley’s suit.

As he was freed, the surrounding spacers grabbed his limp form and rushed him to the aft companionway’s airlock. One of them had a roll of vacsuit repair tape out and was winding it around Artley’s arm, but Alexis could see that it would do no good — the rest of Artley’s suit was limp and unaired.

Alexis rose and rushed after them, sliding inside just as the hatch shut and keying her radio.

“We’ve a decompression on the upper gundeck! Mister Castell to the aft companionway!”

She clenched her teeth as she waited for the lock to cycle. Surely the boy would be all right. She tried to think of how long it had been since the last of the air jetted from Artley’s suit and how long it had taken to get him to the airlock. It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds in total that he’d been in vacuum.

Castell,
Shrewsbury’s
surgeon, met them as they descended the ladder to the orlop deck and his surgery. Alexis followed, but once on the orlop Castell’s mates rushed Artley into a compartment and shut the door behind. Alexis and the men from the gundeck were left standing outside.

Alexis pulled Caris, the gun crew’s captain aside.

“Did you see how this happened?”

“Saw the what, not sure as to how,” Caris said. “We was rushin’ and the breech stuck some. That gun does a’times. Have to slam it, forceful like. So we slams it shut and Mister Artley he goes to stand, but he jerks halfway up. Like he’s held down, you see? But then he throws his other arm and shouts ‘Ready aft’, only stuttering as the lad’s wont to do when he’s nervous. So then you yells fire an’ he yells fire an’ it’s only then that I sees his suit’s all caught in the breech, but it’s too late, you understand, a’cause of I’ve already slammed down on the button and all.”

Alexis winced. Artley must have known his suit was caught in the breech and called ready regardless. She shook her head. There was a constant demand for faster and faster broadsides in gun drills in preparation for real actions. Two ships might be evenly matched in their number and weight of guns, but the one that could fire faster and more accurately had the decided advantage. A smaller, even much smaller, ship could defeat a larger one if her gunnery was sufficiently better. Still, Artley should not have taken the risk — perhaps in a real action it might have been worth the chance that his suit wouldn’t be damaged, but certainly not in a drill.

“You did well getting him down here so quickly, Caris.” Alexis squeezed his shoulder. “You and the lads go on up and help set things right after the drill. I’ll wait here and send you word as soon as there is any.”

“Aye sir.” He gestured to the others of the guncrew who’d gathered. “He’s a … well, he’s a likable enough lad, he is.”

Alexis watched the men file out of the sick berth.

Aye, ‘likeable’. Not ‘a good lad’, nor a ‘promising’ one, nor even ‘likely’, which says much about how the crew sees him — and I can’t much argue myself.

“
A
bad bit of business
, Carew. Will the boy be all right?”

Alexis joined Nesbit at the wardroom table and nodded thanks as Isom set a glass of bourbon before her without her having to ask — he must have suspected that she’d want more than wine. She took a sip and rubbed her forehead.

“Castell says he will be,” she said. “I’ve just been to see the captain and report. Artley’s resting now, but should be up and about by the end of the watch. He started breathing on his own before we’d even got him to the orlop and Castell says that’s a good sign. He’s dreadfully swollen, though that should be gone by the end of the watch as well.”

“Swollen?” Nesbit asked. “How so?”

Alexis grimaced. A vacsuit’s liner was designed to fit snugly, keeping everything but one’s face safe from swelling in the event of decompression.

“His suit liner was as ill-fitting as the suit itself.” Alexis took another drink. “All but useless. Whoever fitted him out for his kit did a criminal job of it. Aside from the size, the suit itself is substandard. It’s naught but what one would expect in some ferry’s emergency locker, there for show and good for little else.”

Nesbit frowned. “Why would his family send him off so ill-equipped?”

“I’ve no idea, but the suit failed to seal at all — neither at the tear nor the emergency seals farther up his arm — and so all of his air simply vented.”

“Why was he near the gun’s breech to begin with?”

“Who knows?” Alexis sighed and drained her glass. “Perhaps he thought the shot was misaligned? I despair of understanding what that boy is thinking at times. One might as well tie a note to a rock and throw it to another ship when he’s on the signals console and he’s forever underfoot of the gun crews. I fear the lad will never make a spacer and, worse, that he or someone else will die of it before he’s done.”

There was a strangled sound from the wardroom’s hatch and Alexis turned to see Artley there with Caris, the eleven gun’s captain. Artley was still in the sweat-soaked underthings he’d worn under his vacsuit, his hair disheveled, hands and feet swollen and painful-looking, with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes.

Alexis’ heart fell as she took in the look on his face and realized that he’d heard her every word.

“Artley —”

The boy sobbed again, turned, and fled.

Caris cleared his throat and looked down at the deck, scratching the back of his head.

“Was helping the lad back to his berth to rest,” he said, “but he’d not go until he’d seen you, sir. Said he wanted to apologize for disappointing you.”

S
hrewsbury’s
hold
was well-lit but still full of the nooks and crannies a twelve-year old boy would find useful as a hiding place. Alexis had spent a good deal of time in such places aboard her last ship,
Hermione
, and so had begun searching the hold after seeing that Artley wasn’t in his own berth.

She wasn’t at all certain what she’d say when she did find him, though. She regretted that he’d heard her intemperate words, but that made her evaluation of him no less true, and it was past time someone had a serious talk with the boy about his place in the Navy.

It was possible he simply wasn’t suited to life aboard ship and should be put ashore. That might be a disappointment to his family if they’d hoped to start a Naval tradition with Artley’s service, but Alexis couldn’t imagine them sending Artley to space so ill-equipped and unprepared if they did. Still, better they were disappointed by his not becoming an officer than by his death.

Alexis dropped to her knees to crawl through the low space between two towering vats of the weak beer served to the crew in lieu of recycled water. The curving sides of the vats met, but formed a sort of tunnel at the floor. It was a tight squeeze and awkward even for her small frame. Artley could manage it under normal circumstances, she thought, but might have trouble with his current injuries. Still, she knew there’d be an open space at the end where these vats backed against the next row and their curving sides formed a sort of small, low-ceilinged room.

The light back there was dim, as it was blocked from above and only came in through the low tunnels that gave access, but Alexis was still able to see Artley. It seemed she’d found a place he came often, not just today, for he had a ship’s blanket and pillow there with him, as well as a litter of crisps wrappings that spoke to many visits.

He was hunched over, still in his sweat-soaked underthings but wrapped in the blanket, hair disheveled from his suit helmet, and hugging his knees.

Alexis eased herself out of the tunnel and cleared a space amongst the crinkly wrappers. She rested her own back against the vat, knees drawn up so as not to encroach too much on Artley’s space, and was silent for a time.

“Mister Artley,” she prompted finally.

Artley simply hugged his legs to him more firmly and buried his face in his knees.

Alexis frowned. She was sorry for the boy, but this was still the Navy and such behavior wasn’t tolerated. Artley faced a hard decision, and harder work if he chose to stay aboard and not resign his place.

“In another ship, with another officer, Mister Artley, such dumb insolence would find you sent to seek out Mister Huben and put to kissing the gunner’s daughter.”

The ship’s gunner was tasked with discipline of the younger midshipmen. In addition to mastheading, being sent to the very top of the ship’s mast and left there for an entire watch, if the offense were grievous enough, they’d find themselves bent over one of the ship’s guns and thrashed. Nothing like the floggings the crew faced, but threat enough for a young midshipman.

Artley raised his face and Alexis saw the tears. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“No. No, I’m the one who’s to apologize, Artley.” She sighed. “Not for the meaning of what I said, mind you, but the way it was uttered and that you heard it the way you did.” She met his eyes and saw fresh tears, but went on. “I should have spoken to you long before this.”

Part of her wanted to blame Eades and his damnable lessons, but the fact was that Artley had become her responsibility when he’d joined her division and she’d failed to pay as much attention to the boy as she should. Eades might cause her to have less time, but it was up to her to still perform her duties — one of which was to see to the midshipmen who reported to her. She’d just been lucky with Walborn and Blackmer, that they were experienced and required little in the way of her time.

“What prompted you to join the Navy, Mister Artley? What did you hope to find here?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“I’d expect such an answer from a new hand, half drunk and the other half addled by the Press’ cosh, Mister Artley, but young gentlemen do not arrive aboard in that condition. I may reasonably expect that you were both conscious and sober when you came aboard
Shrewsbury
and can make some account of the circumstances. Please do.”

“I truly don’t know why I’m here, sir,” Artley said, looking, if possible, even more miserable. “I never thought to join the Navy … I always thought that I’d work in my Da’s shop. That’s what he always said to me.”

Artley was silent for a time and Alexis prompted, “The circumstances of coming aboard
Shrewsbury
, Mister Artley?”

He nodded. “I woke one morning and my Da … not my real Da, he died a year or more ago, but the man my mum took up with, you understand? He said I should call him Da, too, though I didn’t want to.” He paused again and Alexis nodded for him to continue. “Well, he woke me and said I was off to someplace that would make a man of me. Mum was all crying and carrying on, and I thought I was being sent away to school. Da … the man Mum married … well, he took me off with not a thing packed and then he sent me aboard a shuttle with a Navy captain. First I heard of being in the Navy was when we reached his ship and he showed me a chest and bag he said were my things. He had me put on a midshipman’s uniform and next I knew I was back in a boat and on my way to
Shrewsbury
… and barely an hour aboard here before we were making way for the transition point and Lieutenant Slawson was shoving me out the hatch onto the hull and demanding I name for him all these parts of a ship I’d never seen before!”

Alexis blinked. The story had come out in such a rush that she wasn’t sure she had the full of it.

“Tell me if I understand,” she said. “Your father, your real father, owned a shop and told you it would be yours one day?”

Artley nodded. “I’d work with him every day after school. It’s a fine shop.”

“But he died? And your mother’s met a new man?”

Artley nodded again. “I don’t like him.”

“I should think not,” Alexis said. “And they, neither of them, spoke to you of the Navy ever?”

“Never, sir. He talked of sending me away for schooling, but never the Navy.”

“I see,” Alexis said, quite afraid that she did. “Do you know at all what arrangements your father made? Your real father, I mean. For the shop and for you and your mother upon his death?”

Artley shook his head and Alexis frowned. Artley might not know, but she certainly had her suspicions. A fine shop left to another man’s son and a new husband who might wonder what would be left for him when the son came into his majority. What better way to have it for himself than to send the boy away to the Navy? Especially with a war on and the very real possibility of Artley being killed.

“What a vile business.”

“Sir?”

Alexis studied his face, but it seemed Artley was oblivious to his stepfather’s possible motives. He seemed innocently bewildered by what had happened to him. If being put aboard ship had come as such a surprise, might that have something to do with how he performed his duties? Alexis hesitated, looking at the lad. He was obviously still shaken by his close call and she wondered if it was the best time to be having this conversation. Still, perhaps it was the perfect time to drive home the seriousness of life aboard ship, regardless of whether it was the life Artley would choose for himself.

“Is it safe to say that you’ve never wanted to be in the Navy?” she asked.

Artley shook his head. “Never thought of it, sir.”

“And safe to say that the Navy’s still not where you wish to be?”

Artley hesitated, perhaps afraid to answer, and Alexis raised an eyebrow.

“I just want to go home.”

“Mister Artley, I will allow you just this one meeting for a whinge like that.” Alexis fought to keep her face stern as his expression fell. Perhaps he’d wanted some sympathy and she longed to give it to him, but the truth was he was in the Navy, aboard ship, and very far from home. If he didn’t give it his best efforts, then the prediction she’d made in the wardroom would come true and someone, likely Artley himself, would be dead of it. “You are aboard this ship. Perhaps you’ll one day return home, but while aboard I’ll have your best efforts in your duties. Your very
best
efforts, Mister Artley, which I suspect no one aboard
Shrewsbury
has yet seen.”

“I —”

“Think on this,” she said, interrupting him. “Had this morning’s incident happened during an action, you would surely be dead.”

Artley looked at her eyes wide. “But —”

“That entire guncrew came to your aid — in an action, you’d have been shoved to the side for Mister Castell’s loblolly boys to take below in their own time. I would not have come to your aid myself, and stopped you taking your helmet off in a full bloody vacuum. Moreover, there are eight hundred men aboard
Shrewsbury
who depend upon those best efforts of yours for their own lives.”

Artley winced and looked away.

“If your father — your real father — truly intended to leave his shop to you then you must have previously exhibited some degree of competence as yet unseen aboard this ship. I need to see that competence, Mister Artley. I need you to apply yourself to
Shrewsbury’s
work as diligently as I’m certain you did in your Da’s shop. Study your signals and use your bloody head at the guns, do you hear me?”

“Aye sir.”

“Though about this little hidey-hole here, Mister Artley.”

“Aye sir. I’ll stop coming down here.”

“No, you needn’t stop completely. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a bit of time to yourself — Lord knows it’s hard to find a moment’s quiet to think aboard ship, but do try to spend some time with your berthmates. They’re not bad lads at all.”

“I will, sir, thank you.”

Alexis shoved a pile of crisp wrappers to the side. “But when you are here, I’ll have no more this, do you understand? I plan to start inspecting this space and if I find it anything but as tidy as your berth it’ll go poorly for you.”

“Aye sir.”