Straits of Hell

by Taylor Anderson

  He looked back at Sandra. “Yes,” he said at last, managing a smile even though this would be the last time he saw her before Amerika sailed for Baalkpan in a couple of days.

  “You’ll be careful?” she demanded doubtfully, adjusting the collar of his shirt.

  “Sure. You be careful,” he urged, glancing significantly downward. “For both of you.”

  She frowned. “It’s not fair, you know.”

  He nodded again. “I know.”

  Their tender moment was interrupted by a roar on deck, and they looked up at the ship. She’d changed a little since the fight. Attached to the boat davits aft of the torpedo mounts were large wooden rafts, finally replacing her old, mesh-bottomed ones with something more useful in this ferocious sea. They wouldn’t be much good for a lengthy stranding, but they might protect a few people long enough for them to be picked up by another ship or boat. Also, and just as important to Matt, they provided at least some barrier against boarders. With them, the new extra machine guns, and the Nancy seaplane supported on its catapult aft, Walker was more top-heavy than she’d ever been, but Matt intended to stick fairly close to Big Sal and keep his fuel bunkers topped off, using the underway refueling procedures they’d practiced so carefully. He didn’t expect she’d roll much more excessively than normal. They quickly located the source of their distraction. Chief Jeek was overseeing the last torpedo going aboard, to be stored in the inoperative number two tube. Walker ordinarily had no space for spare torpedoes, but even if the tube wouldn’t work, it was silly not to fill it. The hoist lifting the heavy weapon had gotten tangled with one of the wireless aerial supports, causing the torpedo to spin, fouling the support, and jerking the ’Cats on the taglines to the deck.

  “What’s wrong with you idiot monkeyheads!” Jeek bellowed, throwing a ’Cat at a snaking tagline. “That fish gots a warhead on it! You wanna blow up the ship? Goddaam it!” he practically shrieked when the support pulled the aerial too taut and it snapped at the foremast like a pistol shot, falling across the funnels and the amidships deckhouse like a high-tension spring. “Secure! Secure!” He grabbed a tagline himself just as several other Lemurians got a grip on the others, and with supreme effort, they managed to stall the spinning weapon. Matt closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with a groan. Jeek must’ve seen him, because he launched into a tirade reminiscent of Chief Gray’s finest, except for the number of Lemurian words mixed in. “Set it down—on the truck, not the veg’taable locker! You not tell the difference?” Jeek demanded of the hoist operator. “Easy, don’t just drop it! Is you brains turned to shit? Is you too stupid to know which end to eat with! There, cut that wire—watch out, it gonna snap back! You! Outa the way! You want it to cut you stupid head off?”

  Just as Jeek seemed to be getting things under control, there came another threatening shout just above Matt and Sandra, on the gangway forward. “What the hell’s in there, Isak?”

  Isak Reuben had finally returned to the ship with a light wooden crate about three feet square that he’d apparently cobbled together out of scrap wood. Dragging the crate with a rope, he’d nearly made it past Sonny Campeti, Walker’s gunnery officer, who had the deck, but who’d been distracted by the commotion aft.

  “Nuttin’,” Isak proclaimed in his reedy voice.

  “There’s something in there, damn your lyin’ ass!” Campeti denounced. “It’s moving—and making noises!”

  Matt and Sandra exchanged glances. A little “normal” chaos after all they’d been through might be refreshing. Both knew this episode would unfold “naturally” only if they stayed apart from it, so together, hand in hand in the gathering twilight, they prepared to watch the show.

  Spanky had hobbled up from aft, past the still-ranting Jeek, and turned his attention to the crate. Isak seemed to wilt at the sight of him, but then straightened, possibly emboldened by the Exec’s amused expression.

  “It’s about time you came back, Chief Reuben,” Spanky said. “Did you know Tabby wants you on report?”

  “I’m wounded,” Isak defended, displaying a bandaged arm. “An’ was excyooged.”

  “That’s why you’re not on report. But you will be if you don’t answer Lieutenant Campeti’s question.”

  Isak shrugged, and Matt was intrigued by the “mouse’s” sudden attitude. There’d been a time when Isak and his half brother, Gilbert, would’ve walked a mile out of their way to avoid even talking to an officer. Matt suspected that Isak’s part in slaying the Celestial Mother had instilled a greater confidence in him when it came to such encounters.

  “It’s a pet,” Isak finally confessed. “Always wanted one. Deck apes always get the pets, an’ us snipes never do. Why, the first ’Cats that came aboard went to the deck division. Then Silva got to keep Larry the Lizard, an’”—he seemed to remember Sandra might be watching—“Miz Tucker—I mean, Mrs. Minister Reddy—got to keep Petey when he showed back up from the east.” His expression turned even more sour than usual. “An’ when me an’ Gilbert finally did get us a pet, when Tabby came down to the firerooms, she went an’ took charge! It ain’t fair!” His voice had gone from almost confrontational to plaintive. The box rumbled and Campeti took a step back.

  “What kind of pet, Chief Reuben?” Spanky asked patiently.

  “Just a little one.”

  “What kind?”

  Isak looked around. With the turmoil aft under control, they were drawing attention. Earl Lanier, the ship’s bloated cook, had approached with his arms crossed over this grungy T-shirt, and even Tabby was watching now, blinking angrily. Jeek trotted up and saluted, blinking embarrassment. “Sorry XO. The fish is stowed—but the aerial’s down. EMs’ll get right on it.”

  “That’s okay, Chief.” Spanky nodded at the cobbled-together hoist. “You and the fellas have done well under the circumstances. I guess we’ll get proper yard facilities built someday, but in the meantime we have to make do. Have Mr. Palmer let me know as soon as communications are restored.”

  “Ay, ay, sur.”

  Spanky turned back to Isak. “What kind?” he demanded more forcefully.

  “Here, I’ll show ya,” Isak replied, patting the box and unhooking the top. Before he could even raise the lid, a dark form banged it open and jumped into view, teetering on the side of the crate. Everyone drew back because even in the deepening gloom it was obvious that Isak’s new pet was a Griklet.

  “Griklets” were baby Grik, and not only had no one ever made a “pet” of one; no one had ever even managed to capture one alive. They were savage little things, with no more apparent sense than an alligator—with the agility of a monkey. Even the young of Lawrence’s comparatively civilized Sa’aarans weren’t considered “people” by their elders until they more or less reached maturity—of action and thought. The things had given them all kinds of grief when they first discovered them on Ceylon, their holding pens opened by retreating Grik. They ran in packs, attacking whatever they thought they could catch and eat, and every attempt to deal with them in a nonlethal way had failed. Ultimately, the Allies resorted to shooting them on sight. It had been much the same in Indiaa, to a lesser degree, because many “civilian” Grik had been evacuated before the fighting and not simply slain by their warriors. The same must’ve been the case here, since almost no Griklets had been seen in the city. Of course, no one doubted that the Grik cooped up west of the harbor had eaten their Griklets first. . . .

  “Wait just a damn minute!” Campeti said, drawing his.45. “We’ve had enough Grik on this ship lately!”

  Matt was inclined to agree, but he didn’t interfere. He was amazed by how calm the thing seemed to be. It just stood there, glaring around, its nearly plumage-free tail swishing and its crestless head bobbing as it sniffed.

  “Yeah!” Earl agreed, stepping forward. “You want a pet, get a puppy! Give it here and I’ll cook it!”

  “Like hell!” Isak growle
d. “He’s mine! You got any idea how hard he was to catch? That’s what I been up to,” Isak told Spanky. “I caught him, an’ I been trainin’ him. Why, he’s tame as a duck.”

  Spanky frowned, and Campeti took that as his cue.

  “No Grik of any size is getting on this ship again,” he said. “Shut that lid and get him ashore. Mr. Bradford can cut him up—or teach him to play Chinese checkers for all I care.”

  “That ain’t fair!” Isak practically wailed. “You leave him be, you ever want any more o’ my PIG-cigs!”

  “I don’t smoke ’em,” Campeti growled. “Box him up!”

  “Wait . . . ,” Spanky began, but Earl lumbered forward.

  “I’ll get him!” Earl said.

  At the sight of the mountain of flesh, the Griklet squealed and bolted. Perhaps instinctively going for height, it skittered up the stairs to the amidships deckhouse. Dashing between the legs of surprised ’Cats trying to clear the aerial, it finally reached the top of the number two 4"-50, where it paused, looking frantically about.

  “No!” Isak screeched. “Lemme get him!” He snatched a crumbling cracker from his pocket and trotted up the stairs after his little friend.

  “Get that thing!” Campeti shouted.

  “Belay that!” Spanky countered. “Let the mouse do it.”

  Campeti, Tabby, and Earl crept slowly up the stairs, and then eased closer. Isak was standing on the gun’s “bicycle seat,” holding the cracker made of the somewhat pumpkiny-tasting Lemurian flour. “Here’s a cracker, Grikky,” Isak crooned in what he probably thought was an entreating croak. Lanier snorted. The Griklet hissed, but stretched its snout toward the cracker.

  “I’ll be damned,” Spanky murmured from below, having limped to a point he could watch better. Perhaps emboldened, Isak wheedled, “here Grikky, Grikky!” Earl, unable to contain himself, guffawed.

  Terrified by the horrible sound from the bloated monster, “Grikky” leaped over Isak, bounced off the ready lockers, and used the number three gun as a springboard to launch himself over the starboard side of the ship—to splash with a shriek in the water of the harbor below.

  “Noooo!” Isak wailed, lunging for the opposite rail. There was no hope. Even several weeks after the battle, particularly so close to the dock where they’d dumped thousands of Grik, the harbor was still full of flasher fish torpidly nibbling the last morsels from a vast submerged bed of bones. And, of course, Grik didn’t swim. Lanier exploded in laughter, and Isak rounded on him with flashing eyes. Almost as quick as his lost pet, the wiry human jumped on Earl, climbing around and up on the cook’s back, wrapping his legs around his chest, and began raining blows on Lanier’s head, screeching “murderer” at the top of his lungs. Quite a crowd had gathered on the main deck below, and general laughter erupted as Lanier waddled in circles, roaring like a bull, trying to peel the enraged fireman off his back. Surprised by Isak’s uncharacteristically strong reaction to . . . anything, Tabby and Campeti’s first reaction was to step back. Now they rushed forward to drag Isak down.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, you little twerp?” Earl gasped, fingering his ear. “You bit me, goddamn it!”

  “Murderer!” Isak seethed, going almost limp in Tabby’s arms. “I’m gonna get you for this!”

  “I didn’t touch the little shit!” Earl defended, looking around. “Anybody see me touch it?” The laughter had subsided to a thoughtful silence. “And even if I had, killin’ Griks ain’t murder. It’s what we do.”

  “Grikky was different! I spent weeks gettin’ eem ta trust me, an’ you scared eem ta death as quick as that!” Isak snapped.

  Earl started to say something more, but Campeti shoved him back. “Just shut up. Get the hell back to your galley and stay there!” He turned to Tabby. “C’mon. Let’s get him down the stairs. Let Spanky sort this out.”

  A few minutes later, Tabby and Campeti were supporting Isak in front of the Exec. The onlookers remained, but the silence had turned respectful, and Spanky realized that, Griklet or not, the crew was on Isak’s side. He leaned heavily on his crutch and sighed. “Listen to me, you nut,” he began gruffly. “You leave Earl alone. He didn’t murder your pet. He’s a turd, but he was just doin’ what comes naturally to him—just like your . . . Grikky, flippin’ his lid and jumpin’ over the side. We’ve seen Grik do that over and over when they’re scared. Anything could’ve set him off eventually; blow tubes, or fire the main battery, and over he’d go. So even if he was tame as a bunny, you never could’ve kept him on the ship. We might’ve turned him over to Courtney to study”—he glared at Campeti—“but not to cut up. I mean, why would he, when he’s done it a hundred times? But whatever we came up with, he’d’ve had to go. That said, you did good work with that thing, good enough that I won’t report you attacking Earl to the Skipper as long as you write up how you managed to actually tame a Griklet. Hell, I don’t think Larry’s people even know how to tame their own kids!” Everyone knew that the captain had seen everything from the dock but would ignore it without an official report. It was always better for things like this to be handled by subordinates whenever possible.

  “Okay,” Isak mumbled halfheartedly, “but that fat bastard Earl has to pay.”

  “You leave him alone! You mess with him anymore and I will report you to the Skipper—with the recommendation that he not only bust you, but take you out of your firerooms and assign you to Earl as a mess attendant. You hear me?”

  “Yah. I hear.”

  Spanky looked at Tabby, and some kind of understanding passed between them, because she nodded and poked Isak in the ribs. “C’mon, you. You got work to do.”

  Spanky looked meaningfully at Chief Jeek, who also nodded. “Right! Break it up!” he shouted to the onlookers. “We all got work!”

  On the pier, Matt chuckled when Spanky caught his eye, making tearing motions at his hair.

  “That was . . . different,” Sandra said, and Matt looked at her. Her expression was unclear in the falling darkness.

  “What? The aerial casualty shipping the torpedo? Nah. Stuff goes haywire all the time. You know that. And taking torpedoes aboard is always ticklish. I’m actually encouraged that Jeek got it straightened out so fast.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the incident with Isak and his pet Griklet.”

  “What about it? It was funny. And in all honesty, a Griklet’s not much weirder than some of the critters the guys used to try to bring aboard in the old days, in the Philippines.”

  “I’m talking about Isak himself. We’ve all been through a lot, but him going from a virtual cave dweller in the firerooms to, well, the slayer of the Grik empress, or whatever she is, has done something to him.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’ll pass. Probably will. But right now I’m not sure whether he’s finally starting to join the human, or human-Lemurian, race”—she made a throwing-away gesture—“or if, after everything, he’s beginning to crack up.”

  Matt snorted, but then considered. “You know, I’ve been thinking how ships’ captains have to be kind of amateur shrinks. I guess doctors do too.” He smiled. “But I think Isak was always cracked. What does your shrinkery tell you about me?”

  Sandra started to answer, hesitated, began again, then shook her head. Matt started to prod her, when her face lit up with a sickly green light. He looked up at the Celestial Palace and saw a flare beginning to fall—just as others went up near the airfield. He looked out to sea, beyond the harbor mouth, and saw more flares illuminating the DD on picket duty.

  “Captain Reddy!” Signal Lieutenant Palmer cried from the top of the gangway. “I guess they tried to reach us”—he gestured at the fallen aerial—“but Amerika’s Morse lamp sends that Big Sal spotted Grik zeps out in the strait, coming in from the northwest! Lots of them!”

  “How many is ‘lots,’ Ed? And can Big Sal’s planes intercept them?”
>
  “There must’ve still been sunlight up that high because they said, well, hundreds, Skipper! And Keje says they’re high enough that they’ll be here before any of his planes can catch ’em!”

  Matt grabbed Sandra by the wrist and started dragging her up the gangway. “Take in all lines!” he shouted. “We’re getting underway! Signal Amerika to get underway immediately as well, and pass the word!” Gaining the deck, he and Sandra automatically saluted the flag aft, and then Campeti, but Matt didn’t ask permission to board.

  “What about your regulations—that keep me off your ship?” Sandra asked ironically as bosun’s pipes and whistles shrieked.

  “I doubt Grik bombing practice has improved that much, but they’re about to drop a lot of ’em—and the docks have to be their primary target. No way I’m leaving you standing there. I’ll bring you back when it’s over.”

  CHAPTER 11

  ////// Grik City Airship Field

  “Grik zeps!” came the cry from the hastily built comm shack, loud enough that Captain Tikker heard it in the HQ tent nearby. A little groggy, he jumped up from the dingy cushion he’d flopped down on seemingly moments before, exhausted after a day of shifting the 1st Pursuit Squadron back out to Salissa and organizing the command and support structure of the other squadrons to operate independently. “His” P-40 floatplane had been the first ship sent across, along with the pitiful few spares remaining to keep it in the air. All that was left on the field—they hadn’t even named it yet—were the nineteen P-1 Mosquito Hawks, or “Fleashooters,” of the 1st Naval Air Wing’s 2nd and 3rd Pursuit Squadrons. Tikker ran outside the tent, pulling on the peacoat that would cook him now, but that he’d need at altitude, along with a flight helmet and goggles.