His staff tip-toed away and made themselves as comfortable as they could around the walls of the room. Up here, on the second floor, they were partially insulated from the constant rumbling beat of the engine that filled the lower levels and made the hull timbers quiver. With all external lights now extinguished, and only a masked lantern illuminating the compass on the bridge, the wheelboat ploughed on, its churning wake blue-white under a fitful moon. A stiff headwind furrowed the water across its path, lifting spray from the crests onto the foredeck as they collided with the under-slope of the square-nosed bow.
Wantanabe, who occupied a small cabin on the floor below, also tried to catch some sleep. The wind, gusting around the posts of the gallery outside kept him hovering on the edge of consciousness. He consoled himself with the thought that it would carry the sound of the boat’s engine away from the approaching shore.
*
Guided onto their target by a Skyrider mother-ship, four Skyhawk Mark Two’s fitted with long-range fuel tanks caught sight of the wheelboat when it was some two miles west of navref Chicago. The Skyrider, loaded with an imposing array of pin-point navigation devices and image intensifies passed low over the boat, skimming dangerously close to the tall funnels before releasing two parachute flares to starboard. The blinding white light threw the boat into silhouette; a huge dark rectangle like a pre-Holocaust apartment block perched on a broad flat hull. Impossible for the quartet of Skyhawks to miss. Sweeping in from the south-west, they lobbed their first string of explosive napalm canisters into the portside galleries and flitted overhead like giant grey bats vanishing into the darkness beyond before the exploding fireballs could illuminate their passage.
The Skyrider mother-ship climbed to eight hundred feet and began to circle the wheelboat. The pilot and master-navigator saw the diamond formation of nav-lights turn left onto a northerly heading then continue round back towards the ship. The navigator spoke to the planes below. ‘Fire-Chief to Fire-Crew. Strike Two.’
The gyro-compass on the instrument panel of the lead aircraft turned and steadied on a heading of 225 degrees. And now, as the parachute flares lay guttering in the water, it was the starboard side of the wheelboat that was thrown into sharp silhouette by the mushrooming flame-cloud beyond. A second low pass, which forced the tight formation to jink right and left of the twin funnels as the napalm canisters were released, created a second wall of fire.
The attack-coordinator came on the air again as the formation reformed. ‘Fire-Chief to Fire-Crew. You’re doing a great job down there. That turkey must be really feeling the heat. Let’s go roast his big fat ass. Strike Three! Strike Three! All planes break sharp right after release. Reform and circle line-astern at five hundred, on the rank. Watch those funnels and flagpoles on the run-out. Don’ wanna lose you after coming this far. Over.’
Fire-Crew Leader acknowledged the order. A few moments later, the stern deck and rear galleries erupted into flame.
The bow-section and forward galleries were now the only parts of the boat where fires were not raging. There were two very good reasons for this: first, the pilots from Karlstrom’s private air force knew that one of their number was imprisoned below decks in the forward part of the vessel and second, the initial attack had been designed to force the crew and their military passengers to abandon ship.
The two wide bow gangways were now the only exit down which an orderly evacuation could be made. At that moment, the giant paddle wheel was still turning, driving the stricken vessel towards the shore. When the time came to sink it, the circling Skyhawks would deliver the coup de grace using the eight 50-lb bombs which made up the other half of the surprise package they’d brought, with the compliments of Karlstrom, all the way from Texas.
On the wheelboat, the initial moment of paralysis was rapidly replaced by growing pandemonium as would-be fire-fighters discovered the grisly adhesive qualities of the napalm gel. Fanned by the stiff breeze, the individual fires quickly became one huge conflagration and within minutes three fifty-foot high walls of fire were spreading inwards towards each other, consuming everything above the main deck.
The explosive nature of the fire that had suddenly engulfed the crowded boat, its scale, intensity and the probable cause was beyond comprehension. No one had ever experienced a napalm strike and apart from Morita and Izo Wantanabe, none of the soldiers or sailors on board had ever seen an aeroplane before; the only man-made flying object they were familiar with were kites.
The strike force, painted in the dark grey used by AMEXICO for covert operations was swallowed up in the surrounding darkness. The speed and unexpected nature of attack had given the Iron Masters no opportunity to realize what had hit them. Only the wing-tip and tail navigation lamps, and the red wink-lights above and below the fuselage sliding through the darkness like slow-motion meteors identified the source of the trouble. But if you didn’t know what they were, you were none the wiser, and the sound of their motors, only briefly heard before the first string of napalm canisters exploded, was now blanked out by the roaring rush of flame, the screams and shouts, the crash and thud of timbers.
Samurai-Major Morita, wakened by his aides a few seconds after they themselves had been shaken by the first muffled blasts, rushed out into the passageway to be greeted by a searing wave of heat. Flames now engulfed the exit to the portside gallery. The four red-stripes guarding the entrance to the stateroom – unable to leave their post without orders to do so – were milling around indecisively. Their nervousness was aggravated by the burning body of one of their colleagues who had been caught by the sudden eruption of flame whilst guarding the port entrance to the passageway. The head and shoulders burned in places down to the bone were charred beyond recognition but from mid-spine to thigh he was still alight and the flames had spread to his surroundings.
And yet, incredibly, despite his horrific injuries, he was still alive – or, at least, part of him was. All four limbs jerked spasmodically and he seemed to be trying to crawl blindly towards his terrified companions. But they had turned away to greet Morita with a low bow.
The samurai-major ordered one of them to put the poor wretch out of his misery. As he did so, the red-stripe guarding the starboard exit came running towards them screaming something about giant green-eyed night-birds. Something dark hit the floor behind him and the rest of his warning was drowned out by a sudden thunder clap of sound. The entrance to the passageway was filled with an exploding wall of flame that rolled forward engulfing the guard.
As Morita recoiled, he saw the red-stripe’s body flare briefly like a moth caught in a candle and an instant later, as his aides hustled him towards the other end of the stateroom, the fiery tidal wave swirled around the other red-stripes. With their screams ringing in his ears, Morita hurried towards the second, forward exit to the stateroom.
Reaching the stairs beyond, he ordered his personal guard to proceed forward and aft, and to the floors above and below to check the extent of the fires. He himself was going up to the bridge and they were to report to him there. Just as they were about to disperse, two officers dispatched by Captain Kawanishi to fetch him came hurrying down the stairway. At this point only the side galleries were ablaze but as Morita listened to their report he realized that, barring divine intervention, there was little hope of saving the vessel. Seamen using hoses spraying water pumped from the steam engines below were being deployed but the scale of the fires and the speed with which they had spread had already outstripped their resources.
With both sides of the superstructure alight the blaze could only be fought from the foredeck and the stern and from below using the internal companionways. The side decks were now impassable; the only access between the front and rear of the boat was via the cargo deck where the horses were stabled and the bilge deck below where the engine room was situated.
As they gave a breathless account of the devilish nature of the fire – how it stuck to flesh, or any other surface, and could not be extinguished with water, the
boat shook under the impact of the third strike on the stern. The two officers excused themselves hurriedly and ran down a passage alongside the stateroom only to find that the far end was in flames. Shouting to his personal guard to assess the situation as ordered, Morita dispatched his second-in-command to take whatever action he judged necessary to save the cavalry and horses then clattered up the stairs to the bridge with his remaining aides.
He was met by Kawanishi, his face ashen-grey. Not with fear but the grim realization he was about to lose both his vessel and his command. That in itself was bad enough, but his shame was compounded by the realization that the entire expedition could go to the bottom without striking a single blow at the enemy.
Morita shared his concern. Their only chance of salvaging some shred of honour was to press on at full speed in the hope of beaching the stricken vessel before it sank.
Kawanishi agreed and told him he had already sent a trusted officer and a squad of sea-soldiers to the engine room to make sure the stokers and engineers stayed at their posts.
But what, demanded Morita, was the cause of it all? Were the explosions accidental – the result of gunpowder stored on board being accidentally ignited – or had the vessel been sabotaged? Or – something even more difficult to accept – had it come under attack? Morita recounted what the red-stripe had shouted about giant night-birds in the brief instant before his obliteration by fire.
Kawanishi pointed to a cluster of twinkling lights moving backwards and forwards in the darkness to starboard. ‘There are your night-birds! Fire-breathing sky-demons spawned by the white witch you seek! Accursed priests! How foolish we were to imagine that their empty gestures and worthless vapourings could protect us!’
One of the bridge officers reported that the system of signalling wires to the engine room had ceased to function.
‘How far are we from shore?’ demanded Morita.
Another bridge officer, who had a powerful spyglass trained on a group of Mute fishermen standing round a fire, told him they were now less than three-quarters of a mile from the beach. Morita doubted whether horses wearing battle harness and carrying fully-armed warriors could swim that far.
A smoke-blackened runner sent from the through-deck reported that flames were beginning to curl round the ceilings beams in the aft portion of the deck space. The horses were becoming more difficult to restrain. Any further delay might cause the panic-stricken beasts to run amok. Parts of the galleried superstructure had already started to collapse and there was a growing danger that burning debris might start crashing through the ceiling. The deputy task-force commander, continued the runner, acting upon the powers given to him, had ordered the evacuation of the through-deck before the worsening situation made it impossible.
Morita gave the decision his approval and sent the runner back with a new order. The infantry were to strip themselves of all inessentials but were to keep as many weapons as they thought they could swim with. The rafts and dories – which, in any event, would have only provided berths in an emergency for the wheelboat’s crew – were all blazing fiercely in the side galleries. Morita also gave instructions for the senior officers leading the mounted samurai to wait until last.
This was not out of a deep concern for those they led, it was a purely pragmatic decision. The first waves to ride into the water would probably founder with their exhausted horses before they reached the shore whereas the last to leave would be closer to the beach and in better shape to organize the survivors into a coherent force which he would then lead into battle.
Kawanishi, he imagined, would go down with his ship. As to his own fate, Morita viewed it with indifference. Samurai rose each day ready to embrace death. Their only concern was to die with honour. Perhaps the ruling deity, Amaterasu-Omikami, who watched over the world ruled by the Sons of Ne-Issan, had frowned upon this enterprise because it ran counter – for some reason that he, Morita, could not as an ordinary mortal comprehend – to the greater good of the nation. So be it. He would kill as many grass-monkeys as he could then take his own life rather than suffer the indignity of dying at the hands of an inferior being.
Speaking of which, there were two inferior beings below who richly merited death. A sword thrust was too good for them. Before leaving the boat he would have them brought up from their cell and cast into the inferno that raged behind him…
A cry from one of his aides standing on the gallery outside the bridge cut across his thoughts. Morita moved quickly through the open doorway and sighted along the aide’s out-flung arm. A dark stiff-winged shape with a glowing red eye embedded in its belly was moving across a moonlit patch of sky almost directly overhead. It vanished against the dark underside of the cloud base but the baleful red eye continued to wax and wane as the ‘night-bird’ circled above the wheel-boat.
Except it was not from the natural world, or a creature summoned by sorcery from The Pit. It was twin-brother to the flying-horse Izo Wantanabe had sketched in his first message to Sara-kusa. The wheelboat had been attacked by long-dogs from the south. But how could they have known where it was going and, more importantly, when? There was only one explanation. The long-dogs and the grass-monkeys were working hand-in-glove. Somehow the assassins had gained access to the contents of his last dispatch to Bei-tanaba and, despite his suspicions, Wantanabe had allowed them to depart. It was an act of incredible folly, of criminal negligence, for which, if he was still alive, he must pay. Now. Instantly.
Morita summoned his three aides and began to give the fatal orders. Two were to fetch the chained assassins with the help of the soldiers guarding their cell, the third was to seek out Izo Wantanabe and behead him.
The door to Izo Wantanabe’s cabin on the port side was the impact point of one of the canisters dropped in the first strike but he had escaped death by seconds. Unable to sleep, he left his cabin and walked onto the foredeck as the four aircraft suddenly appeared off the port bow and flashed overhead. A second later, all three galleries erupted into flame.
As he stood there, in a state of shock, staring at the inferno that only a moment before had been the cabin in which he had been lying, cursing his inability to sleep, the starboard side exploded. He caught a brief glimpse of four dark shapes with red eyes, illuminated by the flames as they passed overhead but by the time he had recovered from his surprise and turned around, all he could see were points of light moving against the blackness of the sky.
Unable to decide whether to advance in the hope of being of some assistance, or retreat further from the searing heat, Izo Wantanabe watched in horror as screaming crewmen stumbled out onto the blazing galleries and leapt overboard, their bodies totally enveloped in flames. Human torches.
It was a dreadful sight, but what chilled him was the sickening realization that the boat was being attacked by what Morita had described as ‘flying-horses’ – ridden by long-dogs from the south. Allies of the assassins imprisoned below …
As he watched the flames spread he remembered the words used by Aishi Sakimoto when warning him not to act until reinforcements arrived. His message had contained the chilling phrase: ‘The riders have powerful friends and secret means to summon them in the twinkling of an eye’. So be it. Death would overtake them just as quickly. If he and his comrades were destined to perish in these god-forsaken outlands then he would personally make sure they were not spared.
Grasping the hilt of his sword, he ran towards the forward companionway and promptly collided with the first of several dozen soldiers who came swarming up the steps and onto the deck. A hand grasped his arm. Turning, Wantanabe found himself face-to-face with a samurai-officer, his face blackened and blistered, his clothes burned in several places and still smouldering.
‘Quickly! Help these men lower the bow ramps!’
‘Are we abandoning ship?’ cried Wantanabe.
‘Not yet! We have to get the horses ashore first! We’re not going down without a fight!’
Sammy-Jo Mackinnon, the attack-coordinator and m
aster-navigator who had shepherded the four Skyhawks from the AMEXICO air-base outside Houston-GC decided it was time to stop the Japs dead in the water. For several minutes, men and horses had been streaming out of the through-deck and down the bow-ramps lowered close to, but not quite touching the water. The wheelboat, now less than half a mile from the shore, had not reduced speed despite the massive fire-damage it had sustained.
What she and the other pilots didn’t know, along with Morita, was that the engine room of the boat was itself a raging inferno. The crew, ordered to stay at their posts, and the soldiers sent to make sure they did just that, were now unrecognizable lumps of bubbling fat and over-roasted flesh, buried amidst the glowing embers at the heart of a growing pile of collapsed timbers which had come crashing down into the rapidly-emptying through-deck like a cloud-burst of celestial fire. A few minutes later, the flaming mass cascaded into the engine room swamping everyone and everything below.
Yet, miraculously, despite the searing heat which had caused spontaneous combustion of the fuel logs and the falling pressures as fractured pipes and burst joints hissed steam, the pistons shunted doggedly back and forth, and the iron-strapped beams – themselves now ablaze – had shouldered the debris aside and were continuing to power the paddle-wheel. More slowly, and with increasing difficulty, but on they went, up and down, like the failing muscles lifting the thighs of an exhausted marathon runner, driving him on when the whole point of the race, of existence, has been lost in the all-consuming fog of pain and only one thought remains. To keep going forward, forward, forward …
In the belly of the boat, Steve and Cadillac had also heard the detonations despite the drumming background roar from the engine room at the end of the passageway. They had also heard the shouts of alarm and glimpsed the growing confusion as the squad of sea-soldiers rushed past on what was to prove a suicide mission. And they heard the thunder of hooves as the horses on the through deck above became increasingly restive and then, as more explosions sent Shockwaves through the ship’s timbers, were ridden up and out across the bow deck into the relative safety of the sea.
The Amtrak Wars: Blood River Page 32
