The Guldur grapeshot had chewed most of the way through their mainmast on the Kestrel’s upper side. Melville had the carpenter’s mates pull away the spars and tightly wound rope that had been put in place to reinforce the mast around this damage. Then they chopped at the damaged section until their mainmast was completely severed. Now the severed butt-end of the mast was resting on the deck. The mast and topmast were still united at the cap and the trestle-trees, suspended by the shrouds. When the enemy saw this they assumed that the mainmast had finally broken and their elusive foe had turned to fight a weak, desperate delaying action. While her cutters, filled with much of the crew, tried to escape.
Both Ships slowed down for a boarding action, coming at each other head on.
The bow chaser in the Guldur’s lower section fired one shot, which went high and cut through the rigging.
* * *
Down in the lower gundeck, Mr. Barlet looked at the Guldur marksmanship with disgust. The curs loved to board and didn’t pay much attention to long-range gunnery. He yearned to get his hands on one of those huge guns. He would show them how to use it to its full potential.
The forwardmost 12-pounders, on the red- and green-sides, above and below, could be swung around as a bow chaser. Thus a total of four guns could be brought to bear toward the front. Now it was time for these guns to start paying the bastards back.
The bow chasers were all loaded with canister, which was like grapeshot but held together so that it didn’t spread as fast. The Guldur liked their gunnery close. “Go for the throat” was the curs’ motto. Their usual, preferred method of combat was one quick blast and then board the enemy, continuing to bang away with the guns while the boarding action was in progress. None of this dancing around and playing with long-range gunnery for them. It was just “wham-bam, thankee ma’am” for the curs.
It was a little surprising that they even took the one long shot. But the range of the Guldur guns, combined with the slow speed as the two Ships approached each other, would give the curs ample time to reload. Under ordinary circumstances.
The curs clearly planned to get one more shot with the bow chaser on their green-side below, at close range. Once they met bow-to-bow on the red-side, they’d have a point-blank shot with the two guns on the red-side below.
Usually the goal in a Ship-to-Ship battle like this was to damage the other guy, with minimal regard for the damage he does to you. In this case Melville had to do everything humanly possible to reduce the chance of taking a hit that might cut the circuit on Kestrel’s Keel. This meant that below the plain of Flatland, where the enemy had a bow chaser in position, they would use their guns to fire at the enemy’s guns.
Mr. Barlet hunched over the lower green-side bow chaser. The two lower bow chasers should each be able to fire three times before the huge Guldur gun was reloaded. He wanted to use every shot to put canister balls through the huge gun hatch before the Guldur could fire again.
Barlet was hunched over in the odd, contorted position of a “sniper.” The gun would recoil violently upon firing, so he had to stand to the side of the carriage. But he needed to look down the barrel to aim. That meant he must face the gun from the side, bend over, turn his head to the left, and rest his cheek on the gun barrel as he sighted down it. His left hand was above him, grasping a handhold in a support beam, while he shouted commands to the crew and used his right hand to signal fine adjustments.
Gunpowder didn’t work in two-space. Flatland operated by its own laws, its own logic. If you wanted to propel something from a pistol, rifle, or a cannon in two-space, it had to be from a muzzle-loader with a Keel charge set in its base.
When the gun was ready to fire Barlet lifted his cheek up off the gun barrel and touched the Keel charge which stuck out from the cannon’s end, like a nipple protruding from the end of a baby bottle. It always grew a layer of Lady Elbereth Moss, and it was somewhat sentient. When his hand touched the Keel charge it initiated the force, the energy that sent the cannonball flying. Touching the keel charge was almost like patting a dog. He “felt” the gun speak to him and he tried to “talk” back, telling it exactly where to fire.
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With the gun recoiled all the way back, all Barlet had to do was to stride forward, stepping over the taut restraining ropes, to the red-side where the other bow chaser waited. He leaned forward again and put his cheek against this gun, repeating the aiming and firing process. <
The green chaser’s crew of four gunners had their 12-pounder loaded and run back up to the gun port. Barlet ran around the back of it to assume his original position. The Ships were approaching each other rapidly, and now the range was better. Again he fired the green chaser. <
The enemy gun port was chewed into an irregular opening, and there was no movement to get their huge bow chaser back into position. This gun was silenced. The enemy bow chaser on the lower green-side had done no harm. Now, as they approached the Guldur Ship, the goal was to put the same kind of pressure on the guns on the enemy’s lower red-side. Those guns couldn’t bear on them yet, but as they approached bow-to-bow for boarding, they might be able to get off a shot.
Guns couldn’t fire through the plane of Flatland. What Mr. Barlet was doing on the lower gundeck had limited impact on the upper half of the Guldur Ship.
On the upper side they were moving into the enemy’s dead space. No enemy guns could hit them here, so the goal of the upper bow chasers was to kill as many of the enemy as possible, in support of the boarding operation. Like the guns below, these bow chasers had time to get off three shots each before the two ships met. They each fired one canister followed by two of grape. Each shot sent another twelve pounds of half-inch balls sweeping through the enemy rigging.
A veritable sleet of shot swept the enemy’s masts and rigging, killing swarms of the Goblan “ticks.” These “allies” were actually more like vassals or slaves. They lived and worked high up in the Guldur Ships where the “curs” didn’t like to go. Clearing the Goblan out of the enemy’s upper rigging helped clear the way for Hans, Valandil, and the sailors who would “take the high ground” and sweep down on the enemy’s upper quarterdeck.
A hail of shot rattled the enemy rigging, and a rain of black Goblan came down. Like decayed fruit falling from a dying tree, they landed with a wet, crunching “thud!” on the deck, or they fell into the sea. Into Flatland. Those who hit Flatland bounced through once, bobbed partially back out again, and then disappeared into the vacuum of interstellar space.
The battle wasn’t all one-sided. The Guldur in the bow of the upper and lower sides fired volley after volley of muskets at the approaching Westerness Ship. The Goblan in the rigging were savaged by the Kestrel’s cannon fire, but they too sent down a hail of musket balls directed at the marines who were visible and exposed as they crouched in the upper and lower bows.
The marines’ job was to draw the enemy’s attention away from the hidden boarding party waiting behind them . . . and to stay alive. So most of them weren’t invested in exposing themselves to return fire. They simply crouched behind the railing, praying or swearing, as was their individual inclination.