Britannia's Wolf: The Dawlish Chronicles: September 1877 - February 1878 by Antoine Vanner

Author:Antoine Vanner [Vanner, Antoine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Old Salt Press
Published: 2013-11-10T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The breeze was westerly, moderate but cold, piling clouds before it towards the rocky coast. The moon and stars were blotted out, making accurate position fixes impossible for the four ships steaming slowly northwards in line ahead towards Gelendzhik, the Mesrutiyet leading and only the dimmest of navigation lights visible to her consorts astern. They rolled gently in the four-foot waves coming in on their flanks. On each darkened ship the crew was at battle stations.

Dawlish held his watch to the Mesrutiyet’s dim binnacle light. Five sixteen. By seven the mountains still invisible to starboard would be silhouetted by dawn and as the sky brightened his squadron would come sweeping shorewards from the still-dark sea. His rounds of the vessel were complete. Throughout the ship furniture and fittings had been broken down and stowed away, fire-mains were under pressure and watertight doors were clipped closed. The men had eaten at their stations. Far below the engines were panting smoothly. Inside the battery the twelve-inch cannons were charged and loaded, their crews standing to. It only remained to open the thick iron shutters blocking the ports and the great weapons could run out for action.

The Alemdar was an indistinct and blacker mass against darkness aft. Hassan had done well to get his ironclad to the rendezvous in time, and the gunnery exercise he had conducted while underway had gone well.

Shrouded by darkness, the Glukhar, the Russian prize, followed the Alemdar. Her new commander Fatih had been left with no doubts as to the dangers ahead and for once Dawlish did not find his response of “Ins’Allah” infuriating. A fatalistic outlook was perhaps desirable for any man faced with the task with which the young officer had been entrusted. Soon now Fatih would have the Glukhar’s frightened Russian captain brought to the bridge, and would hold a revolver to his temple.

The Burak Reis was last in line, though invisible to Dawlish. Knowing Onursal well by now, he was confident he could rely on him to be battering ahead in his shallow-draught, uncomfortable yet deadly gunboat. Even-fatter prey than at Poti lay ahead for her deadly Krupp breech-loaders.

Dawlish paced from one bridge-wing to the other, conscious of the tenseness in the open-backed wheelhouse as he passed. He tried to force away the persistent memory of Miss Morton. He wondered how she spent her days in Istanbul, an unwelcome guest of her mistress’s brother Oswald. Lady Agatha, however well-meaning, would be absorbed in her own scholarly researches and innocently oblivious of any boorish slights he might inflict on the proud girl. She would be accompanying Lady Agatha to receptions at the Embassy and elsewhere, facing more nights of cold ostracism and stoic endurance as on that night at Hobart’s soiree. There had been unconscious cruelty in Lady Agatha’s decision to make a companion of her maid, however clever, and to expose her to a world that would never forget her origins, and to pleasures she could only share on sufferance. And if she

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