Their Majesties' Bucketeers Read Online Free

blaze, I nearly missed this novel maneuver, attempting to revive a female well gone into perhaps her dozenth wretched pregnancy, my thirtieth or fortieth patient of the evening.
    The fur was burned away from two-thirds of her carapace where some errant blast of flame had withered it, blackening the naked chiton and blinding her in one eye. This would heal, and she was lucky not to have lost the sight of another.
    She’d be luckier still if I could stem her premature delivery. Her jaws were frozen wide and rigid in prepartum tetany; I was thankful for a series of unblushing lecturers at Royal College who’d insisted that we learn all the signs of even so delicate and personal a thing as this. I did for her what I could, supplying a relaxant, tincture of fedizeto, administered in atomized form to the nostrils, splinted up a leg where she had fractured it, and rose as she was lifted onto a waggon. Looking over the carapaces of the litter-bearers, I beheld one of the most terrifying spectacles I believe I shall ever have to witness.
    Department Chief Lydoraino Hottyn Niifysiir had authorized the movement of our sand pumps toward the edge of the river. There, whitepowder charges were dramatically employed to clear away the rotted planks and shoring of the docks (at no great loss to anyone, as the bulk of commercial traffic had long since been removed to the opposite shore across King’s Island). A squad of firelamn detached their breathing-hoses—so common an appliance that they have, with the sandbucket, become a symbol of our calling—from their nostrils, in order to disencumber themselves for what they were about to undertake. So thickly swathed in protective clothing they could scarcely stir a limb or see what they were doing, the nine gallant Bucketeers forced their balky teams to back the rearmost corners of the engines into the very water itself!
    The chain-driven scoops began to churn the evil-looking surface, lifting mud and vile liquid stories high above us. For once the sightseeing crowds evaporated without the urging of our peacekeepers, unwilling to chance that single random drop that might (in their ignorantly exaggerated belief) dissolve its way through hair and bone into their very brains. It is, in fact, the scientific truth that not only may we survive brief exposures to moisture—complete immersion under certain well-controlled circumstances (else sailing would be far too perilous even for those hardy souls who take it up)—but that some amounts of water are even necessary to sustain life! Fortunately these minuscule traces are present in our victuals and the air. I have tried to imagine taking liquid, say, as one might eat a morsel of food; the thought has never failed to sicken me.
    Nonetheless, not a single pelt among the hardened veterans all around wasn’t set in the attitude of grim determination overcoming instinctual terror. The river seethed and bubbled hideously, the engines hissed and clanked, dripping from their every seam and truss.
    Suddenly the first measures of wet filth fell from the uppermost mechanical extremity and into the flames. There was a great, nasty frying noise, and unimaginable volumes of steam began to rise and mingle with the smoke until I felt the heat diminish perceptibly where it had radiated upon my carapace even as far away as this aid station, a street removed.
    A mighty cheer resounded through the neighborhood, and bells were rung upon our waggons.
    Definitely the fire had been parted in twain. It is a fact that dampened wood and furnishings will not readily burn; our Bucketeers proceeded to divide the fire again and again until conventional methods sufficed to put it out. Fodduan ingenuity once again had triumphed, though there would be considerable cursing tonight among the recruits as they scrubbed the sodden fire equipment with clean dry sand to remove all evil smells and corrosion.
    My final charge had been carted off to Charitable Sanctuary, an institution which