“Pipe down, pipe down,” Chapelle called benevolently over the newly repaired shipwide circuit. He himself had fallen asleep on the bridge, sitting on one of the few chairs they’d preserved. He glanced at his watch, realizing he’d slept through the morning watch change. He wondered briefly if there’d been a change. No reason to do it on the bridge of a beached ship, he supposed. Hmm. Monk should be officer of the deck. “Major Mallory, Lieutenant Bekiaa, and Lieutenant Monk to the bridge, on the double. Bosun’s Mate Saama-Kera and Jannik-Fas will coordinate a detail to make sure we remain secure to the shore for now, but don’t swing around and beach again either.” He grinned. “The rest of you may continue to celebrate for one entire minute!”
The cheers resumed, punctuated by laughter, and the ship practically throbbed with stamping feet.
All around, in the water below, large yellow eyes popped up into the brightening day. The Great Mother of the Dry Folk had stirred from her sleep at last. They’d known she was alive, that she breathed once more for a couple of dark spans, but now she’d moved! They’d felt it in the water! All regretted their attack on the Dry Folk. They simply hadn’t known. Would that their meeting had been different! They certainly respected the Dry Folk now, not only as warriors but for their medicine as well. The wounded they’d returned were healing quickly, and they seemed near to healing their Great Mother! They actually envied them that. Not that the natives would ever want to heal a Great Mother, but it might be nice to have a Great Mother that inspired such devotion—an actual desire to heal her in the first place. Most extraordinary creatures.
CHAPTER 17
Respite Island
Respite Island appeared to be all its name implied as the squadron approached it from the northwest the following morning. Doubtless volcanic, the island featured a pair of high peaks near its western coast, and the land around them was a mixture of dense, exotic jungles, interspersed cultivated fields. Limestone cliffs jutted skyward along the north flank, heavily undermined by the relentless sea, but as the ships steamed east, they encountered a broad barrier reef that protected a vast anchorage on the northeast coast. Achilles was once more under her own power, but Icarus led the way, flying a large pennant to summon a pilot. Before long, a small, extreme, single-masted topsail schooner slashed its way toward them from beyond a point of land. It was a gorgeous little craft, Matt decided: around fifty feet long, painted dark blue with bright yellow trim and a white bottom. It was only about twice as large as one of Walker’s launches, but carried a truly magnificent spread of canvas. It was fast too, faster than anything Matt had ever seen under sail. He grinned at the sight of her.
“Pretty little thing,” the Bosun commented.
“Yeah,” Matt replied. “One of these days when all this is over and I get to retire, I want one just like her!” His grin suddenly faded. “I bet Sandra would like that,” he murmured. Gray said nothing. What could he say?
Quickly, the little schooner raced to Icarus’ side and the smaller Imperial frigate hoisted a clear signal to “follow me.” As they steamed around the point and farther out to sea to avoid the reef, the schooner dropped back and paced Walker for a distance, its crew openly gawking at the sleek, freshly touched-up old destroyer that moved along so apparently effortlessly with her twin screw propellers. Matt doubted they gawked with envy; they had no reason to be envious, given their trim, beautifully appointed little craft, but he conceded they might have been struck with amazement.
Imperial shipmakers had developed crude screw propellers, but they were virtually unused. Paddle wheels were “tried and true” and required no underwater hull piercings, which tended to leak. Matt firmly believed that paddle wheels were far more vulnerable, not only to battle damage but to heavy weather as well, but he could understand why a ship without them might look strange to people so accustomed to their use. However inefficient they were, they worked, and in a very visible way. Walker could throw up quite a wake at higher speeds, but right now there was little more than if she’d been under sail. This, combined with her odd appearance and obvious steel construction, had to make quite an impression even on people more technologically advanced than the Lemurians had been at first. The little schooner certainly made an impression on him.
Many of the Lemurians held up their hands, palm out, in their traditional greeting, and the schooner’s crew appeared to notice them for the first time. There was a sudden disarray among its sails, and then she was slanting away, back the direction she’d come. Some of the bridge watch chuckled, and Matt did too. He doubted the schooner was supposed to abandon her pilot—whoever she’d put aboard Icarus was probably throwing a fit.
After a long reach to eastward, the pilot must have indicated the channel, because Icarus turned and steamed back toward the island. Achilles made the same turn at the same point, and Walker followed suit. At their crawling pace, it would still be nearly an hour before they came under the guns of the looming limestone fortress overlooking the anchorage that Jenks had told them to expect. All the same, Matt summoned Boats Bashear.
“Another thirty minutes I should think, then line the sides, if you please.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Bashear replied and left the bridge, fingering his bosun’s pipe. Exactly half an hour later, the pipe trilled insistently and the crew turned out in style. White T-shirts, blue or white kilts and dungarees, and the ever-present Dixie cup hats had become the standard tropical (as if they’d needed any other kind) dress, and as the mixed crew lined the rails, Matt was pleased by how good they looked. Maybe a little bizarre—with humans and ’Cats, tall and short, the ’Cats with their multicolored furs—but good. Behind him, Chack’s Marines had lined the weather deck in full battle garb of dark blue kilts with red piping, white leather torso armor, and crossed black cartridge box straps. There were polished bronze greaves, sword hilts, and “tin hats” on their heads, and bright muskets on their shoulders with gleaming fixed bayonets. Chack paced among them, inspecting the troops for perfection, while he still wore his own battered American helmet, pattern of 1917 cutlass, and a Krag rifle suspended muzzle down by a strap over his shoulder.
Matt raised his binoculars. He hadn’t expected much harbor traffic, and he’d been right. There were several ships at anchor, but none appeared to be warships, and a couple even looked like they’d been through the recent storm. They were weathered and washed out, as if they’d been too long at sea, and their lines were a little jagged with missing rails and spliced yards and masts. Only one was a steamer and it was rather small. They were close enough now to see the Imperial flag floating high above the fortress, and when a thought struck him, Matt studied the ships once more. Hmm. All but the steamer were flying the Company banner. He had to force himself to consider the probability that regardless of how corrupt the Company may be, chances were that the officers and crews of those ships were just honest sailors working for a living. He wondered what cargo they’d brought, however.
More small boats of every description darted to and fro, seemingly suspended on air. Now that they’d entered the vast lagoon, the water was utterly clear, almost crystalline in its purity.
“Skipper,” Palmer said, “Achilles sends that she’ll put in at the Company dock. It’s the biggest one. There’s no naval dock here. Commodore Jenks says he’ll signal Icarus to take up a blocking station to prevent those Company ships from getting underway, and asks if we’ll position ourselves to cover Icarus and Achilles with our guns. He . . . ah . . . begs that you’ll give the people here the benefit of the doubt for now, and he’s going to try to sort things out himself.”
Matt watched a series of signals race up a halyard aboard Jenks’s ship. “Very well,” he said, then lowered his voice to a grumble. “What does he think I’ll do? Just start blasting away?” He hadn’t meant for anyone to hear him, but the Bosun chuckled.
“Prob’ly. And why not?” He motioned at one of the Company flags. “We may not be at war with the Empire yet, but the last thing we saw with
one of those flags shot at us without warning. We are at war with the Company, ain’t we?”
“The Company, but maybe not all Company ships. Yet.” Matt said.
“Jumpin’ Jesus!” Kutas almost chirped.
Bradford was on the starboard bridgewing, studying the island beyond the port, but at Kutas’s words he looked back at the chief quartermaster’s mate. “What?” he inquired. Kutas’s face was practically purple.
“Them boats! The little ones . . . the fishing boats!” was all he managed.
Bradford redirected his glasses. “Goodness gracious!” he exclaimed. Many of the small boats Kutas had been trying to avoid running down were crewed almost exclusively by practically nude women. Some were nude, and their bronze skins and dark hair suddenly drew every eye. Even the men lining the rails had begun to lean incredulously forward, trying for a better view. To them, Walker had suddenly entered some magic, mythical paradise. It was Shangri-la without the snow.
“The joint’s swarming with broads!” somebody shouted excitedly. It was true. Even if the island hadn’t been exotically inviting enough before, the apparent abundance of dusky-skinned beauties lining the dock and the beach beyond was enough to send an electric thrill down every human spine. It was like a scene out of Gable’s Mutiny on The Bounty. Many women working seines through the light surf along the shore were naked too, as best the men could tell—and they did their very best to tell.
“Stand those men to attention this instant!” Matt told the Bosun, and Gray bolted down the stairs and through the forward hatch onto the fo’c’sle. For a moment he paused, staring at the boats, as guilty as the rest of the crew. He shook himself.
“What’s the matter with you . . . you . . . perverts?” Gray ranted with considerably less than ordinary zeal and imagination. “Them gals are practically children, fer God’s sake! Don’t tell me you devils never seen nekkid women before!”
“Can’t,” Stites breathed, “but it’s been a long, long time!”
“Shut up, you! You’re supposed to set an example!”
Paul Stites rounded on the Bosun. “What kind of example you want me to set, S.B.? Jeez!”
For once, even the Bosun was speechless. “Just grab yer eyeballs before they drop in the water!” Gray managed at last, “or by God, I’ll kick’em back in yer head!” He turned, glaring down the rail. “All you shif’less, useless bastards! Try to be destroyermen a little longer, or you’ll queer the Skipper’s plans, and I will kill you for that! We make the wrong impression here, we might as well just turn around!” He whirled back at Stites. “And as for you, get back to your post on the number one gun! We’re showin’ up here all friendly an’ such, but there might be a goddamn fight!”
Above, Matt rubbed his forehead. It had been a year and a half since his men had seen any women but the nurses and “nannies.” The few women they’d rescued from S-19 who’d been . . . willing . . . had been a help, but this was like whacking a shark on the nose with bloody meat. He watched Achilles maneuver close to the dock as Icarus proceeded toward a place where she could supervise the Company ships. A slow roll of gunfire erupted from the side of Achilles as she saluted the fort’s flag far above the harbor, and the smoke and report of the cannons drifted back across them. Perhaps that would have a sobering effect. Momentarily, an answering salute rumbled from the fortress.
“All stop,” Matt said. “All astern one-third.” He looked around at the others in the pilothouse. “I think we’ll not go any closer for now. Kutas, we won’t anchor either, so try to keep this position if the current allows.” He turned to Frankie Steele, who’d just stepped into the pilothouse. “Rig out the launches and make preparations to take the Marines ashore. If Jenks needs a hand, I think Chack’s ’Cats might scare the locals, but probably not as bad as those sex-starved men out there.”
Ultimately, there wasn’t any fighting. As soon as Achilles touched the pier, her own Marines swarmed ashore and three squads of red-coated troops swept into the city and along the docks. Another squad formed up on the dock itself, and a fifth rowed out to each Company ship in turn, leaving only when the Imperial flag had replaced the Company banners. It was that easy, and it all happened about that fast. Matt knew his own Marines were probably better infantry than Jenks’s Marines, and Jenks knew it too, but the Imperials seemed professional and intimidating enough at the moment.
“Achilles wants us to come on in,” Palmer reported. “Snug up to the Company dock just astern of her. Jenks has all the local cheeses gathered up for a talk.”
“Very well,” Matt replied. “Take us in, Mr. Kutas.” To the Bosun down below, he called, “The crew will remain on parade until further notice. The first man who utters a sound will be transferred to the tanker squadron when it arrives. Do I make myself clear?”
Walker eased up alongside the dock, gray smoke curling skyward from the second and fourth stacks, blower almost sighing with relief. Boats Bashear trilled his pipe and Lemurian line handlers threw ropes at gawking men on the dock. One, dressed much like a thousand dockworkers the Bosun had seen in a hundred ports “back home,” just stood there when a ’Cat expertly tossed him a line and it fell to the dock and dropped in the water.
“Catch the goddamn rope!” Gray bellowed at the man. “Ain’t you never seen a rope before? It’s called a rope! You’re supposed to catch it, you imbi-cile!” Gray nodded at the ’Cat to haul in and try again. “Drop it this time, and I’ll tie the whole damn ship off to you, since you ain’t got the sense of a stanchion!” he warned the stranger.
This time the man caught the wet rope and took a creditable turn, although he still seemed shaken. “Dumb-aass,” muttered the ’Cat, loud enough to be heard, and the man just gaped again.
Gray glanced from bow to stern. “Singled up, fore and aft, Skipper,” he called to the bridgewing.
“All stop, finished with engines,” Matt commanded and Pack Rat rang the engine room telegraph. He looked back at the dock. Men by the dozens, then scores, some dressed as laborers and others in their finery, were approaching the ship. Commodore Jenks strode among them, accompanied by a group of well- but practically dressed men with wide straw hats on their heads. Another man, rather fat, and easily the most elaborately dressed, rode at the head of the procession on the back of an honest-to-God donkey, fanning himself with yet another wide-brimmed hat. Matt suspected the donkey was a descendant of cargo carried by those early Indiamen. Jenks’s Marines were still formed up at the Achilles gangway, and when Matt caught his eye, Jenks gave him a slight nod.
“Have Mr. McFarlane secure number two, if you please, but maintain pressure on number four.” Matt turned to Bradford, who’d rejoined him on the bridgewing after rushing up to the fire control platform above to get a better view. He hadn’t been gone but a minute or two, and seemed uncharacteristically nervous. “What’s the matter, Courtney? You seem distracted. Looks like you’ll be able to lay in a lifetime supply of those goofy hats you like.”
“Indeed,” Bradford replied, then allowed a small smile. “The ‘matter’ is, Captain Reddy, I’m a ‘diplomat’ in name only. I’ve only ever dealt with beings whom I was relatively sure were being honest with me. I wouldn’t count Billingsley, since he turned out to be . . . whatever he is, and besides, I never had to bargain with him. Perhaps dealing with Saan-Kakja’s Sky Priest Meksnaak might count as a ‘disingenuous encounter,’ but he turned out fairly honest in the end. In any event, I’ve never had to negotiate with anyone who was practiced at it at all, and perhaps today—surely at some point, with this entire empire to draw upon—I’m bound to encounter someone who’s been studying diplomacy and deceit their entire lives!”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Courtney,” Matt said, and his voice went flat.
Bradford didn’t notice. “Easy for you to say! You’ve had plenty of practice at what you do!”
Matt shook his head. “Notwithstanding this fine, clear lagoon, we’re all in murky waters here. None of us really knows w
hat will happen. I just mean that you shouldn’t worry too much about what to say. Our mission’s pretty straightforward: find Sandra and the princess, and make the people who took them pay.” He shrugged. “Since it looks like those ‘people’ are the Company, it has to pay. In that respect, our mission and Jenks’s new cause do overlap, and if we’re both successful in achieving that, it might even help us gain another alliance of some sort as well. But make no mistake; we’re not here to ‘negotiate.’ At least not for anything beyond what we discussed yesterday evening at dinner. Apparently, that’s more of a business transaction”—he made a face—“and I’m sure you can handle that.”
The procession had come to a halt alongside Walker and appeared to be waiting expectantly. “Pass the word,” Matt said, speaking louder. “The Bosun, Stites, Chack, and two Marines of his choice will accompany me and Mr. Bradford ashore.”
“Weapons?” Steele asked.
“You bet. From now on, always.”
Marine Captain Chack-Sab-At proceeded across the gangplank, followed by two Marines with muskets on their shoulders. Matt was interested to note that he’d chosen First Sergeant Blas-Ma-Ar, whom the Bosun called “Blossom” for some reason, and the former Aryaalan noble, Corporal Koratin. Matt and Courtney followed them, dressed in their best, with 1911 Colts holstered at their sides. Courtney wouldn’t wear a cutlass—he was more of a menace to himself with one than to anyone else—but Matt had his now somewhat battered but highly polished Academy sword. Bringing up the rear was the Bosun with his Thompson and Stites with a BAR—Browning automatic rifle. Together they stepped briskly up to the mounted official and Chack and his Marines stepped aside.
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