When Bethany awoke she found herself looking up at a filled sail. Raising her head she saw the low gunnel of one of Tess’ launches and beyond it the clear, shallow water of a bay. She must have dozed off after boarding but could not have been out for long - the island seemed little closer than it had been when they set off. Behind her Fletch and Tess lay at anchor, their sails reefed. Strator had parted from them, steamed by her prize crew to the Naval depot on the opposite side of the island. Called Holman, it was the central island of a rocky chain and the only one suitable for habitation. The city of Holman Quay lay off the boat’s bow, a flock of white clapboard structures - the wood brought in by sea for the island was virtually treeless - huddled on low cliffs above the water, representing the only major civilian settlement.

Bethany sat up in the boat, steadying herself. This was not easy for the wind was up and the launch had taken on a considerable lean. She hoped at least that meant it would reach port soon.

“How long, sir?” Bethany asked of the man at the tiller.

“I can only guess miss, perhaps ten minutes,” he replied. The launch’s skipper was a member of Tess’ crew but his passengers were a mix of the two raiders’ complements. Far faster in these conditions than Fletch’s rowboats, Tess’ trio of sailing launches were all at work, running a sort of ferry service from the anchored ships. The men had been eager for shore leave from the instant they had learned of it, but once Holman came into view they seemed almost ready to swim for it. Bethany was not sure what excited them about the island, whose lone city seemed like a miniature and very poor imitation of Bray.

The launch’s skipper let the sails luff, his boat gliding toward the dock at Holman under its remaining momentum. It came to a stop an arshin from the dock and was caught by a boat hook. There were two levels to the dock, a floating section, where the launch was now tied up that allowed passengers to step easily out of their small boats, and an upper portion that ran inland and rose several arshins out of the sea on pilings. Bethany and the sailors mounted the soggy rope-and-board stairs leading upward and as they emerged onto the higher deck a brass band struck up. They played some old march, badly, but the sailors were enthused. An old man in a morning suit stepped in front of them as they filed down the pier and quieted the band.

“Gentleman!” he began, “welcome to Holman Quay. I am Royce Fennig, Colony Commissioner of this island and mayor of the city and county of Holman Quay. We thank you for your service to the Assembly and to us especially in coming to these waters to root out the Bexarian menace and beg you to enjoy your time in our reposeful ocean village! To think in peace men pay 3000 ritters to holiday here and you come for free, courtesy of our grand navy!”

Fennig lead them a short distance, bounding ahead like a much younger man. When he stopped it was in front of a squat, open railway carriage that rode on a very narrow gauge track laid onto the pier. Several more were in front of it and at the head was a small, scarlet-painted saddle-tank locomotive, belching coal smoke.

“This is our famous boat train! The quickest way to town! Normally she’s a ritter a ride but for you lads, free!”

The sailors packed themselves into the nearest carriage. Bethany moved down the train, keen to sit alone. Her progress was halted by the cry of her name. She looked for the source and found Clotilde stepping off the forward-most carriage and darting toward her.

“I came down here to welcome you but I was certain you were on the next boat! I meant to meet you at the water.”

“Came down? Were you already in the town?”

“Of course, of course, father sailed the first launch in himself to secure a place at the hotel, Letitia is desperate to spend a few nights on land.”

The train’s conductor - Bethany was surprised the tiny thing warranted one - blew his whistle. “We had better get on,” Clotilde advised. They did, climbing aboard the forward carriage. The train moved off with a shudder, clacking down tracks rusted by salt air. It turned right, away from the town, at the end of the pier so as to work its way upward slowly, using switchbacks to ascend the cliffs. Ash blew back down the open carriages from the hardworking locomotive and Bethany coughed.

“The sailors were right to sit back there,” she observed.

“I’m not sure they gave it that much thought,” Clotilde replied.

Bethany shrugged, taking off her straw hat as the wind of the moving train threatened to blow it into the sea, “what were you planning to do here? I know the men mean to get drunk and dispose of their prize money as quick as they can but what of your family?”

“Father wants to go over to the Naval depot and purchase provisions. The train goes there, over and around the volcano, in fact, I thought perhaps that would be interesting, if he would let me go with him. Otherwise I suppose we will sit about the hotel.”

“I should like to finish your portrait. I didn’t expect to see you again here, but I can send for the paints on another launch.”

Clotilde had to shout a little to be heard as the locomotive stopped, entered a switch, and began to reverse uphill, “why did you think that? Of course you were going to see me.”

“I was told I could not go aboard Tess, something your father instructed. I did not see why the same separation would not apply on land.”

“Oh, that’s only Letitia. As long as we keep out of her sight there’s naught she can do.”

After switchbacking once more the boat train trundled into the station at Holman Quay. It stood near the cliff-edge, separated from the rest of the town by a muddy main road lined with the Quay’s principal businesses. The taverns were not open yet but small groups of sailors played cards at cafe tables standing on the weather-beaten duckboard sidewalks. A few young women stood idly on the balconies of small rooms above the darkened taverns. Bethany suspected she knew what they were though she did not have any idea how they had come to be there. Surely, nobody ended up on this island by accident and she could not imagine a woman going alone. Some fellow, a husband, a father, occasionally a brother, must have brought them and certainly not to do that work. Why they stayed after their reason for coming left them via death or faithlessness was another question. Was there nothing for them on the mainland? Was it a matter of means? Bethany supposed a passage so long would be very expensive indeed.

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The train’s brakes were set and Clotilde took the conductor’s hand as he helped her out of the carriage. Bethany followed and the pair moved across the platform until Clotilde stopped dead, staring across the street.

“Do you see there? My entire family out for a walk!” she gestured.

Bethany slunk back, “Should I take the long way out, then?”

Sighing, Clotilde replied, “I am sorry, but yes.”

Bethany turned, going around the far side of the station and waiting a while near the empty stationmaster’s room. When she saw Clotilde join her family, moving off down the street, she went into town. She spotted Threlfall sitting alone at one of the more modest cafes on the street. Unlike most of the sailors he was indoors, just behind a large window that faced the sea. Bethany stepped inside, a coal fire burned in a grate on the far wall, fighting the damp but overheating the room. Threlfall stood when he saw her and circled his table to pull out a chair.

“I didn’t know you were coming ashore. I would have waited for you,” he apologized.

Bethany sat, “I wasn’t planning to but when it struck me that I would be the only living soul aboard either ship if I stayed I found a place in a launch.”

“Would you like coffee? I warn you the proprietor will take an age to bring it.”

“Why not. Unless you have somewhere to be,” Bethany replied.

Threlfall raised his hand and ordered. That done he regarded Bethany, “you look well.”

Bethany cocked her head, “have I looked unwell?”

Threlfall winced, “no, but I was worried you would after the mess that was taking Dux. I know when I sent for you I likely showed you something terrible.”

“You mean you do not know what you showed me?”

“No. One can send ideas, notions of a thing, not pictures. What did you see?”

“You and the others but not on Dux, rather, somewhere from my memory.”

“That makes sense,” Threlfall nodded, “you know what we look like but you did not know the setting, you had to fill one in.”

“What I ‘filled in’ was fairly horrible, was it meant to be?”

“Perhaps,” Threlfall paused, sipping his coffee, “perhaps, the true setting was not so awful, merely the central hall of the liner, but given the nature of the message, the dark consequences, it follows.”

They talked on as the boat train dumped still more sailors into the street.

“Ninety men died building this line. Prisoners, most of them. Only about a verst was done with pick and shovel, the rest was blasting powder,” Florian Luft stated, sweeping his arm across the vista out the carriage window. Clotilde sat beside him with Bethany facing them. Mr. Luft was making his way to the Naval Depot and had assented to bringing Clotilde who had in turn convinced him to allow Bethany to come along. Letitia’s prohibition on her presence had been avoided by telling her nothing of it. The women would not be going the whole journey but disembarking at some scenic halt at the highest point on the line. Their train had switchbacked several times and was now winding its way up the escarpment of the dead volcano that lay at the center of the island.

“It was impossible to tunnel through, Mr. Fennig told me they would have risked collapsing the entire mountain, for it is shot through with chambers made by the molten rock,” Luft went on.

“Why build it all?” Clotilde inquired.

“To enable exactly what I am doing now, of course,” Luft replied.

“Couldn’t one just go around the island?”

“One could, but not with a train, the cliffs are narrow and unstable.”

“What about the boat train, Mr. Luft, doesn’t it do just that?” Bethany asked.

Luft fell into serious thought, answering after a good while, “it does indeed. Likely it is possible for only a short distance. Heaven knows they would not have toiled to build this line if there was an easier way. Besides, in a war, were the island to be attacked, an inland route is more secure against bombardment.”

Clotilde looked up, “Might the island be attacked?”

“Anything might happen, dear, but there is little risk of it in my view at least. The Bexarians bypassed it when they gobbled up our coaling stations even though it is closer to their territory than Kjell. It helps, I suspect, that the depot is not a coaling station - it was not deemed necessary, since the distance from Kjell to the northeast and Serrat to the south is not so great, at least under steam. It would take far longer in Tess which is why I am glad indeed we are provisioning here.”

“Letitia certainly relishes the dry land,” Clotilde put in.

“And you do not? You sit up seasick most nights!” Luft retorted.

Clotilde blushed deeply and her father went on, “I should not have said that in front of a guest, though you need not pick at my wife in that way.”

“Do you still mean to go after the trawler, Mr. Luft?” Bethany asked.

“Certainly, without any doubt. This is something of secret but I shall tell it for by the time you return to town I will have made it known: I am not only purchasing mundane supplies at the depot but also two new deck guns, late of the Schnabel, a Bexarian raider that was brought here and scrapped a few weeks ago. They are good quality, Bexarian made but alike enough to our own, they are approximately 37 lines, more powerful than that mounted by Fletch, though...” he nodded deferentially to Bethany, “considerably shorter ranged.”

“So that is where the prize money is going,” Clotilde observed.

“Only a fraction of it, dear, most of the family’s portion is going to be held by the bank here for dispatch on the next packet to my regular banker on the mainland. You’ve met him I think, he’s called Honeycutt.”

The train lurched and began to slow, hooting its whistle once. Bethany heard footsteps coming down the narrow corridor and soon the conductor was rapping on their compartment door.

“There’s two in here for the Promontory Halt, correct?”

“What’s that?” Florian asked after the ladies sat silent for too long.

“The scenic site, sir, only stop left other than the Depot. Unless I’m mistaken I collected two tickets to that point from this compartment when we set off.”

“Oh, yes, we are going there,” Bethany informed him.

“Very good. If you’ll come with me then.”

Clotilde and Bethany rose and followed the conductor. After dithering a moment Mr. Luft decided to escort them and trailed behind in the narrow corridor. The train was three carriages long and they were in the first, the conductor led them through several vestibules to the end of the last carriage, arriving just as the train came to a stop.

“It’s a very short platform so we’ve got to use the last car, we could use a bit of any car I suppose but the book calls for the last,” the conductor explained, seeing his passengers did not appreciate the purpose behind the rather unnerving walk down the narrow, shuddering train. The conductor opened the teak door of the aft vestibule, letting in a draft of brisk, sooty air. Bethany and the Lufts peered at a very small platform built of now rotten wood, graced by a single hut with a tattered orange flag flying on a pole at its roof. Beyond the halt was a plateau in the shadow of the volcano, its surface alternating between patches of slick, dark rock and dewy grass.

“If you’d like to accompany me to the depot that would be alright,” Florian Luft offered.

Bethany seemed ready to step from the carriage but Clotilde hesitated, looking suspiciously at the landscape.

She looked up at the conductor, “the volcano is dead, isn’t it?”

“Quite dead,” he assured.

“There’s nothing to worry about, shall we go?” Bethany urged.

Clotilde looked at her blankly for a moment, then, with a nervous smile, followed Bethany off the carriage. As he drew the carriage door shut, the conductor stated: “so long as that flag is up the next train bound for town will stop, if the flag is down it will go on by.”

“We understand, thank you,” Bethany replied. Mr. Luft waved as the train began to move away, beginning its descent toward the depot.

“It’s terribly cold out here. Isn’t this the south?” Clotilde complained.

“I don’t think it quite works that way, we’re nearer the pole than we are the equator.”

“Oh, so it may well snow if we keep going south.”

“It might, though it is the spring down here if I recall correctly, the seasons invert, it was autumn when we left and so, when we crossed the equator it became spring.”

“How queer, being a sailor all one’s life must be very dislocating, one could never really get acclimated.”