Commander McCoy saw Russ enter the noisy bustle and frowned as he approached.
“He’s been asking for you,” she accused.
“I know. I had to finish the fight. There were still some cruisers . . .” He stopped and removed his hat, running fingers through sweaty hair. They’d destroyed the last cruiser they could catch two hours before. “And it’s hard, you know?”
Kathy nodded understanding. “Yeah.”
Russ looked at her hopefully. “Is there any chance at all?”
“None,” she replied almost defiantly, then lowered her voice. “He’s torn wide-open, Captain. Even if I could save him . . .” Her tone turned scolding again. “But he wouldn’t let me seep him up, to ease his pain, before he talked to you.”
Russ nodded, squaring his shoulders. “Where is he?”
Kathy led him to Jim Ellis’s own stateroom. It was larger than the others, as befitted a commodore, but remained sparse compared to such accommodations Russ had seen on real Navy cruisers. Jim was lying on his rack, swaddled in bandages. Bright blood showed against the tan gauze and absorbent padding covering his chest and the short stump of his arm.
“Hiya, Russ,” Jim managed huskily. “I was afraid I’d miss you.”
“Not a chance, Commodore. Just had a few details to tend.”
“Like finishing a battle,” Jim said, forcing a grin. “And leave off the ‘Commodore’ crap. Tell me everything.”
Russ sat on the chair beside the boxed-in rack. “You did it, sir,” he said simply. “You won. The troops from the transports and Baalkpan Bay are all ashore, and several divisions are already on the Madras road, moving to link up with Pete Alden. Pete’s okay, sir! And so’s ol’ Rolak and Safir Maraan! The orphan queen’s wounded, they say, but not bad, and the biggest chunk of all three Corps that were in Alden’s Perimeter are safe!” He paused. “The Grik have pulled back from every point of contact except across the west side of that Rocky Gap. Nobody seems to know what that’s all about, and Pete’s been too busy to make a full report. He says it’s the real deal, though. The battle’s over, for now.” Russ scratched his head. “The funny thing is, according to TBS chatter—some of Alden’s planes have been out to the carriers, bringing wounded and carting ammo back—Pete’s not too happy about that, even though his army was just about down to throwing rocks.”
Russ stopped. Jim had closed his eyes, but now opened them again. “Go on,” he ordered.
“Aye, sir. However it wound up, Pete had a god-awful confusing fight, spread over a hell of a lot of jungle. It could be a while before we get a casualty count, but most of ’em made it, and I guess my point is, that’s your doing. They couldn’t have hung on much longer if we hadn’t come when we did.”
“Bullshit,” Jim coughed with a wince, but smiled. There was blood on his lips. “Thanks, though,” he added more carefully. “It’s . . . nice of you to say.”
“Only the truth,” Russ persisted.
Jim shook his head slightly. “It wound up being your fight, though, at least out here. How’s your ship? And S-Nineteen?”
“We’re at anchor, sir, south of the Madras harbor mouth, inshore of the rest of First fleet. All’s quiet.” It was anything but quiet aboard the wounded ship, but Jim knew what he meant. Russ forced a grin. “Laumer and his goofy S-Nineteen sank three Grik battlewagons with our new torpedoes!” he announced proudly. “One of ’em while it was blasting away right at him! The boat took a couple hits,” he confessed, “but nothing too bad, and they slammed four fish in the side of that wagon at eight hundred yards! Blooey! I never saw anything sink so fast. We wondered before, but now we know those Grik wagons are top-heavy as hell and the armor only extends a little way below the waterline. Open up that wooden hull, and they flop over like a dying duck!” He shook his head. “I started as a torpedoman myself, if you’ll recall, but I honestly never believed our new fish would work. Too many bad experiences, I guess. Now I wish we had a set of tubes here aboard the ol’ Santy Cat!”
Jim was nodding, a slight smile on his lips, but his eyes were closed again. His breathing was more difficult too, and a bright orange bubble suddenly popped at his mouth. Russ’s vision blurred.
“Where’s Matt?” Jim managed. “I wish he were here.”
“He would’ve been, if he could,” Russ assured him. “Walker and Mahan left Big Sal and all her DDs and they’re hauling ass back up here to pick up any leakers from this fight. The Third Pursuit hammered the Grik relief, and it wasn’t as big as the scouts reported. Some of it must’ve already turned back. Captain Reddy’ll stop anything we might’ve missed, and wrap everything up in a nice, tidy bow.”
“Sure. And then it won’t be long before he heads for Diego, and eventually Madagascar. Maybe that’ll finally end this damn war,” Jim Ellis gasped.
Russ doubted that, but didn’t say so. “I wish I could go with him,” Russ agreed instead, “but Santy Cat’s gonna need a refit before she takes such a jaunt.” He peered down at Jim’s slacking face. “Maybe you can go,” he suggested softly. Jim stirred and coughed orange blood through clenched teeth, in what might’ve been a laugh.
“No way. Don’t b’shit,” he wheezed. For a moment, Commodore Jim Ellis stared hard at Russ Chapelle. Finally, as distinctly as he could, he spoke. “Tell Captain Reddy that, weird as it’s been, it’s been an honor and a privilege to serve with him . . . and be his friend. Tell him I wouldn’t have missed it for the world—this one or the last, and I hope to serve with him again wherever we wind up next.”
S-19
The tired former submarine was wallowing at anchor not far from where Santa Catalina rode more gently at hers. The night was pitch-black and the smoke from Madras added an opacity that hid even the stars. The city was bright, however, with flames and swirling sparks rising high in the sky. The Grik had evidently torched the place again, because as far as Irvin knew, there’d been no fighting there. There’d been bombing, though, he reminded himself. Maybe the air raids started all the fires? It was possible. The raids had gone on all day.
“That’s a heck of a sight, Captain Laumer,” Nat Hardee said.
“Yeah. I’ve heard how Aryaal and B’mbaado looked when we had to abandon them at the beginning of the war, and I guess that must’ve been worse. But this,” he gestured at the city. “Well, it looks like hell.”
Danny Porter was with them on the somewhat disheveled flying bridge. A big Grik ball had knocked away several of the supports and it was sagging a little to starboard. Sandy Whitcomb was below, completing temporary repairs to the top of the pressure hull in the old forward berthing space. There were fuel bunkers in there now, and until earlier that day when they shifted them forward, two torpedo reloads. No water was coming in, but the outer hull encompassing the new berthing space had a big hole in it, and some recently laid deckplates had been torn up. If enough water slopped in, the pressure hull would leak eventually. That would’ve been undesirable in any case, but even though S-19 wasn’t a sub anymore, the integrity of her pressure hull remained sacred to her crew.
“I hope we can avoid any heavy seas until that hole’s patched,” Irvin said, proving he and Danny were thinking along similar lines.
“Our damage is awful light considering the sheer weight of metal those Griks threw at us during the charge,” Danny pointed out. “And even more amazing is how few got hurt—and nobody got killed at all.”
“Yeah,” Irvin agreed, but his tone was somber. They all knew it was a different story on Santa Catalina, but they remained relieved. They were also proud of S-19. Their long insistence that she be returned to service instead of scrapped had been justified at last, and Irvin personally felt a happy sense of vindication. He thought he’d just been coasting for far too long, and though he’d faced other dangers, even the Doms, this was his first action against the hated Grik. He hadn’t shirked his duty, as he’d always secretly feared he might; hadn’t even hesitated. He was proud of his ship and himself, and he had a new confidence t
hat he could handle any assignment. Ben Mallory’s Air Corps had whittled the enemy down to a bite-size chunk, and Santa Catalina had certainly done her part, but S-19 administered a stunningly spectacular coup de grace to the Grik fleet at Madras, and the show-stopping finale would be remembered, Irvin was sure.
“The fellas did real fine,” Danny said, a benevolent smile splitting his sun-bleached beard. The “fellas” included a number of women; one a shell handler on the four-inch-fifty, just then helping its otherwise Lemurian crew clean and secure the weapon. She and a ’Cat were pulling on a long wooden pole, dragging a bristle brush down the bore from the breech to remove fouling and copper from the rifling grooves. Danny couldn’t help but watch the girl closely. Like most ex-pat Impie gals who made it as far west as Baalkpan or joined the Navy, she was young, adventurous, and very pretty. Danny frowned. But he was chief of the boat. Showing favorites, let alone sparking up a member of the crew, simply wasn’t acceptable for him. He sighed and concentrated on the big gun.
“I’m still disappointed with the new shells against armored targets,” he said. “Our guys did swell and landed some shrewd, damaging licks at close range—I mean, once we got inside fifteen hundred yards. But that’s too damn close!”
“We’ll do better when we get armor-piercing shells. The ones they sent out from Baalkpan were dropped as bombs by the Naval Air Corps, and apparently did fairly well. We’ll get them soon enough.”
“It’s always a matter of priorities,” Danny mused. “Sure, we’ll get AP shells eventually, like everything else that can use ’em, but after today, the Air Corps’ll be screaming for something that can drop torpedoes!”
“That’ll take longer,” Irvin chuckled. “Those big, four-engine ‘Clippers’ could carry a torpedo, but nothing else we have yet can—and ‘Clippers’ are stretched thin, with lots of other jobs.”
A bright blue-orange flash lit the sky over Madras, blooming, then falling earthward like the petals of a dying flower.
“What the hell?” Danny grunted.
“Grik zeps is inbound!” cried the talker. “Lots o’ Grik zeps!”
“How many?” Irvin demanded, then bit his lip. He couldn’t see the ’Cat well enough in the dark, but didn’t doubt he was blinking something like “Are you kidding me?”
“I don’t know. ‘Lots’ is all they say. Maybe all. It jus’ come over TBS! Nancys spot ’em—an’ get one, I bet—but they ain’t enough Nancys armed for air fight!”
“Sound general quarters!” Irvin ordered. “The three-inch gun crew will stand by for air action.” He looked at Danny. “Call the anchor detail and get ready to pull the hook, Chief. Better tell Whitcomb to fire up the other diesel too. Let me know as soon as we’re ready to maneuver!”
“Aye, aye, Skipper!” Danny replied, and bolted down the crooked stairway aft, raising his whistle to his lips.
“Should I flash Santa Catalina to make sure they copied?” Hardee asked.
“No! No lights! Those damn Grik’ll have had spies to tell ’em about where the fleet was relative to Madras, but they can’t see anything down here. We won’t give ’em any targets! Confirm that Santy Cat got the word with the TBS.”
“Aye, Skipper.”
For a few moments, Irvin was alone with his thoughts. There were ’Cats on the flying bridge, but nobody spoke. All were focused on the fiery light show developing in the sky above. After that first explosion, more zeppelins quickly started burning in rapid succession, giving the impression that fire was pouring from the heavens. Irvin was amazed by how comforted he was by the sound of the starboard diesel starting up, adding to the oddly muffled exhaust escaping from the tall, slim funnel behind the bridge.
“There are a lot of them,” Hardee said grimly, returning to Irvin’s side.
“Our flyboys must see ’em better up there, because I still can’t see squat—until one lights up. And they’re chewing hell out of them! Did General Alden have more air-to-air capable Nancys at Lake Flynn that came to help?”
“No, sir,” Hardee replied. “Tassana-Ay-Arracca sent that Baalkpan Bay scrambled her Fleashooter wing.”
Irvin’s skin crawled. “Jesus! Those poor guys are still learning to land on a carrier, and they already crack up half the time! No way they can land in the dark. And they don’t have fuel to last till daylight!”
“No, sir,” Nat agreed, “but there’s a clearing west of the city. A regiment of Impie troops with Seventh Corps overran it earlier, but now they’ll try to secure the environs and light it up with bonfires.”
“My God. Those guys haven’t been ashore eight hours! They’re green as grass. And now they’re going to fight a battle in the dark so they can light up a grass strip?”
“Maybe not,” Nat said. There are still Grik in the city, but the word is those outside have quit fighting. Pulled back.”
“Huh.” Laumer shook his head. “It’ll still be a bloody mess.”
“Yes, sir.”
They watched in silence again as the air battle crept east-southeast. Not toward them so much, but definitely toward the bulk of First Fleet. It was getting closer, though, and they could see it in greater detail, particularly through a telescope. Occasionally they caught the flitting, tracer-spitting shapes of the P-1 Mosquito Hawks swarming through the mass of zeppelins. Twice they saw pairs of the little planes apparently collide and fall like tumbling meteors into the sea. It was impossible to say how many of the big gasbags there were—perhaps thirty had already fallen—but every now and then they saw clusters of them illuminated by one of their flaming, falling herd. Laumer was stunned by the sheer wastefulness of the attack. Each zep represented a tremendous expenditure of labor and material, not to mention the time it took to train its crew, and they were just throwing them away! No doubt this massed night attack had a better chance of success than a similar attack in daylight, but the profligacy of the effort, of the strategy, struck Laumer as insane. Of course, the Grik had never been concerned about losses, but even if the Allies had developed aircraft that could keep zeppelins away from the front, they were still useful, could still carry more passengers and supplies than a “Clipper,” and could deliver them just about anywhere. Laumer wished the Allies had a few of the damn things.
“The Grik aren’t stupid, not anymore,” Irvin murmured. “At least not all of them. There’s got to be a reason they’re doing this now. Is there something else up their sleeve, or do they really have enough zeps to bull all the way to the fleet?”
“Maybe,” Nat said, a little nervously. Big, scattered explosions started flinging illuminated geysers up from the sea. Clearly, some of the suicider bombs had begun to fall. Those things were dangerous as hell—if they could see their targets. Essentially big bombs with stubby wings, a tail, and a Grik pilot lying on his belly with a one-way ticket, they’d almost destroyed Big Sal at the first Battle of Madras. But they couldn’t see anything now, and were being wasted too. Or were they? One of the ships in the fleet—it was impossible to tell which—suddenly lit up the sea a couple of miles away. It was probably just luck, or maybe a Grik suicider—how the hell did they get them to do that?—saw a target in the light of a near miss. Suddenly, they got a little better idea just how many zeps must be up there, because maybe six or seven more suiciders immediately slammed into the burning ship, one after the other. The last few probably hit only floating debris.
“God almighty!” Irvin breathed. He spun and paced aft. “You will not fire that weapon for any reason. Is that clear?” he ordered the crew on the three-inch gun. The ’Cats just stared at him, again probably blinking something that meant “Do we look nuts?”
Irvin turned to the front, looking up. Tracers arced lazily just above, and a small flash, like a little cannon shot, replied. What was clearly a Fleashooter burst into flames and began a long spiral toward the sea. Other tracers converged and sparkled against what looked like a growing, dull orange moon.
“Heads up!” a ’Cat trilled on the fo’c’sle. “Iss
gonna fall on us!”
That wasn’t going to happen. Already, the great dirigible was edging northward, still a few thousand feet up, its forward section engulfed in flames that surged greedily aft. Somewhat unusually, it was falling in one piece, the glowing embers on the rigid frame growing larger as it accelerated downward. Engines fell away and drifting fragments of burning fabric fluttered like giant fireflies.
“It ain’t gonna hit, but it’s gonna be close!” Danny yelled from forward. “I sure hope it doesn’t draw any damn glider bombs!”
The flaming, glowing skeleton of the Grik zeppelin fell less than two hundred yards off the starboard beam, but for a moment everyone stood and stared, confused. Much of the wreckage never quite made it to the water, but with a great, towering swirl of sparks, it impacted something else and collapsed across it like a massive, glowing web. Laumer’s first horrified thought was that it had fallen on Santa Catalina . . . But that can’t be! he realized. She’s over there, northeast! He confirmed it with a quick glance that revealed her dark shape off S-19’s starboard quarter. Whatever that is . . . He jerked his glass to his eye just as the lookout screeched from above.
“On deck! Grik baatle-waagons is comin’ right at us, starboard side!”
That’s impossible! Irvin screamed at himself. There are no other enemy ships around! The Air Corps would’ve told us, and they’d been scouting the whole area until the sun went down! Then his heart ran away like high-speed screws leaving the water in heavy seas. But there are more! There’d been at least three ’wagons still in Madras! Just because they hadn’t come out before, didn’t mean they couldn’t!
“All ahead, emergency flank!” he screamed at the ’Cat in the dark pilothouse, but knew it was already too late. All the effort they’d expended to refloat and refit S-19, all the hell they’d endured then and since, the proud little ship she’d become that turned the tables that day, and the devoted crew who’d made it possible—it was all over, about to be snuffed out like a bug on a railroad track! “Close all internal compartments. Sound the collision alarm!” he added, his soul dying inside him as the monstrous, still-glowing silhouette churned inexorably closer, its armored bow aiming at him like a giant ax. Maybe that glowing zep carcass’ll at least bring some of their own bombs down on that thing, he thought bleakly.
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