“No,” Matt said, “but our guys are about to get it if they don’t pull ahead. Signal Simms and Tindal, ‘Full ahead, remain to windward of the enemy.’ ”
“Ay, ay . . . Cap-i-taan!” Minnie passed the word, then paused, listening to her earpiece. “Lookout says, ‘Draagons come!’ Signal from Mertz says they leave her be now.” Minnie cocked her head. “Says some real tired draagons roost on ship! They shooting them!”
“Swell,” Matt replied. “Have Mertz rejoin Tindal and Simms at her best possible speed! She’s finished playing bait, and I think her sisters are going to need her!”
“Here they come!” Kutas said, peering up through the windows.
“Secure from ‘surface action port’!” Matt cried. “Stand by for air action, aft! Helm, give us a gradual turn to course two, four, zero! Reduce speed to two-thirds.”
“What exactly are you planning?” Bradford asked.
“I’m playing a hunch you gave me. Those devils have got to be getting tired, all of them. At the same time, they’re going to hate giving up chasing something. If they really are like Grik, they can’t help it! So . . . we let ’em chase us, farther and farther away from their ‘base’ ships, hopefully staying just out of reach as long as we can. Shooting at ’em the whole time ought to keep them stirred up. . . .”
“But what happens when they catch us? They might, you know. Then we’ll have half a hundred of those vicious things romping all over the ship! We won’t be able to man the guns, and go back and assist our friends!”
“You let me worry about that. I have a surprise for them based on something else you said.”
“Oh dear,” Courtney mumbled. “I certainly hope, whatever it was, I was right!”
Staring astern, Spanky stood on the aft deckhouse, striking his signature pose, hands on his skinny hips.
“Bunch of ’em,” Carl Bashear said, taking a chew from Spanky’s tobacco pouch. A virtual cloud of “dragons” had gathered in their wake, beating their wings and gaining quickly. “Look kinda aggravated,” he mumbled around the mouthful of leaves.
“Yeah. A Grik charge in midair,” Spanky agreed. “What a hoot.” He looked at Finny, serving as his talker. “Marksmen to the stern. Inform the captain we’re about to engage . . . aerial targets.” Chief Gunner’s Mate Paul Stites had the “number four” 4.7-inch gun. Spanky scowled at him. “Don’t miss. We’re running low on those Jap time-fuse shells.” He raised his voice so he could be heard by the crews of the 25 mm’s in the tubs just forward. “Antiair . . . lizard batteries, in local control, commence firing!”
Matt was looking aft around the chart house, trying to see the effect of the fire. Tabby was on the ball; only the faintest wisps of smoke smeared the tops of the funnels, and the 4.7-inch and 25-mm guns still ate “smokeless” Japanese shells they’d salvaged from Amagi. Even many of the marksmen still had ’03s. That left a better-than-average view of the terrifying creatures flying up Walker’s skirt. Matt still had trouble seeing them clearly through his binoculars, as the creatures tended to group together, and the flying mass became a wild flurry of motion in his Bausch & Lombs. He got indistinct impressions: furry, bright-colored bodies like the ones before, grasping talons and ferocious, golden, reptilian eyes. Every mouth was open, revealing rows of teeth unlike the Grik—thinner, longer, more curved—the better to snatch prey from the sea or sky. They were not shrieking, however. Over the sound of the guns and rifles, he couldn’t tell if they made any sounds at all. His brief glimpses at their faces left him with a growing conviction they were gasping for air.
“All ahead full!” he ordered.
The deck trembled, the blower roared, and the bow lurched out of the sea between the streaming troughs. The pitching eased a bit as the ship practically leaped from swell to swell. Still the monsters gained. If anything, they seemed to be gaining more rapidly. Maybe they knew they had to board Walker or die, at this stage, and they were giving it their all. Its fuses set shorter and shorter, the number four gun fired rapidly, the dark explosions erupting closer and closer to the ship. Shattered dragons staggered in the air or plummeted lifelessly into the sea. Pom-poms blatted at the creatures that lunged ahead and tried to board on the flanks, perforating wings and shredding bodies. Muskets started firing, joined by a Thompson and a BAR. Even more monsters fell, still reaching desperately for the ship. Spanky fired at a dragon swooping over the aft deckhouse with his pistol, and a couple actually lit on the platform, causing a wild melee of shots, slashing teeth, and a fusillade of flung shell casings. More clawed their way onto the fantail, their tongues literally lolling with exhaustion. They were easily shot—with extreme care, considering their proximity to the depth charge racks.
“All ahead flank!” Matt shouted remorselessly. Realistically, most of the dragons were probably already doomed. They’d never make it back to their ships, and their only hope was to land on Walker—but Walker was even faster now, making almost thirty knots on three boilers for the first time in . . . Matt couldn’t remember how long. She was just a little faster than the wind now, perfect for his purposes. It was time. Kari Faask and Fred Reynolds were on his mind when he gave his next order:
“Make smoke!”
Tabby had been waiting. Raw fuel gushed into the boilers at a far more prodigious rate than they could ever burn it all, and Jeek and the rest of his flight crew activated the on-deck smoke generators with grim satisfaction. In moments, impenetrable black columns of thick, sooty smoke piled into the sky and streamed aft, slowly spreading into the wind. In many places, it swirled on the ship itself, under the bridge and through the galley space beneath the amidships deckhouse. Men and’Cats choked and coughed, holding T-shirts over their faces. The giant lizard birds chasing the ship with their final breaths fell into the sea as if they’d been switched off, and in less than three or four minutes, a gasping Spanky called the bridge and reported that all the “air-lizards” had “splashed.”
“Very well,” Matt said with vengeful satisfaction. “Secure from flank. Secure from making smoke. All ahead full.”
“Cap-i-taan Reddy!” Minnie squeaked. “Tindal has lost her rudder and got tangled with a Dom baattle-waagon! They try to board! Mertz steams to her aid, an’ so do Achilles an’ another Imp-ee ship!”
“I told them to keep their distance!”
“They try—but lose rudder!”
“Okay. Send to Simms to stay the hell out of there, whatever she does. Try to get Achilles to break off. We’re coming as fast as we can!” He scanned the now-distant battle with his binoculars. “Still too many!” he murmured, then lowered the glasses and stepped to the bulkhead where the shipwide comm microphone was mounted. He twisted the switch. “Well done, Walkers!” he said, and waited for the relieved, triumphant cheers to dwindle. “Now, all hands resume ‘surface action stations’! We still have a battle to finish!”
Walker dashed back toward what had become a chaotic, sprawling brawl with a bone in her teeth, shouldering aside a mounting swell. The transports had turned, possibly making for Monterey, but Port Admiral Rempel aboard Perseus was leading two more of the Imperial Frigates in a determined attack against them. Matt was frankly surprised by that. Rempel hadn’t struck him as a particularly bold fighter—and maybe he wasn’t, since the transports were only lightly armed—but he was pressing his attack with sufficient gusto to prove he had no sympathy for the enemy. Tindal was in a bad way, almost dismasted, her bowsprit snared in a Dom cruiser’s foremast shrouds. Despite her loss of control, she was still driving forward, keeping the link as rough as possible to prevent boarders from swarming across. Her guns still vigorously pounded other Dom ships that ventured too close.
Mertz had almost joined her, orange flashes stabbing out either side, smashing mighty hulls, and utterly disrupting enemy attempts to close or even maintain formation. She’d become the focus of the Dom’s attention, however, and even as she plowed forward, she was being viciously mauled. To the south, Achilles and the rig-damaged friga
te Hector slashed their way through damaged and undamaged Doms alike, guns thundering and paddles churning. It was a terrible, inspiring sight. If the Doms hadn’t been thrown into such disarray, largely due to their initial formation and inability to alter it with any precision, the four allied ships in their midst would already be floating debris. Matt reflected yet again how lucky they were that the Dominion had elected to start this war before fully “modernizing” its warships.
“Pass the word to Campeti,” Matt shouted as Walker drew to within a mile of the fight. “Concentrate fire on those battleships working over Tindal and Mertz. It looks as if the remaining cruisers are peeling off to protect the transports. Get that big devil twenty-five degrees off the starboard bow! She’s stern on to us, but she’s giving Mertz hell!”
“He acknowledge!” Minnie cried, and moments later they all heard Campeti’s bellow above. “Surface target, bearing one four zero; course zero, zero, five; speed six knots! Range . . . three nine five zero! Guns one, three, and four, match pointers!”
“On target!”
“In salvo, commence firing!” The salvo buzzer rang and a mere instant later, all three guns boomed, and the smoke quickly vanished to leeward. Even over the ship noises, the “Shhhhhh!” of the shells was audible. Three splashes erupted just aft and short of the big enemy ship. “Up fifty!” came the cry. “Adjust left zero zero five degrees!”
“On target!”
“Fire!”
Three more shells screeched away, and all must have crashed through the vulnerable stern of the Dom ship before detonating against something substantial. There was a series of flashes, and, once again, another huge Dom ship of the line vanished amid an expanding cloud of smoke and a blizzard of splinters and larger fragments.
“New target! Range . . .”
Matt quit listening. Campeti was good—maybe as good as Greg Garrett. He concentrated on conning his ship through the tumult ahead. Mertz was closing on Tindal now, starboard guns flailing the port bow of the liner Tindal embraced, smoke streaming from her perforated stack in half a dozen places. The liner spat back, chopping further at Mertz’s mangled rigging, but most of the shot flew aft of the target and battered a wallowing, dismasted hulk beyond her. Soon, Mertz would add her boarders to Tindal’s and they’d have a chance to turn the tables on the Doms. For just a moment, Matt glanced at Tabasco, standing out of the way beside the chart table. The ’Cat steward had brought his pistol belt to the bridge, with his Academy sword hanging from it. No, he decided. Much as he’d have liked to, joining a boarding action wasn’t Walker’s job. Not his job. Not this time. For now, he had to be content with destroying as many Dom ships as he could, and a stationary Walker was bound to attract too much fire—and far too many holes. No one aboard his ship had anything to prove, and Walker was much safer and far more effective underway. His decision was punctuated by a series of hammer blows pounding the port flank of his ship, and he rushed to the bridgewing, followed by Bradford. A ship of the line had suddenly turned and presented them with a full broadside.
“Get that son of a bitch!” he roared up at Campeti.
“Surface action port!” Campeti bellowed in reply. “Guns two and four engage that battlewagon at zero three five in local control! Range, uh . . . eight hundred! Commence firing! Portside twenty-fives assist!” He paused for only an instant. “Guns one and three maintain fire control connection! Target bearing one eight five! Range two thousand! Match pointers!”
“Make your course zero, four, zero!” Matt shouted as soon as the salvo buzzer rang and the gun on the fo’c’sle boomed and bucked.
“Sero, four, sero, ay!”
“Damage control reports one shot penetrated aa-midships deckhouse, an’ one punch through guinea pullman,” Minnie shouted in her high-pitched voice. “Two spring plates in aft engine room! They prob’ly skate in. Casualties to waard-room!”
Matt looked at Bradford, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet since they “bug-sprayed” the Grik birds, and sighed. “You have work, Courtney.”
Bradford nodded. “Indeed. As do you.” He waved about. The numbers two and four guns opened fire, as did the port twenty-fives.
“Yeah. We won’t board anybody, but it looks like we’re back in the pool with the flashies again, fighting both sides. No choice. I’ll do my best to spoil their aim.”
“God bless you for that, Captain Reddy,” Courtney murmured, and vanished down the ladder aft.
“Lotta iron flyin’ around amongst all that, Skipper,” Norman Kutas said matter-of-factly, nodding ahead toward the densest concentration of enemy ships. Achilles and Hector were in it now, smoke gushing from their guns.
“Yeah, and we’re bound to catch some,” Matt agreed solemnly; then his lips quirked into a grin. “You’re not worried about something spoiling your boyish looks, are you, Norm?”
The badly—and often—scarred First Lieutenant chuckled. “No, sir. I’m way beyond that, but I feel everything that hits this old ship in my bones.”
“Me too, Norm,” Matt agreed. “So let’s do our best to avoid as many hits as possible.”
“Fancy footwork ain’t gonna save us from everything, Skipper.”
“No, but right now good people are dying, and the enemy’s in disarray. We’ll race through, shooting up whatever we can while avoiding as much return fire as we can manage.”
“Then what?”
Matt shrugged. “We turn around and do it again until our friends are safe and every Dom out there is on the bottom of the sea.”
CHAPTER 22
Above Ceylon January 17, 1944
Tikker scratched his ear around the highly polished 7.7-mm cartridge case thrust through a hole a similar cartridge once shot through it. Sometimes it itched, and he’d begun to associate that with a superstitious foreboding. He looked around. Everything seemed fine, and it had been a swell day for killing Grik. The “Nancy’s” engine rumbled healthily above and behind, and they hadn’t been hit by any Grik “shot-mortars” when they bombed the hell out of a retreating column earlier in the flight. It was windy, and the plane bounced around a lot, and the sea to the west showed white teeth, but they should be able to set down safely in Salissa’s lee. All in all, it was a glorious day, and he didn’t know why his ear was bugging him. A shout from aft shattered his sense of well-being.
“How come you don’t go down and let me shoot more Grik?” Cap- tain Risa-Sab-At, commander of Salissa’s Marine contingent, demanded sharply.
“I don’t see any more,” Tikker snapped. “They’ve had enough. They abandon Saa-lon!” He pointed down, behind them, where Haakar-Faask , Naga, Bowles, Felts, Saak-Fas, and Clark were spraying grapeshot across the rocky, mushy land bridge to India proper, gnashing the remnants of the Grik host trying to cross in daylight with the ebbing tide. The Allied armies were rapidly advancing to chop up what remained of the enemy on Ceylon, and those stranded by the tide would likely be annihilated.
“Then let’s go kill some of those trying to cross the sand!” she demanded.
“Right! We’d probably be hit by our own ships, if we go low enough for you to shoot them with that musket! Besides, we’re low on fuel!” Tikker was growing beyond annoyed. Risa had been cooped up on Salissa throughout the campaign, and she’d begged him to take her on this patrol. He’d reluctantly agreed when Admiral Keje just as reluctantly gave his blessing. They both knew how anxious she was to get in the fighting, any fighting, particularly after hearing of her brother Chack’s—and Dennis Silva’s—latest . . . adventures on New Ireland. She’d spent the flight taking potshots at Grik during their bombing runs. At first, the shots surprised and alarmed him. Then they became annoying. He’d told her that if she flew with him, she had to perform all the duties of his spotter/wireless operator, and she’d readily agreed. Once in the air, however, she’d “spotted” all right, trying to get him to dive in on every lost Grik they saw, and he’d quickly determined she barely knew Morse. Except for the column they’d chopped u
p, it had been a wasted patrol. He hoped the other three ships in his flight had made better observations.
“So,” he said, trying to make conversation and lighten the tension he felt. Risa was a “dish” after all, as the Amer-i-cans would say, and, despite his present aggravation, he actually kind of liked her. There were those pesky rumors about her being “mated” to Silva, and he didn’t know what to think of that. She didn’t seem to be pining for the big chief gunner’s mate, however, and he wondered if he had a chance. He never would have before the war, but now? To say things had changed was a vast understatement. She was just so damn intense sometimes! “What are you going to do? Did you really put in for a transfer?”
“Yes,” she shouted back through the voice tube. “To a line regiment. I want to stay on this front and kill Grik, of course, but I’ll go east if I must.”
Where Silva is, Tikker thought glumly. “There is Salissa!” he said, pointing west-southwest. The mighty ship was anchored a few miles offshore, with Humfra Dar a thousand tails beyond her. Both massive “carriers” were screened by a squadron of “DD” frigates under the command of Jim Ellis. It was a heady sight that banished his gloom. Never had so much combat power been assembled in one place, and soon Arracca and her battle group would arrive. Tikker grinned and turned toward the ships and began his descent.
“Must we return?” Risa asked. “This has been . . . fun.”
Tikker grinned and was glad Risa couldn’t see his embarrassed blinking.
“Yes, fun,” he admitted. “To a degree.”
Once they reached her, he circled Salissa while his squadron mates set down in the water between her and the shore and were recovered. It would still be bumpy there, but the winds were largely blocked by the bulk of the massive ship. Finally, it was Tikker’s turn. He lined up on the calmer water, fighting the crosswind that would buffet them until they neared the sea, and reduced power. Down they swooped, and he heard Risa shout with glee. Just fifteen feet off the water, he was preparing to cut power even further, when a massive waterspout erupted directly in his path and something tore through the nose of his plane, slashing him along the left forearm. Without thought, he pushed the throttle to the stop and leveled off. More splashes rose, seemingly at random throughout the area of the anchored carriers and their screen. An explosion suddenly rocked Cablaas-Rag-Lan’s USS Scott, and the new frigate coasted to a stop, her fo’c’sle bathed in flames.
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