Almost at once, the salvo buzzer rang and three guns barked. Tightly spaced splashes rose in front of the leading Grik cruiser, and Perry had no doubt the next salvo would be on target. “Stand by to make smoke,” he said, raising the Impie telescope. “Execute.” Thick black smoke piled high in the air from Ellie’s four stacks. Equally thick gray smoke streamed aft from smoke generators on either side of her aft deckhouse. The huge, dark cloud she left was stunning to behold and hard to imagine it could be created by something as small as she. All the while, the numbers one, two, and four 4″-50s banged away with metronomic precision. More huge splashes rose around Ellie, still strangely wild, but smaller ones were joining them, much closer, tighter. There was a blast aft, near the Nancy catapult.
“That one took out the cat,” Brooks reported, “and the starboard twenty-five-millimeter mount. About a dozen casualties,” he added.
Perry winced. A dozen friends, hurt or killed. He raised his glass and saw that a couple of cruisers were starting to lag a little and one had a fire aft of its funnel. “Very well. They’ve got our range. Come about to a heading of zero four zero. Main battery will continue to target the cruisers once we clear our smoke. Stand by starboard tubes. Torpedoes will target the Grik BBs.” Even as Ellie turned, a flurry of 5.46″ and 3″ shells churned the sea around her. One hit the side under the port torpedo mount, knocking it askew in a flashing explosion and spilling its fish into the sea. Steam gushed up the stack and out the gaping hole the shell punched in the hull. Another shell hit the back of the charthouse, shredding the forward stack and sending fragments sleeting through the bridge.
Perry stood, shaking his head, ears roaring. His white uniform was suddenly blackened and smoldering in several places and there was blood on the back of his right hand. Jeff Brooks was down and screaming, trying to gather his guts off the splintered deck strakes. There was no one at the wheel. Lemurian corpses lay beside it and the lee helm both, their blood spattered on the windows. Oddly, only one window was broken, but the steel around them looked like it had taken a giant shotgun blast. Perry quickly grasped the wheel, looking at the compass. He tried to spin the wheel but his hands slipped on the blood that painted it. Taking a firmer hold, he completed their turn. More shells exploded in their wake, but even as he coughed on the smoke they’d made, he was profoundly grateful for it.
“For-waard fireroom outa aaction!” came a shout loud enough to clear his damaged hearing. He glanced back to see the ship’s Lemurian cook, Taarba-Kaar “Tabasco,” standing in the talker’s place. Jeff wasn’t moving anymore. Usually, Tabasco spoke better English than any human aboard, but the stress was showing. “Portside torpedo mount’s outa aaction too. Caa-shultees there, on the gaally deckhouse . . . an’ here. Loo-ten-aant Paarks says all the snipes in the for-waard fireroom is goners.” Paul Stites dropped down the ladder from the fire-control platform. He was wounded in the arm but his eyes looked worse, taking in the carnage in the pilothouse. Immediately, he moved to take the wheel from Perry, who stood back, breathing hard. “Loo-ten-aant Ronson—I mean, Rodriguez—aasks should he take the auxiliary conn aaft.” Tabasco added.
“Thanks, Tabasco. Please tell Mr. Rodriguez that won’t be necessary. I have the conn. Replacements and corps-’Cats to the bridge, on the double. And please tell Mr. Parks to give me as much steam as he can. Maybe he can restore at least one boiler in the forward fireroom. If we can’t maintain speed when we clear the smoke, we’ve had it.”
“We have to clear the smoke, Skipper?” Stites asked.
Perry nodded. “How else are we going to put our starboard fish in the guts of those bastards over there?” ’Cats scrambled up from aft, some taking stations from the wounded and dead, others tending the ones that were replaced. Perry was just beginning to realize that somehow, he and some of the ’Cats around the starboard torpedo director were the only ones in the pilothouse not seriously injured—or killed. The scything fragments had missed them, just as they’d missed the glass. A Lemurian quartermaster’s mate suddenly appeared beside Stites at the wheel. “Return to your post, Mr. Stites. You’ll have plenty to do again shortly. As soon as we clear the smoke, open up on Savoie instead of the cruisers. Concentrate your fire amidships. We can at least raise hell with her secondaries, and they shouldn’t have it all their way. Then, as soon as we fire our torpedoes at the Grik BBs, we’ll make more smoke and go back for the cruisers, clear?”
Stites nodded, for the first time seeing something of Captain Reddy’s damn-all determination on Commander Perry Brister’s boyish face. “Aye, aye, sir,” he said.
USS Walker
“Savoie’s commenced firin’,” Minnie reported. “Lookout says,” she added. Matt only nodded; he’d seen it himself: a great pulse of bright light beyond the smoke. Then he heard it, of course. Walker wasn’t being fired on, probably hadn’t even been seen. Savoie’s targets were James Ellis and the other ships beyond the channel—all in easy range of the battleship’s guns. “Caam-peti estimates range at fifty-five hundreds, but is only a guess until he see better.”
“Very well. We need to get moving,” Matt told Rosen and Laan. “Increase speed to two-thirds. I’d go faster, but it would be pretty stupid if we smacked something in this smoke. We wouldn’t be good for anything then.” Walker’s fantail crouched in her wake and she rapidly accelerated to sixteen, seventeen, eighteen knots. She left the carrier’s smoke at last, but there was more, just a haze, but enough to blur her shape. At least Matt hoped so. Ahead, equally hazy, the Grik ironclad BBs were passing from view around the island into the channel, and Savoie loomed massive and seemingly unstoppable. She was probably only making six or eight knots, to keep from running down her consorts, but her short fo’c’sle and forward-raked fighting top made her seem to lean toward the sea she shouldered aside.
“Taar-get range, forty-eight hundreds!” Minnie called out, repeating Campeti’s new, firm estimate. “Course, two tree seero! Speed, seven knots.” She waited a moment, listening. “Range, forty-five hundreds. Caam-peeti requests can he commence firin’ main baatt-ery.”
“Request denied. Mr. Sandison?”
Bernie was crouching behind his torpedo director, staring through the sights, turning knobs. “Anytime, Skipper!”
Savoie’s forward guns fired again and again at targets beyond their view. So did her forward secondaries. Then flashes lit her port side, amidships, and four tall waterspouts erupted in front of Walker. Three were right in line; the fourth wild. “They’ve seen us,” Matt said, “and were pretty quick on the draw. too. Inform Mr. Campeti he may commence firing after all,” he told Minnie. “Mr. Sandison? Fire the port-side torpedoes.”
“Ay, ay, sir! Number two mount,” he cried into his microphone, making final adjustments, “stand by . . . Fire two! Fire four! Fire six! Fire eight!”
Matt heard the first two impulse charges, punctuated by the report of the numbers one and two 4″-50s firing in salvo. He felt the third and fourth fish leave the ship as he forced his way past Bernie’s “’Catfish” to look over the port rail. Bernie was already scampering to the opposite bridgewing and the torpedo director there. Five splashes straddled the ship and one shell hit just under him, leaving a long furrow and skating off to explode when it hit the water a hundred yards away. “Right full rudder!” he shouted. “All ahead full!” He searched the sea for the torpedo wakes while Walker heeled. There! One was heading for the island, lancing straight away from the tube, but three had dutifully made their turn and were streaming toward Savoie. “Left full rudder!” he said, leaving the rail and returning to his place as the deck leaned again. Six splashes, tightly clustered, fountained where Walker would’ve been without the radical turn. Three of her own guns slashed back, and he watched the tracers arc in and explode, one in front, two behind Savoie’s aft stack. Boats and deck timbers exploded into fragments and a small fire started. Less impressive but more numerous waterspouts started chasing Walker as who
knew how many quad-mounted 13.2 mm Hotchkiss machine guns sprayed at her. Hard, clattering sounds told him when they caught her, but they were still too far to do much harm—to anything but Matt’s people. Walker’s own machine guns remained silent, but the port-side twin 25 mms opened up with a quick bamm, bamm, bamm!
“Turn Nat loose,” he told Minnie. The Seven boat had followed Walker’s twists and turns, but there was no point taking her closer to the machine guns. “Tell him to duck back in the smoke and try to work closer along the island shoreline. The enemy’ll probably stay focused on us and he should get a chance to use his fish.”
“Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan. Range, thirty-eight hundreds!” Minnie repeated.
Splashes rose all around Walker and she staggered under two solid hits: one aft and the other forward, in the crew’s berthing space. Savoie had lots of secondaries, and shore batteries had probably joined them by now. Wounded would be flowing to the wardroom, where Pam and her assistants were fighting their own battle to save lives.
“Skipper?” Bernie prompted.
“We’ll get around behind her, where fewer of her guns will bear,” Matt replied. He didn’t need to add that there were four 13.4″ rifles pointing that direction. So far, though the ones forward had remained busy, the aft two turrets hadn’t even tried to engage the jockeying destroyer. They probably couldn’t resist when she showed up right in front of them, though. “Right full rudder, make your course three five zero. All ahead, flank!” A light shell, something like a three-incher, hit the aft deckhouse and exploded inside. Matt raised his binoculars and saw the people on top, including Spanky, get up, just as the number-four gun fired. He wondered briefly if Earl had been in the head. A forest of splashes rose behind them, confirming he’d been right to increase speed when he did. On impulse, he swung his binoculars in the direction of Kurokawa’s HQ. He couldn’t see it through the haze and burning docks; wasn’t exactly sure where to look. But he knew if Kurokawa wasn’t on Savoie, that was where he’d be. And he could damn sure see Walker now. He prayed Sandra was safe. Was she watching too? Walker’s guns barked more hate at Savoie, each salvo punishing his ears. “How much longer on the torpedoes, Mr. Sandison?” he asked.
• • •
“Looky there! There’s my girl!” Silva exclaimed to his two Khonashi companions. They were hiding in a burned-out gun position, the great blackened iron tube pointing at the sky. He was impressed by the ingenious—if crudely made—mount. And it was tough too, probably not even really damaged. But its crew and all the ready ammunition had been immolated together at some point, last night or days ago. It didn’t matter; the pit was empty now. But he’d glanced up at the sound of Savoie’s main battery firing at the invisible squadron to the west, and that’s when he saw USS Walker lunge out of the smoke on the far side of the bay, spilling curling eddies behind her, her own smoke and huge battle flag streaming aft. A smaller shape, little more than a hazy speck hiding in the tall-sided wake, must be one of the MTBs, Silva thought. He felt something akin to what he supposed anxiety must be like, at the thought of his ship, his captain, his girl, his home rushing to confront the iron behemoths in the channel. There was pride too; he knew what that felt like, but also a vague sense of shame that he wasn’t out there where he belonged. “Well, that just means I gotta do this right,” he muttered, though his companions couldn’t know what he meant. Lawrence suddenly jumped in the pit with them, head darting back and forth. He almost got a bayonet in his guts.
“What’re you doin’ here?” Silva demanded.
“The ladies didn’t stay,” Lawrence reported. His tone implied they never should’ve expected otherwise.
“What the hell? Where are they now?”
“They’re all on the east side o’ Kuroka’a’s HQ, next to the . . . ’all.”
“The wall?” Dennis prompted.
“Yeah. They had good reason to not stay, though. Their hide catch sphire.” He shook his head. “Also had to tell us they caught a Leaguer—and Kuroka’a didn’t join Sa’oie, e’en a’ter she sailed. He’s in his HQ!” He nodded at the lone cruiser by the dock. “He go on that”—he pointed at the battle—“there or . . .” He waved away. “Get gone. Again.”
“Izzat so?” Silva growled, looking around. There weren’t many Grik left in the area. Most had gone south to confront Chack’s Brigade. More troops were probably coming, from other parts of the island, but none were passing through just now. The sound of fighting was increasingly intense—and close. A few Grik remained here and there, and with the air attack over, most just stared at the battle in the bay, where splashes were starting to fall around Walker. Dedicated yard or dockworkers, they probably weren’t particularly dangerous. The only exception was the dock beside the last armored Grik cruiser, where there was quite a bit of purposeful activity. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” he said, looking speculatively at Lawrence and one of his Khonashi. “You’ll do.”
“Do?” Lawrence asked warily.
“Sure, you’ll both pass for fine, low-crouchin’ specimens o’ Grik lizardyhood. ’Specially in all the ruckus.” He laid his Thompson aside and took Lawrence’s Allin-Silva rifle. He knew it was dead-on. In return, he handed Lawrence his bag of grenades. He’d been fairly busy during the Nancy attack and there weren’t many left. He pointed at the cruiser. “Looky there. See those tall mushroom vents forward? Not the gooseneck ones by the funnel; they’re for the fireroom.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So . . . those’re vents for the fuel bunkers. Better pertected from smolderin’ shit fallin’ in ’em, see? You toss a couple grenades in there, the ship won’t blow, but it’ll burn mighty pretty—an’ fast. Me an’ Sergeant Oolak’ll cover you from here, anybody gets wise—or chases you when you haul ass.”
“You co’er us,” Lawrence asked doubtfully. “Not do so’thing else?”
“I won’t take a single eye off ya,” Silva promised loftily.
“You only got one eye, and it gets easy distracted,” Lawrence accused.
“Quit bitchin’. Have I ever let ya down? Besides that one time, I mean. An’ here’s your big chance to finally make somethin’ o’ yerself, do somethin’ useful for a change.”
• • •
“You! Hands up!” screamed Lieutenant of the Sky Iguri, leading a squad of Grik guards around the corner of the northeast wall of his master’s compound. He looked bedraggled, as well he might, after crash-landing his fighter at the destroyed central airstrip. Hearing from Fukui that their prisoners were missing, and fully understanding how important they might be to their survival, he gathered some Grik troops to search for them himself, after he reported to his lord. There was nothing else to do. If there were any planes left, they were five miles away on the peninsula strip. As he neared the HQ, however, he’d been stunned to discover the very prisoners he sought poking their heads over the far side of the stockade to view events in the bay. There was no mistake. He clearly saw the bleached-out sandy-brown hair and delicate features of Captain Reddy’s wife. Without stopping to go inside, he went to investigate. “Your hands! Now!” he screamed again, rigidly pointing his pistol at the group.
Corporal Tass of the 1st North Borno stood, still clutching his rifle, looking just like any other Grik. “I and One squad catched these, tryin’ to get gone,” he said excitedly, waving the other Khonashi to their feet. The Grik troops with the Japanese officer probably didn’t understand him, but visibly relaxed. With the slightest hesitation, but grasping his intent, Tass’s Khonashi comrades rose, leaving Sandra, Diania, Ruffy, and the three Shee-Ree sitting by the stockade.
Iguri looked at Tass with red-rimmed eyes, unsure. Something wasn’t right. Perhaps he’d never heard a Grik speak English so well or he recognized Maggiore Rizzo, bound and gagged. Maybe he realized there were too many Lemurians and not enough . . . That was when the “prisoners” raised their Blitzerbug SMGs and opened fire with a clattering ro
ar. The first shots were ill aimed and some of Iguri’s squad was able to shoot back, but Iguri’s suspicions ended when a .45-caliber bullet spun through his left eye and blew out the back of his head. It was all over in seconds, hopefully little noticed over the roar of battle quickly approaching and the deadly duel at sea, but their small victory didn’t come without a cost. . . .
Savoie
Number Two Turret
“Whatever you do, don’t close that firing circuit!” Gunnery Sergeant Arnold Horn shouted down in the gun pit. He was back in the turret officer’s booth, staring through the range-finding periscope. The number one turret in front of them had already fired three times—six rounds—somewhat wildly missing their targets: ten lightly armored wooden frigates, their sails brailed up tight, steaming swiftly for the line of ironclad Grik cruisers. The four-stacker destroyer had made a pass at the cruisers, shooting them up with her 4″ guns before laying a heavy smoke screen in front of her friends. Then she raced behind the smoke, hopefully avoiding long-range fire from the two Grik BBs and a blizzard of shells from Savoie’s secondaries. Silva had told him that was James Ellis out there, not Walker, but the enemy wouldn’t know. And it was clear she was trying to bait Kurokawa’s heavies away from the impending frigate/DD-cruiser fight. Somewhat to Horn’s surprise, it seemed to be working. The smoke screen was dispersing now, but the Allied frigates would be masked by the cruisers and Ellie would be the only target for the mighty guns of two Grik battleships—and Savoie.
“Us not!” came the indignant roar from a Khonashi in the gun pit, awkwardly seated on the trainer’s stool. “Are us gonna shoot? Hoo at? How co’ us e’en load the dan’ guns?”
The loading procedure would’ve been comical if it hadn’t been so urgent and terrifying. As soon as the command for all guns to load and commence firing came over the speaker, a bell rang, signifying that a shell was in the hoist. After a frantic search by Horn and Lange—the first looking for a familiar lever switch; the second trying to read tiny brass plaques in the low light, while bleeding all over everything—they found the proper control, and a massive shell appeared in the hoist, nose down. What came next was intuitive to Horn, since USS New York had handled her shells the same way. He showed Brassey how to rig the brass loading tray and position the cradle to place the shell on it. “Wait!” he’d cried. “Pull the lift key in the base of the shell. Twist it out and throw it in that chute behind you.” Brassey did so, mystified. “Now everybody stand clear. Push that big lever there, Mr. Brassey.” A heavy, greasy chain ram clanked forward and pushed the huge shell into the breech. “Ease it in,” Horn almost whispered. “Okay, now reverse the lever.” Two big powder bags, together the size of an acetylene bottle, appeared in another chute, and the “prisoner” Grik, in apparent exasperation, hopped the tray and helped Brassey roll them on it. So intent on what he was doing, Brassey wasn’t even alarmed when the strange Grik joined him.
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