“Let me see that, please,” Farley instructed, taking a rifle from a sailor. He scrutinized the action and the sights then shouldered it, drew a single cartridge from a crate on the makeshift table before him, and fired. A piece of steel, painted white for visibility, floating atop a barrel 100 arshins aft of Fletch rang. Farley opened the bolt, sending a case clattering to the deck, and brusquely handed the still open rifle back to the sailor.
“Unfortunately it is as I suspected, the trouble is with you and not the instrument. It will not matter so much in massed firing or close battle, but I want to see you hit it before the day is done, because the day may come when you are called onto to take an accurate shot to save your own life, or that of a compatriot.”
A small crowd, the other sailors roused from their hammocks for shooting practice, had formed around the two men to watch the dressing down. “That’s right, Willy, with your luck you’ll ‘ave an orc comin’ at you and hit his balls instead of his head, and to pay you back he’ll kill ya’ slower” one of them needled.
“Quiet there, don’t rile him anymore or he’ll have no chance at all, you all are barely satisfactory as it is so you may come down from your cloud” Farley barked. He fished in the crate for another round and handed it magnanimously to the sailor.
“Clear the firing line, no man may stand forward of the man shooting,” Farley ordered and with a gesture directed the sailor with the rifle to crouch before the gunnel.
“The ship is moving and so is the target, do not wait for the perfect picture in your sights, it will never come, wait for it to fill your sights for most part and fire on the up-roll. Draw back on the trigger as if you mean to bend it, not a quick pull as if you were trying to snap it,” Farley whispered, crouching too and looking alongside the rifle.
He stood, turning to the assembled sailors, “all of you quiet,” next, to the man at the gunnel he added, “you may fire when ready.”
The sailor waited long enough that Farley had to hush the crowd once more. Without warning he at last fired. The target rang.
“Very good, now do that 50 times over and you will have my approval,” Farley stated.
The shooting sailor, who had been beaming since the hit, promptly slumped and frowned.
“Tomorrow, I should add,” Farley responded, “for now, one of you go to my quarters and bring out the large leather case, it should be beneath my desk.”
Bethany watched one of the sailors peel instantly away from the group and sprint down the deck. He returned at an even faster pace with the case.
“Are you finally going to demonstrate it, sir?” the sailor asked, gingerly passing him the case.
“What is it? What does he have?” another sailor demanded.
Bethany stepped forward but remained in the shadow of the mizzen. The shooting practice had been too loud to ignore and was the most interesting thing occurring aboard Fletch by far, but she did not wish to speak to anyone just now.
“All of you step back, it is delicate,” Farley commanded. He placed the case on the table and unlatched it. With great care he removed a long, slender rifle with a brass telescopic sight affixed, running almost two thirds of its length.
“This,” he began brightly, “is the Voynich target type falling block in 2.75 line Voynich-Gibbs. Lorenz there...” Farley indicated the sailor who had fetched the rifle, “...was present when I came to own it over a game of cards in Holman Quay. It is of the exact type used at last year’s Academy Match, though I suppose that means little to you lot. Suffice it to say it is more accurate than any man and usable at a great distance. Half a verst or more, I suspect. Hence the telescope, arguably too fragile for war service but in this instance almost a necessity.”
Farley strode to the cleat where the target was tied to Fletch, loosened the knot, and let the line pay out until the barrel was nearly three times more distant. Rifle in hand he crouched, placing its fore-end on a bundle of rags atop the taffrail.
“Mr. Lorenz, a cartridge, if you please,” he called after a long pause during which he scrutinized the target through the telescope.
Lorenz carefully opened the cartridge box set into the lining of the case and carried it to the officer. Bethany was struck by its shape, it was rather like the rounds for the standard naval rifles and carbines, though it seemed pointier. Moreover, it was very different from the revolver cartridges she was most familiar with, far narrower and easily four times as long. Farley accepted the cartridge, worked a lever near the wrist of the rifle’s stock, opening the breech-block with a hearty clack, and fed the round in.
The breech was closed and Farley sat silently behind the rifle for an age. He fired, the target did not ring but a puff of splinters rose from the barrel it was fixed to. One sailor began to jeer but Lorenz hushed him and hurried another cartridge to Farley. Farley loaded it, made a very small adjustment to one of the large brass knobs that surrounded the middle of the telescope, and gently pressed the trigger. The target rang and a few sailors clapped, half-mocking.
Farley called for another cartridge “let’s see if I am lucky or if it truly is sighted now.”
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That cartridge produced a hit as well and Farley rose, returning the rifle to its case, “that will have to be enough, only 50 cartridges were included and I fear I’ll have to load any more by hand. You are all dismissed to supper.”
The sailors scattered, Farley set about reeling in the target when he caught sight of Bethany, “how long have you been there?”
“Since a little after you began, I think.”
Farley dropped the line and approached her, “I apologize then, had I known you were about I would not have been so coarse.”
“Coarse? I might have missed that, it’s no matter. You are doing well with them, it’s not an easy skill to learn, I cannot imagine how difficult it is to teach.”
“How long has it been since you practiced with a rifle? You know your way about one, I’ve seen that - you picked it up in school, or so I’ve heard.”
“Yes, and fencing. Though I should say all the rifle practice was small bore on short courses of fire. My brother got to play with proper rifles, the old six line models, but we could not, they said it would knock us off our feet and I do believe it, some of my classmates were terribly small.”
“Well, if you remember even a quarter of what you learned, you are far ahead of most of the ship’s complement.”
“Do you think you can have them ready in time?”
“I hope so, some have a talent for it naturally, and some were hunters, well, poachers, before they joined the service. Truly, one only needs one or two decent shots in a group of ten or so men. The bulk of the shooting needn’t hit if it only keeps the enemy disoriented, and then the fellows that are actually accurate can pick off officers, gun crews, and what have you. My objective is to ensure that all of them can at least load properly and are comfortable enough behind their rifles to avoid dropping them when they fire.”
“Does that happen? They drop them?”
“I saw it just yesterday,” Farley frowned, “but enough of that, would you like to have a go?”
“Not today, I think, but thank you.”
Farley was visibly disappointed, “you ought to practice, you will need it on Hegalia.”
“Excuse me?”
“When you land with us, on Hegalia.”
Bethany was certain he was joking and glared at him.
“I am quite serious, I wish it wasn’t necessary but you can shoot, you’re an officer, and, more importantly, the sailors have practically demanded you come along.”
“What do they want with me?”
“The sense among the men is that the landings are practically a forlorn hope and word is going around that, since you assented to them - for which I thank you, of course - that you will ensure their survival with some witchery.”
Bethany stepped toward Farley, the color and ease gone from her face, “I cannot guarantee that, if you are telling them this you must stop.”
“I am not, heaven knows how the rumor started, but it has kept them in good spirits, I would not disabuse them of it.”
“And when they land and many of them are killed?”
“I am going to see to it that such a thing does not happen, we are not going to throw men into the maw of their guns as on Kjell, but the plan of attack is not, and cannot be finalized until Hegalia is reconnoitered, for now they need some other salve for their nerves.”
“Once that is done will you tell them the plan and let me beg off going? I know I sound like a coward, that is because I am, ask Mr. Badrine, on Dux, I seized up time and again when those awful Bexarians were shooting at us, I know for certain I got some of his stokers killed.”
Farley approached her with a warm look, “I have heard of that. I trust you will find some way to quiet those feelings. You may not have fought so bravely on Dux, but Mr. Threlfall, may he rest well, told me you did battle with an orc at Kjell.”
“It was about to kill me, I had to,” Bethany explained glumly.
“If that’s all you need to be brave then I assure you, there will be plenty of motivation at Hegalia. You will be at the head of a formation, hesitation would mean your death first, not that of your men.”
“Pardon me, but I did not agree to any of this,” Bethany protested.
“I will grant you that, I know you did not first step foot on this ship of your own accord but out of obligation. However, that obligation, and, might I add, a far higher one, to the men who have shed blood on your ship, compels you now. I cannot levy any consequences against you, of course, but without you the landings cannot proceed, and without the landings - and you must believe this for you agreed to my plan - we shall surely be killed in the long run.”
Bethany sulked for a moment, then, sharply insisted: “I demand to review your plans for the landings at your first convenience.”
“Of course, when I have completed them” Farley agreed.
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Fletch’s most intact launch swayed on its davits, cranked out over the sea. Dusk was beginning to gather but the sky was clear and the light would serve for what they meant to do.
“All of you quiet now, no orders, no calls,” Farley commanded in a whisper, leaning out of the boat. He was dressed as a civilian and the two sailors, manning the oars, were even less presentable than usual, meant to look like the absolute dregs of a merchant crew. He was unarmed, bearing only a spyglass. Bethany sat across from him, also made up as civilian, easy enough for her, carrying a few sheets of paper backed by a board of scrap wood.
Farley gave a small wave of the hand and when nothing came of it he looked sharply at the sailors at the davits and mouthed “lower away.” The boat was quickly afloat and free of its lines. Farley moved to the tiller and the sailors pulled toward a low island, sitting like a line of white chalk scraped across the sea, Hegalia.
“What ship were you on?” Farley asked in a whisper.
“The Commerzant, a packet out of Holman Quay.”
“...and how did you end up all the way out here?”
“We were caught in a terrible storm and sank, several boats got away but we were scattered by the storm.”
“Who are you?”
“A governess, my charge died of fever and I was only trying to go home to the mainland.”
“...and who am I?”
“A minor civil servant, you never told me what sort, from Southwark. We did not know each other before the voyage.”
“Well it wouldn’t withstand a thorough cross examination, but it’s enough to stop us being shot as spies on the spot.”
“It’s not as if they will just turn us round and let us go, is it?”
“No, but I can only imagine that having a ready story to give anybody who comes across us will be of help. If we played mum on being taken in and only acted as civilians after a few hours in the cells to think it up, well, anyone would see through that. Anyhow, it will not be necessary, they are extremely unlikely to have seagoing patrols and we are small enough to be invisible from land.”
Hegalia drew closer, Farley sighting on it with his spyglass after every few beats of the oars. Bethany could see buildings now, rather like the Naval Depot at Holman Quay, but with sagging, snow covered roofs. As they came even nearer, such that they could smell the Bexarians’ supper on the wind, a large tower could be made out, half a verst or so behind the buildings, which were very near the shore. There was little Bethany could liken it to, the closest in her memory was the watchtower that had stood in the center of the courtyard of her prison - a few arshins from the gallows - but this tower was far taller, and had no place at its top for men to stand or even sit. Its construction, as sort of lattice of wood or iron, was just the same, however.
Farley put up a hand firmly and whispered “halt” to the rowers. They beat back to stop the boat then raised their oars. On Hegalia, lamps began to shine in barracks windows and a few packs of men shuffled from the mess to their lodgings. Farley braced himself against the boat’s low gunnel and scanned the island with his spyglass. He did this in complete silence for long enough that they began to lose the light. Bethany was about to tap him on the shoulder and beg for the glass when he turned and gingerly pressed it into her hand.
“Be sure to get the batteries on the eastern rise,” he instructed.
Bethany took her turn studying the island through the glass. What had been outlines became neatly detailed. Not much, save the tower, seemed out of place for the whaling station it had been. A long pier hung lopsided, its pilings failing, and beyond that were buildings, all of one story. The long ones were likely barracks while the others, to Bethany’s eye, could be anything. Whale bones littered the beach, an entire rib cage their centerpiece. She swung the glass to the east, settling on the battery Farley had indicated. That was something a whaling station would have no need of. It was sizable, five long guns sat in pits surrounded by piled dirt and pyramids of ready shells. Only two weapons of apparently equal size guarded the entrance to Bray harbor, a jewel of the Assembly’s trade routes, so surely there was something worth defending on the pathetic island.
She lowered the glass and took up her pencil, quickly committing the view to paper. Returning the glass to her eye, she made some corrections and added detail as the last of the daylight vanished. Farley watched over her shoulder all the while, silent. The light completely gone, she could do no more, and returned the glass to Farley, who promptly directed the rowers toward Fletch’s dark outline. He waited until they were halfway to the ship before speaking, “it should be very useful, almost as good as a photograph.”