Re: Graustark or Bust!
The cavalry officer was still feeling out of sorts. He hadn't been on a horse for almost a week now. He was traveling light, too, though it was more by necessity. He'd brought his saddle, but hadn't had a chance to use it, so now he lugged it to the ship. To be honest, he didn't expect to return here to Scotland any time soon, so it seemed rather absurd to have to so just to fetch his saddle.
He came up on the tail end of a conversation.
"As I understand it," Viktor chimed in, "if the ship was on the waves, it'd be classified as a 'fast packet' ship. It's primarily intended to carry mail and dispatches. At least, that's what the French in Africa were using it for. So, no, not a lot of room for cargo."
He climbed aboard. He was almost used to the rope ladder now. He'd been the ship's crew on the flight up. It wasn't that Mercy and Stella wouldn't have done so, but he'd felt it was unseemly for the womenfolk to do that. As it turned out, Mercy had probably done just as much as he had, perhaps even more. She'd tinkered with the engines, improving their efficiency and even getting better torque out of them. Whatever that meant.