Shades of Glory
Shades of Glory
It was time.
And the captain's hands shook. They shook at the sight, and in sure knowlege of the task set before him. He clasped his hands tightly, professionally, in the small of his back; the movement stilled their tremor, though could not stem the rising tide of his emotion.
He stood anchored to this spot in the damp, biting winter air as she furled her sails one last time. As he watched, his face remained successfully impassive, though the sight forced unwelcome tears to his eyes. Had anyone been at his side and dared remark upon it, he would have gruffly attributed them to no more than the wind.....though he would have known his words to be a damned lie.
For she had served well, and boldly. Never shirking, never conscious of her own peril. She had suffered the severest of blows, and still she fought on. She had sheltered her own, and dealt death and destruction to her country's foes.
And he had fought with her. Within her. Trusting her, and defending her. He was hers, and she, in some small way, was his. She had never truly left him; she lived in his memory, always a part of the man he was.
He had known of her coming, and he alone stood to greet her. Too worn, judged too damaged to stand in battle again, there would be no more glory for her; she was to endure the rest of her days in drudgery until she was too decayed for even that.
Brave Temeraire...a prison ship, with her own soaring soul imprisoned. She would never again rule wind and waves; she would lie here at anchor, battered and powerless, subject to their mercy, with her glory now shrouded by the stench of the filth she contained.
And it grieved him. He had seen ships end their days before, but the pain of her fate cut close to his heart, though he could not have explained it. He watched as her small crew clambered down the steep sides, filling her boats with His Majesty's brave men...for the last time. All had departed, leaving her deserted, derelict. Forsaken.
He imagined rats leaving a sinking ship, and his heart was full, and he was glad he was alone.
At length, the click of shoes on the cobbles roused him from his thoughts; a young lieutenant approached him, halting at a respectful distance. "Captain Bush, sir?"
So it was time. He did not speak, for he dared not. He nodded once, sharply, and made his way to the nearby gig, settling himself in the sternsheets without a word. The lieutenant took the oars himself and they set out, the man's stroke strong and regular. A proper seaman, this one, he thought, and was pleased that it should be so. She deserved no less, this last time.
He looked down at his hand as it rested on his sword hilt, and was dismayed to see his fingers twitch with shameful agitation. He clenched them tightly until the knuckles were ivory-white, almost bloodless. Fear had always been a stranger, and this wavering unnerved him. But it was mutiny, surely, that he contemplated. Uncharacteristic, of course, and not seemly for a captain.....though he and mutinous thoughts were not, after all, wholly unfamiliar.
He sat silently, still and remote, his face shuttered and distant, inviting neither conversation nor close scrutiny. As Temeraire's bluff side loomed before them, the lieutenant at last ventured to speak, misery plain on his face. "Sir? Will you require..."
The man's expression was sufficient for him to deduce the remainder of the question. He had been asked it often enough of late. "No", he snapped harshly. Damned if he'd board this ship--this ship, this time, more than any other--ignominiously dangling in a bosun's chair. He rebuffed the man's outstretched hand and silent offer of assistance. He needed little, and would accept even less.
He climbed the ship's familiar side steadily enough, ignoring the lieutenant dutifully following close behind, and emerged through the entry port to silence. He had believed himself prepared, but still it shocked him, and tied a tight reef-knot of despair in his gut. Perhaps no one could prepare for a transformation such as this, from deadly fighting creature to crippled, impotent hulk.
He had never been a fanciful man, yet ships had always seemed to him as live things; a sense he had neither contemplated nor questioned, and he ached to find his saucy girl reduced to this...a toothless, faded crone. Aghast, he moved past the lieutenant, leaving him adrift in his wake, and the man wisely made no attempt to follow. He made his way down the companion ladder, descending through the unsettling stillness, allowing memory to guide him. Some things could never be forgotten.
He walked the dim and shadowed gundeck, his step hollow....loud and unnatural, wood upon wood. Empty ports gaped, eyeless, her great guns now gone. Silenced, or sent to serve on other ships. He had never seen her like this, and was suddenly ashamed of her nakedness.
The emptiness mocked him, filled only with the memory of wood and iron. Defiance, Viper, Revenge....and there, at starb'd four....Jumping Billy, aptly named; he could see the deep scars where, as the cannon had grown red-hot, it had leapt and jammed against the overhead beam. No amount of frantic effort could work it free; only in battle's aftermath had it eventually been chiseled loose. There had been no time that day; it was then that the call for boarding had come, and those still able had rushed up the ladders, eyes wild in powder-blackened faces, weapons in hands past fatigue but fueled by battle's fury. All fighting-mad, bent on slaughter...and they had not even yet known the full cost of Redoutable's defiance.
And now she was but a husk. Her might had been stripped from her, and she would never be the same. Never again would she feel the raw power as it resounded through her frame; never again could she stand in bold defiance and feel the exhilaration of victory hard won by one's own strength. There was little sense to her existence, now, as all that had defined her was missing, and the very thought wounded him, cutting deeply to the bone. He felt suddenly weak, bereft, and his hand sought the solidity of her scarred timber; even as it steadied him he staggered, overwhelmed by the flood of memory.
They were there: he could see them. And his ears were filled with shouts and thunder as the great guns spoke as one. Bitter smoke flooded through the open gunports, and hung heavy in the air; he could taste it, and powder grains stung his lips. He was moving, shouting. Shouting to be heard as the guns lurched backwards, leaping like live things, straining at their tackles. Shouting above the constant, oppressive concussion within as hot iron battered Temeraire's timbers on either beam, point-blank and deadly. His voice felt hoarse, ragged, and his throat burned like fire. He tried again. "Reload!! Reload, damn you!!"
Harris, working the larb'd battery, did not turn, and he cuffed the man sharply. "Reload", he roared, full in the man's glazed eyes...or thought he did, as he could only feel his parched throat respond. The din was unimaginable, the thunder of rippling broadsides and squealing trucks on gundecks above and below; the gun captain must have heard, or guessed, and turned back, urging his men, driving them on like beasts pushed beyond endurance.
He turned to his own station, squinting through the choking smoke and hail of splinters: his men were but vague shapes as they moved purposefully through it. The deck felt strange, uneven beneath his feet; he looked down to find his shoes awash in blood and flecked with raw, unidentifiable bits of humanity. Blood stained his stockings, and caked his trousers to the knees; cold awareness dawned for a moment, and he looked about him, his eyes tearing, stinging from the acrid smoke.
The smoke concealed much, but not enough. Men...pieces of men...were strewn everywhere, as if a butcher had lost his senses and painted a hideous scene in blood and flesh. Others worked their guns amid the horror, heedless of the stench and carnage, treading through the human wreckage; perhaps it was past all comprehension. Could that truly be tough, fearless Downs, legs crushed into a red smear beneath an overturned gun? Or the earnest Mr. Bledsoe, hours before scarcely more than a child, now scarcely more than bloodied rags, destined never to earn the commission he so cherished?
As he turned away, blue eyes caught his own, bright in the shadows. Meadows. Gun captain, larb'd 6, with the face of an angel, capable of cursing like the very devil himself. Now silent and slumped against a splintered guncarriage, hands vainly pressed to a sea of red, unable to contain the flood. He looked up, and nodded once and tried to smile, as if willing his lieutenant to understand. "It's all right, sir," he whispered faintly, and died.
"Oh, God..." he breathed, and closed his eyes against the rising nausea and horror. Just for a moment.
When he opened them again, all was silent. Silent, and clean, and empty. There were no guns, no men, no blood upon his single shoe. Nothing but memory and a lone captain standing stiffly, in full dress, and his eyes were dry.
But memory had power in this place, his own deck, his very station at Trafalgar. It sickened him to think that the echoing space once filled with smoke and thunder was soon to become a different sort of floating hell.
And he was to condemn her to it. It was his word that would pronounce her fit enough and set the dockyard to work, severing her proud, shining brass and gilt, marring her living lines with crude-cobbled wood. His word that would anchor her here until she had outlived even the least of her usefulness, here, in sight of land. And his word would fill her with the worst of men: those who had scorned and lost the freedom that better men had purchased with the currency of their blood.
His fingers traced the outline of the small packet concealed within his pocket. Flint and steel, char cloth and twist of oakum. It would be so simple to release her: consign her to the flames, and save her from her fate. He knew it was a thing he could do, regardless of the consequences. By his hand, she could end her days in blazing defiance, and not merely live them out crippled, unfit for the life she had always known and the one purpose for which she had been created.
"Like you." It seemed a woman's whisper, heard faintly in his heart.
He closed his eyes as the words twisted, cutting cruelly like a knife, white-hot and ice cold. Dear God. Yes, indeed, like him. Even she, his beloved Temeraire, knew the truth. They were alike, joined again in their suffering, and he might release them both.
In the next breath, he knew he would not. Could not. He thought of the men--his men--who had gone bravely before him, into battle, toward certain death or screaming agony. They had offered their lives willingly, without looking back, and had carried on to glory regardless of the cost. None had hidden from their duty, and none had run from it. He could nearly see them now, mere shades, insubstantial figures toiling in the smoke as they had been that day, giving all that was asked of them, and more.
They had done him proud. And he could do no less. He...and Temeraire.
These men had gone with eyes open to the last, never seeking quick release. Perhaps something of them was still here, still persevering, in the sure hope of victory to come. This place was their only shrine, their temple, and he could not cast it down. To do so would admit defeat, and make a mockery of hope: for them, for Temeraire, and for himself.
He placed his hand on her scarred timber once more, two oaken hearts in full accord. It was duty, nothing more....it must be done, if only for those brave men.
"Like you." Words, again not his own. Somehow....hers.
He heard hurried steps on the companionway, and looked up, his hand still resting on her frame, still drawing fom her strength.
"Captain Bush? Is all well, sir?" The lieutenant's face was full of concern and confusion. "For a moment I heard something, and I thought I...er.." he hesitated, realizing the absurdity of his words, but once committed, plunged on nonetheless. "I am sorry, sir...but I thought I smelled....powder."
Bush eyed him gravely. "Imagination, Lieutenant. Not altogether surprising, in a place such as this. But I am finished here. She..." He smiled gently, heartened, sustained with a new resolve. "She ....will serve."