Lombardo was almost kind to Hethor during this time, perhaps out of respect for Hethor's unexpected skills at navigation, for all that their application was in abeyance
now. The men of the deck division finally took Hethor in as their own, passing him off a few times to the ropes division to test his head for heights. After the navigator's rest, the shrouds and ratlines held no fear for Hethor, though he took little joy in them, either.
He never saw Malgus during the crossing, save once or twice on the poop, the navigator conferring with his brother officers. De Troyes would not speak to Hethor when their paths crossed.
There was a muster for the funeral of the two sailors from the gas division, over which Captain Smallwood presided. Almost the entire ship's company stood in the waist, as they had the day Hethor was lashed. The memory made his spine shiver and the skin of his back prickle with an echo of pain. The captain did not consult Holy Writ during his homily.
“The Tetragrammaton in His infinite wisdom hung the lamp of the sun amid our sky to light Earth's way around her orbital track.” Smallwood's measured cadences were as grand as any New England deacon's, his voice booming across the sharp wind that whistled and groaned among the shrouds.
“So He has caused human affairs to be ordered, with Her Imperial Majesty Queen Victoria the lamp amid England's sky, her wisdom lighting all our ways. We of the Royal Navy struggle at the edge of darkness, that England might sleep secure. Always, the Chinese is our enemy. As we defeated first the Spanish, then the French, then the Turk, and even the Iroquois, so shall we best the Middle Kingdom.
“But there are other struggles for England, against capricious Nature and dread disease and vile savages dwelling in the wilderness. Seaman Abehr and Seaman Rountree both gave their lives in that struggle. That they were not bested by Chinese shot robs them of no glory. That they died quietly, as men asleep when the air grew foul, robs them of no valor.
“No, we commend them as heroes to the good English
spirit, light bearers of civilization. For this moment, Abehr and Rountree are the lamps of our life here on Her Imperial Majesty's Ship
Bassett.
Let their shining example guide our lives. And so we pray, as Jesus taught us ⦔
“Our Father, who art in Heaven
“Craftsman be thy name
“Thy Kingdom come
“Thy plan be done
“On Earth as it is in Heaven
“Forgive us this day our errors
“As we forgive those who err against us
“Lead us not into imperfection
“And deliver us from chaos
“For thine is the power, and the precision
“For ever and ever, amen.”
The rumble of the sailors' voices died with the last of the prayer. Hethor sketched the sign of the horofix across his chest. A young man with curly hair played a song upon a horn, a tune that Hethor didn't recognize. Wrapped in canvas that must have come from repair stores for the gasbag, the two bodies went overboard. Hethor imagined them tumbling like autumn leaves through the high winds, swirling to the ocean far below.
Smallwood called them to attention once more. “Though it is perhaps premature to speak of this, I shall say a few words about
Bassett
's purpose on this voyage.”
The silence that followed was strained, to the point where Hethor could almost hear ears crinkling as they stretched to capture the captain's next words.
“The Bible tells us that King Solomon built forts and mines along the Equatorial Wall,” Smallwood said. “Therefore we know this to be true. History tells us that the Roman emperors set garrisons there, to send back beasts for the games, and to see what might be found. Even the Knights Templar were said to have a chapter house on the Wall during their days of power.
“Her Imperial Majesty's government has decided that
England will assert her rightful place in the powers of the Wall, to the glory of our queen and the confounding of our enemies.”
The sailors cheered then, tossing hats and stamping on the deck. Smallwood held up a hand.
“We are dispatched to render aid to an expeditionary force under General Gordon, who requires aerial assistance.
Bassett
will earn a place in history in these coming months. Every man of you will make your name with her.”
The cheering erupted again, nearly a riot this time. Smallwood nodded and went belowdecks. While the sailors danced and chanted, Hethor went back to his scraping.
SIXTEEN DAYS
out of Georgetown they reached Praia in the Cape Verde Islands. The town was on the southeast shore of an island perhaps twenty miles wide. Tree stumps and mudslides seemed to be the main features of the place, though the water was pretty enough. Praia was a miserable little town, what Hethor could see of it. Shanties spread out from the dilapidated waterfront. There was a small fleet of fishing boats, and one honest warship flying the Union Jack. A few pale stone buildings rose above the wooden shanties, their red tile roofs patched, whitewashed walls blotchy and faded. There was nothing of the festival air of Georgetown, or even the welcoming faces looking up as at Hamilton.
Here the captain gave no shore leave. After exchanging flag signals with the ship at anchor,
Bassett
made a quick stop at the port's lone, rickety airship mast to take on more fuel for the engines. Smallwood promptly cast off again, beating south and east for Conakry and the Guinea Coast.
Ten days further sailing, Conakry was little better. The port itself was at the end of a narrow peninsula warded by a pair of sickle-shaped islands that could have been lifted from the Bahamas. The land beyond alternated between a dustier version of the Guyanan shore and dreary swamp.
No liberty was granted there, either. Even with his ship-fever at being aboard too long, Hethor was almost glad. Where Georgetown had been a vibrant city of colors and life, Conakry looked to have been felled by a recent war, to the point even of fires burning and dust clouds rising along the peninsula. There had been three airship masts, all now toppled into the shallow water, so
Bassett
went through the longer and slower process of dropping drag lines and being warped much closer to the ground than would ordinarily have been deemed prudent while on deployment.
Smallwood went down with certain of his officers, including Malgus, while Hethor idled with some sailors from both the deck and ropes divisions. Threadgill al-Wazir led the detail.
“Have the Chinese been here?” asked Hethor.
Al-Wazir laughed. “And they'd be letting us tie up then, and send the captain ashore for confabulation? No, if the Chinee were here they'd have met us with flaming hell and hot rockets, you can be fewkin' sure. I'd wager another of these quakes yon ground has been stricken with.” He beamed at the dozen or so sailors standing at the rail. “There's times I can easily recall that life in the air is the bloody finest life of all.”
“Life's not so easy now.” Hethor looked down at Conakry and wondered about his native New Haven. Had the earthquakes rung the church bells there? Or were things worse?
“I'm no a-liking bein' this close down,” grumbled another sailor, a thin Jerseyman most of them called Dairy. “Herself the ship's an albatross waddling along the shore.”
“Aye, and if the Chinee approaches,” said al-Wazir, “we'll just brandish you lot and they'll flee in terror of your ugly mugs.”
Conakry was able to provide fuel and seawater ballast, though with all the damage to the port, the ship's work parties had to go down and pump by hand to supplement the electrick pumps aboard
Bassett.
Hethor was glad
enough not to draw that duty. He found himself afraid of the African coast, and doubly glad when
Bassett
cast off and made air once more.
THE AIRSHIP
cut south and east along the Guinea Coast, angling toward the Equatorial Wall. This was dangerous, Hethor knew from deck gossip, straying away from a base with no relief ahead of them. Airships were not like naval vessels, which went where they pleased, and could take on supplies or find repairs in any port. Or in need, any empty harbor. The industry required to supply oil and hydrogen was substantial. Far more than any airship could carry on its own.
Sailors were a superstitious lot, but the awe of being near the Wall seemed to outweigh even the concern at leaving a friendly port too far behind.
Every day the massive bulk became more and more visible, until Hethor could see the cloud banks towering against the Wall, stretching so high he must crane his neck to look. It was like studying a map through a clearing fogâhis view grew ever more sharp, revealing features such as great cliffs and ledges, which in turn grew to forests and meadows, and tumbling waterfalls that had to be wider than cities to be visible from this distance.
There was an eerie quiet to the Wall, so unlike the forests and fields of New England or the tropical chaos of Guyana and Guinea. Hethor felt he was staring through a philosopher's glass. Or perhaps overlooking some magnificent daguerreotype tall as the horizon.
Silent or not, he could smell the Wall: soil and trees and the pure scent of life, buoyed by water and sunlight.
Hethor found the same sense of being pulled that he'd encountered atop the gasbag. It seemed as though the Wall were a magnet, and he were made of metal. He felt as if he could simply leap from
Bassett
's decks and sail over Africa like a frigate bird to meet the rising country God had laid before him.
Sunlight made the air far up on the Wall sparkle even well into the night. Dawn, when it came, was preceded by harbingers in the form of sky-high spears of gold and grayâlight, of course, striking the Wall from far to the east where the sun still hid her face from Earth's rotation. Storms moved at night across the great face, lightning playing like sparklers set for Guy Fawkes Day in a blue celebration writ large across the vertical miles.
Every air sailor knew that the higher a ship went, the less strong the air became. The very atmosphere grew weak upon departing farther from Earth's embrace. Eventually it grew thin and bad, so that men sickened or died. Whole ships could be lost.
How then, Hethor wondered, did there come to be air so high up on the Wall, air thick enough to brew storms and build forests? He asked al-Wazir, who continued to show him far more kindness than Lombardo ever bothered to.
“Well, and that's a good question, friend,” al-Wazir burred in his Scottish accent. “It must be because the good Lord God made it so. Surely if He can hang the lamp of the sun with nae more than the heavens themselves for a hook, He can make air stick to His Wall. Think on this, that air up there is still close to the ground. 'Tis just different fewkin' ground.”
“Different ground ain't in it,” said Dairy, who was listening nearby. “There's cities made of jools up there, boyo, and giant iron men that stride the lands like locomotives, their steam hearts shrieking loud as any Mick's banshee bastards.”
“Dairy.” Al-Wazir's voice was a warning. “They's just tales, and more than twice-told, so less than the voice of rumor.”
“Captain Smallwood said the Romans were here,” Hethor blurted. “Couldn't there be cities?”
“Of course.” Al-Wazir sounded surprised. “Roman cities, and African cities with sorcerers from beyond the Wall. Even cities full of bloody monkeys. It's just there ain't no cities of jewels, if you take my meaning. For how
could such a thing be possible? Where would you mine a diamond big enough to make a house from?”
In the face of the Wall, all things seemed possible. “If cities of monkeys, why not diamonds the size of houses?”
“Apes,” muttered Dairy. “They's apes. They hates to be called monkeys. One of them served on the old
Firepot
, afore she lived down to her name over Corunna and kilt all them Spaniards in that great huge exploding.”
“Ain't never been no fewkin' apes on any ship of Her Imperial Majesty's navy,” al-Wazir said with a grin, “excepting you bloody deck apes. Though I daresay I'd rather have half a dozen rain-forest silverbacks than you lot. I expect they'd work harder and give less sass.”
“Have you been to the Wall before?” asked Hethor.
“No, but my da went oncet.” Al-Wazir sighed. “He was a wet sailor, for the old Guinea and Atlantic Company's slaving fleet. On
Goodness and Mercy
it was, one them scut-lined three-deck haulers with a square bottom and that widowmaker keel they built out of Clyde in the midcentury. Sister ship she was to
Shirley
and
Day Follower
.
“This was their spring run in, I think, the year of sixty-seven. First mate took a fancy to see what they could find on the Wall, something new that would sell well in Kingston, or even London. Da spoke up just for the chance to go. Captain was a damned sorry-eyed drunk, to hear Da tell it, and waved them off with a smile and a belch. They took a little sloop-rigged boat and sailed south across the Bight of Benin until they struck shoreline at the foot of the Wall.