The next morning, Portsmouth felt different.

It wasn't louder. It wasn't busier. The dockyard had always been loud, always busy — filled with hammering, sawing, shouting, and the creak of timber.

But overnight, something had shifted.

Men did not walk, they marched.

They didn't talk — they discussed.

They didn't build ships.

They began an era.

Phillip arrived at Dry Dock No. 4 — the largest in the naval shipyard — just as the sun had barely crested over the harbor walls. The air smelled of salt, smoke, and the cold tang of raw steel.

Steel.

For the first time in this shipyard, wood was not the central material. Piles of iron plates, heavy steel beams, and metal fasteners had been brought in from nearby foundries. Two massive industrial furnaces were already being installed on the far side, under heavy guard.

Dry Dock No. 4 had always been used to build wooden hulls. But today, it had a new role.

Today, it would become the birthplace of Britain's first ironclad.

Phillip scanned the site.

Naval machinists. Dockyard carpenters (who now looked rather lost). Royal engineers. Apprentices from Shropshire. Treasury officials with clipboards. Army supply officers. Naval architects. Even a small detachment of Marines — for security.

And above them all — suspended between two towering wooden cranes — hung a single steel beam.

The first keel plate.

Six tons.

Cold. Smooth. Unyielding.

One of the naval architects, Master Shipwright Barrett — who once scoffed at the idea of metal hulls — stood next to Phillip, arms crossed.

"You sure that thing floats?" Barrett muttered.

Phillip didn't look away from the beam.

"No," he said plainly. "It won't."

Barrett blinked. "What?"

Phillip finally turned.

"It won't float," he said. "It will dominate."

Barrett stared at him.

Then, slowly — nodded.

Henry arrived, carrying a rolled blueprint and wearing an expression somewhere between exhilaration, dread, and sleep deprivation.

"They're all waiting," he muttered.

Phillip nodded.

He stepped onto the raised platform overlooking the dry dock.

Dozens of workers looked up.

Phillip didn't deliver a speech.

He simply pointed to the steel beam.

"That," he said, "goes down first."

No ceremony. No blessing. No ceremonial bottle of wine broken against it.

Just work.

The cranes creaked as the beam was lowered into the dry dock. Chains rattled. Men shouted instructions. Engineers checked alignment with weighted plumb lines.

The beam settled into place with a deep metallic thud.

The sound echoed across the dockyard — different from the hollow ring of timber. Heavier. Final.

That sound would be remembered.

It was not the sound of a ship being built.

It was the sound of a tradition ending.

Henry let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Well," he muttered, "no going back now."

Work Begins — Day One

The first week was chaos.

The shipyard was accustomed to saws, adzes, and carpentry benches — not drafting tables, mechanical looms, gear housings, steam gauges, and steel plate lifters.

Dockyard carpenters stared in confusion at steel rivet guns.

Metalworkers from Birmingham argued with naval carpenters over tolerance levels.

Royal engineers insisted on precise beam alignments — something shipwrights never cared about.

They argued.

Loudly.

Constantly.

And then — they learned.

Phillip spent every waking hour moving between teams, diagram in hand, explaining everything from bulkhead spacing to pressure tolerances to the reason steel needed to be angled to deflect cannon fire. His coat became stained with grease, his boots caked with coal dust, his once-neat sketches covered with smudges of graphite and oil.

The apprentices from Shropshire adapted quickly. They were trained under Phillip's methods — discipline, precision, and theory before improvisation.

The Portsmouth craftsmen took longer to adjust.

But they did.

By the fifth day, the first internal compartments were being assembled — not from planks, but from reinforced steel plates. Riveters hammered red-hot rivets into place. Sparks flew through the air like fireflies in a storm.

Phillip stood with Barrett, Henry, and Commander Vale, watching the progress.

"You said six months," Commander Vale remarked. "Was that optimism? Or arrogance?"

Phillip watched a team carefully aligning a bulkhead panel.

"Neither," he said calmly. "It was mathematics."

Vale almost smiled.

Henry didn't. He was too busy writing.

Phillip raised an eyebrow. "What are you documenting now?"

Henry didn't look up. "Arguments, mostly. Mistakes. Solutions. Measurements. Names."

"Names?" Vale asked.

Henry nodded. "If we're right… one day, people will want to know who built the first ironclad. Not just the man who designed it."

Phillip paused.

Then simply said, "Good."

Work — Week Two

Something remarkable happened on day ten.

The dockworkers stopped asking whether it could be done.

They started asking how to do it faster.

Phillip walked through the fabrication shed, past stacks of newly forged steel plates, their surfaces still warm from tempering. Naval architects debated turret mechanics with machinists. Henry sat with two foundry engineers calculating tensile strength of alloy steel.

When Henry saw Phillip, he gestured excitedly. "The tensile strength exceeds expectation. With proper carbon control, we can reinforce bow plating to eight inches thick without compromising elasticity!"

Phillip nodded. "Which means—?"

Henry pointed to the diagram. "We could ram a wooden frigate. Tear straight through it."

Phillip didn't smile.

But he looked satisfied.

Work — Week Three

The triple-expansion engine began assembly.

In a converted warehouse, machinists carefully fitted piston rings, crankshafts, and valve gears. Oil-stained diagrams from the Portsmouth demonstration were pinned to the walls. Henry swore that half the workers were sleeping inside the warehouse now.

Malcolm Barron — the burly Scotsman from earlier — supervised the entire engine assembly. He once called Phillip's designs "bold nonsense."

Now?

He barked orders, protective of every component, shouting at anyone who mishandled even a bolt.

"This is not wood you imbeciles! This is history!"

Phillip arrived to inspect the crankshaft.

Malcolm nodded toward it — 18 feet long, smooth, immaculate.

"You'll hear this spinning one day," the Scotsman muttered.

Phillip raised an eyebrow. "Hear it?"

Malcolm smirked.

"You'll hear history turning."

Evening — End of Month One

The dry dock looked different now.

The keel was no longer just a single steel beam.

Steel frame ribs had begun rising — curved, precise, enormous. They formed the skeleton of something that would not bend with the wind. Would not split from cannon fire. Would not creak when the sea churned.

A ship was emerging.

Not elegant.

Not graceful.

But powerful.

A dockworker stood at the edge, staring up at the rising frame.

He didn't speak.

But Henry overheard him whisper:

"It looks like it wants to move already."

Phillip, standing not far behind, heard that too.

"It will soon."

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