Ironclad

by Daniel Foster

  Lastly but most importantly, at least to Garret, there was a small patch on her starboard flank that was blackened. It surrounded the gun port through which Nancy had once protruded. Now there was nothing but a scorch mark on the grey paint to commemorate where Garret’s friends had died.

  He didn’t even give us a minute to say goodbye to them.

  A careless bystander might have reminded Garret that his friends were gone, so one place was really as good as another to say goodbye, but that wasn’t true at all. Not for Garret. Those few square feet around Nancy had been their entire life together. They had trained there and sweated there. They’d learned from Twitch there, not just how to fire a gun, but how to care about something bigger than themselves, and how to be men when they felt like fearful children.

  Those few square feet of decking around Nancy had been everything for them. They had argued there and tripped over each other there. They’d gotten powder burns there. They had laughed together there, and listened to the Chief’s stories as they hung in their hammocks there. They had died there.

  Garret tried desperately to freeze the image of the empty gunport and the scorch mark in his mind. He wanted to remember it forever, exactly as it was right then. Then the cutter swung slightly to the north, and it was lost from Garret’s view behind Kearsarge’s bow.

  Now that Garret was leaving Kearsarge behind, never to see her again, she was a beautiful thing to him. Sitting on the Mediterranean water, she looked like Joan of Arc in her graceful armor, or since she was American, maybe she looked like Annie Oakley in shooting leathers. A beautiful lady, skilled in her art, her purpose so distilled and focused that it was reflected in every curve and spire of her lithe form.

  Over the chuffing of the steam engine that drove the cutter, a heavy clanking resounded across the water. The crew was weighing Kearsarge’s anchor.

  Garret felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Burl. Half of his face was a mangled knot of scar tissue. The other half was smiling gently. “You’ll see your family again soon,” Burl said. “I think we’re almost done.”

  Garret gripped Burl’s shoulder in return, then turned back to his friends. Burl returned to his seat beside Butterworth, who was shooting dirty looks at Fishy, but wasn’t getting a response. Fishy was staring out across the sea as if he were lost. The rest of them just looked darkly depressed. Even Pun’kin was staring at the bottom of the boat and not talking. The six of them had sat in the stern of the cutter as far as they could get from Maxwell and the Germans. Apparently, only four of the German storm troopers had survived the battle with Audacious, but Maxwell had brought them along. Garret tried not to think about why.

  Captain Maxwell had the helm. He was running the cutter flat out, of course. Garret watched him—his perfect posture, his precise motions, but Garret could only think of the speech he’d just given, and what he decided to do with the Kearsarge.

  I can’t believe you treated Commander Sharpe that way, Garret thought in disgust.

  Captain Maxwell handed the helm over to one of the Germans and picked his way carefully to the stern where Garret and his friends sat.

  Oh goodie. Speak of the Devil, Garret thought sourly. Caustic internal sarcasm didn’t seem as bad as fantasizing about beating an unarmed person into an unrecognizable pulp, so Garret went with it. It was kind of invigorating, in its own dark way.

  Maxwell sat before any of them tried to stand and salute him in the back of a moving boat. “At ease,” he said.

  We were at ease before you— Garret began to think.

  “Men,” Maxwell said shortly. “I know what you must think of me for taking you away from your friends and your ship, but the world needs you a little longer.”

  Oh well thank God you aren’t dramatic about it, Garret thought.

  “I chose you because of what you did during the battle with Audacious.”

  So our friends dying wasn’t punishment enough?

  “You saved every man aboard the Kearsarge.”

  Hooray.

  “I need that courage from you one more time.”

  I could punch you in the face. That would be courageous.

  “The convoy we destroyed was carrying supplies to the largest anarchist group in Europe.”

  I wonder if heart attacks run in your family?

  “We’ve cut off the money and weaponry they were depending on.”

  No such luck, huh? Well, maybe you’ll get shot.

  “Now comes the riskiest part of the mission.”

  That’s great.

  “We have to infiltrate and destroy their command structure.”

  I wish I’d thought of that three weeks ago. Twitch would have. Oh that’s right, you killed him.

  Maxwell lowered his voice. “The German military feels the necessity of our mission as strongly as the US military does, so they sent the storm troopers to assist us.

  Yeah, I don’t remember it happening that way. I remember handcuffs.

  “But as you know, most of their number were killed in the battle with Audacious.”

  Garret stiffened. Yeah well, they weren’t the only ones who died, Captain, sir.

  “I need them to assist me in neutralizing whatever loose command structure the Black Hand may have.”

  Neutralizing? Is that what we did to Audacious? Twitch told me ships like that carried at least 800 men. So by neutralize, you mean dead, right?

  “That means we will not be together for the duration of this mission.”

  Best thing I’ve heard all day.

  “Lieutenant Bartram will lead you along the mission parameters I have assigned. He will brief you shortly.”

  Bartram. This just keeps getting better.

  “I know I can trust you to obey him as unswervingly as you’ve obeyed me. He will appoint one of you to lead, just in case.”

  In case someone neutralizes him?

  “You men have done well.”

  Your face looks like Mrs. Malvern’s ass.

  “Make me proud.”

  Not if I can help it.

  “Make your country proud.”

  Hmm… I’ll think about it.

  “Make your families proud.”

  Garret bristled. For God’s sake stop talking!

  Amazingly, Maxwell did.

  He returned to the helm, and they made it the rest of the way to the beach without incident. Garret didn’t look back at the receding Kearsarge, but it had less to do with stoicism than with the fact that Garret had never seen a beach like the one that lay before them.

  The water was liquid gemstone, blue and green and rolling playfully into white foam as it tagged the shore. The shore was a whiteish tan ribbon, just as the Chief had described the shore at the edge of the world. Garret wondered for a moment if they had arrived there, he and his friends. Perhaps they would find Molly and the baby sitting on the beach. Perhaps Twitch would be there too, building a fire with Charlie, having one of those conversations between them that nobody else every really got. Maybe Theo and Curtis would come down the beach with their poles and a big stringer of fish for dinner.

  Garret glanced back in time to see Burl smile with the undamaged half of his face. The way the rest of his scarred visage stayed paralyzed turned it into a quirky expression: half of fondness and warmth, half of wasting away and left over death.

  Garret gritted his teeth. We’re all gonna find him a girl who will love him to death. I swear we’re gonna do it if it takes me the rest of my life.

  Burl and Pun’kin stared, Pun’kin with a huge grin on his face. Butterworth looked at the shore too, but his face was regretful, maybe even forlorn. Garret couldn’t guess what the little Brit was thinking. Fishy crossed his arms, but seemed to relax a bit.

  Velvet had probably been to a hundred beaches in his life, so instead of staring, he started lacing up his boots. The cutter began to bounce and slam as Maxwell drove it into the surf, full speed ahead. He didn’t b
other to call out any sort of warning, but then, warnings really weren’t Maxwell’s’ style.

  Garret, his friends, and four Germans clung grimly to the sides of the cutter as it roared through the surf, bouncing, crackling and groaning, until with a sickening grinding crunch that threw them all forward, it ran aground in knee-deep water.

  “All hands overboard,” Maxwell said. “Grab your assigned gear.”

  A few minutes later, six American guys, four Germans, one Brit, and a captain who Garret didn’t think deserved a nationality, lugged armloads of packs, weapons, and satchels onto the beach. It wasn’t sand as Garret had first thought. It pebbles, millions of them, tiny, round, and smooth.

  The beach sloped gently up away from the water until the greenery and rocks took over. Maxwell was having a terse, cross-armed conference with two of the German men. Garret summarily dumped everything he was carrying onto the beach and began unlacing his boots.

  “Sailor.” It was Lieutenant Bartram. “Pick up your gear.”

  So shoot me, Garret thought, and continued removing his boots.

  “Sailor… what are you doing?”

  “I’ve never been on a beach before,” Garret said simply.

  Bartram stopped.

  Garret’s feet were hot, aching, and tired. Pulling them out of the cloistering sweat-factory that was the inside of his boots was heaven just by itself. Then he got to set them, one at a time, in the smooth pebbles.

  Garret actually sighed with relief. He wiggled his toes, and they sank into the tiny, sun-warmed stones. They were fine and comfortably dry so that they began to wick the sweat from his feet. In a moment, they left him with nothing but the light touch of thousands of tiny stones and the cool beach air blowing over his bare ankles.

  Packs and rifles hit the sand around him as the other guys hurried to do the same before Bartram or Maxwell said anything to stop them. Bartram had turned to Maxwell.

  “Captain, we don’t have time for this,” Garret heard him hiss. The Germans nodded in agreement.

  Captain Maxwell looked up at the sun, then gave his young sailors an appraising glance. He answered quietly, but Garret, who was standing with his eyes closed and his face upturned to the sun, heard him when he said, “Yes we do.”

  One of the German’s said something in his language, which also sounded like a protest.

  Bartram tried to be reasonable, “We’ve just made an armed incursion into a sovereign nation, and we’ve no good explanation for why we’re here. We need to at least get off the beach.”

  “I heard you,” Maxwell said, turning to Bartram. Bartram shrank. “We will camp here tonight.”

  Chapter 29

  Later that evening, all of them sat around a big fire. The expansive, freeing feeling of the beach had soaked into all of them, relaxing tight muscles and washing away difficult thoughts. The surf rolled incessantly behind them, and the fire crackled in with their light conversation. Occasionally, a sea bird cried in the distance.

  Everybody was in some state of comfortable undress. Garret and his friends had gone swimming in their underwear, and were now standing by the fire to dry off. Even Maxwell had removed his uniform top and his shirt. It was odd for Garret to see him that way. Now instead of a Captain, an inhuman authority figure that Garret could hate, Maxwell was just a man. He was still reserved, and still in command, even without a shirt, but he was sitting by the fire watching the flames just like any other man might do on a beautiful beach night. Garret had even seen him laugh at something one of the Germans had said earlier. The sight of Maxwell laughing was even weirder than the tattoos and scars that covered his torso.

  Only Lieutenant Bartram had remained uniformed to the hilt. He sat on the sand as lightly as possible and fumed up at the constellations as if blaming them for each passing moment.

  As soon as the German soldiers realized that Captain Maxwell wasn’t going to change his mind about staying the night, they embraced the idea and went fishing. At the moment, two of them were sorting gear from one pack to the next, laughing and trading jibes in German as they did so. Garret tried to listen in, but their pronunciation was fluidic, and Garret’s grandfather had been gone for so long that Garret only caught an occasional word that he could translate.

  The other two German guys had returned from the surf and were cutting up a fish the size of a dolphin. Garret didn’t have a clue how they’d caught it. He’d been losing a wrestling match with Fishy at the time. All four of the Germans seemed friendly, if not exactly outgoing. Except the taller one with the dark hair and eyes. He wasn’t rude, but he kept to himself and didn’t smile.

  “Gerhard,” Fishy said, walking past Garret toward one of the Germans tending the fire. “Will you show me how to do that wrestling move you did? Garret doesn’t mind.”

  “No way,” Garret said. “Huh uh. That hurt bad enough last time.” Fishy had been trying to choke Garret out with an arm across the throat, but was only managing to suffocate him with a sleeve when one of the German’s had suddenly appeared, grinning, and offered to show Fishy how it was done.

  Garret had been a stunt dummy for the next ten minutes, during which he had been choked, pinned, and body-slammed on the pebbles by two German soldiers who kept up an effortless stream of explanation all the while.

  “Ja!” Gerhard said as he hopped up and put his pants on.

  Garret started backing away, hands up. “Huh uh!” At the same time, he started pulling a little bit of the wolf’s strength and speed.

  Gerhard moseyed around the fire, then made a dash for Garret. He was fast, but Garret was faster, he took off down the beach like a shot. Or at least that was what he intended to do. He’d never tried to run on pebbles before, so when he tried to push off the same as he would do on turf, the pebbles scooted, absorbing most of his force. He stumbled, and that was enough for Gerhard to pounce on him.

  Two seconds later, Gerhard had him up on his feet again, with a vise-like forearm locked across his throat, and the opposite hand around the back of Garret’s head. It felt like Garret had a set of steel bands wound tightly around his throat, but Gerhard didn’t hurt him. He just squeezed until Garret’s eyes popped out a little, then said with a heavy German accent, “You try.”

  “No wait,” Garret said, but Gerhard handed him over to Fishy. Fortunately, Fishy was terrible at it. He kept letting Garret get his windpipe into the crook of Fishy’s elbow where he could breathe. Garret smirked and said in as normal a voice as he could manage, “Maybe your sister could show you how to do it. She was pretty good last time.”

  Garret was proud of himself for that. He was finally learning.

  Fishy pushed Garret away, trying to fling him to the ground, but Garret kept hold of Fishy’s arm, and pulled and twisted as he went. It was an awkward move, but Garret drew on a little of the wolf’s strength and balance, and Fishy ended up landing hard in a spray of pebbles. Gerhard laughed, slapped Garret on the back, then went to help finish the fish.

  Fishy was still lying there with large eyes, sucking to get his wind back. Garret stepped on his chest on the way back to the fire. “C’mon Fishy,” he said. “No sense laying around.”

  Garret sat on the pebbles beside Burl, who was playing with a piece of driftwood he’d found, poking it in the coals, trying to set the end of it on fire. “I’m gonna make a torch,” he said. “I’ll stick it in the sand beside me while I sleep.”

  “So it can drop burning cinders on your face,” Butterworth said sourly. Between Captain Shearer and Butterworth, Garret was beginning to wonder if British people were always sour. Then again, both of them were sort of prisoners. That wouldn’t make Garret happy either.

  Butterworth shot a surly glance at Fishy, then a surlier glance at Garret. Garret grinned back at him. Butterworth stood and walked out of the fire circle, grumbling all the way. He went to Fishy, who was still sucking for air, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him to his feet. Butterworth stalked back to the fire w
ith Fishy in tow. He dumped Fishy unceremoniously on the ground beside Pun’kin, then returned to his seat not too close, but not too far from anybody else. Burl, who had successfully lit the end of his driftwood on fire, and now wasn’t paying attention to the burning end, said, “Now I know why we call him Fishy.”

  Pun’kin good-naturedly pushed Fishy, but Fishy wasn’t completely recovered yet, so Pun’kin knocked him out on his back again. “He’s the best swimmer in the Navy!” Pun’kin said proudly, seeming not to notice that he had flattened Fishy.

  Garret nodded. Garret could barely swim at all, but Fishy swam like a dolphin.

  “He took the medal in bootcamp,” Velvet put in. “How far was it to that sandbar?” He’d found an ugly grey rock of some sort and was trying to force his Navy knife into the side of it. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t working.

  “Over a mile,” Burl said.

  “Velvet, what are you doing?” Garret asked.

  “Guys,” Fishy rasped. “If one more person hits me tonight, I’m going to drown all of you in your sleep.”

  “Then you’d be all by your lonesome!” Pun’kin blared.

  “I’m trying to open it,” Velvet grunted, a delayed response to Garret’s question. He dug at the rock with his knife.

  “Why are you trying to open a rock?” Garret asked.

  Velvet laughed. Fishy wheezed a laugh too. “It’s an oyster, Lover Boy,” he said.

  Garret blushed. He’d heard of oysters before. Sometimes the Malvern’s had them brought in on the train. He knew they came packed on blocks of ice, but he hadn’t seen one before.

  “Why would you eat something that looks like that?” Garret asked.