Alone in the chaos of load-bearing laborers, ponderous ox wagons and mule teams, clerk-carrying dyphrs or flash private lentums, and ubiquitous hurrying scopps, it took Rossamund a moment to properly figure his destination from among the constellation of small signs arranged on every door up and down the street. His quest was not aided by the presence of many large bills pinned or pasted to the broad door posts, the newest declaring:
Finally finding his goal, he climbed the steps and entered a crowded and poorly lit file of pale green where, after a fair wait in line with folk buying tickets to all points of the compass, he was met with a latticed screen of wood similar to those in the Letter and Coursing House. Despite the affable 'Good morning, sir,' of the clerk behind it, Rossamund handed across the letter in reluctant expectation of the more common clerical surliness. To his great gratitude he found that the commutation clerk had indeed already heard of the exploits of the Branden Rose and her excellent retainers aboard the Widgeon and was delighted to render a return of the crossing fee.
'I hear that you spared us much greater losses, sir,' the clerk declared, his yellowed toothy grin obvious through the lattice as he beamed at Rossamund.
The young factotum dipped his head under such approbation. 'Well…We had little choice but to fight,' he mumbled awkwardly.The refund made-two sous eight-Rossamund inquired after the location of Hullghast Articled Ordnance.
'You think to attend the launching of the Warspite?' the cheerful commutation clerk replied. 'Capital notion, sir! It is a good stiff walk south just down the way from here a little. You will make it out easily as you get near.'
Taking the fellow's directions down the drab clerical street and out onto the fortified rim of the high seaside suburb, Rossamund heard his destination well before he arrived: a profound throbbing as if of mighty gastrines rumbled in his innards, and with it a mute yet growing discord of clashing mill hammers and rattling traffic, the din of heavy industry never ceasing, not even for a Domesday. With every stride closer was slowly added a merrier note of happy voices, and soon enough Rossamund found a mass of people gathering on the seaward side of a great heap of domed and turreted works. Most were squeezed against a tall iron fence that stood on the high seaward edge of the great foundation, kept from spilling onto the road by a platoon of implacable duffers stalking the fringe of the crowd. Cordoned in their midst, safe behind links of velvet rope, many quality folk were stood upon a temporary podium that gave them better view over the hefty railings: the silkened men in periwigs and wide satin- edged tricorns standing gravely as they waited, the fine ladies wrestling with the mild ocean winds that threatened to ruffle their dainty parasols and their dignity.
'Is this the launching of the Warspite?' he asked a portly chap in cheap finery.
The man just scowled at him-his expression clear, What else would it be! — and pulled away suspiciously as if Rossamund were some kind of grabcleat pulling a trick.
Dodging the severe gaze of an approaching duffer, Rossamund squeezed among the assembled to stare down through the bars of the fence. Tall as houses, great gates in the foundation wall had been slid aside, and from them protruded a slipway-a heavy frame of wooden rails slanting well out into the milky brey of the harborage of Mill Pond. Festooned with flags and ribbons and other bunting, it held the mastless hulk of a near-completed ram, leaning down to the water in a suspense of cables and balks, ready to slip into its native element. From the size and shape of her ram, Rossamund could well see that it was a drag-mauler. By her dimensions he reckoned her likely to be one of the largest of her rating afloat. From fo'c'sle to poop, carpenters, iron-working sheeters and vinegaroons made busy upon its uniformly flat main apron; posts, chasers and all the standard deck furniture were yet to be added.
Below this was the dark sand of the actual shore. Here was the genuine fringe of the Grume, the natural beach-or what was left of it. A myriad of pipes poked from the wall face, dribbling all manner of effluents down the foundation's bleached slabs. Piles of dun green kelp were washed up in rotting thickets right along the sand, making dams of the seeping city filth. Flies of several tribes swarmed about the decaying matter while combers picked through the putrescent sea-mat for flotsam, discarded treasure and rare biological matter, perhaps to sell to parts- sellers or other more ambiguous buyers. Catching a whiff of the rot, Rossamund marveled at the olfactory resilience of the weed-picking combers.
Immediately below, other humbler people in white smocks labored to pretty the sand about the slipway's footings, employing wide rakes to push and pull the kelp into great piles that the combers happily foraged.
In this cleared space many of the lectry folk-the middle classes-unable to fit on the walk above were descending a narrow stair cut in the stone of the sea wall and daring to collect on the scant beach below, enduring the stink to get a better view of the launching. Seeing some of the younger folk cackling and squealing as they let themselves be chased by the corrosive ripples that lapped at the black sand, Rossamund decided to join them. Pushing as politely as he could, he managed to find the heavy gate of the stair, and with an inward leap of delight hastened down the steep steps, amazed that he might be able to actually walk on sand, on a real beach! Now cheerfully ignoring the weedy stink, he was at once struck by the novel sensation of his boot soles sinking into the soft silt as he twisted through the thinner gathering on the shore and drew near the towering slipway.
Above them all sat the long, mastless bulk of the nascent ram, silent, waiting, fat-bellied, its tumblehome lines pronounced, where they hung high and fully exposed out of water.
Warspite! — Rossamund mouthed the name, awed by the enormous screw of bright polished silverine alloy taller than two tall men. He started to count the bent heads of the pins that held the iron to the hull but, still on the first strake, lost his place somewhere just past two hundred.
With a great commotion of cheers, of fife and drum, the solemn, wonderful spectacle made of the launching of yet another ram began. One by one, the balks were removed by enterprising men with great hammers and lifted away by sheers, until the pristine, glossy rust brown vessel was held back from its final release by only a single massive cable.
Two-thirds of the way up the dribble-stained foundation by the slipway jutted a balcony of blackened iron beribboned in black and white and emerald green. Upon this three enormous men now appeared: elephantines, the presumed owners of Hullghast Articled Ordnance. Each took his turn to speak, bellowing through wide copper trumpets held up for them by lesser men, addressing the people both above and below with jowly movements of their flabby jaws. Crowded in the scant space behind them, their staff-a gaggle of the usual bureaucrats and secretaries-listened and nodded their approbation in fixed and glassy-eyed rapture. Among them Rossamund identified three lean spurns-one a wit, and two fascin-wrapped scourges-standing taut and ready, and with them two falsemen reviewing the crowd critically. Automatically, the young factotum shrank from their gaze.
With a final flourish of music, and a 'Hurrah!' from the throng and a splash of sour wine on its sharp ram, the iron-clad man-of-war slid stern first with surprisingly little noise into the Grume, the workers on its deck riding the motion with practiced ease. A great swirl of milky green waves and the half-done vessel was free, all the pent potential of its gastrines in their element at last, the shackled beast set free. Soon they would be turning, taking the weight of the screw and the vast bulk of wood and iron for the first time.
The former longing to serve a'sea beat a weak memorial in Rossamund's bosom, making time with the drumming. Yet his enthusiasm for a life in the Senior Service was surprisingly diminished, a memory of hope. Bidding mute farewell to this old dream, he watched sheer-drudges come to tow the new-launched ram to a watery berth where masts, cannon and all the appurtenances of a fighting vessel would be added.
The elephantines were wheeled away through doors in the stone at the back of the balcony, the band packed instruments in carriages and trundled away, and the multitude dispersed until Rossamund was one of the few still watching on the sand.Wishing to hear the soft lapping of the vinegar removed from the pounding of industry, he decided to take an amble south, away from the slipways and the piers and the sheer mill-side walls. With great expectation he took off his boots and, for the first time ever, walked unshod upon an ocean shore. He squeezed the swarthy sand with his toes in delight, grinning unselfconsciously at the cool air puffing against his cheeks. Insensible in his glee to the filth and kelp-rot, he walked about the many slight curves and bays in the seaside and through the high leg-frames holding aloft the cable housings of tidal millwheels. He jumped over the faucetlike openings of creeks and drains, stopping to examine the ooze and the rippling filament algae in their effluent while swallows darted overhead, dashing to and from modest nests poked into rotten stonework cavities and under eaves, soft clicks in the sky as they snapped at near-invisible bugs.
Farther yet he went until the throb of gastrine enginry became muted to something almost tuneful. In quiet joy he watched the stocky red crabs that diddled jaunty sideways dances, waving cheerfully at him with their singular large claws. With a twist of iron he found half entombed in the silt he prodded at the kelp, washed from the
