China Sea

by David Poyer

  For it was up to them now, the fire controlmen and gunners and loading crews. He’d done all he could. He’d taken them in close, caught the enemy by surprise, and crossed his T in a maneuver that probably owed more to luck, bad weather, and complacency on the part of his opponent than to skill on his. But at this angle, nearly all Gaddis’s guns could bear, as against only the forward mounts of the enemy. A hit would travel the length of the cruiser, punching through transverse bulkheads and equipment, scattering a widening cone of secondary projectiles until at last it detonated, deep in the ship. It was the aim and rate of fire now that would determine the outcome of the battle. He didn’t know how much damage he could expect from the fifties and twenties. Probably not much, though they would mow down personnel. But the fast-firing forties, with their two-pound shells, could wreck a ship in minutes, and the seventy-pound hardened-steel five-inch projectiles would punch through a ship like buckshot through a beer can before their slow-acting fuze ignited the bursting charge.

  A flash from the Katori’s forward mount, and a howl overhead. She was firing back at last. His men didn’t have much longer to get rounds out without taking damage themselves. He estimated the angle on the other ship, then thrust his head inside.

  Doolan was standing just within the shelter of the pilothouse, cheeks white as chalk. Dan yelled another rudder order past him, and the helmsman stared, face pale, too, then spun the wheel as Topmark shoved his shoulder and snarled.

  Now Gaddis swung left, more slowly this time, because he had forgotten to synchronize the turn with the seas. It was more difficult, too, for a ship to fight her way out of the trough, once she’d fallen into it, than to continue through. The steadily building seas, driven by a wind that was now driving straight trails of spume downwind, came with increasing rage out of the nearing blackness that was the front bumper of the storm front. Once it was on them, all thought of battle or even holding a given course would become moot. He could not have long before that time, and as Gaddis gathered herself and began a sluggish swing, he ran to the starboard side and saw the last of the sawn-off containers topple over the side, saw the crews jerking the tarps off and climbing into firing positions.

  Back to the port side, pushing his way past Doolan. The weapons officer was braced in the wing door, watching the fiery rainbows. Only seconds had passed since the first round went out, but it seemed to Dan like ages. The five-inch paused, then resumed its steady ka-WHAM … ka-WHAM at three or four seconds’ interval. The forties cracked their distinctive rapid pom pom, pom pom. He found his glasses at his eyes as Gaddis steadied on two-four-zero.

  As the Katori’s starboard side came into view he yelled to Doolan, “Shift fire aft! Concentrate on the engine room.” One of Gaddis’s rounds plowed into the water and burst short of its target, throwing up an immense plume of white against the darkening sky. He started to snap an order, then restrained himself. The mount captain could see through his sights as well as or better than Dan could from the bridge. A short round was better than a long one; it could ricochet into the hull or even punch through the underwater plating.

  “We’re going to pass close aboard,” he yelled into Doolan’s ear. “Stand by to cease fire on the five-inch.”

  The weapons officer came out of his trance. “No, sir, no! Recommend we keep firing with all calibers.”

  “We’re inside arming range. The rounds will go right through her.”

  “Doesn’t matter; they’ll still open her up.”

  Gaddis’s hard-reefed port turn was taking her inside the other ship, sliding down side to side, and he could see now how dreadfully close it was going to be. The Katori seemed to be slowing, the white bone at her teeth lessening as she absorbed round after round, even though she did not yet show damage. For a dreadful moment he wondered if this ancient cruiser was armored, if the reason she showed so little hurt was that she was shrugging off all he was throwing at her. Then as Gaddis plunged to a stern-mounting sea, he caught just before the spray hit a momentary glimpse of the other’s length, saw the twisted metal, the gaping rips in the gray plating. Saw black smoke pouring from midships, and men strung along a hose drop it and run in terror as a hurricane of fire floated down to trip a fiery dance among them, blasting some bodily over the side, tearing others apart, wiping yet others out in flame and smoke that obscured all vision of their ends. He ground his teeth at the visceral horror of watching human beings die. But the cold, calculating being who was in command noted only the sudden lowering of long twin barrels amidships, the flashes and the glowing wires that seemed suddenly drawn out of hot copper in their direction.

  Simultaneously he became aware of a slight figure beside him, extended arms terminating in blue metal. A pop, a ghost of smoke … it was Bobbie Wedlake, hands thrust over the splinter shield, cranking off rounds from her little revolver at the gray monster that plunged and roared back at her. Without thinking, he grabbed her and dragged her down. Her last shot went off nearly in his ear.

  The high-explosive cracks of light-caliber shells came from above, exploding in the remains of the mack, showering splinters down on them. Something whacked into his thigh. The impacts walked aft, into the hangar, distinct amid the deeper detonations of Gaddis’s guns. As soon as their point of impact shifted, he jumped back to his feet.

  The other ship was close, close. He saw the helmets of the men operating the twin mount. The aft turret was training around, stubby barrels reaching out to bear. He pointed at the fifty gunner above his head, then to the ship. Yelled in the storm of sound but knew none of his words could possibly penetrate. The man understood, though, nodded, took a renewed grip, and resumed firing, crouched low.

  Both ships streaming smoke now, they passed close aboard, hardly rolling as the sea creamed and surged between them; and though their combined speeds had to be over thirty knots, they passed with what seemed to Dan and every man on board incredible slowness. So that the total time they were actually beam to beam and gun to gun could have been no more than half a minute, yet it felt as if every one of those infinitely elongated seconds endured for an appreciable percentage of their lives.

  Then they were past, and the five-inch, trained all the way around aft till he was damn near looking down the barrel, let go one last round that nearly blew him off the wing, and deafened and blinded him anew. Then it and the boat deck forties fell silent, though he could hear the stern quad mount still pounding away as the cruiser fell astern.

  “Cease fire,” he said. Behind him Doolan yelled it, repeating it into his mike. Dan could not believe that he was still alive, that they were all, apparently, still alive. “Damage report, casualty reports ASAP,” he snapped to the phone talker.

  Zabounian, eager as a puppy: “That was fantastic, the way you crossed her T. Classic surface action, Skipper.”

  Dan didn’t waste time answering. Ears singing strange high songs, he plunged his face into the Raytheon and found it dark. Running his gaze swiftly along the line of windows, the mad chaos of sea and sky without, he took stock of where they were: alone, facing the oncoming storm.

  “Skunk Delta coming around left!” said the phone talker, and Dan jerked his attention back to the situation at hand. He was moving downwind and downsea, fast, and opening range second by second. Well, that was OK, as long as—

  The missiles. Jesus Christ, he’d forgotten the missiles. He couldn’t dance off, duel at long range or even medium range. He had to stay inside, stay in the clinch, and keep hammering until his opponent was on the canvas. Or until he himself went down.

  A flash from the mist underlined his decision, as did a column of water that blasted up suddenly just short of the bow. The Katori was shooting again, and getting the range now.

  He told Colosimo, “Come left; use hard rudder; use full power; keep it tight. We’ve got to stay close and keep hammering. We’ll do another pass, let the starboard mounts have a chance.”

  “I don’t think we want to do that,” said Doolan. “You took them by s
urprise pulling that hard turn at the last minute, unmasking the guns. It won’t work twice.”

  He could see her now, through the open bridge door. More flashes sparkled along the deadly low silhouette, lengthening steadily as it hauled around. Not much farther and she’d be broadside, all her guns able to bear. Four major-caliber tubes to his one. He said rapidly, “I don’t expect it to work again, Chick.”

  “They’ll be ready this time. We hurt them, but they’ve got a lot more men over there than we have. They can reman the gun crews—”

  “He’s still got missiles. HN-5s or Strelas or whatever those were.”

  “He hasn’t used them yet. Maybe we knocked them out.”

  Dan noticed the helmsman following the argument back and forth, looking confused. He swung on the OOD. “Come left, goddamn it! I gave you an order!”

  Face grim, Colosimo repeated it to the helmsman.

  The roar of the wind rose to a keen as Gaddis came into its teeth once more, and she half-surmounted, half-smashed her way through a towering sea the color of melted Coke bottles. Another column of spray and smoke sprang up, loomed over them in the unremitting rain, then collapsed and showered down, shredded by the furious wind.

  Dan stared out, clutching the smooth, rounded corners of the dead repeater.

  He couldn’t open the range.

  He couldn’t continue the duel at this distance, either. Not only was the storm bearing down; he could not afford to let the other ship’s weight of metal, four major-caliber guns against his one, decide the contest.

  He was steaming bow on to the other as the cruiser straightened onto a crossing tack, presenting its port side. Flashes now from forward as well: They’d gotten one of those mounts going again. Shells bored in closer. Then a crunch and shudder through the ribs and stringers, a quivering deep bong that meant a solid hit. That meant men dead, equipment destroyed, fire, fragments, flooding.

  The Chinese weren’t going to crumple, as he’d half-hoped. They were going to fight. The longer he dithered out here, the more damage he’d take.

  There were no alternatives. No more tricks or strategies or evasions. He thrust dry tongue against drier lips, and said over his shoulder, “All right, Dom. Take her in one more time.”

  * * *

  HE saw immediately that this pass would be different. The Katori was being handled more alertly this time, though she did not seem to have much propulsion power available; she maneuvered sluggishly, but with cunning. Some of his shells must have found the engineering spaces. She kept her beam to him as he came in at flank speed, rolling and pitching through the oncoming sea. She, too, was rolling desperately, and that made aiming difficult on both sides. Still shells whined close over the bridge, or plowed up curtains of spray just short, and all too often and with growing frequency slammed full into Gaddis. Dan aimed her grimly a little to starboard of the other. The weather gage, seamen had called it once. It didn’t give him any tactical advantage now, but instinctively he wanted to be upwind. He looked down from the wing at the gunners on the boat deck. The loaders stood or leaned with relaxed alertness, staring at the oncoming ship. Their long-sleeved dungarees were dark with rain and sea spray. They looked in some way timeless, their attitudes the same as those one saw in paintings of men before battle or before death. Surely they must be seeing their fate ahead, emerging from the mist as—

  “Missiles!”

  This time the chaff mortars barked nearly simultaneously with the lifting of the white plumes from the ship now barely visible through a passing gray veil of squall. The rising cones of flame dazzled against the growing lightlessness of the sky. He gripped the splinter shield, fighting a sudden need to run. The clatter of one of the twenty-millimeters aft recalled him, and he whipped around.

  A huge fireball was lifting to the clouds. He stared in horror, then realized it was the gunboat, cast loose with her midships cargoed with flammables and pyrotechnics, and fired into till it ignited. The writhing balloon of flame changed almost at once into a black sphere, pushed rapidly downwind, succeeded by a column of orange-white fire that sent up smaller fireballs from the deck of the Shanghai, visible now, drifting and rolling in Gaddis’s crushed-down wake.

  He whipped his head back to see the missiles already in their plunge. A distant crack echoed back from the wind-whipped emptiness to port; that would be one of the chaff projectiles exploding.… He didn’t know what kind of homers these things had, radar or infrared, bias seekers or what … three, maybe more behind them.… He yelled angrily into the pilothouse, “All ahead emergency! Slam those handles forward again; we need more speed!”

  The missiles came down almost vertically, and he dived for the cover of the pilothouse as explosions, so close together he couldn’t count them, came from astern and around him. He hugged the dirty shoe-scuffed tile, then felt it slide out from beneath him. The ship lifted till it seemed about to take flight, then plunged madly downward, burying her bullnose beneath a swelling bulge of grass-green sea that shattered into a percolating welter of white-glowing foam. “Damage report!” he yelled, his voice grating in his chest. He pushed himself up with an enormous effort of will onto hands and knees, though all he wanted to do was grovel on his belly.

  “Fire, fire, fire in Torpedo Room Number One,” the 1MC announced. Dan wrenched his mind away from the desire to cower and forced himself to his feet. Thank God there were no torpedoes back there, just flammable stores and a couple of dummy shapes for loading practice. The other reports came in no damage; he had no idea where the other rounds had gone, didn’t need to know, didn’t have time to think about that—

  The forward five-inch took him by surprise when it fired, just as Gaddis hesitated at the crest of an immense sea. The smoke and flame whipped aft past the pilothouse, and he saw for a moment through it the other ship, clear, turning left now to parallel them. Imminent again and close. Another port to port passage, another headlong charge past each other … but with both adversaries crippled, now, with Gaddis battling a fire aft and the Chinese warship smoking heavily, too, and with a long-period roll that mean to Dan she was taking on water. “Batteries released, fire as you bear!” he yelled redundantly to Doolan, and took his position on the centerline of the bridge.

  When she rose again to the sea, they were nearly alongside. He saw men opposite staring at him. They wore green helmets, and as he watched the forties began to fire and then above him, clattering once again, the twenties and fifties.

  Then they were beam to beam, and the tracers burned their way through the gathering dark in both directions. An enemy shell screamed low over the forecastle, so close he seemed to catch a confused glimpse of it, although he knew that was impossible, maybe just the trail it made through the smoke and mist. The five-inch belched out globes of yellow fire, then black fumes, catapulting out empty casings to roll down the crazily slanting deck. A heavy, deck-shaking slam just below the bridge, and all the lights and remotes went out and the helmsman stepped back, holding his hands up in token he had lost control, at the same moment a white flash occulted all vision and smashed him backward against the chart table.

  * * *

  HE lay for an immeasurable soaring time watching sheets of white fire shatter and rearrange themselves. He couldn’t see past the white fire, or only in glimpses, as if between the cars of a passing train made of incandescent steel. He kept trying to get up again and at last did, or at least imagined that he had; he wasn’t quite sure. In one of the fiery between-glimpses he seemed to see a body, nearly headless, wires dangling from ripped-apart flesh. In the next flash frame it spun, groping out a blind hand, then pitched over suddenly and collapsed, pumping jets of bright red across the black rubber matting behind Gaddis’s lee helm. The matting had tiny parallel ribs running along its surface. He saw this very vividly and distinctly, while registering only a blurred impression of everything else, of an unending clamor of exploding shells, firing guns, screaming mouths.

  Then for the second time that day the
cold detachment took him and he turned his back on the corpse, staring through the white lightning that came slightly less often now, maybe he wasn’t going to be blind, directly across the heaving foamstreaked waste of black sea at a dark mass studded with flashes and the black puffs of bursting high-explosive as the twenties and forties stitched downward into the hull, just as he had ordered. He clung staring, unable to so much as blink as the terrifying spectacle went on and on, neither Gaddis nor the other seeming to move, time occurring now not on a human scale but in the millisecond-by-millisecond recounting of detonating primers and wheeling masses of violently accelerated metal.

  A brutal jolt battered at the windows, cracking all those to port and shattering several. Flames and smoke streamed in, heavy white smoke, he didn’t know where from, but it was strangling. He gagged, too stunned still to even think of his gas mask. His hand when he explored his temple came away coated with blood. Without thought, he ripped his helmet off and threw it through one of the gaping window sockets through which rain and spray streamed in, borne by a shrieking wind. As his vision cleared still more, he saw other bodies scattered on the deck. The JA phone talker was crouched behind the metal bulk of the helm console. Dan blinked again and saw no one behind it; the helmsman and lee helmsman, Topmark, too, lay grotesquely twisted on the bloody tile. Dan stepped across them, tore off a set of phones, and put their blood-slick wetness over his own ringing ears. “After steering, Bridge.” His voice, Christ, he couldn’t hear his own voice.

  “After steering, aye.”

  “Lost helm control on the bridge. Give me left ten degrees rudder.”

  “Taking control aft. Testing rudder. I have control. Left ten degrees rudder, no course given.”

  Bobbie Wedlake at his side, he had no idea from where, had not thought of her or really of anyone else, either, only of Gaddis and how to fight and preserve her. Bobbie was shouting something about broken fuel lines, a major fire in the boiler spaces. But he already knew that. He couldn’t say how, only that he and the shattered bleeding fabric that surrounded and bore them were one now, one and the same, he and she. He felt every blow to her reeling hull like a hook to his own ribs. He fought every stagger and reel as she battled the storm with his own muscles, grunting and jerking as if he could force her back upright against the seas that swept her forecastle and starboard lifelines as she came around to the manually controlled rudder, bracing her beam to the seas as downwind of her the Chinese cruiser came around, too, both wounded warships grappled now in a tail-chasing spiral downwind, each fighting to keep its guns bearing without exposing its own length to the steel and fire of the other. Boatswain Topmark struggling to his feet, blinking at the unmanned helm; another crewman, stepping off the ladder from below, looking down in horror at the slaughterhouse pool around his boots. The radios suddenly hissed, numbers flickered on the fathometer, the binnacle light glowed back on in the dusky gloom. Emergency power.