With deft blows, he drove the chisel in, moved it over, and did it again. When he’d loosened an entire seam, he began prying at it with the chisel until they could insert the pipe in the gap. “Give me a hand,” he said, and Isak and the Marine leaned on the pipe with him. A tortured greeech sound came from the crate. “Again!”
They worked the pipe up and down, much as Jim had done with the chisel, taking occasional anxious looks into the dark interior. “Once more at the top and bottom, and I bet one of us can squeeze in there if we hold it in the middle!” A little more effort and it was done. Jim inserted the pipe in the center of the seam and handed it over. “Pull!” he said. The gap widened and he knocked a few nails over with the hammer. Then he stuck his head inside.
“Great God Almighty!” he said, his voice muffled.
“Well, what the hell is it?” Isak demanded acerbically, losing patience.
For a moment, Jim couldn’t speak. Before him, as his eyes adjusted, he saw a bright, greasy metal spindle with only slight surface rust. Beyond was a triangular joint with bolts conveniently screwed into six holes. Still farther in he made out a radiator and the beginnings of a distinctive, Curtiss Green-painted shape that he’d never, ever expected to see again. Pulling his head back out, he looked at his companions with wide eyes. “Nail it up tight, fellas,” he said. “As tight as you possibly can.” He looked around at the other, similar crates and a slow grin spread across his face.
“Well . . . what the goddamn hell is it?” Isak demanded.
“Ah, they are pleased. I am so glad!” Rasik said to Koratin. The two had stayed back, near the bulwark, talking.
“So it seems. They also seem to have forgotten all about you.”
“How convenient.”
“Indeed.”
“What is the plan?”
“Simple. Do you see that Marine with the Amer-i-caans? He is one of us. He will continue to distract Cap-i-taan Ellis and the wiry one while we take a boat ride.”
“The other Marines?”
“With us.”
“How delicious!” Rasik exclaimed. “They meant to maroon me, and I will maroon them! A shame we cannot kill them and take their weapons, but with half our group ordered to remain with the boat . . .”
“Precisely. It might prove dangerous. Now all we need to do is slip back down the net while they exult over their prize! After you, Lord King.”
Down in the half-flooded aft hold, they heaved the heavy crates up one after another until Chack’s shoulders screamed in agony and the others were panting with exertion. Through their increasingly concentrated toil, none of them noticed when it suddenly grew darker in the chamber for a moment as something moved through the light-giving rent in the ship’s side. They felt it, though, another vibration like the others, but clearly here.
Chack looked down at the upturned face of his Marine on the diminished stack of crates. “Up!” he shouted. “Out of the hold!” He turned to race up the ladder, to get out of the way. Blas-Ma-Ar heaved frantically against the crates stacked above to make room for him to pass and so neither ever saw what got the other Marine. They heard a heavy splash and felt the entire ship judder slightly. More splashes came when the stack of crates collapsed into the water, but by the time Chack reached the top and spun to offer his hand, the other Marine was gone. There’d been no scream, no shout. Nothing but the splash. Chack snatched his Krag and frantically searched the water. He thought he saw a dark shape near the hole in the ship and fired, but all that apparently accomplished was to create an impenetrable haze of gun-smoke. He roared in frustration and fired again anyway.
“Cap-i-taan! Cap-i-taan!” Blas-Ma-Ar was pulling on his leather armor. “He is gone!” Chack shook her off and chambered another round. The almost youngling’s voice turned hard. “Cap-i-taan Chack-Sab-At, we have lost a Marine. He died bravely doing his duty. How many lives is this ammunition worth? We still have our duty as well!”
Chack took a deep breath. “Very well. You are right, of course. Come, help me with these crates, but stay alert! There may yet be other dangers within this foul place!”
“Was that shots? That was shots!” Jim exclaimed. “Muffled in the ship. Chack!” He looked around. “Hey, where’s Koratin and Rasik?”
“They left,” the Marine with them said simply.
“What? Wait, never mind that now. C’mon!” Jim snatched his Springfield and raced toward the hatch he’d seen Chack and his party enter. “Chack!” he bellowed, and was relieved to hear an answering shout, still muted by decks and passageways. “Where are you? What did you shoot at?”
“We are here,” came a closer reply. “We need help with some heavy objects. Most are still stacked in the entrance to the aft hold.” Chack finally appeared at the base of the companionway they were looking down. It was dark as pitch.
“Where’s your lantern?” Isak asked.
“Follow this corridor behind me, through the engineering spaces. It is not so dark back there. The lantern marks the spot.” Chack paused, taking a breath. “Do not enter the aft hold. Something is in there. Something that got one of my Marines. You should be safe enough,” he continued brusquely. “I do not think whatever it was can reach as high as the crates we retrieved.”
Jim turned to face the Marine who’d stayed with them. “What’s this about Rasik? What do you mean, ‘they left’?”
Chack had reached the top of the companionway. He was puffing from exertion and repressed emotion, but he interrupted before the Marine could answer. “Cap-i-taan Ellis, we found much ammunition. Good ammunition for the big machine guns. I lost a good Marine to some monster getting it out. Please let us retrieve it while we know the path is clear. I will try to . . . explain the situation with Rasik as I see it when we are done.”
Jim started again to demand an immediate explanation, but Chack had already turned to go back for another crate. “Come on,” he said to the others.
It still took several trips by all five of them to retrieve the crates and drag them to the bulwark, where the cargo net was. There was indeed much ammunition. For some reason, Jim wasn’t surprised to see the boat gone. “All right,” he said at last, gasping from his effort, “what gives?”
Chack was breathing hard too, but when he set his last crate down, he turned to Ellis. “I learned a great lesson once, not long ago, from some very wise men.” He glanced at Blas-Ma-Ar, puffing up behind them festooned with the odd-looking weapons and the sack full of books. “Sometimes, for their own sake and the sake of the greater good, there are things leaders keep from followers because they do not have ‘need to know.’ ’Specially if the knowing—and only the knowing—will cause grief or . . . make things harder.” Chack’s tail flicked dramatically from one side to the other in a gesture that meant much the same thing as “on the other hand.”
“There are also some very few rare times when followers decide their leaders don’t have ‘need to know.’ These . . . what-if—hypothetical?—decisions do not come from distrust, animosity, or for any bad reasons at all.” His tail flicked again. “It is the esteem they feel for their leaders that makes them happen.” He took a final deep breath and continued. “Sometimes, followers see . . . again, hypothetically . . . that a thing must be done. For reasons of honor, integrity, and the greater good of others, there is no choice.” He held up a hand. “But, for those same reasons, leaders need not—must not—know about the thing that must be done.”
“That’s not good enough, Chack! What the hell’s going on? Tell me; that’s an order!”
“Very well, but forgive me if my explaining wanders. I’ve just lost a Marine and I’m maybe ‘rattled,’ as you say.” He sighed. “I’m poorly prepared right now, but may I answer you . . . philosophically?”
“What is this bullshit?” Jim’s ’Cat was good, but Chack was speaking English. He must have practiced saying “philosophically” for a while.
“I take that as yes. You of all people know that a leader’s honor and authority
must be maintained at all costs.”
Jim blanched slightly, but he already knew Chack meant no insult.
Chack continued: “He cannot, must not, break his word. Not to his crew, or even his prisoners.”
Jim’s eyes went wide as he finally realized what Chack was saying. “So you’re telling me . . .”
Chack shushed him. “A moment. I’m not telling you anything. For the sake of our ‘philosophical discussion,’ say Cap-i-taan Reddy, our supreme commander, was forced to make a decision . . . a terrible accommodation that must torture him . . . even though it was made for the greater good. You, as his friend and follower, are bound to honor that accommodation in his place. You have no choice, no matter how distasteful you find it, even knowing how much it cost Cap-i-taan Reddy to make it in the first place. You would be tempted as his friend to break the accommodation, but that would be against his orders. That would reflect poorly on you and him as well. If, however, unknown to you, a small group of followers—who’d gravely suffered, I add—decided they could not bear this accommodation, and took it on themselves—knowing you would be bound to punish them—to break it without your knowledge . . .”
“They’re gonna bump off that Rasik bastard!” Isak said gleefully.
Chack stared hard at the fireman. Under his helmet, his ears were probably slicked back in irritation. “I didn’t say that. Nor as I understand it, is that their exact intent.”
A short time later, the boat pulled back to the ship with Koratin and the two Marines. Immediately, all those on the ship besides Jim Ellis began passing crates and green metal boxes of ammunition down. Ellis fumed. He was relieved and infuriated at the same time. A plot had been hatched under his very nose—again—and although this time it was apparently done to spare him, he was still angry. Much to Isak’s consternation, Jim hadn’t revealed what he’d seen in the massive crates. It was just too big and it might be better if it remained a secret. Also, in this case, Isak’s opinion wasn’t worth much. A short time ago, it wouldn’t have occurred to him to keep a secret from Chack, but right now he was mad and a little distrustful. Besides, he realized after he thought about it some more, they were going straight from this place into probable battle. If the Grik captured anyone, God forbid, it was best they have no idea what was in the wrecked ship north of Chill-chaap. It wouldn’t be difficult for the Grik to launch an expedition to destroy it, because who knew when the Allies would be able to come back themselves? No, this he’d keep to himself for a while until he had a chance to think more about it.
“We’ve done what we came here to do,” he said. “We’ve found Rasik’s ‘surprise,’ and I know what’s in the big crates. This ammo will come in real handy. Hell, it’s worth the trip by itself.” One of the books Chack had retrieved was the ship’s manifest. They’d lugged fifty-five thousand rounds of .50 BMG to the bulwark, and a few thousand rounds of .30-06. According to the pages in the book, there were two million more rounds in the ship. Quite understandable when one considered what they were for. A lot would be underwater and some might be ruined, but they’d have the brass and bullets. He tucked the manifest under his arm. He’d look it over some more on the way back to the ship.
He studied Koratin as the Marine corporal worked. It was hard to spot, but there was a little blood on his now slightly grungy white leather armor. “What did you do with Rasik, Koratin? I have to know.”
Koratin paused in his labor. “He desired to be set ashore here, instead of on the island,” he said simply. “As you Amer-i-caans would say, I owed him one.”
Ellis clenched his teeth. “Is he alive?”
“Of course! We left him quite well situated, as a matter of fact.” He glanced at the other two Marines. “We left him all our rations and even our spears! He should have no difficulty surviving for a considerable period. I swear to you now, before the Sun sinking yonder, Rasik will never die by our hands!”
Slightly mollified—Aryaalans didn’t swear by the Sun lightly—Ellis frowned. “But he might wander back to Aryaal, damn it! That’s why I wanted him on the island!”
“It matters little. If he’d wanted across, he could have built a raft. No, I think King Rasik will trouble the Alliance no more. He fully understands he is not wanted!”
“Well . . . you still disobeyed an order! Put yourself and these other Marines on report. I’m tempted to put Chack on report as well, as an accessory of some kind!” Jim looked at Chack. “Philosophical, my ass!”
“He had nothing to do with it!” Koratin objected.
“Maybe not, but he knew.”
“He may have surmised, Cap-i-taan, but he did not know.”
Jim looked at Chack again. Maybe Koratin was right. Clearly, Chack had expected them to kill Rasik. “Very well. For now. Let’s hurry up and get the hell out of here. It’ll be a long row home, mostly in the dark, and with that giant duck-eating . . . whatever it is, and with what got our Marine, that’s kind of a creepy thought!” He shook his head. “What is it with this damn world, where everything wants to eat you?”
“Hey, Cap’n Ellis,” Isak said suddenly. Once unaccustomed to making unsolicited comments to officers, the fireman blurted them out all the time now. “It just hit me. The ol’ Blackhawk used to be named Santa Catalina before the Navy bought her! One of her snipes told me once when we was alongside.” He shook his head. “Guy was one squirrely bastard. Used to run around ever’where tootin’ on a duck call! That’s why I remembered it all of a sudden. You know, the duck call . . . ? Well, anyway, it’s still kinda weird.”
Weird was right, Jim thought. Weird the way Isak’s brain worked. A few minutes before, he’d been irate that Jim wouldn’t tell him what was in the crates. Then he dredged up something like that.
Rasik-Alcas watched the boat pull away through small gaps in the canopy. They hadn’t covered his eyes; they’d only gagged him. Now, through the searing waves of agony, he couldn’t even scream. They hadn’t taken him far, just a short distance beyond the jungle-choked shore. He’d actually been close enough to hear Koratin reassure Ellis that he wasn’t dead! How could any creature lie so amazingly well? Rasik himself hadn’t suspected a thing—but of course, he hadn’t wanted to. Koratin would have known that! As depraved as Rasik knew himself to be, he’d certainly met his final, evil match—and all because of younglings!
He struggled feebly, but the movement only caused more agony. Koratin and the Marines had pinned his arms to the trunk of a wide subaa tree, right through the twinbones. He couldn’t even tear himself free! Not that it would do any good. They’d done the same to the twinbones in his legs and then made a small incision in his belly. Not large enough to bleed him to death, but quite large enough to pull his intestines through. The squirming, tearing sensation had been more than he could bear, and he’d finally passed out. When he awoke, his murderers were gone. Food was scattered on the ground all around him—and his guts had been strung five or six tails away and hung on a limb.
He clenched his eyes shut as biting insects buzzed around his entrails. If only he’d known! How could he have known? Not only Koratin’s precious, despicable younglings had perished on Nerracca—the Home the Japanese destroyed—but so had the younglings or mates of all his conspirators! He should have had a way of knowing that. Would have, if he’d been thinking clearly! Even so, what did younglings measure against the power Koratin could have had as King Rasik-Alcas’s Supreme Minister? Younglings were simple to replace, even a pleasure, but the kind of power Koratin had denied was a priceless, precious thing. It was madness!
Even as Rasik-Alcas considered these imponderables and watched the boat grow small against the setting sun, the tiny, timid night predators began to gather around.
Environs of Tjilatjap
CHAPTER 16
Matt looked at the message form Clancy had handed him. The fact they now had relatively reliable communications was a godsend in many ways. He could keep track of all the various operations under way and he could even exchange semi
-private correspondence with Sandra back in Baalkpan. He got daily updates—when atmospherics didn’t interfere—on the progress made on Walker and all the other projects of the Alliance. He was a little worried about the silence from Laumer, but not too worried. The ex-Grik “tankers” they’d sent with both bunker-grade and diesel fuel should arrive there soon. Still, he’d received so much bad, sometimes calamitous news typed as neatly as their battered typewriters could manage on the dwindling message forms, he always accepted them with a trace of apprehension.
The news today was anything but bad. In fact, it was almost horrifyingly good. Jim Ellis had discovered Rasik’s secret in the form of a battered freighter marooned in the swamps north of Chill-chaap. Clearly, the ship had somehow come through the same Squall they had. Jim hadn’t found the ship’s log, but her manifest told the story. She’d been attempting a mission similar to the one doomed Langley and a few old freighters had been trying to accomplish: a last-ditch effort to beef up Java’s air defenses. Langley and the freighters—including Santa Catalina—had been ferrying P-40 fighters, spare engines, tires, parts, fuel tanks, and millions of rounds of ammunition to the beleaguered island. Langley was caught short and bombed into a sinking wreck. Matt had heard one of the other freighters made it to Tjilatjap, but since there was no nearby airfield, they’d actually assembled the planes dockside and were attempting to tow them overland on refugee-choked roads! He didn’t know if they’d ever made it to an airstrip or not. Judging by Jim’s report, Santa Catalina had been trying to do the same thing.
The only explanation for her condition, position, her very presence in this world, was that she too must have been damaged at sea, passed through the Squall, and arrived at a far different Tjilatjap. The Grik must have already sacked Chill-Chaap and the ship’s captain, likely wondering where he was, proceeded as far upriver as he could to preserve his cargo and his ship from the deeper waters. Jim found no trace of the crew or the pilots who would have accompanied the planes. Maybe they were still out there somewhere, but more likely they hadn’t survived their contact with this terrible world. Matt shook his head. Much the same would probably have happened to Walker and her crew if she hadn’t made friends so quickly.
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