Against the Tide of Years (54 page)

Cofflin and Alston looked at each other and shared a dry chuckle. Leaton grinned and patted the air with his hands, acknowledging the hit. He was notorious all over the Republic for his readiness to shove technical detail into the ear of anyone who’d listen.

“All right, not to get
too
technical, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to fabricate. Here.” He pulled a black cylinder out of the drawer. “Told you about this, didn’t I, Marian?”

“Mmmm-hmmm.” She turned it over in her fingers, a black tube with a thin hole down the center. “Compressed gunpowder,” she said to Jared.

“What’s the point?” Jared asked. “I’d think that would make it harder to fill the shell, since it’s bottlenecked.”

“It’s the shape,” Marian explained. “Ordinary black powder blows up as the grains burn from the outside in. This burns from the inside out, faster and faster ’till it’s all gone.”

Leaton nodded enthusiastically. “Nineteen hundred feet per second, as opposed to fourteen hundred for the old Westley-Richards,” he said. “By the way, I’m working on a Gatling gun using the same cartridge—very promising.”

“Nice work, Ron,” Cofflin said.

“Stole the idea for the compressed powder: Lee-Metford, 1888. Metford rifling, too.”

“You did the research.”

They followed the engineer out into the shop, and then into one of the long timber bays. A stocky woman in a leather apron studded with pockets and loops for tools looked up and smiled greeting to Leaton, nodded to the Chief and Alston.

“Got ’em right here,” she said, handing a rifle to Cofflin and another to the commodore. “First batch—all the collywobbles out, as far as we can tell.”

“Interesting,” Cofflin said, turning the weapon over in his hands. Most of it looked like the Westley-Richards, but instead of a side-mounted hammer there was a small rounded lever protruding from a curved slot on the right. Flush with the upper side of the weapon was a rectangular steel block that had a milled groove in the top and pivoted in a steel box set into the wood of the stock.

“Single-shot?” he said. Leaton nodded. “Why not a magazine gun?”

Marian replied for him. “KISS principle,” she said.
Keep It Simple, Stupid;
the Republic had learned that early on. “This has got . . . how many?”

“Twelve moving parts,” Leaton said. “See the screw at the back?”

“Ayup,” Cofflin said.

“Undo that, and then you can strip it down for cleaning and repair by hand, like this”—he demonstrated—“no tools required. A blacksmith who’s a good hand with a metal file could repair any of the parts, or duplicate them at need.”

The engineer snapped the weapon back together again. “Here’s how it works. You push down on the grooved block like this for the first round.”

Cofflin obeyed; there was a soft, yielding resistance and a slight
click.
The block pivoted down from a pin at the rear, and now it made a ramp that led straight into the chamber.

“Slide a round into the breech.” Cofflin pushed it down with his thumb. “Now put your right hand on the stock and pull the little lever back and down. That’s half-cock—the weapon’s on safety now. Pull it back all the way, and when you hear the next click it’s ready to fire.”

Cofflin took the rifle over to the waist-high bench that separated the workroom from the firing range. It was about a hundred yards long, with thick timber to either side and a wall of sandbags at the end to hold the man-shaped target. Nantucket’s Chief put the weapon to his shoulder, giving a grunt of satisfaction at the smooth, well-balanced feel. Squeeze the trigger gently . . .

It broke clean, with a crisp action.
Crack,
and the butt kicked his shoulder; he lowered it again.

“How do I get the spent shell out and reload?” he asked.

Leaton chuckled like a child with a Christmas surprise to bestow. “Just pull the trigger all the way back so it hits that little trip-release stud behind it,” he said.

Cofflin did, and started slightly as the breechblock snapped down and the spent cartridge was ejected to the rear and slightly to the right; he blinked as it went
ping
on the asphalt floor and rolled away. The technician scooped it up and dropped it into one of the capacious pockets that studded her leather apron, where it jingled with a good many others.

“Two springs, inside, I guess?” he said. “Well, that’ll make it easier to use.”

Marian slung a bandolier over her shoulder. “Easier and faster,” she said, buckling back the cover flap. Brass cartridges showed in neat rows, nestling in their canvas loops. “Watch.”

She brought the rifle to her shoulder and fired.
Crack,
and a puff of off-white smoke was added to the one he’d made.
Ting,
and the breech went down and the shell ejected.

Faster, all right,
he noted. The old rifles went
bang . . .
beat . . . beat . . . beat . . . beat . . .
bang
when you were firing as fast as you could. This was more like
bang . . .
beat . . . beat . . .
bang.

She repeated the process once more in slow motion. “See, there are only four movements to reload—take your hand off the stock, reach down for a cartridge, thumb it home, then thumb back the cocking lever and aim. That’s about the same as for a bolt-action rifle.”

Cofflin whistled, working his jaw to help his abused ears. “Fast is right,” he said. “Four, mebbe five seconds between rounds?”

“Twelve aimed rounds a minute,” Leaton agreed proudly, rubbing his hands together. “With a little practice. That’s twice what the Westley-Richards can do, and this one’s got more range and accuracy, as well.”

“And it’s waterproof, unlike the flintlocks, the rifle and the ammunition both,” Alston said. “Virtually soldier-proof, too. Simple, rugged, easy to use and maintain. Until we can go to smokeless powder and a semi-auto, this is our best bet, I think.”

“Ron,” Cofflin said sincerely, “you’ve done it again. Congratulations!”

“Ah . . .” Leaton shuffled his feet. “Actually, it’s the fruit of a weird taste in reading matter. It’s German, originally—Bavarian, from the 1860s, I just modified the design a bit here and there. Guy named Werder from Munich developed it, one of those all-round Victorian inventors and machinists. Obscure, but probably the best single-shot rifle ever made.”

“Okay, tell me the bad news—production?”

Leaton grinned. “This time, the bad news is good, Chief. We can turn out two hundred a week, and the ammunition will be ample.”

A thought struck Cofflin. “ Wait a minute,” he said, looking down at the rifle in his hands.
I certainly want our boys and girls to have the best, but . . .

“Couldn’t Walker duplicate this? He’s copying our Westley-Richards now.”

Marian nodded with a shark’s amusement, and Leaton guffawed. “We hope he tries, Chief,” the engineer said. “Yeah, he
could
duplicate the
rifle
without much of a problem.”

The commodore took up the explanation: “But getting reliable drawn-brass cartridges and primers,
that
won’t be nearly so easy. God-damned difficult, as a matter of fact.”

Leaton made a gesture. “He’ll be able to do it, eventually,” he said. “Bill Cuddy’s a first-rate machinist, whatever else is wrong with him, and from the reports you’ve been sending me they’ve got a fair little machine-tool business going there. Still behind ours because they started out without our power sources or stock of materials, but growing fast. So, yes, he could duplicate the Werder and
eventually
the ammo if he gets a copy to reverse-engineer. Of course, Walker hasn’t got our scale and most of his workers are rote-trained, not all-rounders. Bottom line, it’ll waste his resources for a good year, maybe three, if he tries to switch over—cutting into his Westley-Richards production pretty bad, we think.”

“And if I know Walker,” Marian Alston said with satisfaction in her tone, “he won’t be able to resist trying to match anything we do, if it’s remotely possible. An ego as big as the Montana skies.”

The three Islanders shared a long, wolfish chuckle. Leaton turned to a cabinet, opened it, and handed Alston a revolver and belt. “This is by way of a belated coming-home present,” he said. “Modeled on the Colt Python, but in 10 mm—.40. Black-powder, of course, but you’ll find it an improvement over the double-barreled flintlocks, I think.”

“Why, thank you, Ron,” Marian said, giving the weapon a quick check. “Now, we have to talk priorities.”

“Ayup,” Cofflin said. “You want the expeditionary force to get first crack?”

Alston surprised him by shaking her head. “Not until they can make their own ammunition. I’m not going to put a thousand of my people seven thousand miles of irregular sailing-ship passage away from their sole and only ammunition supply. That’s a point-failure source.”

“Couple of months minimum for that,” Leaton said. “The people you sent can handle the equipment, but some of it’s fairly complex. Take a while to run up another set.”

“Right,” Alston said. “First we’ll re-equip the Ready Force”—the Islander citizens doing their initial training—“the first-line militia battalions, and the ships’-company Marines. We can ship the surplus Westley-Richards to Kar-Duniash to equip local forces, and the Marines there can hand over theirs too when we get them Werders.”

“Mmmm, sounds sensible,” Cofflin said. He usually left specialists to handle their own areas of expertise—that was half the secret of doing the Chief’s job right, remembering not to joggle elbows. The other half was picking the right experts to begin with, of course.

 

 

U
r Base’s main communications room held several shortwave sets. They were talking in the clear; one of the few things they definitely
did
know was that Walker’s radio had stayed behind in Alba when he left. He might be able to intercept a spark-gap Morse signal, but nobody in Mycenaean Greece was going to duplicate a voice set.

Colonel Hollard sat in the woven-reed chair and put the headset on, adjusting the mike.

“Ur Base,” the radio technician said. “This is Ur Base. Come in, Dur-Kurigalzu. Come in, please.”

“This is Councilor Arnstein’s office in Dur-Kurigalzu. Receiving you loud and clear. Over.”

“Roger that, Dur-Kurigalzu. I’m handing over to the colonel.”

“Hello, Ian. What’s up?”

“Hi, Ken. I’m calling about your lost princess; thought I’d check up on her. And there’s some other news. How’s she doing?”

“Not badly,” Colonel Hollard said. “We gave her a guesthouse and hired those two Assyrian girls to do the cooking and suchlike. She’s studying English, but pretty quiet otherwise. Not surprising, considering the trauma she went through. The kid’s got guts.”

“What about brains? Doreen thought she was very bright.”

“Very is the word. Lot of culture shock, of course, but she’s adaptable as well.”

“Hmmmm.”

“Sir?”

“Why so formal, Ken?”

“Well, I was wondering what you have in mind for her,” Kenneth Hollard said. “We’ve gotten about all the intelligence data we can, and she’s got no real place here. I was thinking about sponsoring her back on-Island—sending her to stay at my brother’s place, maybe.”

Arnstein chuckled. “Yes, she’s a likable sort too, in that I-am-a-princess way, isn’t she? No, I don’t think we’ll take her off the board just yet, Colonel. Doreen and I have been talking it over, and there must be
some
sort of use we can make of the last of the Mitannian royal line.”

“Sir . . .” Hollard fought down annoyance; Arnstein was just doing his job. “Sir, she’s already gone through a lot.”

“I’m aware of that, Ken,” Arnstein soothed. “And believe me, we’re not going to do anything against her interests. But
we’re
here for the interests of the Republic, not as a find-a-place-for-strays agency.”

“Yessir. I’m going to be dropping in on her in a minute, anyway, as a matter of fact.”

“Good,” Arnstein said. “It would be best if she has positive feelings toward the Republic.”

“ I don’t think she thinks in those categories, sir,” Hollard said. “ It’s
giri,
here; personal obligations.”

“Hmmmmm, you have a point. Mitanni was more of a feudal state than most of these ancient Oriental despotisms, as far as we can tell—which isn’t very far. Damn, but I wish I had more staff qualified to do research in the archives here!”

“Sir, learning that script is a nightmare.”

“ You’re telling me,” Arnstein said. “How are the scribes coming? ”

“Quite well.”

“Good. I’ll hire a couple and set them going on transliterations,” he said. Akkadian could be written quite well in the Roman alphabet. “Good long-term project, anyway. I doubt cuneiform will be used for more than another century or so, and then anything that hasn’t been written down in the new medium will be lost.”

Hollard’s brows went up. “ You really think so? ”

“Oh, yes. Not a certainty, of course, but highly probable, once paper and printing catch on—you can’t print cuneiform, not really. You know, one reason I regret not being immortal is that I won’t find out what’s going to
happen
here.”

“Councilor, I’d settle for knowing what’s happening in Greece.”

“ That I can help you with.”

Hollard leaned forward eagerly. “ What? ”

“We’ve finally gotten some informants into coastal Anatolia—your lost princess did help us there, the names of some merchants who trade through Hangilibat, and for a wonder they’re alive. The latest intelligence is that this Hittite chief who’s rebelled against King Tudhaliya—the one Raupasha told us about—has gone to Millawanda to confer with a ‘chief of the Ahhiyawa.’ ”

Hollard made an interrogative noise, and Arnstein sighed. “Millawanda . . . Miletus. Port on the Aegean. Ahhiyawa . . . Achaea. Greece.”