Explore "The Navy Eternal" by Bartimeus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. HEAVY METAL
It was still dark when the battle cruisers slipped from their moorings and began to feel their way towards the unseen entrance of the harbour. From the bridge of each mass of towering indeterminate shadows the stern light of the next ahead could be discerned dimly through binoculars, and on those pin-points of light they steered. What the battle cruiser flagship steered by, in the narrow confines of the crowded harbour and the inky darkness, only the little knot of figures on her forebridge knew: the admiral and flag captain, the navigator and officer-of-the-watch, muffled in duffle coats and moving mysteriously about the glow-worm arc of light from the binnacle and charttable.