“Yes, Major!”
“Then wind it up!” She turned and looked down, from the relative peace and security that momentarily surrounded her to the surf of yipping, roaring Grik clawing close once more. “Flamethrowers! Fire!” she yelled again, and once more the leading edge of the Grik horde withered under the hellish flames, shrieking, squealing, leaping in the air, trying to jump over those pressing from behind. Those were immediately slain in the “same old way” the Grik had always killed those that tried to flee, that “turned prey,” she noticed with interest, but the rest kept coming this time. One reason she saw to her dismay was that the flamethrowers didn’t reach as far or as vigorously, and she knew they must already be running out of fuel. Not quite, unfortunately, she saw to her horror, because amid startled cries to her right that rose to shrieks of terror, a fire-’Cat stumbled back, a crossbow bolt jutting from his eye, and he went down—his wand spraying his last flaming fuel on his comrades nearby. Most recoiled away in time, but more than a dozen Impie Marines of the 1st of the 11th got a murderous dose, and the screams tore her soul. She shook it off; she had no choice. These Grik might be the same mindless monsters they’d faced early in the war, but they’d definitely see and exploit an opportunity like the smoldering gap that had just opened before them.
“Fill that hole!” she roared, racing forward, stepping over burning, bawling men, and unslinging her own Blitzerbug. Others hurried to join her, but it might have already been too late. “Meet ’em with your bayonets!” she cried, racking her bolt back and firing quick bursts into slathering, toothy faces that appeared in front of her. Bayonets stabbed into the mass, thrusting, twisting, and rifles fired the big.50-80s to tear through two or three Grik at a time. Even the comm-’Cat she’d just spoken to was beside her now, hacking with his cutlass at a leather shield. Risa fired through it and the Grik fell away with a squawk, but another barged up, trying to skewer her with a spear. An Impie Marine drove his bayonet into the monster’s neck, and she shot a Grik trying to hack him with its sword.
“I got through!” the comm-’Cat gasped beside her.
“What did they say?” she demanded, slamming another magazine in her Blitzer.
“Dat dey got a wider front, an’ the Griks is maybe get past aroun’ dem. Dey can’t spare nobody right now. But dey say you right!” he added with a quick, angry blink. “We got de ‘better position,’ an’ we got to hold it!”
Risa fired a long, frustrated burst that toppled several Grik. The gap was closing, finally, but more Grik were reaching the top of the Wall of Trees at last, all along the line.
“Right,” Risa said grimly.
USS Walker
“Risa and Chack’s Brigade, and all our new ‘Maroon’ friends under her command are catching hell on the Wall of Trees west of the harbor,” Matt told the others in the pilothouse. Spanky rubbed his chin, and Bernie looked alarmed. Herring just stared, his expression unreadable. Doocy Meek had rejoined them on the bridge. Though he didn’t know Risa well, he knew she was important to these people. “And Safir says she doesn’t have anything she can send to help,” Matt added.
“That’s tough,” Spanky growled. “Wish we could help.” He gestured at the mass of Grik ships ahead. “But we got a target here that needs attention,” he reminded. “Can’t be two places at once. And even if we steamed into the harbor, we couldn’t give Risa any supporting fire with the Griks so close under the wall. Shooting high enough to clear it, all our fire would fall way past, back in the jungle.”
“That’s better than nothing,” Bernie insisted. “The Grik hitting her are coming from the jungle.”
Matt shook his head. “Too dangerous. Even the water in the bay is too rough to risk shooting right over our friends’ heads. One short round and we’re Grik heroes. But Spanky’s wrong. We can be in two places at once.” Spanky looked at him, brows arching, and Matt turned to the signal striker. “Have Mr. Palmer instruct the PTs to meet us in the lee of those big rocks off the harbor mouth. We’ll hook on and transfer as heavy a landing party as we can, with all the thirty cals and modern small arms on the ship. They’ll take us ashore and join us with their new thirties too. The PTs can’t do much else today,” he added, looking at the surprised expressions.
“We?” Spanky growled.
“Well, not you, of course,” Matt answered.
“That’s not what I meant!”
“I know, but you can’t go. Starboard engine back one-third. Port ahead two-thirds,” he called to the ’Cat at the engine order telegraph. “That area just off the harbor mouth is liable to be the calmest place we can find. We’ll hold the ship so the PTs can approach under our lee as well.” He looked back at Spanky. “You’ll stay with the ship. They should be finished rigging the tiller soon enough, and I want Walker back off the beach as soon as you can get her there, to keep blasting the Grik in front of Safir Maraan. You’ll still have the twenty-fives and fifties, but I’d rather you didn’t get any closer than they will reach.”
Spanky grimaced, glancing at his crutch wedged between the chair and the forward bulkhead, then finally nodded. “When I said I figured you might have to whip things in shape ashore for a while, this isn’t what I had in mind.”
“Me either, but we do what we can. And this is what we can do.” Matt looked at Minnie. “Pass the word to issue small arms and dismount the thirties from the rails. We’ll take everybody not shooting, passing ammunition, keeping the screws turning, or fixing leaks.” He considered. “That’ll give us maybe fifty, counting the Marines. I’ll take one of the gun crews off the amidships platform and one of the twenty-five-millimeter crews too. That’s a dozen more. You’ll stand off,” he stressed to Spanky, “so you won’t need to fight both sides at once.” He looked at the others. “The rest of us are going to help Risa.”
Transferring sixty-five men and ’Cats from the wallowing destroyer to the three bouncing, capering MTBs was a harrowing experience, but with a spiderweb of lines and cargo nets prerigged for safety as soon as the word was passed, and a long fender supported by the lifting boom on the mainmast aft, it all went fairly quickly. Everybody had friends with the Raiders. Matt turned Pam Cross away, even though his ship had suffered few casualties in the fighting so far. Those on the aft deckhouse had been either lightly wounded or killed outright. She might still be needed aboard, and there were plenty of corps-’Cats where they were going. He was still amused when she tried to swing down to one of the pitching boats anyway, just like she’d done to go with Silva’s party to assault the Cowflop, but where Silva couldn’t really give her orders, he could, and he harshly commanded her to remain with Walker. He also had to order Juan Marcos to stay behind, but the short, one-legged Filipino took it more gracefully until the bloated cook, Earl Lanier, whom Matt had somehow missed sliding down the line—and what a spectacle that must’ve been—waved jauntily at his little nemesis. Juan became exercised then, shouting unheard epithets, complete with imaginative gestures. Earl just grinned. Matt didn’t know what use Lanier would be until he saw that the fat cook was possessively supporting the muzzle of one of the.30s, its grip end lightly gouging the PT’s deck. Earl was a blob, but he was strong. Commander Herring had volunteered, somewhat to Matt’s surprise, with a vague mention of something important he had to tell him when they had the chance. Commander Bernard Sandison came against his wishes, though he hadn’t ordered the young man to stay. Of all Walker’s remaining human officers still with the ship, Matt probably felt most protective of the young torpedoman. Others could carry on his torpedo work by now, but Bernie was just . . . a really good kid. And he’d been grievously wounded before.
Most of Walker’s landing party carried Springfields, pistols, and cutlasses, but they also had four Thompsons, a BAR, and a dozen Blitzerbugs. Still, it was the.30-caliber machine guns, nine of them counting those they’d take from the PTs, that Matt hoped would turn the tide atop the Wall of Trees—if they could get
there in time.
“All set?” he demanded of Chief Jeek, who was directing Gunner’s Mate Pak-Ras-Ar’s (Pack Rat’s) number three gun crew in getting the weapons and ammunition secured.
“Ay, Skipper!”
“Then unhook from the fender and take in the lines!” He gestured for those still on Walker to pull up the cargo nets. “Let’s go!” he shouted at the Lemurian ensign commanding the MTB. Nodding, the ensign spun his wheel and advanced the throttle. The two other boats quickly followed, roaring out of Walker’s lee and back into the heavier seas. From there they steered almost due south, trying to keep to the channel through the harbor mouth. It wasn’t raining just then, though the heavy spray made that irrelevant, and the battle on the beach was only evident by the darker smoke smudging the gray day above it. The sound of the sea and the roaring engines drowned any battle noise they might’ve heard. They could barely even see the peak of the Wall of Trees where the Raiders fought; the haze was too thick and there was more rain between them. Matt turned, and for a moment he watched Walker toss and roll in the swells as she gathered way, throwing streamers of spray aside as she churned east-northeast. Her sides were streaked with rust again, except for the bright dents where Grik shot had knocked away both rust and paint. Her number two and four stacks bled wisps of smoke from new punctures, and the shattered aft searchlight gaped at him like an empty eye socket. But she’d performed heroically that day, as she always did, and the big battle flag streaming from her foremast left a proud, wistful lump in his throat. He was glad Sandra was away from here, she and the child she carried, but he was almost as glad that whatever happened to him that day, his ship and all she represented should live to fight on and remain the inspiration she’d been for so long, for so many. But he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever set foot on her again. He shook his head.
The three PTs thundered through the channel, past the point where Walker had been stranded during the fight to take the city, the place where “Super Bosun” Fitzhugh Gray had died along with so many others. The only visible monument was the charred skeleton of a Grik cruiser that had grounded and burned beside Matt’s ship, but Gray’s real monument still lived in the hearts of all who’d known him.
“So much sacrifice for such a crummy place,” Bernie Sandison shouted beside him, gazing at the same spot, full of the same thoughts.
“Yeah, but like I told Spanky, we do what we can. And after the Battle of Baalkpan, our priority has always been to take the fight to the Grik’s front porch instead of our own.” He waved around. “And here we are, past the porch and right in the middle of their home. It’s a crappy ‘home,’” he conceded again, “and I wouldn’t give two bits for it if they gave me a choice. Christ, the city’s a dump, and even the rest of the island is a wild, monster-infested nightmare now. Nothing like the ‘sacred homeland’ Adar and all our Lemurian friends dreamed of and hoped it would be. I doubt even they still hold much regard for the place as anything but a place to fight the Grik.”
“I hope you’re right, Skipper,” Bernie said, almost too quietly to hear. “But our problem—yours, mine, and all the gals and fellas on Walker—is that we always bring our home to the fight, wherever it is. And it always takes a beating,” he added bitterly. “We fight here to keep the Grik out of Aryaal and B’mbaado, Baalkpan, and Maa-ni-la, and the rest of the world eventually. But no matter what this new nation, this ‘Union’ Mr. Letts is cooking up, winds up looking like, Walker is still the only ‘home,’ the only ‘nation’ Chief Gray was fighting for at the end, and her people, human and Lemurian, you, me—his shipmates—were the only ‘countrymen’ he was defending.”
Matt nodded. He’d been thinking much the same ever since that fight—but he’d been wrong, and so was Bernie. “But that’s the way it always is,” he insisted. “In the heat of action, you fight for yourself, your buddies, your ship”—he waved at the crest of the Wall of Trees ahead—“and your position. That’s what keeps you going. Sometimes it’s the only thing. But that doesn’t mean you’re not fighting for something bigger too.” He smiled. “My wife once told me, a long time ago it seems now, to ‘decide what was right and then fight my ship.’ Well, that’s what I’ve tried to do. Not always well,” he admitted, “but I try. And by doing so, I, we, also fight for the bigger ‘right thing’ of defeating the Grik so our people, old and new, will be safe. Period. Our people, Bernie: human and Lemurian, my wife and child, our friends back home or on other ships, other battlefields—even that pretty Impie gal you’re sweet on back in Baalkpan!” he added, and saw Bernie blush. “I don’t know as much about this ‘Union’ Alan Letts is cooking up as I’d like, but I know he hates fascism and communism—and do you think any ’Cats would join a system that stank of totalitarianism? So I think he’ll get it right, and I bet he’s doing his best to make sure its first goal is to keep the people we care about safe. And if that’s the case, I’m fighting for it too, and no ‘Home,’ not Aryaal, Baalkpan, even Walker, is more important than the people that make them one—and make that ‘Union.’” He shrugged. “You’re right about Chief Gray, though. And at the very end, his focus narrowed even further; from defending his ‘home’ ship, to saving my life. And insignificant as that may seem in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t mean he ever stopped fighting for his ship, the Alliance, or even the ‘Union’ he didn’t know any more about than I did. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so,” Bernie grudged. “It’s just hard to keep things in perspective sometimes.”
“You’re telling me!” Matt agreed. “I always preferred to keep things black-and-white, good and bad, but it’s just not always that simple. Sometimes I envy that idiot Silva. Even he’s run into a gray area from time to time, I understand, and he sure thrives on stirring them up! But generally he’s still a light switch. Switch on; let ’em live. Switch off; kill everything you’re pointed at. And he sleeps like a rock,” he added wistfully.
“I wish he were here. And Chack too,” Bernie said.
“Yeah. Look, time to get ready. We’re getting close to the wrecked Grik BBs, and as soon as we squirm through them, we’ll go ashore at the dock. When we do, make sure all the heavy weapons are organized. You’re in charge of them.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
When Bernie moved aft, against the pitching motion of the boat, Matt realized Commander Simon Herring had replaced him. “Did you mean what you said, about nothing mattering but the people we defend?” Herring asked.
“Of course.”
“No land, no ‘Home,’ not even your ship, in the end?”
“That’s what I told Bernie,” Matt stated, implying that Herring was intruding to listen. Herring caught the reprimand and spread his hands. “I’m a snoop, remember? And your position is somewhat . . . modified from others you’ve taken in the past.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Perhaps not. The subtle progression of attitudes from one to another, often quite diverse, is rarely noted by those who experience them.”
“You’ve been using shrinkery on me!” Matt suddenly realized.
“Shrinkery! Ha! Excellent. I’ll have to remember that.” He looked at Matt. “Of course I have. That’s part of my job; a large part, if I ever return to Baalkpan and the specific duties I was assigned. As you should certainly know, my initial evaluation of, and esteem for you, have both undergone a significant ‘progression’ as well, but I’ve remained . . . concerned about certain aspects of your overall strategy.” He nodded at Bernie. “Now I wonder if I’ve clung to that concern too long.”
“What are you getting at, Commander?”
“Only that, as I hinted earlier, I’d like to request a private, perhaps even lengthy discussion of an idea I have.”
“If you’ve got an idea that might help out now, you’d better spill it,” Matt warned. Herring waved it away. “It can have no bearing on today’s events, I assure you. It�
��s . . . much too late for that. But it could well have a decisive effect at a later date.”
“If we survive today,” Matt interjected, and Herring blinked.
“If, indeed.”
Matt looked forward as the boat bounced close to a bomb-ravaged dock. ’Cats were waiting there, backed by others mounted on vicious-looking me-naaks, or “meanies.” There were more than a hundred, and all were dirty, powder smudged, even blood streaked, and he wondered where they came from. “We’ll have our talk, Mr. Herring, as soon as we finish up here,” he said, hopping across to the dock and returning the salute of a Maa-ni-lo cav-’Cat, standing by a meanie with its jaws lashed shut. “Corporal,” Matt said, “what are you doing here?”
“Col-nol Saachic sent us, to fetch you an’ your destroyermen—an’ your weapons—to Major Risa-Sab-At an’ Major Jin-daal. Tings is tight, an’ there’s not a moment to spare. He figgered you wouldn’t want to run all the way.”
Matt stared at the me-naak. He’d never ridden one of the terrifying creatures and didn’t want to, but like the corporal said, it beat running. “Commander Sandison, Chief Jeek, get our people paired off and mounted up.” He stared dubiously at Earl Lanier, stepping across the gap between the boat and the dock, “his” Browning machine gun, one of Walker’s originals with its battered water jacket resting heavily on his shoulder. Earl stopped and took a wide-eyed step back when it became clear he’d have to ride a meanie.
Straits of Hell Page 46
