A brief attempt was made, at first, to control the news of Revenge’s loss and the forced evacuation of Aryaal and B’mbaado in the face of an exponentially increased threat. That effort didn’t last long. Nakja-Mur felt compelled to share the information with the other chiefs and the news leaked out as quickly as that. When Steve Riggs came to Pete and said a fishmonger near the pier told him less than an hour after the meeting of the chiefs that the entire AEF had been destroyed, Pete knew something had to be done. He and Steve immediately went to Nakja-Mur and told him they had to make an announcement now and tell the people everything—not just that the AEF was in retreat but that they were bringing thousands of new allies to defend Baalkpan. Otherwise, by morning there wouldn’t be a single Home in Baalkpan Bay and half the city would be empty. Nakja-Mur made the announcement. Soon the hysteria began to subside, but in its place remained a deep anxiety.
Baalkpan did have more allies now, besides the B’mbaadans and Aryaalans. Several more Homes had arrived since the AEF set out and word of the Grik menace was spreading fast. It was generally agreed they were facing a repeat of the prehistoric, almost mythical conflict that drove the People from paradise. Those who knew of the Great War in the west believed Baalkpan and the Homes that answered her call were doing great work on behalf of all the People to stamp out this terrible scourge. It was known and appreciated that Baalkpan had split its own defenses in order to take the fight to the enemy. But few foreign warriors came to Baalkpan’s aid.
A few hundred came from across the Makassar Strait on Celebes, from a small colony city called Sular. The Sularans were nervous from the start about the ambitious battle plan and had sent no representatives to the conference. Once the offensive began, they were convinced it would meet disaster, and their entire population evacuated to—of all places, Pete thought—Manila. That was where many of Baalkpan’s people had gone as well. But the Sularan warriors who remained behind were among the most fanatical converts to the tactics Alden taught. There weren’t enough of them to defend Sular but, possibly ashamed of the rest of their people, they were determined to fight the Grik. They had, in fact, been preparing to move to Aryaal with the next transport.
Manila was the largest known land outpost of the Lemurian People, in terms of numbers, and it shared a religion and heritage with the people of Baalkpan. Led by a High Chief named San-Kakja, the Manilos sent food and promised workers and warriors to bolster the defenses of their sister city to the south. The warriors would also learn the new ways of war being taught there. San-Kakja dared not send too many troops because he feared that if the war went poorly and Baalkpan fell, it would be only a matter of time before the enemy came to Manila, and he had his own defenses to prepare. His city was open to any and all refugees, however, and it was to Manila that all of Baalkpan would eventually retreat if they were forced to—and if they were able. Pete hoped the promised troops would arrive in time.
The people of the seagoing Homes had been helpful as well, serving as transports for goods and refugees. It was a dangerous passage, since they risked the attention of the mountain fish, a few of which were known to dwell in the deeper parts of the Celebes Sea. Normally, these creatures weren’t a threat to a Home—that was one of the reasons the ships were so large in the first place. Mountain fish were certainly capable of destroying a Home, but they only rarely ever tried. Perhaps it was because the Homes of the People were almost as big as they were and they just didn’t think of them as food, or maybe they thought the Homes were other mountain fish. Whatever the reason, the only time they seemed aggressive toward them was, unfortunately, at this time of year. It was mating season for the mountain fish and instinctual urges triggered aggressive and possibly territorial reactions toward the Homes precisely because they thought they were other mountain fish. Of course, no one knew for certain. In any event, even though the Homes that plied back and forth between Baalkpan and Manila provided no troops for Baalkpan’s defense, the aid they delivered was doubly appreciated because of the risk involved.
Pete harbored no illusions that the Homes would help defend Baalkpan if the Grik came this way. They’d definitely been a help, but like Fristar, few of the Homes’ people or High Chiefs could understand why the people of Baalkpan—or any land Home, for that matter—would choose to defend, well, land in the first place. They considered it regrettable and inconvenient that the Ancient Enemy had found them again and some boasted that if they’d been aware of the offensive against the Grik they might have been willing to participate. But if the Grik learned where Baalkpan was and came to threaten it directly, they would undoubtedly flee. Why not? Unlike their ancestors, the sea folk weren’t tied to the land. They could just move on whenever the Grik became a threat. Nakja-Mur tried to convince them it was different this time. The Grik now had ships that could follow, wherever they went. What would they do when they faced the Great Eastern Ocean? Would they continue to flee until they fell off the world? In this instance at least, his pleading was to no avail.
Alden didn’t really much care. He wanted only dedicated soldiers under his command. Maybe it was the Marine in him, but he wasn’t interested in using troops to keep an eye on other troops that didn’t want to fight. Besides, if the Grik did come, the Homes would be needed to evacuate the last of Baalkpan’s noncombatants—though there weren’t many of those left. Most who hadn’t already fled or been sent away had been training to become soldiers and Marines even while they worked on the city’s defenses.
As he’d reported to the captain, those defenses were impressive. Much of the works were visible from where he stood on Nakja-Mur’s balcony. Baalkpan had a wall now, ten feet high and made of hard-packed dirt. Reinforced with timbers from the surrounding jungle, it completely surrounded the city. A wide, deep moat was at its base and beyond that was an impressive killing ground full of sharpened stakes and entanglements. Heavy guns like those they’d armed the Homes with faced the bay, where they could bear on enemy ships. Dozens of the smaller twelve-pounder guns, like those that had been aboard Revenge, protected the approaches from the land. Behind them were the mortar emplacements. All the guns had overhead protection from plunging crossbow bolts and nowhere could the enemy get close enough to the walls to use their firebomb throwers without coming under direct artillery fire. There were multiple magazines for ammunition storage and extra wells had been dug to improve their water supply—not just for drinking but for fighting fires. Tons of food had been prepared and preserved and, even if most was fish, there should be enough for many months.
On the promontory overlooking the mouth of the bay, Lieutenant Brister had overseen the construction of a fort in the shape of a pentagon, much like those that proved so effective in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like its predecessors, this one was festooned with heavy guns that covered the harbor entrance and there were defenses around it similar to those that encircled the city. There were also sufficient provisions within that it could hold for quite a while if it was ever cut off from Baalkpan. Brister had named it Fort Atkinson, after Mahan’s captain who’d been killed in the battle with Amagi. Brister had admired Captain Atkinson very much. He was proud of the fort and Pete was too. He was proud of everything they’d done to prepare for a possible attack. Now, as he stood waiting for Nakja-Mur to join him for their afternoon bull session, he fervently prayed that all the defenses he’d helped design and build and all the citizen-soldiers he’d trained would never face the test they’d been preparing for.
A tapestry separating the balcony from the Great Hall parted, and Nakja-Mur strode through to join Sergeant Alden with his own goblet of nectar in his hand. His face was expressionless, as usual, beyond a small, clipped frown that didn’t reveal his teeth. His shoulders sagged and his tail drooped and it was clear he was exhausted.
“Good afternoon, Gener-aal Aalden,” he said by way of greeting.
Pete grimaced. He hated it when Nakja-Mur called him that, especially in front of others. “Good afternoon, Nakja-Mur,
U-Amaki Ay Baalkpan.”
“Preparations continue to proceed well?” Nakja-Mur asked.
Pete shrugged. “Well enough. We started building up the overhead protection for the batteries today, now that we know about Amagi.” He shook his head. “Not that it’ll do much good against ten-inch guns. That’s one thing we never planned for. I’ve also started working on more shelters for troops and medical facilities. It’s mostly revetments to protect from fragments, but it’s better than nothing.”
“These ten-inch guns are very bad?”
Pete nodded. “They’re more than twice as big as Walker’s.”
“But the guns you helped build for my people are as well.”
“True,” Alden agreed, “but as we’ve discussed many times, those guns, as powerful as they are, are still no match for Walker’s in range, power, or accuracy. I wish they were, but we just don’t have the facilities to make anything like that yet. As for Amagi, her guns are bigger still than the best we’ve been able to make and they can shoot ten times as far.”
Nakja-Mur nodded solemnly. “You’re saying we have no real defense against this Amagi? Not even now that there are two of your fast iron ships?”
“No. As you can surely see for yourself, Mahan’s in no shape for a fight. Jim’s killing himself trying to get her ready and hopefully he’ll have time. But even if Walker and Mahan were brand spanking new, they’d be no match for that damn thing. We’ll think of something. We have to. But right now I sure don’t know what it’ll be. Pray, I guess.”
Nakja-Mur nodded. “I will certainly do that,” he said. “I will pray that it never comes. It may not, you know,” he added hopefully.
Just then, Ed Palmer was escorted onto the balcony by a pair of Nakja-Mur’s guardsmen, who paused and waited to be summoned close. Ed accompanied them and Pete’s heart sank when he saw the signalman’s ashen face.
“My guess is,” Pete said before Ed spoke a word, “we should have been praying already.”
A skeptical but willing Tassat-Ay-Aracca supervised the passage of a fat, looped hawser to Walker’s fantail as the destroyer lay hove-to in the massive ship’s lee. The heaviest cables that could be secured were attached to four mooring stanchions, two on each side of Walker’s aft deckhouse. The cables were rigged aft, outboard, and draped across the top of the propeller guards. Once they were secured to Nerracca’s cable, the connection point was allowed to trail fifty yards astern. Hundreds of hopeful faces lined the Home’s catwalk railing and watched while the work was completed. A party of Marines under Chack’s direction accomplished much of the labor. Now that he was back aboard ship, he’d quickly reverted to his position of bosun’s mate. When completed, Gray reluctantly gave his approval to the unorthodox rig. The strain on Walker’s hull would be immense, but it was all they could manage in the time they had.
Slowly, with hot exhaust gases rippling above three of her stacks, Walker surged ahead to take up the slack. The cable rose, dripping, from the depths, and with a nerve-racking, trembling groan the old four-stacker added her thrust to Nerracca’s sails. Gray was on the aft deckhouse scrutinizing the cables as the strain began to build and Spanky was below, monitoring the engines and the boilers. Matt paced back and forth between the port wing and the aft bridge rail. From that position he could see Nerracca, the length of his ship, and the enemy as well. He called a slight course correction to Larry Dowden, who stood at the helmsman’s side. It had been carefully stressed to Tassat that Nerracca must follow exactly in Walker’s wide wake. The frothing violence of that wake was unprecedented as the RPMs of the twin screws rapidly built.
Garrett appeared at Matt’s side. “Thank God the sea’s not running very high, Captain,” he said. “We could break her back if it was.”
Sandra and Queen Maraan stepped out onto the weather deck below. The queen looked up at him with her wide silver eyes.
“Thank you, Cap-i-taan Reddy, for what you are trying to do. Many of my people are aboard that ship.”
Matt shifted uncomfortably and nodded. The queen had spoken in almost perfect English. He knew Chack was still teaching her, but Sandra might have told her what to say. Regardless, it was obvious she’d wanted to say it. “We’ll do our best, Your Highness,” he replied. “We’re doing all we can.”
“Seven knots!” came the cry from the wheelhouse. “We’re starting to gain a little!”
Slowly, agonizingly, the speed mounted while Walker bucked and heaved like a greyhound dragging an elephant. Triumphantly, they passed eight knots. Then nine. The enemy force grew closer, but they were still on a slower tack. Amagi wasn’t, however. As slow as she was, she still wasn’t dependent on the wind, and she shouldered her way forward through the temporarily slower ships. The column of dark smoke grew ever more distinct and the lookout had reported her pagoda-like superstructure on the distant horizon.
Ten knots seemed to be it, for once they reached that speed, no amount of labor on Walker’s part was able to increase it. The sun was beginning to set, but the Grik were much closer now. Soon they’d know if it would be a stern chase or a fight. Matt tried to estimate how fast the enemy could sail with the wind directly astern. He’d seen them make at least twelve knots once before, but that was with the wind slightly abaft the beam, a square-rigger’s best point of sailing. If Walker could somehow manage to keep this speed all the way to Baalkpan, and if they could squeeze past the foremost ships that were straining to cut them off, Matt didn’t think the Grik could catch them. On the other hand, Amagi would soon be in range of her big guns. With darkness falling, she wouldn’t have a target, though, would she? Once she got behind them, she’d never catch up either. Not if eight knots was all she had.
A couple of Grik ships, either because of better seamanship or cleaner hulls, were drawing ahead of the pack. Matt had a good eye for geometry and there was no way Walker would drag Nerracca past those two, at least.
“Sound general quarters,” he ordered at last. The raucous “gong, gong, gong” reverberated throughout the ship and hats were exchanged for helmets. Matt knew the consensus was that no one wanted to go in the water with a life jacket on, but he ordered them worn regardless. Sandra suggested that the possibility a crewman might be eaten was more than offset by the protection against crossbow bolts and flying debris that the jackets afforded them. The Lemurian destroyermen hated the jackets even more than the humans did. In their case it was because, for the most part, they were way too big. They wore them nonetheless.
Bernard Sandison was the last to report, as usual. He had the farthest to go from where he was supervising the preparation of the torpedoes. He plugged in his headset, turned to the talker, and gave a thumbs-up sign.
“All stations manned and ready, Captain,” Reynolds said aloud.
“Very well. Who’s in the crow’s nest?”
“Bosun’s Mate Chack, sir.”
Matt nodded. Early on, Lieutenant Garrett had worked very closely with the burly young Lemurian. He’d picked up ranges well. Matt didn’t have the perspective of the lookout, but those two lead ships were obviously in range. He wanted to knock them out before they got dead ahead, when only the number one gun would bear. “Inform Mr. Garrett he may commence firing when ready,” he said.
On the fire-control platform, Garrett listened to Chack’s report as it came through his earpiece. He echoed it to Sandy Newman, who was operating the mechanical fire-control computer. “Load one, two, and four. Range to target four O double O. Angle is zero six zero, speed seven knots.”
“On target!” chorused the director and the pointer.
Garrett knew they didn’t have the ammunition to waste on an “up ladder.” Since there was still some visibility, he would fire a single salvo and hope they could correct from there. Chack had good eyes; he should spot the fall of shot.
“One round each, salvo fire. Commence firing!”
The salvo buzzer alerted the bridge crew and a moment later the ship shook perceptibly with the booming roar of
three four-inch guns. In the deepening twilight the tracers quickly converged on the target. A bright, rippling flash erupted amidships of the first enemy ship and a chorus of exultant shouts rose up. Matt was excited as well. Chack was right on the money.
“Silence!” bellowed Chief Gray on the fo’c’sle, right behind number one. “Grab that damn shell, Davis, before it goes over the side!” His yell was loud enough that half the ship must have heard.
Still grinning, Matt turned to the talker. “By all means let’s have some quiet so the men can do it again.”
The next ship in line was destroyed almost as quickly, but it took two salvos instead of one. It must have maneuvered to avoid the sinking, burning hulk in front of it. More ships were cracking on, though. It was as though the destruction of the first two only spurred the rest to greater effort. Reynolds spoke up. “Captain, Mr. Garrett recommends we go to single shots, alternating the guns. We may not sink ’em every time but we ought to slow them down.”
“Agreed,” Matt said. “We don’t have enough shells to fire even once at every ship out there.” For the next several minutes there was a steady booming, going from forward, aft, and then forward again. In the deepening gloom, the sea off the port bow was littered with burning ships they’d hit. Garrett was judiciously targeting only the ones that might cut them off and it looked like the strategy was working. Matt scanned the sea to port to see if he could tell how close Amagi was, but it was impossible to say. The sun had set behind the Grik fleet and Amagi’s pagoda was lost in the hundreds of silhouetted sails. But at that very instant, a bright flash of light erupted a little farther to the north than he’d been looking. It seemed closer than he expected, too.
Crusade Page 38
