Maelstrom

by Taylor Anderson

  “Ten feet, more or less.”

  “Shit!” Everyone on the bridge was startled by Ellis’s uncharacteristic profanity.

  “What?” Bernie asked, then he saw it too. The Grik ship was almost directly abeam of Amagi now. “Maybe it’ll pass under?” he said anxiously.

  “Not a chance! Revenge drew thirteen feet, and they’re all about the same!” Jim didn’t stop to consider that, without her guns, the captured ship had drawn only slightly less than nine feet of water. The ship between Amagi and the torpedo was packed with hundreds of warriors, however. In the end, it didn’t make any difference. A brightly luminescent column of water snapped the Grik vessel in half, lifting the stern high in the air. The bow section was already half-submerged when the shattered stern crashed down upon it. A loud, muffled boom reached them across the distance, almost drowned by Amagi’s next salvo. Jim turned to the helmsman and snarled: “Come about!”

  Salissa was dying. All her tripod masts were down, and the pagodalike dwellings within them were a shambles. Fires raged unchecked in several portions of the ship, and only a few guns continued to belch defiance at the enemy. She’d been flooded heavily down so she might avoid major damage below the waterline, but she’d sunk much lower than intended now. Occasionally Keje felt her hull grinding against the bottom as the outgoing tide slowly dragged her across it. Before long she would truly rest on the bottom, one way or another, and the way things were going, there’d be no one left to pump her out.

  Keje was sitting on his beloved wooden stool, which someone had brought to him when an enormous splinter of wood slashed his leg. He was still on the rampart—what was left of it—and expected that he had only minutes to live. The Grik had made no real attempt to board Big Sal as yet; they were too preoccupied trying to break through the wall, and it even looked like they’d succeeded at a couple of points. Amagi had made that possible by knocking the wall flat. Somehow the Jaaps must have known they’d been successful and the ensuing salvos were only slaughtering their allies. That was when the mighty guns became devoted to demolishing Keje’s Home.

  Keje had never seen Amagi before this night, and he’d been simply incapable of imagining her power. He knew the Amer-i-caans were afrBecause of that he’d known, intellectually, that the Japanese ship was a threat. But deep down, he realized now, he’d really had no idea. They’d been fools to stay and try to resist it! Fools. Cap-i-taan Reddy tried to warn them—to explain what they faced. But he’d been willing to stay and fight, and that had given them heart. Surely it couldn’t be that bad? Keje now knew it was. He’d stayed out of pride and disbelieving ignorance. Friendship too, and a sense of duty to his people, but mostly because he hadn’t truly known.

  Alone, perhaps, among all the People now engaged in this apparently losing fight, Cap-i-taan Reddy and his Amer-i-caans had truly known what they faced. But instead of running, they’d elected to stay and defend their ignorant friends. Now, just as Salissa Home lay helpless under Amagi’s onslaught, Walker lay helpless and burning out in the bay. Keje had no idea what had happened to Mahan, but he suspected the explosion beyond Amagi was probably the result of the weapon she’d been sent to deploy. If that was the case, all was truly lost, and he felt a terrible grief for his friends and his people. Some might get away through the jungle to the east, and perhaps Mahan might yet escape. But for Salissa and her little sister Walker, who’d come to her aid so long ago, Keje was convinced this would be their final fight. Fire blossomed once more from end to end of the massive enemy ship, and he listened to the shells approach. A sudden calm overcame him. At least he’d die with his ship. He hoped the souls of the destroyermen would find their way to wherever it was they belonged, but he also hoped he’d be able to thank them first—and tell them farewell.

  “Lookout reports . . . some kind of explosion west of Amagi!” Reynolds cried. “He said something took out one of the Grik ships on that side. Maybe a loose mine,” he speculated hopefully.

  Matt closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew instinctively that the explosion had been no mine. It was too coincidental and the setup too perfect. He was convinced Mahan had made her attack and the Grik ship blundered into the torpedo’s path.

  “Any reaction from the Japs?”

  “No, sir. A searchlight came on for a few seconds and scanned the water close aboard; then it went out. They must think it was a mine.” Like all of them, Reynolds didn’t want to admit their last chance was gone. Then he stiffened, listening to his headset. “We got steam!” he suddenly shouted excitedly. “Spanky—I mean Mr. McFarlane—just reported that they finally managed to make their way to the valve and shut it off! Steam pressure’s coming up, and so’s the water pressure in the mains!”

  “What’s the steam pressure?”

  “Eighty-five, sir, but coming up fast.”

  “Very well. What’s the status on the amidships guns?”

  “Unknown, Skipper. It’s still too hot to get up there. None of the ammunition’s cooked off, though, so the damage may not be too bad.”

  “Very well. Ask Spanky to report when he’s ready to move.”

  Thirtieutenant McFarlane says.”

  “Right full rudder, starboard engine ahead slow, port, slow astern,” Matt commanded by way of response. “If the Japs are still looking at us, let’s make ’em think we’re just floating in circles,” he explained.

  Chief Gray reappeared on the bridge, looking even worse than before. This time his hands were bundled in rags, and he raised them up and shrugged when he caught the captain’s glance. “Damn valve wheel was hot.” Walker groaned beneath their feet as she began her turn. “You asked for a casualty report,” he said, and Matt nodded. “Four men and nine ’Cats dead. Most of the ’Cats were in the forward fireroom. There’re also eleven more with major and minor burns. Some real minor, countin’ me.”

  “The men?”

  Gray let out a breath. “Mertz, Elden, Hobbs, and Yarbrough. Mertz was tryin’ to make sandwiches for us.” He snorted. “The galley’s wrecked again and the refrigerator too, this time.”

  “Where was Lanier?”

  “In the head. That must be his battle station.”

  Matt nodded sadly. The list was likely to get longer soon. He watched as the bow slowly came around. He could see Amagi now, dark and malignant. The flashes of her guns left bright red blobs across his vision. A new fire burned fiercely near the dock, and he could see the battle cruiser had turned her wrath on Big Sal. He felt a white-hot fist clutch his chest. “Left standard rudder. All ahead full! Gunners to the amidships platform, if they’re able. Torpedo mount number one, prepare to fire impulse charges! Maybe that’ll shake them up!”

  Walker heaved against the unaccustomed weight of the flooded fireroom, but sluggishly she gathered speed. The heat from aft began to ease, now that they were steering into the wind, and a refreshing breeze circulated inside the pilothouse, scouring away the acrid smoke. Matt looked at Chief Gray, standing beside him. Both knew this was the end, but there was nothing left for them.

  Gray grinned. “It’s been an honor, Skipper. A strange honor, but . . .” He shrugged. “I always knew we’d make an Asiatic Fleet destroyerman out of you, and we damn sure did.”

  “Thanks, Chief.” Matt smiled. Then he raised his voice so the rest could hear. “Thank you all.” He turned. “Reynolds, inform Mr. Garrett he may comm . . .” He stopped, looking out across the fo’c’sle. A blizzard of fire and tracers suddenly arced out into the night from Amagi’s port-side secondary armament. The Japanese must have spotted Mahan. Maybe Jim had made the same decision he had. “Commence firing!”

  The salvo buzzer rang, but there was only a single report, and a lone tracer arced toward the enemy from the number one gun. They were almost bow-on to Amagi, and just like during their first meeting, if Walker could get close enough, there was little the Japanese could engage her with from that angle. Some of the heavy antiaircraft emplacements situated high on the superstructure could tear th
em apart, but so far they were silent. Perhaps they’d been hit during the earlier fight? The ten-inch guns were still trained to starbos voiver, and there were a series of explosions in the sea much closer to Amagi than they’d expected.

  “Send a final signal to HQ. Tell them . . .” In his mind Matt saw an image of Sandra Tucker: her sad, pretty face looking up into his as he held her in his arms, tears reflecting the lights of the city that now lay in flaming ruin off the port bow. He shuddered at the thought of all the promise that was lost. He hoped Alan and Karen would survive, and somehow find happiness. “Tell our friends we love them all. God bless.”

  Walker’s deck rumbled as she increased speed, and the buzzer rang again. Amagi’s foremost turret had begun to traverse in their direction. Wham! The number one gun was rewarded with an impact near the enemy’s bridge. One of Amagi’s port-side searchlights flickered on again, and the beam stabbed down at the water. Matt was amazed to see Mahan’s riddled, smoking form illuminated less than four hundred yards from the Japanese ship. Incredibly, a tongue of fire spat from the gun on her exposed foredeck. An almost panicky fusillade churned the sea around the old four-stacker, but few shells were hitting her now. The unsuspected second destroyer had appeared so shockingly close, the gunners were taken completely by surprise. If she could make it just a little farther, she’d be beneath all but Amagi’s highest guns. If there was a single blessing in all this, powerful as she was, Amagi hadn’t been designed for a knife fight.

  Mahan was low by the bow, and smoke gushed from a hundred wounds. Her bridge was a gutted wreck, and yet some hand must still be guiding her, because she forged relentlessly ahead, unerringly aimed at Amagi’s side. Matt turned his attention back to the battle cruiser. In that instant the sky lit up in front of him, and Walker was tossed into the air like a dog would toss a stick. She came back down with a sickening lurch, and a towering column of water cascaded down upon the foredeck. There was another brilliant flash, and the next thing Matt knew he was facedown on the wooden strakes of the pilothouse, covered with broken glass.

  His nose felt as if it had been pushed inside his face, and his lips were hot with the taste of blood. He struggled to his feet and shook his head. His hearing was totally gone except for a high-pitched, ringing buzz that sounded just like the salvo alarm. He couldn’t focus his vision through the smoke filling the pilothouse and the tears in his eyes. For a moment he thought he was alone, because there was no movement whatsoever around him. Wiping desperately at his face with a suddenly dark and tattered sleeve, he finally saw Norman Kutas trying to rise and resume his post at the wheel. Kutas had blood running from his ears. Matt helped him up, and saw his mouth moving in the flickering light, but couldn’t hear what he said. He glanced behind him and saw Reynolds was up, but dazed. Gray was sitting on the deck beside the unmoving form of a ’Cat. Two other men were still down as well. Matt looked through the window.

  They were much closer to Amagi now. They’d made it under her main battery—which simply couldn’t depress enough to fire at Walker anymore. They were still racing through a forest of smaller splashes from Amagi’s secondaries, however. Matt felt the staccato drumming as tracers probed for Walker’s bridge. He wondered why the number one gun was no longer firing and looked down at the fo’c’sle. A long, deep gouge began near the small anchor crnds and knees, but the rest of the crew was just . . . gone. Then he saw Dennis Silva’s unmistakable form, closely followed by another man and two ’Cats, dash through the sleeting tracers and duck behind the dubious protection of the gun’s splinter shield. Each had a pair of shells under their arms.

  A 5.5-inch shell exploded against the tall foremast behind and above their he"1em">

  The Lemurian fixed him with intense, desperate eyes, and Jim suddenly realized who it was. “I do!” said Saak-Fas. “I help make ready! I know, I . . . do!” The Lemurian straightened to his full height. “I need do!”

  Jim looked at him, but it was hard to see through the darkness and the blood running in his eyes. “It’s my ship. My responsibility,” he gasped. The ’Cat gestured to a form on deck. It moaned.

  “ ’Spons-baal-tee?”

  Torn, Jim could only stand rooted to the deck. He felt it beginning to settle. Suddenly the Lemurian blinked and began making his way to the ladder at the back of the pilothouse. “I do! No time!” With that, he disappeared down the ladder. Realizing he had no choice, Jim staggered to Bernard Sandison, lying in a pool of blood, and began dragging him toward the ladder.

  Saak-Fas stepped lightly down the companionway stairs to the passage leading to the wardroom. The lights were dim and flickering, but that didn’t matter; he could see as well in the dark as the Amer-i-caans could in daylight. Down yet another ladderlike stair, he entered the crew’s forward berthing space. Water was half a tail deep on deck, and more gushed in through great rents in the side of the ship. Forward he sloshed through the rising water, until he came to the passageway leading to the chain locker. The collision damage was more evident here. The deck was buckled beneath his feet and the water was clammy and slick with oil leaking from ruptured fuel bunkers below.

  He’d rarely been in the water before, except for baths of course. Other than surf, he’d never stood in seawater up to his waist. That just wasn’t done. He felt a chill at the thought that some flasher fish might somehow have wriggled into the ship, but he knew it was unlikely. Most of the holes were probably too small, and besides, it was after dark. He stopped at the entrance to the passageway and looked inside with a sense of growing peace. The ordeal he’d suffered at the hands of the Grik still tortured him. He’d fought to suppress the terror, the agony of that experience, knowing that somehow, if he did, the Heavens would reward him with the opportunity now at hand.

  It had been so hard at times, the added misery he heaped upon himself. The rejection of his beloved Selass, his self-imposed isolation from his people. But everything he did to torment himself

  further had helped create the buffer that now existed between his mind and the real pain and lingering terror that threatened to drive him mad. He’d passed the ultimate test, and now the reward was near. He looked fondly at the twelve half-submerged depth charges jumbled in the passageway by the collision. He smiled at the feeling of unaccustomed happiness that slowly filled his being. He’d savor the short additional time he’d give the Amer-i-caan, Ellis, to try to get clear. Then he’d strike a mighty blow against the hated Grik and finally end his agony in the same, glorious instant.

  “Hold them back! Hold them!” Pete Alden bellowed. Even as he did, the volunteers from Manila broke. It was like a heavy cable supporting far too great a weight. The strands began to separate and fray, snapping and protesting as they did, but inexorably, as the cable began to thin, the m for a moment, just as we did at Aryaal,” she gasped. “It’s like they cannot comprehend defense. If they are not attacking, they are losing.” She shrugged. “But they are so many.”

  Pete stared at her, struck by sudden inspiration. He hadn’t been at the Battle of Aryaal, and hadn’t seen what she had. In the heat of battle, he’d completely forgotten Bradford’s crackpot theory. Then, over her head, and far out in the bay where the flashes of Amagi’s guns had become so common, there was another mighty flash, much bigger than the others. A sheet of fire vomited into the sky, and Amagi’s stricken silhouette was at the very heart of the massive plume. Many others saw it too, on both sides, and the fighting became almost desultory as thousands of heads turned toward the bay. The noise of the explosion, when it came, was fantastic. Not so much in actual sound, though it was great, but in the sense of size and power it represented over such a great distance.

  “My God!” shouted Pete. “It worked! That God-damn, idiotic, torpedo stunt worked!” An enormous, rising, thunderous cheer built throughout the city. “It worked!” screamed Pete again as he turned back to look at the stunned sea of Grik. If there was any chance Bradford was right, now was the time to find out. “Push them!” he bellowed. “Push the
m back! Up and at ’em!” He holstered his pistol and unslung his Springfield. “The army will advance!”

  Walker staggered under the force of the mighty blast, and the rest of the glass in the pilothouse streamed inward like shattered ice. Kutas cried out, reflexively raising his hands to his face. Matt lunged for the wheel. “Chief!” he shouted. “Get this man below!” He spun the wheel hard to port, preventing the completion of Walker’s suicidal dash to ram Amagi herself. The ship responded sluggishly, and once again it seemed like her speed was dropping off. He was grateful for the reprieve Mahan had given them, but horrified by her sacrifice as well. In a hidden corner of his soul, he might have even felt a little cheated. A wave of irrational anger swept over him, and he lashed out at Reynolds.

  “I want a report from Spanky now!” he shouted.

  “I’m trying, Skipper!” The young seaman looked close to tears. “I can’t get through! I can’t get anything!”

  “I’ll find out, Captain!” Gray shouted back, as he helped the blinded, moaning helmsman down the ladder. Matt looked back at Amagi. A giant towering mushroom of fire and smoke was still rising and expanding into the dark, hazy sky. At the base of that pyre would be Mahan’s shattered remains.