Heavy crates of ammunition, stenciled BAALKPAN ARSENAL .50-80-450, started appearing out of the trunk, and ’Cats, their rifles now slung, started grabbing and dragging them away.
“I need some of that up here!” Campeti roared down, ignoring his headset. “And we need forty-five, an’ belted thirty too!”
There was a roar beyond the shield wall, and Campeti whirled. Matt saw the stunned look on the man’s face and raced back to Gray. “What’s happening?” he demanded. Gray just pointed. A dense column of Grik, several hundred strong, was sprinting up the bridge of flesh, directly at the ship. Grik caught between them and their objective were either swept up in the charge or thrown aside. The number one gun, depressed as low as possible and trained around to the stop that prevented it from hitting Walker’s bridge, blew great, bleeding swaths out of the gory slope. Machine guns and riflemen redoubled their firing and bodies tumbled into the water, but the roar only built as the leading edge of the column, ablating flesh and bone, churned up the slope of dead and slammed into the shield wall with a mighty, rain-muffled crash. Then, with a furious flurry of shots and exhausted, forlorn screams, the shield wall protecting USS Walker cracked.
Chief Bosun of the Navy Fitzhugh Gray grabbed Matt by the shoulder as Marines fell back under the onslaught. When Matt’s eyes went to the face of his old friend, they saw that he was smiling. “Tell Miss Diania I love her,” he shouted. “I never could do it. Too damn chicken, I guess. And tell Silva he can have my good hat. If he finishes his job, he’ll have earned it.”
“What?”
“And God bless you, Skipper! It’s been a helluva run!” Before Matt could even contemplate what Gray meant, the powerful old man practically threw him under the torpedo tubes as the tide of Grik washed over them. Even as Matt scrambled to his feet on the other side of the mount, his pistol up, he heard a long, final burst from the Thompson.
Matt shot his pistol dry, killing Grik as they came for him. Fortunately, somebody else took up the slack while he reloaded, but then he emptied his pistol again. Without conscious thought, he pushed the magazine release, dropping the empty to clatter on the deck, and slammed another in the well. As he thumbed the slide release, his pistol automatically chambered another round, and he aimed as carefully as he could. An anger, a hatred so sharp and focused had overwhelmed him so completely that, for a brief moment, no thought entered his mind but the necessity of killing Grik. The notion that he might take even a single step back never occurred to him. He must stand; he must kill—because somewhere under that terrible horde climbing over the rail and dashing toward him across the top of the torpedo mount was a man who’d become more than a friend.
“Cap-tan!” gasped a familiar voice as a body slammed into him. It was Juan. Matt didn’t know how the one-legged Filipino had done it, but he’d somehow managed to get out of the crush. There was blood all over him and he was hopping—his wooden leg was useless on the rain-and-blood-slicked deck—and using his Springfield as a walking stick. “Cap-tan!” Juan repeated, his tone contrite, “I hate to impose, but I find myself in the awkward position of having to ask you for help.”
Matt blinked. “Here, take my arm,” he said, firing again, but moving toward the galley.
Lanier was shooting his Thompson, flanked by a growing number of bandaged ’Cats, who also fired into the Grik as they filled the waist of the ship. “This way, Captain, if you please,” Lanier bellowed. He hadn’t been out in the rain, and for some reason, the bloated, cantankerous cook’s grimy face was streaked with tears.
Matt had a near-panicky thought and spun to look at the escape trunk. It was already closed, thank God, surrounded by shattered crates. “We’re coming!” he yelled back. Suddenly, Juan’s good leg wasn’t working as well as it should, and he slumped. “Somebody help me with this man!” He heard a clang, and watched a spent 4"-50 shell casing crush the skull of a Grik that suddenly lunged to cut him off. Shell and Grik clattered to the deck, and he looked up to see Sonny Campeti firing a pistol while his gun’s crews all started throwing shells, empty magazines, even wrenches and other tools, at the enemy.
“I think this is gonna get bad, Cap-tan!” Juan gasped as Earl Lanier unceremoniously dragged them through the new defensive line coalescing on either side of the galley.
“Mark your targets!” Matt managed to shout. “Don’t forget we’ve got people aft!” Only then did he look around. The bridge must be nearly deserted because joining the destroyermen and Marines who’d been defending the ship from the start, Chief Quartermaster Paddy Rosen had arrived, leading Bernie and the rest of his torpedo ’Cats, Wallace Fairchild, and even Matt’s bridge talker, Minnie. All were armed with the Springfields that had been issued to the bridge watch. Matt pushed Minnie back, slamming her into Ed Palmer who was also just arriving with a Springfield—and very wide eyes.
“You two get back to the comm shack,” he ordered. “Get on the TBS and yell your lungs out! If we don’t get air support right damn now, we’re going to be overrun. Got it?”
Ed nodded thankfully, but Minnie raised her chin. “I can fight!” she insisted.
“I know,” Matt agreed, more softly, “but not yet—and not with that.” He took her Springfield for himself. With the sixteen-inch bayonet in place, the rifle was longer than she was tall. “Now quit arguing and help Mr. Palmer. You know the comm gear as well as he does, if he buys it.” He turned to Rosen who, though junior to Bernie, had more experience at things like this. “You’re in charge down here. If you have to fall back, try to get the wounded out first, then take everybody forward to the bridge. Double-check that every hatch below is secure before you leave it behind, got it?”
“Aye, aye, Captain . . . but where will you be?”
Matt pointed up. “With Campeti. If we keep the high ground and keep ’em the hell out of the lower decks, we might have a chance. The damn tide’ll be back in eventually. If we can just refloat her . . .” He shook his head. “Good luck!”
* * *
Spanky saw it all with a sick, sinking heart and unashamed tears. Across all his years on Walker, even before the Old War, he and Fitzhugh Gray had quarreled, bickered, and generally carried on their traditional “ape-snipe” conflict without even thinking about it. Even after he’d become an officer, and Gray became something far more than a regular bosun, they’d kept at it, out of habit. Right then, he’d give anything if he could just look the other man in the eye once more and simply shake his hand, because he knew Gray, that magnificent, towering example of strength, fortitude, and all that it meant to be a destroyerman, was gone. For an instant, he was sure Captain Reddy was too. Then he saw him, standing all alone between the torpedo mounts, firing his pistol at what seemed to be all the Grik in the world charging right at him. “Pour it into those bastards!” he’d roared. “They’re gonna get the Skipper!” Smokeless and black powder cartridges boomed and crackled, and Grik spun and tumbled to the deck, writhing or still, with thumps or clatters of weapons—and somehow there was Captain Reddy, still on his feet, helping Juan toward the amidships deckhouse. A moment later, he was lost to view as more and more Grik poured into the waist. Some of the things even started climbing the searchlight tower, though none of those had crossbows, and Spanky had no idea what they hoped to accomplish. They probably didn’t either. “Corporal Miles,” he shouted, his voice rough, “you’re a Marine. Quit screwin’ around and organize a line below, on the starboard side of the deckhouse. We’ve got plenty of guys and gals crammed on the fantail right now. Just a few determined men or ’Cats behind a rifle and a bayonet should be able to keep the Grik back. Hell, one fella can barely pass there without falling overboard.”
Miles wavered, looking resentful, and Spanky’s eyes narrowed. Despite his diminutive size, nobody ever hesitated to obey one of Spanky’s orders. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he thundered. “Get going before I kick your worthless ass to the fish!” He looked around. �
��Jeek? Where’s Jeek?”
“Here,” said the burly Lemurian chief of the Special Air Division.
“You do the same to port. One thing: everybody at deck level has to watch where they shoot! We don’t want to hit any of our people under the amidships platform!” He considered. “See if you can rig a fire hose. If we’ve got pressure, maybe we can squirt some of the sons of bitches off the ship!”
“I try,” Jeek confirmed. “An’ we not worry much about hitting our own guys much longer—we nearly out o’ ammo!”
Spanky nodded grimly. “Right. Oh well, enough Marines made it back here with their shields. We’ll fight behind those with cutlasses when we have to.” He took a moment to gaze forward. A few crossbow bolts zipped past him, but most of the apparent “shock troops” that made it aboard hadn’t carried them—and now they packed the waist so densely that there wasn’t room for more Grik to squeeze aboard. An eruption of mangled flesh and body parts alongside coincided with another blast from the number one gun, which continued to perform admirably, with its uninterrupted ammunition train, but the number two gun on the amidships platform had fallen silent. Closer, Spanky heard shots from within the 25-mm tubs and realized some of the guys stationed there must not have been able to clear out in time. The shots diminished and quit under the rising and falling swords and spears of Grik that leaped into the tubs. For an instant, there was a slight pause; then a mass of Grik turned aft and began lapping at his own platform, trying to get past or over it. “Kill ’em!” he bellowed, firing downward. “Kill every damn one! Give ’em some grenades!” They’d been saving the hand grenades expressly for a situation like this. It was then that he heard a terrifying sound: the clang of the hatch just below that led into the torpedo workshop, laundry, and aft crew’s head! And, of course, there was a companionway in the deckhouse that led down into the guinea pullman, or aft berthing spaces, and ultimately to the engine rooms themselves. He thought all the hatches had been secured, but maybe the Grik had jimmied the thing. It didn’t matter. Grenades thumped as his comrades pulled the pins and rolled them into the mass, sending sprays of blood and fuzz back in their faces. He turned to grab some himself, from a bucket near the number four gun. A bolt struck him high in the thigh. Awful close to where I got shot in the ass when we fought Amagi, he realized with dark indignation, through the waves of pain. “Goddamn it!” he roared, snapping the shaft off and hurling it at the Grik trying to scrabble up and onto the leading edge of the deckhouse. He grabbed several grenades and hooked them on his belt, then fired his ’03 into a slathering face that rose above the deck. Cursing, he lurched toward the speaking tubes by the auxiliary conning station.
“Tabby!” he shouted into the tube that terminated at the throttle station. “You’re gonna have company, aft. . . . I’m sorry, doll.” He looked around. “Quick! More grenades! We gotta keep the rest of these critters away from the hatch!”
* * *
“Grenades!” Campeti roared, seeing what Spanky was doing aft.
“No!” Matt shouted. “Belay that! We’ve still got people below us around the galley!”
“Not much longer!” a ’Cat gunner squeaked, pointing forward. Wounded ’Cats and a few men were making their way to the companionway to the left of the foremast, trying to get below to the wardroom where Sandra and her medical division waited. Matt suspected many would return to the fight once their bleeding had been stopped. No one, particularly the Lemurians, would want to die down there. If they had to die, they’d rather do it in the open. With a rush, most of Rosen’s remaining sailors and Marines pulled back, forming another line just aft of the stairway leading up to the bridge. A few clambered up to join Matt, including Bernie Sandison, chased by a flurry of clattering spears. Bernie’s helmet was gone, and his dark hair was matted with blood that the rain washed down his neck in pink rivulets. He also had a deep cut on his left shoulder, and his shirt was mostly torn away. He still had his rifle, though, and the bayonet was clotted with reddish black blood.
“It’s good to see you, Mr. Sandison.” Matt smiled. The incongruity of the greeting was profound, there on what was rapidly becoming a rectangular island of steel in a sea of Grik.
“It’s good to see you too, sir,” Bernie gasped. “Sorry we couldn’t hold them longer. . . .”
“Nonsense. You did very well. What happened to Lanier? I didn’t see him fall back with the others.”
Bernie blinked. “He dragged his damn Coke machine in the galley and shut himself in with a couple of the mess attendants,” he finally managed, and Matt barked a laugh.
“He should be safe enough in there, for a while. Mr. Campeti, go ahead and throw all the grenades you want. The Grik’ll be coming up the stairs directly, I suspect.”
As if his words had summoned them, Grik surged up the stairs, and even leaped at the platform from the tops of the vegetable lockers alongside the number three funnel. The twenty-five or so defenders immediately redirected their aim, or met the charging enemy with bayonets. Some continued throwing shell casings or the jumble of spears that had accumulated at their feet. Matt and Bernie rushed with the others, roaring and slapping away spears with their rifles before driving their bayonets into bodies that wildly squirmed to avoid them. Matt jerked back, sending a Grik tumbling down amid its comrades, and lunged again. Another Grik yanked the rifle from his grip, the wet stock slippery in his fingers, but managed to impale itself on the blade. Either way, the rifle was gone, and Matt took a step back, face set, and drew his academy sword. Somehow, he’d known it would come to this.
CHAPTER 32
////// II Corps
With the help of the new field telephones to coordinate the attack, General Queen Safir Maraan prepared to take what was left of her entire II Corps into the next Grik trench. Almost nothing was ready; everyone was growing short on ammunition, and they’d been waiting for the Nancys to come back and plaster the position with incendiaries one more time. Apparently Walker needed some rather badly just then as well. Of course, all the Nancys had been delayed by some monumental screwup having to do with where they should refuel and rearm . . . but that only made it more imperative that Safir move as quickly as she could. She couldn’t wait any longer, air or not. The Grik firebombs were cooking her out. She wasn’t sure exactly when they’d need it, but with Big Sal and the rest of the fleet coming in with the tide, she had to secure the airfield for the Fleashooters or they’d start setting down wherever they could—on the beach if they had to. She did finally have quite a few mortars up and running, and a number of guns had been turned, so the Grik weren’t having it all their way, but she could sense that the time had arrived when the momentum of battle was about to begin cascading—in one direction or another. In her experience, such moments rarely favored those who sat and waited for them. She saw her chance with the approach of one of the virtually opaque rainsqualls that had been marching about the area all day long.
A furious fusillade of mortars and cannon churned the enemy trench at a rate she couldn’t sustain, but nothing could resist it either, and nearly all fire from the Grik position came to a stop. Further substantiating her notion of “cascading momentum,” the rain struck.
“Up!” she cried. “Up and at them!” Prepared by the telephones, the whole corps was poised and waiting when hundreds of whistles shrilled damply under the downpour. Safir had promised General Grisa she wouldn’t charge the enemy with a bayonet, but Grisa was gone. Besides, she told herself as she drew her brightly polished sword, I shall keep my promise regardless. Bayonets are such awkward things. A terrible roar arose in thousands of wrathful, frustrated throats, reflecting all the misery II Corps had endured that day, and to some degree, an inherited consciousness of what all Lemurians had endured at the hands of the hated Grik since before time was ever measured.
Up they went, out of the suddenly rain-slick trench, like a swarm of furry demons. There were ’Cats from Baalkpan, Maa-ni-la, and Sular; A
ryaal, B’mbaado, and all the various seagoing Homes that had contributed a few troops, here and there, throughout the Allied armies. There was even a sprinkling of early arrivals from the Great South Isle, and a few liaison officers off Amerika. All Lemurians in the Alliance were represented in that dark tide that rose against its ancient enemy on their—and his—most sacred soil. Some Grik obviously saw the move, even through the lashing rain, and tried to rise and meet it. They were scoured down from the lip of their own trench by pounding swaths of canister. Then, even as the infantry surged to the attack, some of the lighter artillery pieces were heaved forward as well: six-pounders mounted on the lighter, improved carriages that had become standard in the Alliance. These continued to send murderous cans full of musket balls at the enemy—and beyond, at the milling mass of Grik behind the front line—just as quickly as they could be slammed down hissing barrels.
“Forward! Don’t stop!” Safir cried, waving her sword. “Fire as you go—but make sure you’re loaded when you reach the trench!” The last was a tactic that Chack had developed in the East against the Doms. A last, withering volley down into the cowering, unprepared enemy had been shown to produce most satisfactory results. The Grik had spears, but their musketeers didn’t even have plug bayonets so they’d be helpless against the final fusillade, and the ingeniously offset socket bayonets that followed.
Crossbow bolts slammed into her troops in a hail of iron-tipped wood, but there was almost no firing from the Grik. The rain had seen to that by dampening their powder and wetting their match cords. Safir breathed heavily in the sodden air, and the visibility was virtually nil. The rain gave everything a dull, blurry aspect, and the gunsmoke clung to the ground like a heavy fog. Even more quickly than she expected, she reached the Grik trench and saw Grik heads rise up and stare back at her with open-mouthed astonishment. Flashes of booming Allin-Silva rifles rippled in the smoke, the jets of flame angled downward, as the first wave of attackers gained the position. With another mounting roar, the leading edge of 5th Division leaped down in the trench, and the terrible sound of weapons crashing together mixed with the screams caused by triangular bayonets and broad-bladed Grik spears piercing flesh.
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