“Why aren’t you at your battle station?” Spanky demanded.
“I am! Why ain’t you at yours?”
Shaking his head, Spanky resumed his sprint. At least Earl was doing something. His usual battle station was in the head.
It was awful on the bridge. The new battle shutters covered the windows, so there wasn’t much broken glass, but at least one shot had come through the thin side plating of the starboard bridgewing and plowed up the wooden strakes in its passage. The chart table was shattered and twisted askew, and the handle had been sheared clean off the engine room telegraph. The damage to the bridge wasn’t what caught his eyes at first, however.
Four bodies lay on the shattered strakes. Norm Kutas was alive, but had splinters running up the backs of his legs, all the way to his buttocks. A pair of ’Cat pharmacist’s mates had already arrived and were trying to get him on a stretcher. Ed Palmer, hair scorched and face blackened, seemed okay otherwise, though winded. Two ’Cats were obviously dead, their blood dripping through the strakes from terrible wounds, and the brave Lemurian talker was still at the wheel, holding it in an iron grip even though she no longer controlled the ship. Others began to arrive, grabbing bodies and carrying them away, but none touched Frankie Steele.
Frankie had somehow dragged himself up against the forward bulkhead. He wore a curious expression on his pale face, staring down at the stumps of both his legs, gone above the knees. To Spanky’s amazement, he spoke.
“Hey, Spanky,” he said, almost whispering. “Skipper gives me the keys, and what’s the first thing I do? I wrap her around a tree.”
“Oh, Frankie,” Spanky said hoarsely, kneeling beside him. “Even the Skipper’s banged her up a time or two. You know that.”
“Yeah. But not like this. Not stupid.” Slowly, he looked into Spanky’s eyes. “An’ we just got her fixed up from the last time!” He paused. “Mr. Ellis! Where’s Mr. Ellis?”
“Jim’s fine,” Spanky said softly. “Just busy is all.” Jim Ellis was on the other side of the world.
Frankie smiled. “Good man. He’ll be a swell skipper for Mahan, once he settles in.” His chin slumped slowly to his chest and he was gone.
“Goddamn,” Spanky said, and stood. He looked at Minnie. “Are you fit for duty?” he demanded. Shakily, she nodded. “Then get back to your station! Mr. Palmer, I presume by your presence that you have no more pressing duties, so you have the conn. I have the deck. Talker? Replacements to the bridge, and inform Mr. Bashear to relinquish the conn. I expect he’s got other things to do. What’s the status on the boilers?” He patted his chest. “And somebody get me some binoculars!”
For the last several moments, there’d been no incoming fire. Taking the offered binoculars, Spanky strode onto the bridgewing and scanned around to determine why. He saw with satisfaction that their primary tormentor was low in the water and beginning to abandon. A few good hits with the Jap 4.7 at the waterline had probably settled her hash. The transports still lay ahead, obscured by a growing fogbank of smoke, but they’d gained some distance, bright sparks in black smoke soaring high from their stacks. They hadn’t turned away, however—not yet. They seemed intent on finding protection behind another pair of liners approaching Walker from the west. The number one gun barked and bucked, and a round shrieked away to explode in the fo’c’sle of one of them, but Spanky couldn’t tell if it did much good. A ’Cat pounced on the smoking brass shell as it fell to the deck from the opened breech. He tossed it in a nearby basket almost full of other dingy, blackened cartridges.
Spanky picked his way across the shattered strakes to the port bridgewing. More liners were approaching from the port quarter. Damn. He needed steam! For a moment, he wondered where the enemy frigates were. They had to be faster, and should have been all over him by now. He shrugged. Gift horses were rare critters. “Steam?” he demanded again.
“Finny report now, daamitt!” the talker replied, frustrated. Spanky couldn’t stop a small smile. “He say boilers okay, but main steam line and feed-water pipe is shot. Smoke uptakes too. An’ there’s oil an’ water in the bilge from leak somewhere....”
“Tell Finny I don’t give a damn what’s wrong, only how long it’ll take to fix—and what he needs to do it! Does he need people?”
“Almost all firemen in forward fireroom okay, they cram in air locks on both sides. He got them. Actually, Tabby got them. . . .” The talker paused. “Tabby on the horn.”
“Spanky Skipper now?” came the tinny question. No drawl was present.
“Aye,” the talker replied.
“Then tell Spanky to fight ship! I fight mess down here! Finny bypassed three an’ four. Spanky lucky to have number two back, soon as pressure builds again! I fix the others as fast as I can, they fixed when they fixed! Spanky don’t get no more holes in my poor ship! He hear?”
Spanky rolled his eyes and nodded.
“He hear,” confirmed the talker.
“What’s the pressure on number two?” Spanky asked.
“Ah, eighty and rising,” Palmer replied, “but ... there’s still nothing getting to the engine room!”
“Crap. Finny must’ve shut everything off. Get Tabby on it ASAP. We gotta move.” He stepped outside and glassed around again. “Okay, tell Campeti to have the number one gun concentrate on the transports with fire control assistance. All others will stay on the advancing warships in local control. Aim for their bows, tear ’em up!”
“Comm-aander,” said the talker, “lookout reports Taas-itus and Euripides have fought through enemy frigates, trying to join us here!”
“Is that so? Well, that explains the frigates. Tell Campeti to keep firing, but watch his targets! We might have friendlies out there shortly.”
The battle off Scapa Flow became a race for position. By all rights and reasonable expectations, it should have been over; the Dominion plan had been thwarted in the sense that there was now no way they could still land troops with surprise, and surprise had been the key to success. Unreadable signals flying from a large, distant liner confirmed that the enemy understood this as well, because even as the Dominion warships jockeyed to reconsolidate and reform, the surviving transports—minus one more that Walker had disabled—finally drew away to the west. Walker’s lookout confirmed that Imperial ships of the line, “battle waagons,” were finally out of the harbor and forming up as well. Fully two-thirds of the Dominion ships were heading for them, trying to cut them off.
At first Spanky didn’t understand. Why continue the fight? Intellectually, he expected an interesting match. Several Dominion liners were disabled or destroyed, so the numbers would be nearly equal. The contest between the two fleets would pit ships with many guns, propelled by sail alone, against ships with fewer, bigger guns, powered by sail and steam. There were advantages and disadvantages inherent to the philosophies behind each fleet, and Spanky knew Matt would be fascinated. But then Spanky did understand. The remaining third of the Dominion fleet, a little hard-used and frigate-heavy now, was gathering to approach Walker. Apparently the old destroyer had made an impression on the enemy commander, because the major battle shaping northeast of her position seemed designed solely to ensure that nothing beyond the now battered Tacitus and Euripides could come to Walker’s aid.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered. “Tell Tabby the boilers might be ‘fixed when they’re fixed,’ but we need at least one of ’em fixed right damn now.”
“She trying!” cried the talker. “She not know why there no steam to engines!”
Spanky looked around, frustrated. He needed to be helping out with engineering, but right now he had to be on the bridge. He thought furiously for a moment, battling the various necessities in his mind. The simple fact was, even if the Skipper and the others hadn’t been ashore, Walker’s bench just wasn’t deep enough for this anymore. There were plenty of good, professional ’Cats aboard, but dealing with situations like this could be learned only by experience. He could put Bashear back in charge, but the B
osun was knee-deep as it was. Campeti was busy too. He thought Norm could handle it, but he’d already been taken to the wardroom. He finally came to the conclusion that, however unprepared for overall command he considered himself, he was the only remotely qualified person available. He had to stay where he was. With Miami dead, that left only Tabby to do his job. She knew Walker’s boilers inside and out, literally. He just hoped she’d picked up enough of the rest of the ship’s engineering plant, and how it all worked together. He sighed.
“Tell Tabby she better find out, and quick. This ship and everybody aboard needs her to be a chief engineer right now. If we’re not underway in ten minutes, we’re all dead.”
The talker gulped, tail swishing, and relayed his words. Tabby didn’t reply.
“Euripides is coming out of the smoke of that burning liner—off the starboard beam now!” Palmer cried. “She looks pretty chewed.”
The Imperial frigate had lost her mainmast and its remains had been cut away. Black smoke poured from a dozen holes in her tall, skinny stack, and bright splintered wood glared from her dark-painted hull. Both her paddle wheels still churned vigorously alongside, though, and she was approaching at a respectable clip. A few moments later, Tacitus appeared as well, and if anything, she looked worse than her sister. Only her mizzen and bowsprit still stood, and she was kind of crab-walking around a battered starboard paddle box, but somehow she was managing to keep pace with Euripides. Shredded Imperial flags still proudly streamed from both ships.
“Have Campeti pass the word! ‘Friendies’ on the starboard quarter, do not fire on them!” Spanky ordered. The command probably hadn’t been necessary, but Spanky didn’t want any mistakes in the chaos.
“Euripides signaling to make for our starboard side,” the talker echoed the lookout. “Tacitus angling aft; she come alongside to port.”
Shortly afterward, Euripides backpedaled, her paddle wheels throwing up a mountain of foam as she arrested her forward motion alongside the wallowing destroyer. Tacitus was still coming up, more laboriously, but bundled hammocks, sails, and other items were being slung over her shattered starboard bulwarks, like bumpers on a tug.
“What the hell?” Spanky muttered.
“Ahoy there, Walker,” came a cry from the catwalk between the paddle boxes on Euripides. Spanky grabbed a speaking trumpet and dashed onto the starboard bridgewing, avoiding the jagged metal there. He saw a man he recognized as a friend of Jenks’s pointing a trumpet at him. He’d actually given the man a tour of Walker’s firerooms, but he couldn’t remember his name.
“Ahoy, Euripides!” he cried. “It’s good to see you after such a . . . busy morning. I hope we’re still friends after all the trouble we’ve gotten you into.”
“Nonsense! Wouldn’t have missed it!” came the reply. “I did notice that your wondrously complicated internals seem a bit out of sorts.”
Spanky grimaced at the gentle jab. “We’ll get our ‘internals’ sorted out,” he said. “But I appreciate your concern.”
The figure on the catwalk shrugged. “I’m not terribly concerned, actually. Not after the way you tore through those Dom ships of the line—well done, that—but I do bear orders from the Governor-Emperor himself, via Commodore Jenks, to do whatever may be in my power, regardless of cost, to prevent serious damage to your ingenious, but frankly, somewhat . . . ill-favored ship. I do hope ‘ill-favored’ is not too provocative?”
Spanky laughed. “Beauty’s a matter of perception and opinion. Your ship don’t look too pretty herself right now.” A mighty splash erupted off Walker’s bow, and the number one gun, now trained out to port, replied at one of the closing enemy ships with a loud crack and a long tongue of smoky yellow flame.
“Indeed,” agreed the man, unperturbed, “but more enemies approach, and judging by your current inconvenience and the lurid dents in your side, it might be said I’ve failed my mission in one respect, if not all. Together, we’ve accomplished our primary task—to disrupt the enemy invasion.” The man paused. “I’m honored to have assisted you in that. This was not your battle, and yet you’ve suffered on our behalf. That will not be forgotten, and thankfully I remain in a position to at least attempt the next most pressing instruction of my sovereign.”
“So? What’s that?” Spanky yelled.
“To prevent the sinking—or worse, capture—of your ship by the enemy. To that end, Euripides and Tacitus will protect her with their very bodies, and the bodies of their crews—so please forgive me if I entreat you to ‘sort out’ your engineering problems as quickly as you possibly can!”
CHAPTER 28
West Eastern Sea
The flotilla of formerly Tagranesi proas skimmed along in a westerly direction with a favorable wind at a much faster clip than Ajax’s longboat ever could have managed. The moon was high and cast plenty of light upon the dappled sea to spot any looming leviathans, or mountain fish, that might lie in their path. Silva had the tiller of the “command” proa, enjoying the feel of the water sliding past, and his conversation with Chinakru—through Lawrence—in the stern sheets. “Petey” sat carefully, inconspicuously, perched near him, barely moving and without a peep, as he watched Lawrence and the former “Tagranesi” with profound suspicion. Nearly everyone else aboard, and on the other proas nearby, was asleep, except for their helmsmen and a pair of keen lookouts.
Captain Lelaa had calculated, by the moon and stars, and longitudinal observations she’d made at Talaud, that they had just enough food and water to complete their voyage in the swifter vessels—weather permitting. The ex-Tagranesi, soon to be “Sa’aarans”—hopefully—had been excited and friendly to their human and Lemurian guests, but, with the exception of Silva, Sandra, and, to a lesser degree, Abel Cook, the rest of the former castaways kept to themselves. Lawrence was happy to be back among his people, and while his “homecoming” hadn’t been what he’d expected, he was warmly welcomed. He was sympathetic to the . . . mild discomfort of his friends, however. When he’d been alone among them, they hardly thought about his resemblance to their mortal foes, but now, surrounded by so many, some seemed reserved, pensive. Even his dear ’Ecky was affected.
Sandra and Silva didn’t care at all. They’d used Lawrence shamelessly as a portable translator, to talk to anyone who grabbed their attention. Lawrence’s “Tagran” was rusty at first, but soon he was fluent again. Silva was most interested in the surprisingly fast, stable, and forgiving sailing qualities of the proas. Almost sixty feet long and nearly ten feet wide, their hulls were shaped from a single massive tree. The outriggers were big too—sharp, hollow, and relatively airtight. (They were raised from the water once a day or so, by counterbalancing, then drained and replugged.) At some time in the past, their designers had even added a long, submerged keel that reduced their leeway amazingly. Silva pronounced them “neat little boats.” He also pestered Chinakru incessantly about how his people killed shiksaks, and how they made war if other groups—usually refugees like themselves, it now seemed—came to call.
Sandra wanted to learn everything about their medical practices, but she’d been particularly interested in talking with the females. No human or Lemurian had ever seen a female Grik. Lawrence’s people were clearly just a different race of the same species, and she’d hoped to learn some elemental truths. The Tagranesi “Noble Queen” concept seemed strikingly similar to the “Celestial Mother” of the Grik, but among Lawrence’s folk, there were no Hij or Uul. There were just people. The only “lower class” was hatchlings. There were few females in the little fleet, and only half a dozen hatchlings. Chinakru had left “those not ready” on the island, probably to die. It seemed incredibly harsh . . . and yet the few hatchlings among them, too young to begin their “training,” acted more like vicious, annoying pets than children. None of the females paid them any heed except to catch them and feed them from time to time. It was shocking and bizarre, but without knowing more, Sandra was at a loss as to how the system might be improved. In the meantime, a
s the days passed, the former castaways had learned to protect their belongings from pillage—and protect themselves from droppings whenever one of the little vermin leaped across to their boat from another and skylarked in the rigging.
Petey actually helped in that respect. He’d evidently sensed from the start that he was among predators that would eat him if they could, and he stayed very close to the humans, Rebecca in particular. Somehow he must have gathered that she was a cherished and protected member of this new “pack” of his, and he screeched, gobbled, and generally raised hell whenever a hatchling ventured near. He stayed away from Lelaa now too. Life was boring on a boat and once, whatever he used for a mind had decided that her twitching tail might taste good, or at least be fun to catch. He’d barely escaped being hacked apart by her sword. After that, he gave both Lawrence and Lelaa a wide berth. His only concession to the lure of adventure now was to occasionally—carefully—hop or coast after Silva when the big man moved about the boat. He usually indiscriminately screeched one of the few words he knew and glided back to Rebecca if the man came close to someone he feared, but Silva paid no apparent heed to Petey whatsoever.
“Chinakru ’ould like to know ’ore a’out the Grik,” Lawrence said.
Silva sighed. He could usually understand Lawrence pretty well, but the lizardy guy still talked like his mouth was full of rocks. A lot of what he said was pronounced almost perfectly, but there were some sounds he still just couldn’t do. “Well, tell him,” Silva said. “You know as much about ’em as I do. Maybe more.”
“He grows . . . exercised. He hates the idea o’ the Grik; the things I ha’ told . . . I think he wants to kill them.”
Silva snorted and dug in his shooting pouch for the last dry yellow tobacco leaves he’d been conserving. He upended the little pouch over his mouth, forming the loose leaf fragments into a dry wad. “That’s fine. Won’t hurt his standing with Saan-Kakja,” he said. “Have you explained the kind of war we’re fightin’? It’s gone way beyond spears an’ claws.”
Rising Tides: Destroyermen Page 45
