Once shattered, the heavy bracing which secured the ram acted like so many pile drivers hammering the thin planks of the hull. The Malwa ship opened up like a hideous flower, spilling men and blood into the sea.
The gruesome sight fell behind. The second Malwa galley came up, also to port. Not enough time had elapsed for the gunners to have reloaded, so Wahsi simply sailed on. A few seconds later, Antonina heard the guns of the next ship. Then, the third; and then, the fourth.
She did not turn her head to watch the results. There was no need. Not when she had Ousanas’ and Wahsi’s cheerful faces to serve as her mirror.
“More food for the fish,” Wahsi pronounced. He turned his eyes back to the front. Beyond the bow, he could see the five great cargo ships, less than a mile away.
“Soon, now.” He pointed. “Look. They’ve already set up their rockets.”
As if his pointing finger had been a signal, a volley of rockets soared away from one of the Malwa vessels. Of the six missiles, five skittered half-aimlessly before they plunged into the sea. But one of the rockets held a straight course until it, too, plowed harmlessly into a wave two hundred yards distant.
Antonina was not relieved by the distance of the miss. This first volley had been a mistake, undoubtedly ordered by a nervous and rattled captain. The range was still too great for rockets to have any real hope of success. But the steadiness with which that one rocket had held its course could only mean one thing.
They’ve fitted them with real venturi. Some of the rockets, anyway. Just as Belisarius predicted.
She took a breath. “I think—”
Wahsi was already shouting the orders. A moment later, the Ethiopian crew was swarming over the ship, erecting the new rocket shields. Each Axumite ship was carrying almost two hundred soldiers. Most of those men, under normal conditions, would have been busy at the oars. But with the ships under sail, they were free for other work. The shields were erected within minutes.
As she watched, Antonina gave herself a silent reproof. Wahsi’s determination to fight under sail, she now realized, had not been the decision of a truculent male eager to show his mettle. The commander had foreseen the necessity to erect the shields quickly.
She glanced at Ousanas. The aqabe tsentsen, once again, was grinning at her. She grinned back, accepting the jeer in good humor.
I, too, when it comes to this, am nothing but an amateur. Let the professionals handle it.
She turned her eyes to the shields. Her own professional pride surfaced. She might not know anything about ships, but she did know gunpowder warfare. Better than anyone in the world, she thought. John of Rhodes might have a superior grasp of the theory, but not the practice.
Except my husband. After all these months fighting the Rajputs in Persia, I’m sure he’s better than I am.
The thought combined pride and worry. Antonina had no idea if Belisarius was still alive. By now, he should have gotten the message she had sent him, telling Belisarius when she would leave Adulis for their rendezvous at Charax. That message would have been taken by fast horses to the nearest semaphore station, at Aila. From there, flashing up and down the line of semaphore stations which she and Belisarius had constructed the year before, the message would have reached Ctesiphon within a day. Persian couriers would carry it to Belisarius’ army in the nearby Zagros, again using the fastest horses available.
But there had been no way for a message to be returned. Belisarius had told Antonina, once, of the almost-magical communication devices of future centuries. “Radio,” one was called. Such devices were far beyond the technological capability of her time—and would be, even with Aide to guide them, for decades to come.
She sighed unhappily. To shake off her anxiety concerning Belisarius, she resumed her study of the shields.
Antonina had designed the shields herself, before she left Constantinople the year before. Not, of course, without advice from Belisarius—and plenty of help, when the time came to translate theory into practice, from the Syrians of her Theodoran Cohort. The gunners and their wives, being borderers born and bred, were excellent blacksmiths, carpenters and tanners. And whatever they couldn’t handle had been done by the Ethiopian artisans and craftsmen whom King Eon had put at her disposal in Adulis.