• • •
The former prisoners and their rescuers finally emerged, gasping and spent, from the jungle trail near the northwesternmost shipyard in what Silva called Lizard Ass Bay. Explosions and cannon fire still boomed on the water, but all their attention was immediately taken by the looming, malevolent form of Savoie. Her searchlights were lending illumination to other lights on the cruisers, questing for targets on the surface, and Silva told Sandra and the others about Nat Hardee’s attack. Savoie’s alarm bell was also sounding loudly in the dark, and shapes were running aboard, up a long gangway from the pier. There was surprisingly little activity right around them, though, and the time had come to split up.
“Sure you wanna do this, Arnie? Mr. Brassey?” Dennis asked. “Bad guys catchin’ you is only half your problem. Come daylight, everything we got’s gonna be doin’ its damnedest to sink that ship yer so hot to sneak aboard. Maybe we best stick together.”
“The decision’s made, Chief Silva,” Brassey said. “If we can disable her somehow it might make all the difference. You have business of your own, and unless we merely hide and wait for events to unfold—something none of us is disposed to do—we stand a better chance if we separate. A group as large as ours can’t move unnoticed and is sure to attract attention.” He nodded at Horn, Lange, Pokey, and the five Khonashi who had volunteered to join them, and then motioned toward the ship. “If we’re going to get aboard, now is the time, while the confusion is at its height. We must be off.”
“Just one second, Captain Brassey,” Horn said. He stepped to Diania, and with the utmost tenderness that probably embarrassed him and definitely stunned Silva, he reached up and caressed the woman’s cheek. Right then, he didn’t give a damn what anybody thought. Even more surprising, Diania closed her eyes and leaned her face into his hand.
“Do be careful, Gunnery Sergeant Horn,” she said softly. “Arnold,” she added, speaking his given name for the very first time.
“I will,” he assured, taking the bayonet from the musket he’d been carrying and sticking the long blade in his waistband. The other members of Brassey’s party, realizing his purpose, did the same. They’d have to leave their rifles behind. Brassey and the Khonashi all had pistols, however, and a couple who’d be going with Silva and the others passed theirs to Horn and Lange, along with extra magazines. Horn glanced at Silva. “Never had much reason to watch out for myself before, and I’ve pulled some stupid stunts. But for the first time, I’m thinking past what I’m doing right now.” He fumbled around his neck and handed a sweat-rotted leather thong to Dennis. On one end was a tooth that appeared a good match for the one missing from Silva’s mouth. “I’m not giving it to you,” Horn warned. “Just hold on to it, in case something happens. If it does, you can have it back. Glue it in or something.” It still remained a mystery how Horn wound up with one of Silva’s teeth, a long time ago on another world, but no one doubted it had been a memorable adventure. “Now give us some of those grenades from your bag.”
“Sure,” Silva said, raising the satchel and opening the flap. Brassey, Lange, Horn, and the rest all took one and either hooked it on their belts or stashed it in a pouch. “Plenty for all.” Dennis held up the tooth. “I’ll keep this for ya, an’ make sure you get it back. I got no use for it now, an’ you damn sure earned it.”
“We must go,” Brassey insisted.
“Yeah, us too,” Silva agreed. “So long, Arnie. Mr. Cook.” He looked at Pokey, the little Grik they’d captured at Aryaal so long ago, whom he remembered as barely bright enough to pick up their spent brass. He’d obviously flourished in the 1st North Borno. “So long, Pokey.”
“So long, See’va!”
“Good luck, and godspeed,” Sandra said.
“And you, Lady Sandra,” Brassey replied.
“One last thing,” Horn said. “What’s that stupid tune you’ve been humming?”
Silva grinned. “Just a little ditty I learned as a kid. Kinda catchy, ain’t it? Can’t remember all the words, but the ones I do go, ‘You wanna chase the devil, you wanna have fun. . . . You wanna smell hell . . .” He shrugged. “Seems kinda fittin’.”
With that, the broken party went its separate ways—Brassey’s toward the long gangway, Silva’s around the outskirts of the shipyard, toward Kurokawa’s compound.
It was bizarre, in a way, how easily Horn, Brassey, Lange, Pokey, and their five Khonashi companions boarded the bustling ship on the port quarter and boldly made their way across to the stair beside the number three turret. There were Grik all around, still racing aboard as they were, but no humans in sight. “What about this one?” Brassey hissed, gesturing at the closest turret.
“Well, if all we do is knock one out, maybe we should get one up forward, most likely to be shooting at our people,” Horn countered.
Brassey grimaced. “Perhaps, but I dislike the thought of strolling half the length of the ship, surrounded by enemies!”
“It’ll be a cinch. Just scowl a lot. And Mr. Lange can holler French at anybody who gets in our way. As long as we don’t meet a real Frenchie, we should be okay.”
Lange and Horn led the way, pretending to know what they were doing. At least they were somewhat familiar with the ship and didn’t have to go belowdecks. That would’ve made it more likely they’d come face-to-face with someone who knew they had no business there. They made their way briskly past the mainmast, then the barges and lifeboats underneath the pair of great cranes flanking the aft stack. There were antiaircraft guns on either side of the deckhouse beneath the empty seaplane catapult, and the number of Grik they saw increased as they passed the forward superstructure. Obviously, as they’d hoped, the Grik must’ve thought they were French or Japanese. They probably couldn’t tell the difference. They did see several Japanese officers, waving or leading Grik to their stations, but in the gloom, and seeming to move with a purpose, Horn and Lange were apparently taken for Frenchmen doing the same. Under the chaotic circumstances, paced by obvious “Grik,” any notion that they were strangers there to sabotage the ship didn’t occur to anyone. For the first time perhaps, the enemy’s sense that the species they surrounded themselves with left them immune to infiltration might just bite them on the ass as hard as it had the Allies on occasion.
Trooping around in front of the armored fighting bridge, they arrived underneath the massive, overhanging rear of the number two turret gunhouse. Two large, thick hatches, just a few feet apart, hung open underneath it. Dull yellow light splashed down on them as they gathered around a pair of ladders. “Okay,” Horn whispered. “I spent some time in the old New York when I first joined the corps. That was another life, back in ’thirty-five. . . .” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter except, to look at, this ship might’ve been copied from her—or vice versa. Chances are the layout in there”—he nodded up at the gunhouse—“isn’t too different. And these hatches aren’t buttoned up, so the turret’s probably not fully manned. We split: half up one hatch; half up the other. Get in and kill whoever you see as fast and quiet as you can. With all the ruckus on the bay, we might get by if they holler a little, but try to keep it down—and don’t add to it. Just get on them and keep sticking”—he glanced at a Khonashi—“or slashing until they quit squeaking. And no shooting,” he stressed. “But no matter what, we have to kill them all before they raise an alarm, and that means some of us have to get all the way to the gun pit below and shut the hatch down there. Once we secure that and these two, we’ll have the joint, and there isn’t much they can do about it, savvy? Then we’ll do what we came for.” He paused. “Ready?” There were nods, and Stuart Brassey positioned himself under the left hatch, pulling the bayonet from his belt. Taking a deep breath, Arnold Horn did the same and stood under the hatch on the right. “Let’s go!” Brassey said, his young voice cracking, and he and Horn led the rest inside the monstrous turret.
For such a large structure, the interior was i
ncredibly cramped. A heavily armored bulkhead separated the two guns, and only an equally heavy hatch allowed access from one side to the other. The space Horn entered was crammed with the enormous breech of a 13.5″ naval rifle and all the lifts, rams, levers, and trays required to load it. To Horn’s surprise, the first being that turned, unconcerned, was a Frenchman. The expression on his face quickly changed to surprise, then terror. Horn was already pushing him back, banging his head against the optical range finder and slamming him against the hard steel side of the turret officer’s booth. He’d been stabbing the triangular bayonet into his chest from the instant they touched. Blood sprayed back and coated the first Khonashi leaping up behind him to pounce on a Grik near the rammer operator’s station. That one had just enough time to voice a startled hiss before the North Borno trooper slashed its throat and stabbed it in the top of the head. More blood all over the bright brass shell tray—and a third Khonashi that dove past a Grik near the breech of the huge gun and down into the gun pit. Horn couldn’t see, but he heard muffled shrieks and thumping sounds from there, and from the other side of the armored bulkhead. The hatch was open, and ignoring the Grik by the breech for the moment—it seemed immobilized by shock—he peered around and through the hatch. Becher Lange met him, bayonet raised, eyes wide and wild.
“Goddamn!” Horn cried. “It’s me!”
Lange’s madness faded slightly and the bayonet, dripping blood, began to shake. “One bit me,” he murmured, and gestured at his other arm, badly torn, pattering blood on the deck.
The sound of fighting had already stopped, punctuated by the heavy clang of the gun-pit hatch, but a fairly loud voice was yammering in Grik. Horn thought it was Pokey. Even though he’d known the little Grik as long as Silva, he’d only heard him say a few words. To his astonishment, the Grik near the gun breech seemed to relax and stand back, as unthreateningly as possible, his crest lying flat. “What the hell?” Horn hissed, pulling the belt off the man he’d killed with a flapping sound. He started to wrap it around Lange’s arm. Brassey’s head joined the German’s in the hatchway. “All secure?” he asked.
“We’ve got one left,” Horn said.
Brassey pushed his head past Lange to see. “Ah, well. He probably heard Pokey’s harangue and chose to change sides. Kurokawa’s Grik are apparently old enough to reason with.”
“What?”
“Never mind, Gunnery Sergeant. Something our friend Lawrence discovered not long ago, when an entire fireroom full of the buggers surrendered to him.” Horn was amazed by that, by how short the fight had been, and by how self-assured young Brassey suddenly sounded. The boy frowned. “We lost one on this side, but two have surrendered. Are you hurt?”
“No, but Lange is.”
“Medic,” Brassey called over his shoulder, and a Khonashi appeared, its Grik-like face giving Horn a start, and began tending Becher’s wounded arm.
Boy, have I got the jitters! Horn thought. Too long out of the fight, not enough to eat, out of shape, and probably thinking too much about what’s next. The clang of the other hatch under the gunhouse reminded him to shut the one by his feet. He pulled the lever that raised it up and shakily dogged it. Nobody’s getting in now unless they crawl up the shell or powder hoists, and I never saw a Grik that could do that. A ’Cat probably could, but . . . He shook his head. We’ve done what we set out to, but now we’re trapped, if anybody comes to check or take his battle station. Just one thing left, and we can go. Damn it, Diania! I wish we could’ve . . . A raucous alarm began to sound, making him jump again; then a loud voice came from a speaker on the bulkhead. He caught only a few words; they sounded French. But then the message was repeated in Japanese, which he couldn’t speak, but had learned to understand fairly well as a POW in the Philippines. Becher Lange, sitting on a stool in the booth and talking through clenched teeth as the Khonashi medic worked on him, interpreted vaguely what Horn thought he heard. “Contre-Amiral Laborde is calling the ship to battle stations and it is getting underway immediately. An air attack is imminent, and the ship must be prepared for evasive maneuvers.”
“Well, that’s just dandy,” Horn snapped. “No chance at all of getting off this bucket now.” His plan had been to pull the pins on half a dozen grenades and drop them down the powder hoist, into the upper handling room. With ready ammunition stored there, the resultant explosion would at least temporarily disable the turret. With real luck, grenades or flames might make it down to the lower handling room, and that would wreck the turret. Maybe worse. Of course, if somebody had carelessly left the armored hatch to the forward magazine open—not a ridiculous stretch of the imagination with a crew largely composed of untrained Grik—they might even destroy the ship. In any case, they had to get out of the gunhouse, the last man out dropping the grenades, and run like hell. Realistically, even if the scheme worked, they probably wouldn’t have made it. But at least there’d been a chance. Now there was none.
“Then we’ll just have to make the most of our opportunity,” Brassey said reasonably. “You sounded somewhat familiar with the operation of the equipment here. Can you tell us what to do?”
Horn looked dumbly around and blinked. “Yeah, I think so.”
Brassey strode to the dead French sailor and took off his hat. He looked inside at the sweatband. “Kapitan Leutnant Lange, your name is now Chartier, and I suspect you command this turret. I’m sure they’ll try to communicate with you at some point. If someone asks why you don’t sound like Chartier, tell them your throat is sore from yelling at your gun’s crews.”
“Why are the hatches shut?” Lange demanded, immediately understanding Brassey’s play. “They might ask.”
“You shut them so your cowardly reptiles won’t flee their stations in battle.”
Lange seemed to consider that. Ironically, almost immediately, there came muted thumping at the hatches below. “Why won’t I let the rest of my crew in?”
“After hearing Lady Sandra’s theory, I doubt they have enough human crew members to put more than two in here. If another of those want in, we’ll let him—and overwhelm him. Otherwise, your entire crew is present. You don’t know why those others think they belong in here.”
A slow grin seemed to crack Lange’s gaunt, stony face. It was the first time Horn had ever seen him smile. “We will try it!” Lange said with something akin to satisfaction.
“Try what?” Horn demanded.
“Please just show us what to do, Gunnery Sergeant Horn,” Brassey said, his face too intense for one so young. “With our prisoners, we already have three who know.”
• • •
“You’re staying here, Lord?” General of the Sky Muriname asked, amazed, when Hisashi Kurokawa stepped briskly down the gangway from the great battleship. Immediately, the gangway was pulled ashore and Grik started taking in lines. “I assumed you’d prefer to be aboard your new flagship today.”
Kurokawa avoided answering the question directly. “The cruiser Nachi remains my flagship,” he said instead. “For now. That may change as the day progresses. At the moment, a large air attack is coming. Savoie’s radio operator informed me that a number of enemy carrier aircraft were sighted by one of your scout planes—before its transmissions abruptly ceased.”
“Yes, Lord. Fukui received the same transmission. I immediately ordered all our remaining planes to respond. They’ll be rising at any moment.” He paused. “Fukui also told me that the telegraph station on the extreme south end of the bay reported that the land assault has already advanced that far. It made no other transmissions and we must assume it was overrun.”
For a long moment, Kurokawa didn’t speak. He simply stared at the burning ships in the bay. Two of his last four dreadnaughts destroyed, and there were flames in the distance near where his precious carrier Akagi had been docked. A number of cruisers were also smoldering closer by. Who knew how many of his remaining Japanese had already died that terri
ble morning, with the sun not even up? All he’d accomplished, all he’d prepared for, was systematically being destroyed around him. Panic lingered on the edge of his consciousness but he knew that was what Captain Reddy hoped to achieve; what his whole plan was aimed at inspiring. But I’m not finished yet, Kurokawa decided. Not nearly so. Despite recent losses, I still have more and better aircraft, even without Rizzo’s. No more than five thousand enemy troops could possibly be ashore, and I’ve already directed that my nearly thirty thousand begin moving to meet them. Granted, they’re scattered, but many, perhaps half, will arrive before the day is done. They’ll be enough to hold the invaders until the rest come and finish them. “What of the torpedo boats that caused so much damage?”
“All destroyed,” Muriname said. “Or gone. The bulk of our cruisers remain unscathed, as do two of the ironclad battleships. And there is still Savoie, of course.”
“Indeed. I still have Savoie. With the cruisers to screen her, she can still destroy whatever naval forces show themselves. But at present we must allow our ships to avoid their planes, while yours swat them from the sky.” He paused, his protruding eyes narrowing against the stinging smoke. Shapes beneath the burning pyres were becoming more distinct. When daylight came, he’d have a better grip on the situation. “But this plan of the enemy’s has only begun to unfold,” he said. “Something important has not yet been revealed. Until it is, my place remains here, focused on the air and land battle we face. When we know more, if my main enemy and his pitiful ships appear, my fleet will deal with them. If I can’t still shift my flag to Savoie, I’ll join the battle aboard Nachi. Laborde will have to manage. He has every reason to distinguish himself—and knows the consequences for failure. Even better, after what Savoie did to Amerika under his command, he can expect less mercy from the enemy than he can from me.”
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