War Resumes

War Of The Wing-Men, XV-XVII.

Van Rijn has a plan but does not tell anyone what it is in case they are captured by the enemy but nevertheless persuades a population to follow his lead by translating into their language some Shakespeare, Pericles and other rousing Terrestrial texts. How implausible is that?

Under this fat Eart'a's direction, the Lannachska have taken several Earth-days to fly to a cold, sterile island where their whistling, guttural unhuman speech and flapping wings:

"...overrode the empty wind-whimper." (XVI, p. 114)

With the human food supply almost finished, Sandra has grown shockingly thin and the wind flutters her hair:

"...against black igneous rocks." (XVI, p. 113)

Van Rijn continues to scream at:

"...You Up There..." (p. 114)

(We know that he takes a different tone when he prays in earnest although we are not shown that.)

When their fleet of ships newly constructed from ice sails south and Wace comments that their enemies are preparing to receive them, van Rijn responds:

"'You expected a carpet with acres and acres, like they say in America?'" (XVII, p. 118)

Two comments:

in the period of the Solar Commonwealth, it is unusual to find references to past geographical or political divisions of Earth like "America";

I do not understand what van Rijn means.

We noticed before that van Rijn and Wace discuss which military saints to invoke. If any further proof of Wace's Catholicism were needed, the it is provided when he prays:

"...the Paternoster." (p. 120)

(I like the following reference to this prayer:

‘I kan nought parfitly my Paternoster

as the preest it singeth

but I kan rhymes of Robyn hood and

Randolf Earl of Chestre’

-copied from here.)

When a Diomedean ship is sunk, its crew flies up. Not what we expect but we should have anticipated this on Diomedes.

Flame-throwers are useless against the unsinkable ships of ice - although crew and sails burn.

"Bat-winged devils sought each other's lives through one red chaos." (p. 122)

This is the moment when the Diomedean war most closely resembles a battle in Hell. Dropped weapons float in reddened water.

Wace, relapsing metaphorically into polytheist terminology, reflects that:

"...Diomedes' miserly gods had been smiling on him. It couldn't last much longer." (p. 125)

This chapter ends when van Rijn informs Wace that the enemy's Expeditionary Force approaches. War really is Hell. (Some American soldiers told me that and meant it.)

And I need a break for food if those miserly gods will permit.