At the Midway

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Swinging in wide arcs, the creature attacked more lights, smashing everything around them in the process. Metal bent and buckled. Screams were masked under the flashes, the deep aching of steel as the aft funnel quivered. Sweeping to its right, it brushed against a machine gun platform and the cage around it collapsed. The gun stock swung on its conical mount and jammed against the bars as the gunner was knocked sideways. His hand vanished in a gory burst as it slammed through the handle block. Flesh was spliced from bone when his forearm slipped through the trip spring and cover hatch, fusing the man to the gun as it spit a long string of .30 caliber slugs down the quarterdeck. Smelling blood, the creature nipped at the injured gunner. One of its great teeth hooked on the ammo belt as it took the man by the legs. The elevating pin broke and the Maxim gun swung up with the man, hammering the decks below, sparks flung up in glowing geysers.

  The morsel was obstinate. The creature flicked its head and the man broke off at the shoulder joint.

  Lieutenant Grissom witnessed the ghastly flash-lit scene from the port wing of the bridge. He saw the tracers leap towards him--and barely ducked in time.

  Bullets chewed through the wood wall and hit iron supports. A midshipman and lookout on the starboard wing were cut down by the ricochets. Several shots dong-donged off the rail and into the pilothouse, shattering the bridge clock and killing the helmsman.

  The belt finished its loop. The gunfire stopped.

  But not the creature, which began thudding its head amidships. The fore and aft anchors acted as confederates, pinioning the ship while the beast administered the beating. Not a seaman on board could keep his feet. Belowdecks, the chief engineer counted his luck. The boilers were damped low. Had they been at full steam, pipes would have burst and boiler hatches blown open, scalding them all to death. The catwalks screeched as metal struts worked loose and threatened to crash down on them.

  In the forward twelve-inch turret Midshipman Beck and the gun crew held on for dear life. They, too, were lucky. There were no powder bags in the chamber to break open and terrify them this time. The gun was already loaded. No more powder or shells would be elevated until needed. Communications with Central Station had been restored, but the only messages they received were frantic and garbled.

  2038 Hours

  Suddenly, they found themselves upright.

  Trembling, Captain Oates tried to push up onto his legs. He was not in pain, yet his body felt hollow. Muscles refused to coordinate. He saw a hand in front of him, was reaching for assistance before realizing the helmsman was dead. Then another hand appeared.

  "She's still afloat, sir, and a miracle it is."

  "Very well, Grissom...." Oates glanced at the dead men in the flickering light. "The dynamos," he hissed. "We're losing power."

  Holding his hand over a gash in his arm, a lookout pulled himself up by the bridge screen. "Sir... you gotta see this."

  Oates limped over, followed by the remaining members of the bridge crew. They were privy to a spectacular sight. Two port searchlights had survived the attack. In crossbeams they revealed the creature about thirty yards off. Neck craned far above the water.

  "Stationary target!"

  The ordnance officer was already speaking into his phone, but it was useless. They'd lost too much power. The twelve-inch turrets would not budge. The forward six-inch battery, though undamaged, could not bear on the target.

  Scattered rifle shots. That was all.

  "We might as well be pissing in the wind."

  "The searchlights'll go soon."

  Slowly, the creature began to sway. Not dodging... but dancing. A gentle metronomic rocking.

  "Like a snake mesmerizing its prey," Grissom said in a hypnotized tone.

  "All right, doctor," Oates said irritably. He went to the voice tubes and hailed the chief engineer. "Can you give me Ahead Slow if I need it?"

  "We're in bad shape down here."

  "That's not what I asked."

  Grissom glanced over at him. "Raise anchor, Captain?"

  "Do you think we can withstand another attack?"

  The lights flickered again, then dimmed to a candleglow. Grissom looked at his watch. "Not yet 2100 hours," he said.

  XXIX

  2056 Hours

  Hamilton Hart caught a round of static over his wireless. After several futile attempts at reestablishing contact with the Florida, he determined her radio mast must have gone down in the latest attack. He rested his headset on the ground and disconnected the battery.

  With one last glance at the besieged ship, he packed up his equipment and descended Mt. Pisgah. Near the compound perimeter he came upon a man retching violently in the shadows.

  "You okay?"

  A flabby white face lifted out of the dark. Sweat--or tears--streamed down the man's face. Hart noted his gray hair, like an old rag dropped over his head. The man reached into the shadows and retrieved a peculiar straw hat.

  "You better get inside the compound. We've lost contact with the Florida. We'll probably be next. I'm Hamilton Hart, by the way."

  "HH? The wireless operator? I'm Dr. Singleton."

  "Yes? I was told by the Florida's operator you said the serpents couldn't move by night. We could have saved you that misconception."

  "Obviously..." They could just make out the creature rocking gently between the reef and the battleship. "...very active."

  Hart was as entranced by the spectacle as were the men on the bridge across the water. "Why don't they torpedo the bastard? Just sitting there like that...."

  Dr. Singleton was a stranger. Yet the look he gave the former signalman revealed a man Hart knew all too well: a man burdened by debts against the soul.

  "You were speaking of torpedoes?"

  "Only a pipe dream. A torpedo would be too slow."

  "Not if it was guided properly."

  "Guided by what?"

  Singleton pointed at Hart's wireless equipment. "The French have done it. Why can't we?"

  Hart saw the light. Both men exploded with excitement as they mapped the possibilities. Their ebullience startled the marines nearest them.

  "We can do it! But... I'm out here!" Singleton moaned. "We have to get back to the ship!"

  2106 Hours

  Heinrich Leiber opened his eyes and saw hundreds of stars. Turning to Ace, he whispered, "I dreamed I was trying to reach home. Then I realized I didn't know where home was." He patted the corpse gently on the head, then pushed to his feet. He had no idea what time it was. Within minutes of Ace's death exhaustion had overwhelmed him. He had dropped to the ground and fallen asleep.

  Before dying, Ace had insisted Lieber promise to have his remains shipped to Kushiro for burial.

  Now the German turned his pockets out and showed them to the dead man. "I can't send you home. I have no money."

  With every muscle protesting, every bruise blaring with pain, he climbed out of the ruins of the bunker. He looked back only once at his dead friend. "I'm sorry I lied."

  Light from several campfires lay like a warm blanket over the compound, more like an amicable scene in the park than a desperate defense. He spotted Ziolkowski and walked over to the sleeping man. The Top Cut's breathing was ragged, his face pale and splotched like the skin of a sand shark. Someone Lieber had never seen before walked over to the sergeant and looked down at him a long moment. Then he walked away. Watching him go, Lieber realized there were many men around who he'd never seen before. Discerning them from the first landing party was easy. Most of the newcomers were black.

  Having no desire to attend another dying man, he began to limp away. He was looking for a gun to arm himself with when a deep sob arrested his search. He whirled. Ziolkowski was thrashing on his improvised pallet.

  "Top!" Lieber exclaimed, running stiffly to his side. "Hold down, Top. You're tearing off the bandages." Peering closer, it dawned on him Ziolkowski didn't hear. He was in a death match with a nightmare. Lieber knew better than to wake him. As a boy, he and his mother had
shaken his father awake one night as the old man screamed and moaned, amorphous enemies at his throat. He had leaped out of bed, pummeling them both before reaching full consciousness‑‑at least, young Heinrich had assumed his father was still sleeping when the old man turned his and Frau Lieber's faces into bloody patchworks.

  But as he watched Ziolkowski the private knew he could not hold back much longer. When the injured man began rolling off the pallet, Lieber dropped to his knees and pinned his arms.

  Ziolkowski's eyes popped open. The German was nearly thrown off by the powerful arms.

  "Top!"

  The struggling stopped. Lieber thought he saw streaks of oil running across the sergeant's face. He was about to brush them away when a closer glance told him they were tears mixed with dirt. He drew back, stunned.

  "Top?"

  "Fritz! You've got to do something for me."

  "Yeah, Top?"

  "Swear on your fucking balls, Fritz… swear you'll never tell anyone about this!"

  "I swear."

  "Fritz, I left my gun out in the dunes. In the sand. That son of a bitch came up so fast--and I ran. Enderfall took off and I turned tail behind him. Nearly shit in my pants. I abandoned my gun! Fritz!"

  "Yes?"

  "You got to go out and get it for me, before Anthony sees me without it. Before the men do! Please, Fritz. I'm begging you!"

  "But the lieutenant… all right, Top. It's over by the bunker. I saw it there just a minute ago."

  "It's out there. Get it!"

  Lieber returned a few minutes later. "It's pretty well banged up, Top."

  "Put it here." Ziolkowski patted the ground next to him.

  Lieber lay the broken stock and twisted barrel of the Rexer next to the sergeant.

  "Don't tell anyone I ran, Fritz."

  "My name's Private Heinrich Lieber, Top Sergeant."

  "I hate being fucked up like this. Someone ought to shoot me." Ziolkowski blinked at the stars, then abruptly fell asleep.

  An argument had broken out in the direction of the lagoon. Lieber started over, taking a Springfield from the side of a badly wounded marine as he passed his stretcher.

  Singleton had encounted an unexpected face in the landing party.

  "How in God's name‑‑" But Singleton stopped. It was apparent that the Ordinary Seaman's uniform William Pegg was wearing had been his means of getting onto the second whaleboat. The blood‑soaked bandage on his forearm indicated he'd manned the oars with the rest of them. The pain must have been excruciating, but not a glimmer of regret showed in his eyes. The boy actually seemed pleased to be present. When he heard one of the boats was going to be sent back to the Florida, he seemed just as pleased with the prospect of getting back on the open water.xxxxx

  "They'll need rowers. I rowed in, I can row back out."

  "My dear boy, if you're suggesting‑-look at you now, ready to bleed to death." Singleton had not quite recovered from his earlier nausea. The sight of even more blood curdled his stomach. He was about to ask William what good he thought he could do, but checked short on realizing he could ask himself the same question. "We'll see," he concluded in a stern paternal tone.

  "Who's in charge here?" Hart asked.

  "I believe that would be the marine captain who came with the first landing party."

  "He's dead," Hart answered, giving the doctor a curious look. "I wirelessed that news back to the ship."

  "Oh. Then I suppose it falls to Ensign Garrett to give us an escort back."

  They found him at the far end of the compound, arguing with an angry flock of Leathernecks.

  "We have to go back out. That's our whole reason for being here. Haven't you started loading the barges?"

  Their silence provided his answer.

  "We needed more artillery," someone finally ventured. "We aren't going to stay here with just two fieldpieces."

  "There's three, now. That should cover us plenty. We're going out to the lighters. We're going to load the coal. And we're going to take it out to the Florida."

  "Hell, the ship won't be left by the time we finish," a marine complained.

  Even as they looked out to sea, the two remaining port searchlights on the Florida dimmed perceptibly.

  "That's right," said Garrett. "And then what? Okay, when we go out, I'll ask only for volunteers. Until then, we shovel coal."

  Heinrich Leiber did not wait. He stepped forward. "I will go with you to the boat. It's simple. If we stay here, we'll die."

  Next came all of the surviving Japanese, who shared Lieber's sentiment. The Chinese quickly followed suit, as well as the rest of the marines from the original contingent.

  With one exception.

  "Enderfall!" Lieber hollered. "Get your ass over here!"

  "What did you say?" came Enderfall's incredulous response. The German had sounded exactly like Ziolkowski..

  One fact was obvious to the newcomers: After a week and a half fighting the creatures on land, the Midway contingent thought nothing about risking their necks on water.

  "We could arm the tug," said one of the marines slowly. "Use the three‑pounder as a bow chaser."

  "But that'd only leave two for the island. How many men are you going to take out with you? Ten? Twenty? What about those left behind?"

  "Details later," said Garrett, rubbing a bruise on his temple. He had every intention of putting all three guns on the tug. The coal was the most important thing. "Let's start the marbles rolling. We'll be half the night loading the barges."

  Dr. Singleton and Hart came forward.

  "We have to get back to the Florida with you."

  Garrett eyed the doctor dubiously. "I don't think‑‑"

  "We have a plan. We just might be able to save ourselves and the ship."

  Before he could elaborate, a frantic shout came from the shore. A moment later, one of the lookouts came running up. "The ship! It's moving toward us!"

  "At the reef?" Garrett said, stunned.

  2110 Hours

  "Captain, there's nothing I can do. Not until that wood gets to me. There's not a lump left down here. But you've got to hurry… sir. Once the boilers go out, it'll take the better part of four hours to raise full steam again."

  Captain Oates looked up from the voice pipe. Grissom blanched under his glare. "That order should have been given hours ago."

  The exec nodded miserably. One of the first things he should have done when Oates was temporarily incapacitated was check the coal log. Seeing the critical shortage, he would have ordered every piece of wood available, from pianos to paneling, to be chopped up for the boilers. Now it was apparently too late. The creature had taken hold of the aft anchor and was tugging them in a slow but certain circle.

  "The anchors should hold," he said tepidly.

  "If that bastard has enough muscle to tow the Florida three hundred and sixty degrees, it sure as Dewey's nuts can break us out of our mooring."

  "Aye, sir."

  The order was given.

  Throughout the ship, men wielding axes circulated through the passageways and wardrooms, looking to make kindling out of any wood in their way. They hacked fiercely at the ship's fake armor, paneled walls, tables, elegant carvings. A line formed to the boiler rooms. Finely stained pine, oak and maple were consigned to the flames. Flammable varnish caused a burst that gave the chief engineer headaches, but Oates could not concern himself with that.

  He was thinking of ways to disconnect the ship from the aft hawser in the event the forward sea anchor broke loose. The serpent had begun toying with the Florida again, yanking the ship about by its aft anchor chain. Sand Island now appeared on the starboard quarter, whereas fifteen minutes earlier it had been abeam. If the creature brought them a full circle and they lost steam completely, they'd be cast adrift. The incoming tide would put them on the reef.

  Glancing out the side of his eye, he caught Grissom's stricken expression. He wanted to pat his exec's shoulder. His slip‑up with the fuel was understandable,
if not officially forgivable. The unnatural stress could have induced forgetfulness in any man. After all, it had given Oates himself a heart attack.

  But the exec's rare lapse might prove fatal to them all. Oates walked as briskly as he could to the port wing. Raising his binoculars, he scanned the atoll and was gratified to see lanterns clustered around the coal bunker on Sand Island. Finally, they were loading the barges. Yet the job would take hours to complete. Even then, they could not coal while under attack.

  "Sir, the fo'ard hawser...."

  Oates turned his attention to the bow. The huge chain looped backwards through the hawsehole and rattled loudly on the flashplate.

  "Son of a bitch is strong." He brooded a moment, then grew excited. "Grissom! Turn off everything! Auxiliary engines! Conveyors! Everything! Reserve all power for the searchlights and capstan. That wood doesn't give us much power, but we can still use it to good purpose."

  "Sir?"

  "What do you do when you've hooked a fish?"

  "You reel it in?" Grissom said doubtfully.

  2129 Hours

  The master-at-arms and first lieutenant were assigned the task of assembling as many guns as possible on the quarterdeck. The six-inchers aft, undamaged, were depressed as far as they would go, a lucky shot in mind. Every machine gun was trained sternward. Captain Oates envisioned a point-blank fusillade directed at the creature's head.

  When everything was set, Oates gave the order. From the aft bridge he could see the water boil not far astern. The dumb tenacity of the monster stunned him. It wouldn't let go! Well, all the better. In eagerness and fear, he leaned out for a closer look.

  "Stay with the engine room telegraph," he told Grissom. "That thing just may be strong enough to break the chain. If so, I want full steam. If we can swing around the fo'ard anchor, we'll fire both our bow tubes. Maybe we can send a torpedo up her arse."