The Sea Peoples(57)
Admiral Naysmith nodded and said:
“They have the weather gauge on us, but it doesn’t look as if they’re going to refuse battle,” and leveled her telescope to sweep the horizon to the southward as the signals officer had the pennants run up to break out at the mizzen-top. “There must be forty of them.”
Just then a message pod whirred down the line from the kite-borne observer currently a wedge-shaped dot a thousand feet up. A signalwoman opened it and handed the contents to the Sea-Leopard’s commander. Captain Edwards handed it on to Naysmith.
“Forty-four, Admiral,” he said. “And yes, they’re coming out to meet us.”
Naysmith grunted thoughtfully and looked up at the enemy’s observation balloon hanging over the ancient harbor; it was different in detail from what Montival used, but had the general similarity forced on human kind by the laws of nature even in the Changed world, and it would have seen them long ago.
órlaith looked discreetly over her naval commander’s shoulder at the message the observer in the flying wing had sketched. The drawing showed the enemy deploying outside the mouth of Pearl Harbor in a blunt wedge, with the larger ships on the outside and a less orderly gaggle of others within.
“Best choice they have,” Naysmith said. “If we catch them where they can’t maneuver we’ll pound them to burning splinters. They’ll probably try to provoke a fleet action and then swarm individual ships in boarding actions.”
She grinned like a shark as she snapped the telescope shut. “But we have heavy crews available, and two can play that game.”
“Forty-four ships!” King Kalaˉkaua said. “By Kuˉ-keoloewa, Kuˉ the Supporter, that’s far more than our total naval strength!”
Reiko nodded as they all stepped aside to give the admiral room; she and the Hawaiian monarch were both on the Montivallan flagship, much to the relief of their naval commanders. There was no safe place in a ship-to-ship action, where an admiral was in the front lines as much as the lowliest deckhand pumping at a catapult’s hydraulic cocking lines. But the big frigate was as close as you could get to safety as long as the respective rulers insisted on being present . . . which they all did.
And having us all here keeps the lines of command clearer, órlaith thought. Naysmith’s orders are coming from the same place as the Hawaiian and Nihonjin monarchs. There’s no question of their rulers taking orders from my commander. And anyone who wants to think we’re instructing Naysmith after a committee meeting is free to do so.
“Number includes transport . . . transports,” Reiko said in her slow careful English. “And they have no shr . . . ships like this.”
She tapped her foot on Sea-Leopard’s quarterdeck. The six frigates were leading the fleet; some of the smaller Montivallan ships were screening forward, but most—and the Hawaiian and Nihonjin vessels—were behind. This time she was in her own set of Japanese-style armor, the lacquer still showing marks from fights and hard travel—no longer scratched or dented or with frayed cords, in fact lovingly repaired, but the covering slightly brighter where they’d been applied. The crimson chrysanthemum mon of her House showed on the breastplate and the brow of the broad-tailed kabuto helmet.
“This is more half . . . more than half . . . of their strength at sea, from our intelligence,” she said thoughtfully. “To put it where we can with our strength hit it, bad strategy. Very bad. Usually they are not so foolish. Perhaps their intelligence of Montival is poor. Or they are some reason desperate.”
Egawa leaned close to her ear and murmured in Nihonjin; he could understand spoken English, but his own command of it was much worse than his Tennˉo’s.
“That means Nihon is safe, Majesty, safer than it has been since the Change. That is more than half the total jinnikukaburi strength. What we have at home can handle the rest, even if they throw everything at us. Simply losing that fleet will cripple the enemy for many years. And if our allies win this battle, nearly all of our own strength will be intact for the final offensive while the enemy are critically weakened at little cost to us. The kami favor us with the prospect of a great victory.”
She replied in a brusque tone: “The kami do favor us, General, for ours is the Land of the Gods. Yet many will die this day, many will be widowed, many children will be orphans, much work of human hands be wasted and leave hunger and want in their wake. It is necessary, but do not exult. We must fulfill our giri—”
Which meant roughly the burden of duty in her tongue.
“—but do not therefore forget ninjˉo.”
Which was human feeling, the counterpoint to the merciless demands of duty and obligation. From what órlaith had been able to gather and what the structure of the language the Sword had taught her in an instant implied, modern Nihonjin thought and much of their poetry turned on the tension between those two. Reiko went on:
“Victory is a means to secure a victorious peace for our people—”
Which was a play on the regnal name she had chosen: Shˉohei Tennˉo, Empress of Victorious Peace.
“—so that they may harvest their rice and rear their children in peace free from fear and attack. Success in battle is not an end in itself. The sword must serve, even if those who bear the steel rule. It is for this reason that duty is heavier than mountains, and the warrior’s death lighter than a feather; they are tools to a greater end.”