Against the Tide Imperial: The Struggle for Ceylon (The Usurper's War: An Alternative World War II Book 3)

by James Young

  "How many of her crew did the Agano and the destroyers recover?" Yamaguchi asked once he had control.

  "Five hundred, sir," Kaku replied.

  Over half the crew dead.

  Yamaguchi was suddenly glad he had not ate much that day.

  "How many aviators?"

  "Captain Takashige had ordered the transfer of all possible aircrew a half hour before the American dive bombers arrived," Kaku replied. "All told, roughly forty-five percent survived."

  Yamaguchi did the math in his head and did not like the number. He looked up at Kaku.

  "How long did the Agano stand by for survivors?" he asked. Kaku recoiled back from the look on his superior's face.

  "The captain stood by for thirty minutes, sir," Kaku replied. "That was in accordance with the standing orders I had the staff broadcast to him."

  Which was a prudent and sane decision. Light cruisers do not last well against either aircraft or surface ships.

  "Have we recovered the last of the fighters?" Yamaguchi asked, leaning forward to rest his hands on the desk.

  "Yes, sir," Kaku replied. "The new American fighters caught much of the Soryu's CAP by surprise, and two chutai were in the midst of launching when the dive bombers struck."

  Will the disasters never cease?

  "How bad?"

  "We recovered two Shiden and four Zeroes," Kaku said. "Three more fighters ditched around the Agano, and one of the destroyers recovered another survivor. He is grievously wounded, however."

  "How many Americans did they shoot down?"

  "The Agano and destroyers claimed to have shot down eight dive bombers," Yamaguchi said. "The fighter pilots claimed another six with Warrant Officer Nishizawa allegedly shooting down four enemy fighters himself as well."

  Yamaguchi saw a flicker of emotion cross Kaku's face.

  "You seem skeptical, Kaku-san," Yamaguchi said.

  "Sir, if we total all the claims put in today, we should be turning this force around as the Americans are out of planes," Kaku replied bitterly. "The Agano's captain specifically mentioned Nishizawa, so I have reason to believe he saw or heard something that leads him to mention the man."

  "But?" Yamaguchi pressed.

  "I think, before we send our claims higher, we should be very judicious in our reports," Kaku continued. "I have walked down to the hangar decks and know how much our squadrons have suffered, but we also have been outmaneuvered by our enemies today."

  Kaku looked up in shock as he realized what he had said out of fatigue.

  "Sir, I am…"

  "You are truthful," Yamaguchi cut the other man off. "I have been thoroughly outthought by both the British and Americans today."

  "Sir, that is not fair," Kaku replied. "There is no way you could have expected four American carriers."

  "Expect, no," Yamaguchi stated, his voice breaking. "But I should not have let my annoyance at the British to cause me to fixate on their forces when I knew at least two American carriers were still out there."

  Yamaguchi gestured at the map.

  "If not for the Taiho's radar and bad American torpedoes, we would have lost this entire force today," he stated emphatically. "I fully expect Admiral Yamamoto to demand my resignation when this is finished."

  Kaku drew himself up to attention, then bowed quickly at the waist.

  "Then I, as your chief of staff, shall resign also," he replied stiffly. "You have led this force with aggression and honor, sir. It is your staff that has failed you."

  For the first time that day, Yamaguchi felt a sense of pride push itself through the pall of anger, frustration, and sadness. Drawing himself up to attention, he returned Kaku’s bow.

  "Kaku-san, if Admiral Yamamoto retains me, you will always have a position as my chief of staff," Yamaguchi said.

  "Then it is my fiercest hope that we will be able to apply the lessons the Americans taught us today," Kaku stated.

  Royal Hawaiian Hotel

  0405 Local (1005 Eastern)

  10 August

  "Nicholas, you are going to give a woman a complex," Agnes said drowsily. Her lazy smile belied the admonishment as she shifted under the covers. "No one likes to be stared at first thing in the morning."

  "I don't ever want to forget your face," Nick responded, reaching over to stroke Agnes' cheek. "I'm burning it into my memory."

  Agnes' eyes shot open, and she grabbed his hand.

  "You sound like a man who is thinking about it as if it will be the last thing he sees," she said quietly. It was hard to see her face in the room's darkness, but Nick could hear the sadness in her tone.

  Whoops. I guess a problem with actually talking to someone every day for months is they figure some things out about you.

  Realizing his error, he quickly scooted forward to embrace Agnes as she gave a strangled sob. After briefly struggling against him, she wrapped her arms around him tightly, burying her face in his chest. Nick held Agnes as she cried, shuddering in his arms. Gently, he stroked her hair as she wept for a good twenty minutes.

  "I'm sorry, Nicholas," she said lowly into his chest. "I beg your forgiveness for bringing a ghost into our marital bed."

  I'm pretty sure that's not a line most men hear on their wedding night.

  Nick barely caught himself before he let out a chuckle at the gallows humor of it all.

  "I'm pretty sure I'm the one who called him on the telephone," Nick replied sheepishly. "Told him to come over for breakfast, I'm sure the missus wouldn't mind."

  Agnes gasped and leaned back up to look at him, her eyes wide.

  "I think it is fortunate that we found each other, Nick," she observed archly. "Me a woman with a broken heart. You a man with an incorrigible wit."

  Nick looked at her in mock surprise, his eyes having adjusted more fully to the darkness.

  "You mean, you didn't think that someone who grew up the smallest of four boys with two louts as brothers would be a smart aleck?"

  Her eyes narrowed as he continued.

  "Why, to think there's probably someone who is still convinced you're a spy over at fleet intelligence," Nick finished.

  Agnes cocked an eyebrow at him.

  Uh oh.

  With a snort of derision, Agnes sat up and let her sheet fall from her body.

  "Are you saying I'm not as fetching as Mata Hari, Nicholas?" Agnes asked haughtily, then broke into giggles.

  "Why are you laughing?" Nick asked, feeling his cheeks warm.

  "Because the look on your face was the epitome of confusion, desire, and stupefaction," Agnes answered. "You didn't know what the right answer wa–"

  When in doubt, attack, Nicholas thought as he kissed his wife.

  Two hours later, the firm knock on the hotel room door brought Nick and Agnes both of their slumber.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Cobb?" a voice said from the other side of the door. "Our apologies, the phone system is down. This is your six o'clock wake up."

  Whose bright idea was that?

  He slid out from under Agnes as the mumbled something about a few more minutes.

  "Thank you," he called out, listening as the man walked off. There were a few other individuals starting to move around in the hallway, including at least one still drunk sailor whose comrades were trying to shush him.

  "It is probably fortunate we only have a couple of days off work," Agnes observed, her voice muffled by the pillow.

  "I know," Nick said, moving gingerly himself. "I feel like I just had my first day of boxing all over again."

  Nick just barely dodged the pillow hurled at his head, and immediately regretted it as his leg muscles tried to cramp. Agnes giggled at the expression on his face, then again at the wholly different expression it changed to when she stood up.

  "Nicholas…" she chided him, her tone warning. "We must get presentable if we want to catch the shuttle to the Dole plantation. Please turn on the radio, I'm going to take a shower."

  "We could both–"

  "No, no we both canno
t, Lieutenant Cobb," Agnes replied. "I am apparently a wanton hussy and you are an insatiable brute."

  "Don't let anyone hear you say that at the office," Nick replied.

  "If 'anyone' at the office heard me say that I'd be fired and you'd be brought up on charges," she replied. "As far as anyone at the office is concerned, we are like most married couples and never speak of such things with one another, much less do them."

  There are days where it's obvious you're the only child of older parents. As opposed to the poor child who had the small former closet right next to your parents' bedroom.

  "I am not sure I want to know what you are thinking about, but something I said clearly killed the mood," Agnes observed with a slight frown. "Did you suddenly have fear that this will change?"

  "No, actually," Nick said, shaking his head. "I just remembered when I was three and asked my mother if we kids did something wrong?"

  "Okay?" Agnes said, looking at him in obvious befuddlement.

  "My mother used to say, when we were doing something bad, that she was 'going to go pray to Jesus for patience, because if she asked for strength someone was going to be the first man on the moon,'" Nick explained.

  Agnes raised an eyebrow.

  "Or, at least she did. Then that morning, three-year-old me asked my Dad if we kids had done something wrong the day before.”

  Agnes’ confused look deepened.

  “Dad asked me, ‘Nick, why would you think you kids did something wrong?’ ‘Well, it’s just I heard Mom talking to God a lot last night, Dad, so I figured she was asking for a lot of patience.’”

  Agnes covered her mouth, eyes going wide as Nick continued.

  "My father turned as red as a tomato, my mother dropped the dish she was washing, and my brothers all looked confused. That’s when they all started asking questions, and it was the last time Mom mentioned God and patience in a sentence together."

  Agnes' laugh started low, then rose to a huge guffaw as she sat down on the bed.

  I love the way she looks when she laughs like this. Hell, I love everything about her.

  "Anyway, once Dad got us all to calm down, he looked over at Mom with a small smile. ‘Boys, I think your Mom just had a religious experience or four last night is all.’”

  "Stop…stop…it's too late for me to get the marriage annulled," Agnes said, starting to hiccup.

  “I’ve never seen a man take such a calm sip of orange juice while contemplating his imminent demise in my life,” Nick continued deadpan. Agnes, realizing there was only one path to relief, came over to kiss him, pointedly swatting his hands away from her.

  "I love you, Nicholas," she said. "I cannot wait to meet your parents."

  With that, she grabbed one hand and put it on her abdomen for a moment.

  "And to someday bear your children."

  I…I don’t know what to say back to that.

  "Although I am glad twins are a maternal thing," Agnes said. "I do not know how your mother did it."

  "Mom is just like Patricia…"

  "I doubt that despite how often you and your brothers swear to it," Agnes interrupted with a smile. "Your sister is very…unique."

  "Stubborn. Stubborn was the word I was going to say."

  "In any case, I look forward to meeting her when this is all over," Agnes said.

  Part of me wonders if it will ever be over.

  Rather than saying anything this time when she read his expression, Agnes simply kissed him tenderly.

  "I'll try to hurry," she said, then looked at the time. "Well, I guess you'll catch up on Gibson and the Octopus."

  Nick laughed as he looked over at the radio. KGU, the Hawaii radio station, had begun to rebroadcast episodes of "Speed Gibson of the International Police" in the morning back in March. It was a radio serial that had begun shortly before Nick started the Naval Academy, and he'd never had a chance to listen to it all the way through. Much to Agnes' chagrin, Nick had just happened upon the broadcast when his previous boat, the Nautilus, had been in harbor.

  "Anything that will keep me distracted from a beautiful woman in the shower," Nicholas said with a smile. He switched on the radio…and was immediately disappointed to hear a familiar male voice.

  Why is Senator Lindbergh on the radio?

  "…investigate this waste of federal dollars while our brave young men are fighting with outdated equipment to protect some teenager's colonies!"

  The passage of wind coupled with the whir and click of cameras told him that Lindbergh was apparently standing outside in front of microphones.

  Probably grandstanding at the Capitol Building.

  Nick clenched his fists.

  Let's not forget that the reason we've got obsolete equipment is you cut President Roosevelt's request by 25 percent to stop his 'adventurism' back in January.

  "Senator Lindbergh, how did you find out about this 'Manhattan Project?'" a reporter shouted.

  "Brave citizens concerned about this country's direction shared information with us," Senator Lindbergh replied. "That's all I will say about President Roosevelt's Folly until our committee calls its first witness on Thursday."

  There were so many additional shouted questions that Nick had trouble making them out. An unidentified man whose voice Nick did not recognize called for the gathered reporters to ask their questions one at a time, and there was a moment of bedlam while the gathered throng figured out what they were going to ask.

  There are days I wish D.C. was a lot closer to the action. Maybe goddamn German bombers overhead would stop some of this idiocy.

  "Nicholas, what's wrong?" Agnes asked from the bathroom door. "You look like you want to kill someone."

  Nicholas looked sheepishly down at his clenched fists.

  "Politicians being idiots again," he said.

  "This has you sitting there like you're expecting Tojo to walk through the door?" Agnes asked lightly, reaching up to dry her hair while looking straight at him.

  She did that on purpose. I should be angrier that it worked.

  Seeing her mission accomplished, Agnes grabbed a bathrobe, slipped it on, then sat down beside him. Nick started to reach for the radio, only to have Agnes put her hand on his.

  "I want to listen," she said. Nick slipped his arm around her, and they listened while Senator Lindbergh continued to answer questions.

  "Do you think it's true he's a German sympathizer?" Agnes asked after about a half dozen inquiries.

  "No," Nick said without hesitation. "I think that he saw some things in Germany that he thought would be more efficient or should be enacted here, but Senator Lindbergh is an American patriot first."

  Agnes nodded at Nick's words.

  "Then why has he and his party been so resistant to President Roosevelt?"

  "Because President Roosevelt did a lot of things without Congress' approval that set the table for where we're at now," Nick said sorrowfully. "I mean, if we're being honest, the man nearly got Eric killed because we interfered so strenuously in a war we were allegedly neutral in."

  "But the Nazis are terrible people," Agnes noted.

  "There are still rules," Nick replied. "When you start having a President giving nations arms and having our warships fire on German submarines, that sounds an awful lot like war."

  "Didn't he say something about a garden hose and a neighbor's house?" Agnes asked with a smirk.

  See, this is why people think you're a spy. You actually pay attention.

  "Yes, well, he assumed the neighbor didn't have gasoline in the attic," Nick replied, then stopped. "Wait, how much did Senator Taft just say we've spent in Manhattan?"

  Morton Residence

  0735 Local (1335 Eastern)

  10 August

  Sam jerked awake as the pillow hit him in the face. His arm reflexively cocked back, ready to deliver a counter blow before Jo's startled yelp of surprise stopped him.

  "What the hell Jo?" he asked, still trying to gain his bearings. Jo stood in front of the sofa
bed, pillow clutched in both hands halfway between another swing and a potential block.

  "You didn't wake up when I said your name five times, Sam," she snapped. "It was clear stronger measures were needed. Make yourself decent, we've got to talk."

  Sam looked at Jo incredulously as she turned to go into the kitchen, setting the pillow on the chair in the corner.

  What the hell has gotten into her? he wondered. Looking at the small table next to the sofa, he saw that Jo had left him a glass of water with a pair of pills.

  Wrong twin you're leaving those for. Although thank goodness we got David back to the bachelor's officer quarters without running into Shore Patrol.

  Surprisingly, David had gotten very, very hammered at Admiral Dunlap's party. Not without good reason—there'd been some English drinking game the Marines had been challenged to by the H.M.C.S. Norfolk's wardroom.

  That's sure as hell not the '21' I was expecting.

  Looking at the end table, Sam shrugged, then swigged down the glass of water.

  Apparently Major Haynes has played before…and I suspect David was the sacrificial lamb in that particular gambit.

  Grabbing his robe from the top of the sofa, Sam went to the bathroom first. It was only when he was washing his hands that Sam had a sudden start. Drying quickly, the eldest Cobb stepped back into the hallway and confirmed what his peripheral vision had told him.

  "Jo!" he called, trying to keep his voice level. "Where's Toots?!"

  "That's one of the things we need to talk about!" Jo called back.

  Uh oh. I recognize that tone, and it's not a good one.

  He walked into the kitchen right as Jo finished stirring a coffee mug to hand to him. Regarding her suspiciously, Sam took it.

  "Sam, do you really think I'd poison you?" Jo asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "I'm not sure of a lot of things right now," Sam replied evenly. Jo gave him a shocked expression.

  This. This is why I'm still single.

  "What is it with you Cobbs?" Jo asked archly. "Am I that much of a conundrum that not a single one of you can figure out how to talk to me? Or is it that neither Eric nor you give a fuck about my feelings?"