Lina frowned. Well, I'm not going to be able to pull them back up. And with wrists like that, Allen here isn't going to either.
The ship lurched, pushed by a strong wind. A stray belaying pin rolled down the deck toward them, then reversed and rolled the other way as the Copper Queen settled. Lina watched it, then looked up at the taut rope above them. An idea occurred to her. "What about something really heavy?"
Allen blinked. "Like what?"
Lina held out her hands. "We need something really heavy. Like, I don't know, a bunch of water barrels or something."
The young Mechanist gave her a funny look. He pointed to the port-side gunwales. "Like those?"
Lina followed his gesture. The light cannons sat upon their mountings, pointing out from the ship. They were carronades, almost solid iron, with handles cast into their thick bodies, one on either side of the barrel. And they were very, very heavy. Lina tapped her lip thoughtfully. "I think they just might, at that."
With Allen's help, Lina unlocked one of the carronades from its wooden mounts. Then they rolled it off onto the deck where it landed with a deafening thump that echoed up and down the length of the ship. Inclined as the ship was, the artillery-piece slid down to a stop against the forecastle. Lina cursed. She hadn't thought this entirely through.
Taking a spare piece of rope, she tied it through the errant weapon and gave one end to Allen. Cursing and swearing, they dragged the thing back up to the aftcastle and tied it in place.
"Okay," she said, panting. "Now we've just got to get this up to the helm. Think you can push it up if I pull from the top of the stair?"
The young Mechanist stared at her. "No."
Lina cursed. "Damnation. You'll have to pull."
Allen shook his head. "I don't think that will work either."
Lina sat down with a scowl. They had to get the cannon up, or her plan wouldn't work. She glanced at Allen; the Mechanist wasn't looking at her though. Instead he stared at the complex system of steerage pulleys and cabling that hung from the gasbag frame above.
"What've you got on your mind?" she asked.
Allen started, looked at her, then examined his feet. "Nothing."
She wanted to sigh, but held back. I still need him. "No, go on, tell me."
He shrugged. "Well, it's just, I couldn't pull that up those steps. But if we change the pulleys up there, we could hang a rope from it, and the two of us together could pull one up."
Lina eyed the mechanisms. "All right, then. Let's get to work."
With a little coaxing, Lina found Allen to be a fairly clever fellow, though still incredibly bashful and uncertain of himself. If he'd had any initiative, life with Natasha's crew must have beaten it out of him.
At her urging the young Mechanist grabbed an iron gaff-pole and clambered up to prod at the steering mechanisms. Once he started, Lina found the idea easy enough to follow; he was disengaging several of the pulley systems so that they could feed the rope on the carronade on through. Between the two of them the work went quickly. Clambering up onto the aftcastle deck, they raised the artillery-piece up, and guided it back past the helm. It wasn't easy, but it was possible.
They moved six more. Hours passed. "There," Lina said when they were finally done. She collapsed, shaking, onto the pile of iron weapons. Only a few remained onboard in their original positions now. Her muscles quivered and she was drenched in sweat. Allen fell to the deck beside her, doing worse than her. They both lay there a moment, gasping for breath.
"What next?" croaked the young Mechanist.
Lina eyed the railing. "We go get a rope, thread it through the handles on these cannons, then tie it to this other rope attached to the rail there." She stopped. "Oh. And find me a sword." The back railing anchoring her crewmates was splintered and cracked; it wouldn't last much longer now.
Allen went back down below while she rested. Once back he worked at her directions, running the rope through the wrought-iron handles of the cannon and tying a knot to each before moving onto the next. When they were secure, Lina and Allen tied the rope to the one running back across the ship and over the bow. By the time they finished, the moon had risen, crossed the sky, and was about to set.
"All right," said Lina, standing and stretching. She would sleep for a week when this was all done. "Now we just shove this whole mess over."
"I don't know if I have the strength," said Allen plaintively.
"Nonsense," replied Lina. "You just start small."
Spitting into her palms, she grabbed the top-most cannon on the pile and shoved it. The weapon rocked, unwilling to budge, until she grit her teeth, set her feet and went at it again. It abruptly rolled down, bounced off the cannon below it with a clang to fall up against the splintered wooden railing, punching through.